Tens of blades flew from below the man’s robe and circled around him.

Aleen tensed up and gripped his blade with a focused expression. Behind him, Claire waved her hand and created a bird of fire.

However, the situation was discouraging. A level-three super was different from a level-three monster. Any level-three super has honed his skills through training and life and death situations continually. Furthermore, they are not so easy to fool as monsters.

To be honest, Aleen had underestimated the strength of a level-three. After all, he had survived two games where he faced level-three and level-four monsters and he had seen the abilities of Elvila, a level-three elf. But when he felt the pressure brought by the vampire and the man before them, he understood that he had been naïve.

It was impossible for him to be the only genius in the world. There are many dimensions out there, and the number of level-three supers in them is staggering. Surely, some of them are exceptional individuals.

Unfortunately, he had to face one of those exceptional individuals now.

At that moment, the blades moved.

With a wave of the dran’s hand, four blades flew towards Aleen from different directions. They left a trail of mana behind and sealed Aleen’s movements completely.

Instantly, Aleen opened his eyes wide. A spark of lightning circled his eyes and his thoughts sped up drastically. It was as though time had stopped only for him.

Lightning Movement’s derivate skill, Dynamic Sight!

Aleen saw the four blades advancing slowly towards him, aiming to his heart, eye, neck, and legs. His thoughts surged as he processed the best course of action in this situation.

Then, his sword was wrapped in lightning.

Sharp Blade!

Sixty vibrations per second created a silvery glow that filled the black sword; and then, Aleen wielded it in direction of the blades.

With an upward slash, Aleen first stopped the blade coming for his eye. A clang resounded in the slowed time, but the sword was already near the second blade.

Twisting his wrist, he parried the second blade away before using his right armguard to stop the third blade. As for the fourth, a downward slash took care of it.

When time resumed running normally, the four blades had been repelled.

The blue-skinned man showed a brief expression of surprise. “Huh? To think that a level-two was able to stop my attack. Was it your skill?”

Aleen did not answer and instead looked fixedly at the man. He knew that he could not lose focus even for an instant in this fight.

“Well, It doesn’t matter.” The dran man shrugged his shoulder. “At most, I will have to use more blades.” Instantly, the remaining blades vibrated excitedly. Then, the man extended his hand forward.

“Fuu!” Aleen took a breath and exhale deeply. Although he knew that he was weaker than the enemy, he would not give up. Besides, he was not completely defenseless. Actually, he had a new trick under his sleeve.

When the giant bird of fire surged out from Claire’s body and attacked the fog, Aleen thought about something.

Claire could create small birds of fire without a problem, but when the big one appeared, she fell unconscious and her body was forced to rest. Just like a cooldown.

Then, if he uses a weaker version of his skill, could he use it for a longer time?

The answer was yes. Though it was less efficient.

So, Aleen activated his skill.

‘Lightning Movement!’

He made sure of controlling his speed carefully. Instead of moving fifty meters in an instant, he moved at a 1/15 of his maximum speed. He then used his accelerated thoughts to estimate the trajectory of each blade and moved his sword.

Ten seconds, it was the amount of time he could last under this state.

But it was more than enough.

The sword clashed repeatedly against the blades creating numerous metallic clangs. A rain of spark appeared with Aleen as the center, and then, he stepped forward.

Aleen did not try to stop all the blades. Instead, he opened a path between him and the blue-skinned man. The blades tried to stop his advance frantically, but a quick swing of his sword would block them and allow Aleen to take another step forward.

When all the blades between the enemy and him had been knocked away, Aleen accelerated.

His speed shot up from 1/15 of his maximum speed to the normal speed of his skill. In an instant, he closed the distance between the man and him.

An expression of astonishment appeared in the man’s face, but when Aleen’s sword was just ten centimeters away from his face, it stopped abruptly.

Aleen opened his eyes in surprise. He tried to push his sword forward with all his strength, but it felt as though the sword was grabbed by an invisible hand.

The blue-skinned man then looked at Aleen with a calm expression and muttered a word.

“Impressive.”

His expression was deadpan, as someone congratulating a child for doing something that any adult can do. It was as though Aleen’s efforts were nothing more than something slightly more interesting in the man's eyes.

However, Aleen smiled.

From the beginning, he never thought that he could kill the man with this attack.

He knew his limits. With the blue-skinned man's strength, simply injuring him was already a hard task.

No, he only needed to distract him long enough so he can’t stop Claire.

And at that moment, Claire released the firebird she created before.

She did not aim it towards the blue-skinned man. Instead, it flew towards the thickest part of the fog.

Then, it exploded.

Instantly, a loud scream of pain resounded in all the forest.

“UuuOooorghhhhthtt!!!”

Hundreds of faces appeared in the fog around them. The faces belonged to children, adults, men, women, humans, and non-humans. Fog creatures of all the shapes and forms screamed at the same time.

Then, the ghosts surged toward them.