Out of the corner of Astra’s eyes, he could see a dense forest in the distance. He glanced at the hesitating crowd.

With a scream, Astra madly circulated his mana within his body. Using the synchronization effect of Zephyr, Astra easily sprinted to the entrance of the forest in several seconds.

Astonished by Astra’s sudden speed, Heath quickly screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING? AFTER HIM, QUICK!”

Astra ran into the forest. It was the perfect terrain for him. The nobles behind him were raised in the comfort of their own homes. Why would they ever step into the woods to temper themselves? They would just get dirty for no reason.

The unstable ground made the mob lose their footing and slowed them down. The thick trees masqueraded their vision. The unknown dangers that lurked in the darkness spooked the nobles and deterred their chase.

Seeing the idiotic nobles in front of him, Heath quickly instructed them, “You retards! If you can’t see anything, then just set the whole forest on fire! If you can’t run, make your own ground!” Heath berated the group.

The nobles didn’t like being yelled at since they had a huge ego but Heath did have a point.

The group quickly conjured up balls of flame and lit up every single inch of the forest. The ones with earth affinity stomped their feet and made their own smooth ground to run on.

Isabella and Ivona were standing outside the palace.

“Well then, I’ll see you later. Hope that boy makes it out alive,” A cheerful laugh came out of Ivona’s mouth as she strolled away.

Isabella clenched her fists. She didn’t know things were going to be this way. All the Nightbend lord had told her was to invite Astra to the expedition so they could take his sword without interference. Why was Heath going on a mad rampage to slay Astra? If she helped Astra, she would be going against the wishes of one of the Elite Assembly members.

Astra exited the forest.

There was a gigantic fissure that created a cliff. Roars and howls could be heard at the bottom of the fissure as Astra peered down the cliff.

The crowd of nobles appeared before him.

Heath Nightbend pushed his way to the front of the crowd.

“Astra Gale, you drew too much attention to yourself. If you weren’t so arrogant and just kept your head down, this wouldn’t have happened today.”

Astra grimaced, he didn’t do anything wrong. Why did this have to happen to him?

The crowd took a step towards Astra.

Astra took a step back. His feet were now teetering on the edge of the fissure.

“C’mon, Astra. Just give us your things. That’s all you need to do, and you’ll live,” Heath grinned with his eyes full of greed.

Astra touched his ring.

This was all right. As long as he lived, he could start over. Right? He just needed to throw Heath his ring and Astra would live. That’s all he needed to do. Living was the number one priority. Right…?

Astra’s hands trembled as he held onto his ring.

But who’s to say that Heath won’t do this again? If he gave in this one time, what about the next time? Was he really going to give up without a fight?

…

..

.

Never.

Something inside of Astra seemed to scream with pride and honor.

Astra unsheathed his sword and gripped it tightly with both hands.

“Wha...What are you doing?” Heath raised his eyebrow.

Astra didn’t answer him. He began to use the basic technique with whatever little time he had.

Heath laughed, “Ha-ha. Fine. If you want a fight, we’ll give it to you.” He shouted to the group, “Kill him! Don’t let his dead body fall off the cliff though!”

Shouts and chants were heard all over the battlefield as the group charged in and the mages in the back prepared their long-ranged spells.

Astra spoke slowly, “Wretched nobles…”

Astra grinned as the nobles began their onslaught.

Clink~ Clunk~

Dozens of weapons struck at Astra. He did his utmost to dodge what he could and parry the attacks. Astra didn’t have time to use any spells.

Even though Zephyr allowed Astra to move faster, it was impossible for him to dodge attacks that came in all directions plus all the long-ranged spells. The spells didn’t possess a significant threat to him, but it distracted him from the close-ranged attacks which could easily end him.

Afraid of hurting their comrades and destroying the cliff, the nobles held back on their attacks and stuck to melee strikes. The mages in the back supported the front liners by siphoning their mana to them.

Splurt!

A sword stabbed right through Astra’s arm guard.

“Urgh!” Astra held onto the boy’s arm and kicked him away, drawing the sword out in one fell swoop.

There were dozens of scratches on Zephyr already. If it weren’t for this armor, Astra would’ve probably died a long time ago.

Astra could see the eyes of everyone around him. They were filled with greed and madness. If Astra was going down, he wasn't going to go down for nothing.

Astra activated Zephyr and did a multitude of slashes and stabs in a split second.

Seeing the motionless nobles around Astra, Heath shouted, “Why are you guys stopping! Attack him!”

Several heads and disemboweled guts fell to the ground.

Astra took deep and heavy breaths. He had used Zephyr twice already and was left with half of his mana. Injecting his mana into all of Zephyr’s inscription took a harder toll on him than he thought.

The remaining nobles crowding around Astra hesitated in fear. They didn’t believe that any of them would actually die.

“Attack! He’s only strong because of his armor! When you kill him, you can take it!” Heath yelled.

The nobles shook off the fear and greed overtook their minds again.

Astra decided to forgo defending and focused on dodging and attacking. Swords and axes began to graze Astra and left him with minor cuts and bleeding. Astra managed to inflict some small wounds which slowed down the attacks by a small degree.

Out of the corner of his eye, Astra spotted a sword coming right for his head. He quickly arched his back as Joseph had done.

Astra touched his forehead. The blade had nicked the top of his eyebrow. A stream of blood leaked into Astra’s eye and impeded his vision. Astra quickly made the cut deeper, allowing the blood to flow near his temple and out of his eyes.

The nobles stared at the blood-stained Astra. He was covered with blood from top to bottom. As Astra took deep and heavy breaths, he gave off the impression of a wounded wolf.

Due to the excessive bleeding and fatigue, Astra figured he only had one more use of Zephyr left.

A sword strike came towards Astra’s eye and a thrust at his body. Astra quickly dodged the blow and parried the thrust. He wanted to use his last activation of Zephyr to get out of this mess. Astra glanced around him; there were more nobles than he thought.

It was impossible. Even Zephyr wouldn’t get him out of this mess now.

“Together now!” A greedy youth shouted.

The nobles combined their attacks and made sure they would hit Astra with at least one of their attacks.

“DAMN IT!” Astra cursed.

He activated his last use of Zephyr and dished out a hurricane of strikes. Astra had managed to block most of the attacks and killed the nobles around him.

Astra breathed slowly. All this fighting was extremely taxing on him. To finish his opponents quickly, he had used his full power in almost every single strike.

There were swollen cuts and bruises all over Astra’s body.

Heath grinned at the injured Astra, “You’re only human after all. I must say, you’ve surpassed my expectations. I now have even more reason why you should die.”

Heath wanted to toy with Astra a bit longer, “But since you have done so well, I should reward you, shouldn’t I? I’ll give you a chance. Sign a contract and become my slave, only then will you live.”

Heath started laughing madly, “How about it?”

Astra stared at Heath angrily and said slowly.

“Fuck. Off.”

‘HAHAHAHAHA!” Heath’s laughter intensified. “Fine by me. You’ve killed your fair share. I’ll make sure you die this time.”

Heath turned to the backline of mages, “Support me.”

Heath took out a black whip and raised it high in the air. Small slivers of red flames surrounded the whip.

The mages began to pour their mana into Heath.

The flames began to intensify and grow in size. Mana fluctuations made the battlefield tremble.

“I’ll finish you off with my family’s secret art. Breath of the Flame Dragon!”

Heath struck his whip down, and a fiery, blazing dragon shot towards Astra.

As if awakened by Heath’s attack, a loud roar was heard from the fissure. The ground began to tremble.

The red dragon extinguished into thin air as Heath canceled his spell and quickly leapt back.

Cracks began to appear as the cliff started to fall.

Astra tried running away from the cliff, but there were too many cracks. He had already lost his footing and was falling into the darkness.

“FUCK!” Heath madly shouted. His whole plan was ruined!

Astra screamed as he fell into the infinite darkness.