Altos flew close to Stake and slashed. Stake smiled and slammed his ax down while dodging Altos' sword to the side. The ax landed onto Altos' face sending him flying back with wind blowing everywhere.

Altos didn't fly back far and stopped with blood dripping from his forehead. The ax was dangerous and his skull would have split if his reaction wasn't fast enough.

Seeing that he couldn't beat the goblin in close combat, Altos decided to fight from afar instead. Altos cast a spell and a rock spike shot up fast from the ground. Stake had already felt the ground moving and ran from where the spikes rose.

Spike after spike rose and flew after Stake and he dodged one after another. He tried to close the gap between Altos but many spikes came forward and Stake had to dodge while deflecting them with his ax.

Still casting rock spike on Stake, Altos prepared a spell. Stake saw what he was doing and he dodged the incoming rock spike. Making some water Stake froze it into a spear and shot it towards Altos. Altos wanted to keep preparing the spell so he wilted down Stake's ice spear till it was slowly gone.

From what Stake saw, Altos was able to cast three spells simultaneously. This could mean that as one's rank grew higher, one could cast more spells simultaneously according to their rank. A rank 2 can cast two spells at the same time, a rank 3 can cast three spells at the same time, and so on.

With this information, Stake decided to combine two spells simultaneously to attack Altos. He needed a way to break through Altos' barrier while making sure the human doesn't corrode his spell. To make sure Altos didn't corrode his spell, he would have to distract him with other smaller attacks that could affect him.

After thinking for a moment Stake decided to combine wind and fire. Still dodging the incoming rock spike, Stake casted and combined two spells simultaneously on his ax. His ax raged with fire and he charged towards Altos.

Altos sent incoming rock spikes but Stake simply cut them down with his ax. Altos’ spell was soon done and Stake came close. Pointing a finger at Stake, Altos released a beam of dark energy towards Stake.

The energy beam was too fast and close so Stake couldn't dodge all of it. The beam of energy severed Stake's right arm but not before he used his right arm to throw his fire ax.

The fire ax flew and landed on Altos' chest burning his clothes and body. This was the first time Altos experienced such pain. His pain gave Stake an opening and Stake sliced his ax towards Altos neck.

Altos felt danger and quickly focussed all his spells on defending himself. The ax slammed onto Altos neck which was protected by three spells and Altos flew away from Stake. Stake knew Altos was going to fly away so he used a spell to make a wall of water in the direction Altos was flying in.

Altos landed on the water which stopped him front flying. Stake quickly froze the water trapping Altos inside the ice. Using a spell that he learned a while ago, Stake proceeded to suck mana out of the ice block which regrew his arm instantly. When Stake absorbed mana from the ice, Altos felt his mana draining. After sucking out enough mana, Stake decided to use it to combine two spells with conjuring.

Alto's spell protection was too strong so Stake couldn't harm him with weak attacks. Inside his spells protection, Altos was currently trying to heal himself. The blow from Stake had harmed him badly and he couldn't think straight while feeling pain. Conjuring mana throughout his body while maintaining his spells, Altos healed his body slowly.

Stake knew what Altos was doing but he didn't mind. Altos opened his eyes inside the ice and saw that Stake was forming a spear made of stone, fire, and water. Reinforcing his right arm with mana, Stake charged foward and pierced his spear towards Altos.

The spear landed on Altos' spell protection and rotated. Slowly the spear started to pierce through Altos' spell protection and was about to pierce his heart soon. Since one of his spell protection was already pierced through, Altos used a spell to freeze the lower half of Stake's body.

Stake wondered why Altos did that when a ballista bolt flew towards him. Giving up on maintaining his spear, Stake used two spells to protect his entire body while dodging to the side. The ballista bolt tore through Stake's entire shoulder and Stake gritted his teeth with intense concentration in his eyes.

He broke out of the ice quickly and more Ballista bolts landed on the spot where he was at. The ones that shot the ballistic bolts at Stake were the undead goblins who Stake had hoped could still be saved. Altos flew up into the sky and Stake sent a giant wave of ice debris towards the undead which sunk and froze them into the ice.

Turning his attention back to Altos, Stake blew out a cold breath that dropped the surrounding temperature quickly. Quickly the temperature of the surrounding turned freezing.

“I think it's time to end this, goblin or Stake,” Altos spoke with calm like his victory was assured.

Altos quickly started casting multiple spells on Stake. Stake felt his body weakening and it felt sluggish. More debuff was cast upon Stake and he tried to remove them with his mana.

Altos wasn't just going to keep debuffing Stake though. Using a spell, he created a high rank 2 giant undead humanoid being. The undead being stood 25 meters tall with a giant club in its hand. That wasn't all though and Altos created ice spikes in the air. Hundreds upon hundreds of ice spikes were created in the air.

Stake looked at all the things Altos prepared and readied himself. The giant undead charged towards Stake, the ice spikes dropped down on Stake like rain, and Altos kept casting debuff on him.

Stake did not fight. He knew he did not have the opportunity yet. He ran away knowing that an opportunity will show up soon. The ice spikes fell and Stake tried to dodge as many as he could. Many of them landed on Stake and cut small parts of his body. He did not use mana to protect his body and only used it to heal his body.

Altos soon saw that if he kept firing ice spikes at Stake, the guy would simply heal it off while his mana kept draining. Altos felt he could win the fight if it was waged with mana, but unfortunately, he wasn't fighting a normal person. Stake dodged most of the ice spikes Altos sent at him while the undead giant wasn't fast enough to catch up to Stake.

Currently, Altos was casting three spells simultaneously which were all debuffs. He used his conjuring abilities to keep making ice spikes. The giant undead had his will so it kept charging towards Stake. At the rate Alto's mana was draining, he knew he would run out of mana soon.

One might ask why Altos didn't just use his mana to make a giant area attack like Jill? The reason for that is because area attacks are far weaker than concentrated attacks. If using an area attack was like throwing a bunch of rocks at a person, then using a concentrated attack was like shooting a gun at a person. Stake was a pretty strong rank 2 being so area attacks couldn't hurt him as much as concentrated attacks.

Seeing that conjuring ice spikes and debuffs weren't working, Altos stopped. Altos decided to prepared three beams of dark energy and fire them all at Stake. The moment Altos quit casting debuffs on Stake, Stake cleansed all the remaining debuffs on him and used a trump card he just created.

Conjuring and two spells worked together to increase Stake stats except mana to that of low rank 3. The amount of mana it drained was huge but it would be worth it for this attack.

Gripping his ax tightly, Stake ran towards the undead giant. After reaching the undead giant he smashed his foot on its head while propelling himself up the sky towards Altos. Altos saw him flying up towards him and fired the three beams of dark energy while making it home on Stake with his conjuring ability.

Stake arched his back while flying and threw his ax. Altos made one of the beams of dark energy home towards Stake ax to try and stop it. The ax shredded the beam of dark energy and kept flying towards Altos. The other two beams of dark energy tore through both of Stake's legs and his stomach.

Stake ax kept flying and landed right on Altos head. Altos thought this was most likely what a last moment was like. Both of them fell from the sky down towards the frozen land. Altos' body landed on the plain sending debris flying everywhere. Stake landing was less harmful since he still had mana to float himself down gently.

Stake landed on the ground and looked at Altos' unmoving body. He could not feel life signature from it. Seeing this Stake became happy and screamed a victorious roar. At this moment Stake felt extremely pleasant. He used most off his remaining mana and healed his stomach.

Currently, Stake didn't have enough mana to heal his legs so he crawled towards Altos. He intended to feast on Altos' corpse so he could become stronger. Before he could reach Altos corpse, something came from the distance and stood front of Stake.

The goblin emperor smiled at Stake and brought his club down onto Stake which broke all of Stake's bone and made him almost unconsciousness.

"You know Stake. I use to fear you but then I didn't. But now that you've surpassed me, I fear you. This is a farewell. I'll tell our kinds that you died fighting this rank 3 necromancers. In death, you will have honor among our kinds."

Bringing his club up again, the goblin emperor slammed it down on Stake.