The day of the mission had arrived and the Deathfull Skulls mercenaries group had gathered themselves in their base.
"I am deploying my magic." Their leader, Velkir the Lich said with his cold voice.
With a magic huge magic circle appearing under their feet, the 7 of them disappeared to their next destination.
The walls of the stone base were replaced by tall trees.
If one paid attention, they could hear some faint sounds coming all around the forest.
"You know what to do, spread and finish your mission." Velkir said with his cold voice.
Nodding with each other, everyone split into 3 different groups.
One was Velkir and Sartan, who were about to use teleportation magic to disappear.
According to Velkir, the kingdoms of Berum and Arcana were currently in a fierce fight near the borders of the Dynasty of Ioratal. It reached a point where even combatants of the 4th-tier had appeared.
Velkir´s and Sartan's job was to reinforce so that they prevent the fight from passing the borders of Ioratal.
As beings of 4th-tier were practically calamities if they fought seriously, those two, in particular, were the most suited for the job.
With Velkir being an incredible magic caster who could summon an army by his will or devastate an army with his magic, his sole presence there would put pressure on the other two kingdoms.
And according to the Dynasty's wishes, Sartan was there to act as Velkir´s bodyguard with his immortal-like vitality.
Though Velkir found it a waste of manpower, he didn´t say anything as he knew what was on the mind of lesser beings.
The other group consisted of Danzel, Agares, and Shiro who were supposed to escort the supplies of a particular large mine that was owned by the Dynasty.
If those supplies were actually of some of the ore, then transporting them would even be easy.
Just dumping all the mana crystal inside a spatial storage device or two and using teleportation magic would even finish the job.
But those supplies weren´t the mana crystals, but the miners themself.
Harvesting mana crystals was a dangerous job, which depending on the attribute of the crystal, could kill a person.
Breaking a mana crystal that wasn´t processed was incredibly unstable, where one single small crack could let the whole mana explode outwards, resulting in an explosion of that depending attribute.
Worse of all, this could result in a domino effect if the explosion damaged a nearby mana crystal, who in turn did the same.
As such, miners capable of harvesting mana crystals were quite valuable.
"Danzel, stand still for a brief moment." Velkir said as he pointed his staff towards Danzel who had his sword drawn out.
"[Greater Being Undead]~[Uncome Death Protection]~[Greater Shadow Haste]."
A dark mist escaped from Velkir´s staff before the mist entered Danzel's body through the result of three different spells.
Feeling his whole body becoming more comfortable and lighter than ever, Danzel nodded towards Velkir out of appreciation, while hiding the fact of his disbelief of Velkir's current feat.
Just like he did once before, Velkir´s voice overlapped with his own and cast respectively three different spells at the same time.
It was a feat that even he couldn´t do.
He could activate multiple skills at the same time, but skills that are considered spells were a whole new case.
He barely was capable of multi-cast [Hand of Mana Affinity] and another spell and that was because the former used more of his will than delicate guiding one mana.
`I will have to ask him how to do that later.´ Danzel thought internally as he dashed off with Agares holding Shiro in a hug.
Using his teleportation magic and the other three running to the mine, only the dark elve siblings remained.
"Well, then brother! Make sure not to die. I will be ahead of you" Vanessa said before kicking the ground and leaving a small crater from the spot where she now disappeared.
"Sigh...be careful, sister." Azrael said with a tired voice.
Of course, Vanessa didn´t manage to hear his words.
`We were supposed to work as a group.´
Although knowing that fact, Azrael didn´t decide to run after her sister.
The reason being was because he knew that he couldn´t catch up if she really made her mind up to go full out. Also, he gave her several artifacts just in case something happened to her.
He wasn´t worried because he thought that she was weak he thought that she was incredibly strong.
His worries came from knowing her personality.
"I should be going, [Greater Haste]."
Using the same spell that he used against Danzel back on the test, Azrael followed after his sister.
Or rather, he went towards the true destination instead of the decoy of where his sister went.
Because of his overprotective side over his sister, Azrael asked Velkir to give his sister a false goal to keep her busy till he finished the true mission.
Currently, Vanessa was heading towards a group of Berum soldiers who had a large amount of 3rd-tier combatants, while he was heading to eliminate a potential threat to the Dynasty.
And that was someone of the 4th-tier.
Dashing forward, his movement would even become blurred by the sheer speed he was moving. Only those of peak 3rd-tier could keep their eyes on him while those of the lower state could only faintly see a black and crimson cloaked figure with a massive spike attached to his right arm.
After a few minutes of running with incredible speed, he felt his body passing through something material.
"Tch...barrier?" Azrael thought as he tightened his grip on his [Cursed Spear of Bloodthirster] and his awareness spread around him and identified three presences that weren´t there before.
Being mid-air, three robes figures surrounded Azrael by the use of teleportation.
"Kill him!"
Having already prepared their spells beforehand, three devastating balls of flames were shot directly at Azrael.
Once those three balls of flame were in range, they exploded in a massive explosion, before inside the explosions several more balls of flame appeared that resulted in the same.
It was a spell called [Tripled Fire Discharge], a spell which created a large fireball with another 3 inside the same fireball.
And considering that three were shot at Azrael, they were 12 whole explosions that took the place.
"Was he the one who activated our alarm barrier?"
"He must be, but don´t take your guard off! There might be others who came with him!"
"Re-activate the barrier, I will go and report about the intruder's death-" The last of the robed figures were swiftly interrupted by an emotionless voice.
"Something like that isn´t capable of harming me."
"!!!"
"This guy-!!!"
"Cast another [Trip-"
Distancing themself from the center of the smoke, all three went out and guided their spells in their gauntlets.
Alas...
Three blades made out of blood cut through the smoke and severed the three magic casters in half. Their protective artifacts that did activate also failed to protect their owner's life.
Ignoring the three corpses, Azrael continues dashing to his original destination.
And shortly after, he saw several soldiers already had their swords drawn while the magic caster their spells were prepared.
"Enemy!"
"Fire magic!"
"Kill him!"
Be it bolts of crossbows or any kind of spell, just like the previous spell of the 3rd-tier magic caster, [Tripled Fire Discharge], it was blocked by a circling barrier made out of the blood.
"Is he hiding?" Azrael thought to himself as he scanned for his target.
`But first I will have to deal with those annoying small flies.´
"Human ignorance, learn to know your place." Azrael said with an emotionless tone as he started casting his spell.
"[Sanguine Bath]."
Coming out of his feet was Azrael´s defiled blood that formed a small pool around the ground.
Every step he took, the pool of blood moved together with him, similar to one's shadow.
The soldiers who figured out that crossbows were now useless, dashed with their weapons in hand and charged toward Azrael.
With over 100 soldiers surrounding the intruder while being buffed from behind by the magic caster, the soldier previous fear turned into confidence.
`We can do it!´ They thought.
Alas, the reality was cruel.
"[Bloodening Mirror] Activate." Azrael muttered with a low voice.
The blood barrier that was protecting a second ago suddenly started blackening and expanding at a fast pace.
And before the soldiers could react or get away, the blood barrier expanded and turned into hundreds of small blades that cut through the armor of the 100 soldiers and dug into their bodies.
"What the-!"
"Agggh!
In a matter of a second, the shouts of courage turned into pain.
Out of the 100 soldiers, 87 died instantly with the tiny blades, while the others who survived were barely hanging on their life after even using the others as shields.
The magic caster and the remaining soldiers who saw that imminently lost all will to fight, even those of the 3rd-tier didn´t dare to step up.
"Impossible-! What kind of spell was that!?"
"He is a monster!"
"We can´t deal with that!"
In the mids of despair, a voice similar to salvation was heard.
"Those under 3rd-tier, step back! This isn´t your fight." A man said while appearing in front of all those soldiers.
Just like the magic casters of before, the man wore a similar robe, but only with an additional chest plate with many enchants.
In his hand was a long curve sword which one could say was a combination of a long sword and a katana.
The one wielding this blade had immense pressure releasing unconditionally, making it pretty clear that he was of the 4th-tier.
"Hmm, you must be the blood mage of that mercenary that the Dynasty brought, huh? Do think that such magic as yours still exist in this world, heh." The man laughed before his face turned serious.
"You killed the people that I was entrusted to. For that, let me have the honor of erasing such taboo magic!" The man shout before dark mana flared up out of his body.
"[Blacken Blade]!" Tracing one hand on his blade, black flames of chaos surrounded his sword.
"[Hellfire Armor]!" His chest plate was lightened up with chaotic flames similar to his sword, but the man felt neither pained nor hurt.
"[Chaos Flame Steps]! His time, a par of circle appears on each leg, giving his foot to leave sark flame from coming out.
Azrael who was watching the man buff himself got suddenly a idea.
" I can teat it here..." He mumbles before easing the white spear of his.
Once risen, a crimson light escapes from the spear.
Suddenly, as if a vortex has taken place, the moans of the pain of the 13 people and suffering could be heard thanks to Danzel rune.
The corpses in turn had all their blood sucked off.
[Blood Transmission]
With the blood getting used in and going towards the pool of blood.
What really stupefied them was what happened next.
The previous dried-up corpses started to throw in blood.
From their mouths, blood came out and slowly spread around the body of the corpse.
Once it was done, the now 100 fallen soldiers rose up as a pile of blood puppets and started to form according to how Azrael looked.
However, they only had the outline of Azrael's body structure while being faceless. In their hand, they wielded a copy of the [Cursed Spear of Bloodthirst] with only its look.
"The pseudo mind does seem to work, but seeing that they can't replicate me completely means it's too young" Azrael mumbled to himself.
The man who looked at all the blood monstrosity gripped the hilt tighter.
"You damn defiler of corpses! Here will be your grave." The 4th-tier man said before he cut several of those blood puppets.
But after they were cut, they instantly turned back to their form.
Luckily for him, his chaos flame prevented them from regenerating or at the very least slowed down the incredible amount.
The more time passed, the more injuries the man accumulated.
Azrael who draining the blood of the man failed to notice an ethereal far green smoke going towards him before entering the tip of his spear.
But rather than failing to notice, it was more the case that Azrael couldn't see it in the first place
