In the pathway of the mine, where Danzel saw many presences.
One of the presences was pushed with incredible force towards the wall.
The pickaxe that he held in his hand broke, and the man holding it threw blood out of his mouth.
Falling to his knees, the miner's entire body was shaking and his eyesight was turning hazy.
"M-Monster..." That were his last words before his body gave out.
"Thomas!"
Calling the dead man's name, people with similar clothing and pickaxes like him surrounded him and glared at the one responsible for doing this with hate.
"There wasn´t a need to kill him!" One female miner said while her eyes were filling with tears.
The man responsible for this scoffed at the group.
"If you don´t want to end up like him, then stay put. Act ignorant like that idiot and I won´t show mercy on any of you." A man with blond hair wearing a uniform that symbolist his status as a Great Mage and a commander in the Arcana Kingdom.
"Just so that you all know, my mission was to kill all you bunch. But as your skills are attractive, I spoke for you to take you as prisoners that kill you all here. And yet that fool tried to fight back even after being so generous to you all! He got what he deserved." The blond Great Mage said as he swung his staff to the air, letting most of the blood of the man be thrown at the wall.
Understanding that they got no hopes to go against this man, the miners distance themself in the corner while forcing the ones wanting revenge to not act on their emotions.
The Great Mage shook his head in annoyance just by looking at them.
`If it wasn´t for earning Master Anwir favor, I would even kill those lowly commoners of that backwater place. For a noble that graduated with one of the highest scores at the academy like me to pick up trash like them is a disgrace of my title´ The blond Great Mage thought to himself.
He even brought two associates of his family that held the rank of 4th-tier for this mission. And he was glad that he has done so.
He never thought that the Dynasty of Ioratal would bring a holy knight of the 4th-tier to defend such a lowly place filled with commoners.
But now that he was brought to Sword Mages of the 4th-tier, the mission was bound to succeed, and earning the favor of the Archmage Anwir was guaranteed.
Recently the Berum kingdom attacked the Archmages Anwir territory, more accurate to where his personal mines were.
With the news that Archmage Anwir was seeking an apprentice and his family being close with him, the blond Great Mage sought to earn this position.
`Master Anwir gave me his "things"...as long as I succeed here, only my bright future awaits ahead of me.´ The blond Great Mage though.
After several minutes of passing, the man's face changed to a slight frown.
"Have they still not killed that holy knight? What´s taking them so long to report?"
As he was about to bring out his communication device, he suddenly felt an ominous aura coming far through the distance.
Alarmed, he guided his mana toward his eyes and looked at where the ominous aura was coming from.
Once he turned his head, what he saw made him curse out loud.
"Those fools!" The blond mage cursed out loud watching a dark knight with mist escaping from his body coming straight towards him.
And the speed that he was coming towards him made the blond man get cold sweat behind his back.
`How come that those two let someone this fast get inside the mine! He isn´t of the 4th-tier, but his speed is abnormally high!´
Analyzing the current situation at hand, the blond Great Mage calmed down once he figured that the enemy was with the same tier as he.
"You speed means nothing in front of my magic!" The Blond Great Mage yelled as he pointed his staff towards the incoming dark knight.
And in an instant, lighting started circling around the blond Great Mage and raising his hair slightly.
Guiding the lighting in front of his staff, his spell of his manifested.
With the lighting taking the form of a ball with a 1-meter radius, the ball emitted several other lightings that were striking the walls of the cave constantly, creating a net made out of lighting that covered the whole pathway.
The stone of the wall itself started melting by the seer temperature of the several lightings.
"Die! [Thunder Seeker]!"
Activating his spells, the whole net and the ball of the lighting were shot in front of him.
*Chigh! Chigh! Chigh!
Be it the wall or the floor, everywhere the lighting touched melted.
And in front of such a strong...
Danzel runs straight towards the spell.
In the next second, the spell [Thunder Seeker] made contact with Danzel, all the electricity was guided to Danzel's body, making him a light source that lightens up the whole cave.
The blond Great Mage wanted to laugh at the fool who run straight to his death, but what stopped him from doing so was that his lighting wasn´t touching the dark knight but a sphere.
As soon as he realized what was happening, Danzel continue running at full speed unhindered by the powerful spell. The barrier that was around him slowly started to grumble and fade into nothingness.
"A barrier!? But I didn´t detect any mana!" The blond Great Mage was clearly alarmed.
He wanted to cast another of his spells but found that his enemy was too near to complete his spell.
"Dammit!" Creating a barrier around him, he started double-cast his next spell on his free hand.
Seeing the barrier, Danzel mercilessly swung his long sword at the barrier with all his strength, destroying the barrier but at the same time pushing his sword away.
The blond Great Mage didn´t expect that his barrier could be torn into shreds by a single attack, but that didn´t make him give up on his next spell.
Making a spear of lighting appear on his hand, he grabbed at it to pierce it on the dark knight´s head now that his sword was back.
Sadly for him, there was an overwhelming amount of speed difference between those two.
Once Danzel passed through him and had already swung at him, the Great Mage found himself throwing the lighting spear into the empty pathway.
The lighting spear itself flew with an incredible speed towards the wall of the cave and penetrated the wall several meters deep.
If the barrier held and the blond Great Mage suggested throwing the lighting spear, Danzel wouldn´t have been able to dodge at such a close distance.
Alas, that wasn´t the case and instead, a huge amount of blood came out of the wound on his chest, and the hand that threw the spear was severed. In both places where Danzel swung were dead mana destroying the Great Mages cells.
"Ahgghhhhh!!!" Screaming at top of his lungs, the blond Great Mage let go of his staff and fell to the ground while gripping the spot where his former hand was to activate healing magic.
Green light emitted around his palm, but recovery didn´t seem to take place. Noticing this fact even while suffering, the blond Great Mage said out loud in horror.
"Why doesn´t it work!? DAMMIT!!!"
Maybe he would even realize that he was infested with dead mana, but with his current state of mind, he couldn´t think straight with all this pain.
Danzel who was watching the man suffering, couldn´t help but be reminded of the vitality of someone in the 3rd-tier.
`I planned to cut him in half, but his robe was much tougher than I expected.´ Danzel thought as he slowly walked towards the magic caster to deliver the finishing blow.
Feeling the dark knight's intent, the Great Mage hurridly brought out his communication device and activated it.
"I command you all!! Come this instant towards m-"
Before he could finish his sentence, Danzel pierced his longsword towards his brain.
[You received 350 000 XP]
Pulling his sword out of the magic caster's brain, Danzel turned to face the terrified miners.
"I even came for you all." Danzel said in his cold voice.
Maybe they understood what he said wrong, but all the miners had their faces turn deathly pale with some picking their pickaxes and pointing them at him.
Seeing that he made a mistake, Danzel corrected himself.
"I am the reinforcements of the Dynasty. I and my allies came to pick you up..." Danzel said with a tone of annoyance in his cold voice.
Upon hearing this, all the miners celebrated without even taking the consideration that Danzel might be lying.
The woman who was holding the corpse of Thomas with tears on her face, raised her head towards their savior to give him her gratitude.
But once she did, the first thing that she noticed was a black silhouette in the pathway closing in their direction at an incredible speed towards them!
If it weren´t for the fact that she was a veteran miner for mana crystals that built up a slight night vision, she wouldn´t have noticed.
At first, she thought she was seeing things, but the closer the figure came, her face turned once more into horror.
Moving by jumping to different sides of the walls with his scythe-like fingers and blackened body, she yelled towards her savior.
"Behind you!" She yelled, but once she finished her shout, the monstrosity had already come behind her savior and swung his scythe-like finger at the dark knight.
She closed her eyes and expected the dark knight to have his head blown away by the monstrosity.
But that didn´t happend.
"I know." Danzel said, fully aware of the figure behind him.
Once the monstrosities hand came close to Danzel, suddenly a barrier surrounded Danzel and stopped the black hand in his place.
"KGHAH!?"
Being mid-air, Danzel brought out his shield from his storage ring and turned around while swinging his shield with a huge force.
Hitting the chest of the figure with his chest, it was thrown towards the wall right beside Danzel.
"KGah!" Spewing out dark blood from his mouth, the figure wanted to try once more to kill the enemy in front of him.
As if Danzel would let that happend.
Swinging his long sword, Danzel cut the monstrosities hand and head in a clean swing while also carving the wall behind.
*Thud.
[You received 50 000 XP]
With the monstrosity corpse falling to the ground and leaving a pool of dark blood to the ground, the miners stepped back in horror.
"What the hell is that!?"
"They are mutants of the Arcane Kingdom." Danzel answered while turning his back on the miners.
Looking in front of him, Danzel raised his shield in front of him.
"And it wasn´t the last one of them."
Watching with his night vision, Danzel could clearly see.
That many more were coming towards him.
