Standing on the back of her companion and friend, Rio observed the two uninvited guests.
Initially, she thought that she would be facing a small army and honestly, she would have been much happier if that was actually the case.
What she was seeing right now though gave her an intense headache,
'Why is a Blessed attacking me?'
Blessed had existed long before even the creation of the kingdoms in the mortal realm. As such, she had a clear understanding of what they represented.
But even still, she wasn't afraid. The divine punishment for killing a Blessed only acted if the murderer was of the same race as the blessed.
She did not know what race the boy in front of her was, but he was clearly not a spirit, so it did not matter.
Swinging her sword, she frowned a little at how heavy it felt.
One of her abilities was to temporarily absorb energy in her weapons before directing it back at the enemy. It was the perfect counter skill. And currently, the energy in her sword after absorbing those black flames felt so chaotic that it seemed ready to explode at any moment.
Because of this, her attention settled on the cloaked silhouette rushing toward the guards.
Clearly, she could tell that person wasn't any weaker than her.
'I should capture that Blessed fast and fight that person.'
For her, aside from being rare, and potentially a great source of Vanir, the Blessed had nothing worth paying attention to.
She had heard that all Blessed were extremely talented, but no matter how talented the boy facing her was, she could tell that he wasn't even a Duke from his energy.
'Let's finish it fast.'
At least, that was what she thought at first but, the moment Sol transformed, all thoughts about how easy he was vanished.
Sol’s pupils turned into slits while two horns made of energy appeared on his head and he seemed to grow a bit taller.
Feeling the abundant energy flowing from him, her eyes narrowed.
"Who are you?"
Even though her voice was low, thanks to the amplification due to mana, it echoed in a wide area.
On Sol's side, he did not answer the question directed at him. Instead of talking, he would rather focus on analyzing his enemy’s strength.
Sol, who had a habit of prematurely talking too much during fights, was amending himself.
After launching a dragon roar of feeble intensity, Sol's eyes narrowed as he watched Rio cleave it in two then absorb it with another sword.
Witnessing it twice, Sol could only deduce it as a special skill of the enemy. He did not know if it only absorbed a specific source of energy, but at least, as it appeared, pure mana attacks would be useless.
'This means that I have to deal with her with my bare body.'
The solution to the problem Sol faced was pretty simple. If the sword could only absorb mana energy, then he should be able to hit his adversary but there was a problem, a very big one.
"I still don't know how to fly."
He immediately understood that this should be one of her strategies. After all, even the King Ranks might never learn any flight abilities.
'Well, what do I do now?'
Rio did not wait for him to prepare a plan.
The two swords she had used to absorb his and Isis’ attack began to levitate in the air before shining brilliantly.
If Sol had access to his dimension, he wouldn't act like a sitting duck and wait for her to completely charge her attack but unfortunately, he had no other option.
Finally, once the two swords stopped shining, two huge rays of bright energy, slightly stronger than the ones absorbed, shot at Sol.
At the same time, as though it didn't wish to be forgotten, White Sparrow also spread open its wings wide in the sky.
Dozens of little lights, akin to stars in the clear night sky, appeared before pouring at Sol, while letting out trails of light behind them.
What's more, those rays did not follow a straight path but curved at different angles.
This resulted in attacks coming from all sides around Sol with no way of escaping
BOOM!
A little far away from the battlefield, even though she was about to be besieged by a large cavalry of about hundreds of soldiers, Isis still had enough leisure to pay attention to Sol's fight.
Watching his transformation, while she was surprised by his power, she couldn't help but frown because of his appearance,
'He really does not have any wings.'
Even though all dragons could fly, not all dragons had wings. And so, Sol not having any wings was not a problem but from what her mother had told her, she knew that Blaze, Sol's mother, was a winged dragon.
'Ugh! He really wasn't taught anything.'
Even though as a hybrid, there were many limits to some of their innate abilities, the absence of wings on Sol’s back meant that he did not delve deep enough into it and simply relied on a basic form of transformation.
From the gathered energy in the atmosphere, she could also feel that Sol's usage of his core was extremely wasteful.
But what really shocked her was that, despite all those shortcomings, he was still unbelievably strong.
'If he manages to go further?'
She shuddered at the thought. Whether it was out of fear or anticipation, not even Isis could tell.
It was then,
BOOM!
A flurry of attacks landed on Sol, blasting everything around them in a few hundred meters radius.
Clearly, rather than letting the power spread uselessly, Rio had concentrated the attacks toward a single point as much as possible.
She sweated a little at the spectacular explosion and the mushrooms of sand rising in the sky.
She really hoped that he didn't die. But she knew that this was out of her hand. At least, since neither her mother nor grandmother intervened, it should mean there wasn't any problem.
It was then,
Whoosh!
Rushing out of the dust and sand, a silhouette jumped in the direction of Rio and White Sparrow who were floating fifty meters in the air.
Even though his clothes were almost shredded to pieces, there were close to no wounds on his body.
Even though White Sparrow was taken aback in surprise, it was still a Duke and a flying beast at that.
It had already envisioned the best escape plan but, just as it was about to move,
<<Ruler Intent: Dragon Awe>>
Sol's intent spread instantly and covered his two opponents.
Even though it was a powerful intent, it could only daze them for a short instant, but that short instant was all Sol needed,
Once he reached them, he sent a punch so powerful the air around him seemed to explode.
At the same time, a huge spherical metal shield formed out of thin air and stood in front of his fist. Behind the shield, Rio could be seen biting on her lips to the point of bleeding to keep herself awake.
BOOM!
The impact sent tremors in the air, spreading shockwaves after shockwaves.
Compared to the 5 meters wide shield, Sol's fist seemed extremely tiny but despite that...
Crack!
The shield helplessly broke down under his mighty fist. Unfortunately for Sol, even though his Intent was still pressuring them, the time he wasted in destroying the shield was enough for them to wake up completely.
When the shield was completely destroyed, what welcomed Sol as he was slowly falling was the sight of Rio jumping straight at him with her hand on the handle of her sword.
Helpless, all he could do was curl into himself to reduce the area she could target and put his knee and two arms in front of him as a form of protection.
When she reached him, Rio unsheathed her sword and slashed at him with all her strength.
It also sent Sol flying in the opposite direction like a cannonball launched at the speed of the sound.
Rio didn’t stop there. Before gravity even took control of her, White Sparrow accelerated and took her on its back before letting out a loud cry.
<<Zone: Child of the Wind>>
Like most magical beings, White Sparrow did not waste his time creating a zone based on his own truth but used his own element as the basis to break through the level of Duke.
His zone allowed him to control and lower the friction and resistance of the air around him to an incredibly high degree. This was pretty simple in principle, but for a flying beast like him, it was like changing its vision of the world.
The moment the zone was activated, its instantaneous speed already surpassed that of the sound and it continued to accelerate further, flying so fast he passed Sol and stopped only once it was behind him.
Like his acceleration, by increasing the resistance to a high degree, he was able to stop any of his movements instantly.
Sol, who watched all this with difficulty was speechless, it was basically like it could go from 0 to 100 in one instant and go back from 100 to 0 in another instant.
The strain on the body with such movement was immense, but for a powerful beast such as it, as long as it paced itself carefully, it had nothing to fear.
‘This is even worse than facing Setsuna.’
After all, no matter how fast she was, controlling her speed was a problem, and more than anything, Setsuna couldn’t fly.
‘I can’t let this situation continue.’
Sol could already imagine that if he didn’t change the situation fast, he would be in a completely passive position and receive a beating continuously.
Forcing himself to turn around to face them, he took a deep breath and,
ROAR!!!
This time, his roar was not accompanied by an energy attack but was just a pure and direct sound attack.
What’s more, Sol had fused his mana and intent in that roar and the result was simply beyond understanding.
ROAR!!
Because of Rio's previous attack, Sol and the two Dukes were currently above the army that was about to face Isis.
But the moment the roar sounded, no one was spared.
Most of the people rushing towards Isis immediately collapsed while letting out screams of pain. Their eardrums completely burst, with blood flowing down their ears.
Even Isis could not help but wince in pain because of the sudden attack.
As for Rio and her partner, being so close to Sol, the effects could be imagined. The one most affected was, of course, White Sparrow itself. After all, as a pure beast, his senses were on a different level. which meant that he got the worst of the attack.
Temporarily losing his sense of hearing and with his brain-rattling, he lost the ability to fly and began to plummet on the ground.
Sol, who was also free-falling, did not miss this chance and used his energy to accelerate his fall.
Landing on the ground with a large boom, he immediately focused all his mana in his muscles, causing them to bulge threateningly.
Even though his arms were bleeding after being cut previously, he did not have the time to care about those trifling wounds.
Having learned his lesson from the previous attack, Sol did not rush toward them, but, after a loud cry, punched in the air.
The resulting shockwave even caused sparks of fire to fly, making it seem like a large blazing fist was bearing toward Rio and her companion.
Feeling the heat under her, Rio did not even hesitate and acted,
<<Zone: Liquid Metal>>
A huge cocoon made out of metal flowed out from her body before covering the entirety of the ’s body and her with it.
The moment Sol’s attack entered contact with that metal ball, all the energy was gently spread through the entire ball, thereby lowering the damage exponentially.
Once it did so, the cocoon began to break apart, but it had already done the job.
When Rio and White appeared once again in the sight of everyone, they were completely different.
An armor made out of silver-white metal completely covered Rio and her mount’s body. Aside from the eyes and nose, nothing else could be seen.
<<Combined form: Silver Knight>>
Seeing this form, even though Sol understood how dangerous the situation had become, he couldn’t help but chuckle when he thought about how his fight now looked like a reenactment of the fight between Hashirama and Madara.
‘Now then, how the hell do I win this?’
(AN: Welp. Did Sol bite more than he could chew or should Rio and sparrow simply hang themselves for having a hard time against a Duke despite it being a two vs one? Let’s see what Sol will do in the next episode.)
