Chapter 1368 Materialized Mana

Rain paused as she heard the words. Kar had told her to hate the man who’d sent her here. If she hated Arthur, would she even be here now? She had known Arthur ever since they met on the smuggler’s ship in Ilios. Did Kar even understand what Rain felt toward Arthur?

When she first met him, Rain had felt a fiery desire for him. He was the creator, a man so powerful that the seven families had a prophecy about him. She wanted to bear his child, to create the strongest human in existence.

As she remembered it now, it sounded so foolish. Rain had wanted power to break the chains that Osian had tightened around her neck. She hadn’t thought about asking Arthur for help, but he had helped her anyway. He killed Osian, then promised to bridge the sea for her.

Rain had never met a man like him. He would stand against injustice alone and never think of running away. His name was “the outsider,” yet he never looked back. Arthur could have turned his back on this world, but he never did.

For the first time since they’d met, Arthur had asked her for a favor. He wanted her to stop Kar from obtaining the amplifier. He could have asked someone else, but he knew Kar had Valeria, Rain wanted to save Valeria more than anything and Arthur knew it. “I refuse,” she heard herself say with a smile. “My faith in him is absolute. I would never doubt him, not for a second, even on the brink of death. And if I die here, I’ll just be sad that I’d never see him again.”

“As someone who claims to be a calamity, you care about the man who destroyed our chance to enter Devaheim?” Kar asked with a smirk, raising his hand. The golden gauntlet seemed to tear through the fabric of reality. “I guess this proves you’re just a fake.”

Rain grinned at him as Kar clawed at her. At the same time, the ceiling began caving in above them. Golden mana burst from Rain’s body, blocking his attack. Kar couldn’t touch her as the golden mana forced him staggering backward.

The cave collapsed around them, and a figure came falling from the sky. A pair of silver wings protruded from his back, and a massive sword rested on his shoulders. Oren crashed down amid the falling rubble.

“You should have escaped, human,” Kar said as he noticed Oren charging toward him with his great sword. He raised his gauntlet to absorb the blow, but his expression collapsed. “The gauntlet isn’t working?”

Oren slashed with his sword, tearing space apart as he struck Kar. The vampire tried to block the blow with his blood barrier, but it shattered under the sword’s weight. “This aura… an Abyssal Spirit? A human contracted with an Abyssal Spirit?” Kar shouted in confusion and rage as he struggled to stop the attack, but the sword cut through his blood like butter. “What kind of human are you?”

“The kind that’ll beat you,” Oren replied with a grin from behind his silver helmet. “Sword of Severance!”

Oren swung again, and Kar was wise enough to dodge this time. He leapt backward toward the other side, where Sapphire and Nyx lay collapsed. He made some distance as he tried to understand why the gauntlet had stopped working.

“The golden mana that leaked out of her… it’s making it malfunction?” Kar shook the gauntlet. Oren flew over the waterfalls below to chase him. He didn’t give the calamity a chance to recover or create his domain.

Rain watched Oren forcing Kar back in fear, astonished that he could shatter the vampire’s blood. Of course, Kar was still more powerful than him, but Oren’s sword seemed especially effective against him.

“Enough!” Kar shouted, stomping the ground. His blood domain appeared, spreading over the entire cave. Rain felt her blood tingle, a discomfort that filled her body. “Blood Domain!”

Kar created countless blood creatures around Oren, swarming over him and clinging to him to drain his life. The armor around Oren suddenly shattered as he descended to the ground. He landed without armor or wings, stabbing his sword into the ground. “If you’re going to use a domain, then I shall too,” Oren said with a grin, clasping his hands around the hilt of his sword. “Don’t be too surprised.”

“You’re one of the most arrogant humans I’ve ever met,” Kar said, raising his hand to summon countless blood swords behind him. “Be impaled and serve as a reminder to the rest of your kind.”

A thousand swords materialized in mere seconds and flew toward Oren. The blood creatures rushed from every direction within the blood domain to surround the small human in the middle. Their numbers obscured Oren from view as they lunged like hungry wolves, ready to tear him apart.

Kar grinned in triumph, a single bead of sweat rolling down his face. He was sure of his victory against this human who had given him so much trouble with his sword. In Kar’s eyes, Oren had died by his own arrogance.

If he had continued wielding the Sword of Severance, he might have stood a chance against Kar. But the moment he stopped using his Abyssal Spirit, he’d signed his own death sentence.

“Now then, where were we?” Kar said as he turned toward Rain, who still had traces of golden mana around her. “Arthur must care about—”

Kar began to approach Rain when he heard something strange. Faint screams were coming from the mass of blood creatures and swords surrounding Oren. The screams were inhuman, and Kar realized they came from his own blood creatures.

A blue glow began shattering through the crowd of blood creatures, which screamed and scattered. Kar watched in confusion as the small human emerged unscathed, surrounded by a strange blue fluid.

“What is this ability? How is it killing my creatures the moment they touch it?” Kar demanded with a frown, raising his hand to summon more. “What is that?”

“This is my domain,” Oren said with a grin as his hair began to lengthen. “I have a very unique yet basic ability called Mana Affinity. And this blue fluid you see… it’s the materialization of mana.”