After I killed Raymond, I went searching for Athena. We didn’t exactly make a meeting point, we would just search for each other, I guess.

I heard the sound of swords clashing in the distance. ‘Athena!’, I thought immediately and went running towards the source of the swords clashing against each other.

I felt a lot of mana being formed in one spot, I thought it was Athena. But, the mana felt different, I felt this mana before. However, the feeling is different this time, it was ‘Light Attribute Magic’.

I arrived at the fighting scene, Athena was breathing heavily and a man holding his sword radiating with magic. “‘Silver Light Cut’”, the man said releasing a blinding cut of light towards Athena.

I quickly used ‘Flame Manipulation’ and closed her in a sea of black flames, protecting her from the attack.

“Phew, I thought I was too late.”, I said relieved that I did not fail to protect her. “Tch! So, you weren’t alone after all!”, the man that threw the attack cursed.

Athena turned around and smiled relieved to see me, I stepped forward and held out my swords in each hand and readied myself to fight. However, I felt a hand gripping my sleeves, it was Athena who with little strength left she had held on to my sleeve.

“I.. I want to do it.”, Athena mustered to say, her mana was so low on mana that she could barely stand up. I nodded to her request and passed her some of my mana with the spell ‘Mana Transfer’.

‘Mana Transfer’ is a ‘No Attribute Magic’ spell, and it already exists in this world. It allows the user to transfer mana to another user.

“You think you can beat me with just a little more mana? I’ll show you the difference between our Skill!”, the man who was once Athenas tutor said.

Athena didn’t respond and simply picked up her sword and pointed it in her enemy’s direction. “Hey who’s there?!”, a guard could be heard in the distance and together with him a group of ten guards.

The guards came from the hallway where Shiro came from, the other group of guards that went to the nobleman’s daughter room to secure her.

“Alright, I’ll be taking care of these guys in the meanwhile. You do what you have to do.”, I said facing the small horde of guards.

The first guard to move forward had a spear long enough to reach me in just a few steps, I ran towards him while dodging the spear by moving slightly to the right. The guard panicked and tried pulling his spear back but fell to the ground after feeling a heavy pressure on his stomach.

I was still a little far away to hit him, so I decided to use ‘Mana Bullet’ to send heavy pressure against his stomach, I used a small amount of mana because I didn’t want to kill him.

I may not like the kingdom nor its people, but that doesn’t mean I should just kill anybody I find in my way. I know how death feels like and it was not pleasant!

“You three in formation!”, the one on the middle said of the whole group, three guards stepped out, one of them had a spear, the other a sword and the last one a shield.

“‘Shield Bash’”, the guard with the shield said, his shield started glowing faintly. “‘Lightning Cut’”, the guard with the sword said, his sword started glowing with electricity. “‘Radiating Spear Jab’”, the guard with the spear used a ‘Spearmanship’ spear skill, his spear glowed with radiating light but less powerful than the enemy that Athena is facing.

‘Now I’m in trouble!’, I may be just a ghost, but that doesn’t mean that I’m completely immune to physical attacks. If I’m wounded by magic or especially ‘Light Attribute Magic’, which I am really weak towards I will die or rather I will ascend to heaven……. I think.

The trinity of guards charged at me with weapons radiating with magic, I released sticky threads out of the tips of my fingers and trapped the three of them, ceasing their charge.

“What is this?!”, the guard with the sword complained as he tried to move but couldn’t. The Skill ‘Thread Reeling’ did not just allow me to create threads from the tip of my fingers, it also allows me to change their attributes, I could make steel threads, sticky threads and normal silk threads as well.

‘Damn! This guy is tough’, the guard who gave the order thought. “Everybody charge!”, he commanded his subordinates, but most of them didn’t move. They were doubting their leader’s words. “Can’t you see it idiots!? He hasn’t killed any of our men, that means that he’s thinking about sparing us.”, the leader looked through my intention and the guards regained their confidence and moved forward.

I instinctively stepped back and felt some pressure touching my back, the pressure was Athena’s back touching mine. I got slightly embarrassed by the warmth on my back.

I looked at Athena, she was looking forward to her enemy. While I was fighting against the guards, her enemy has started sweating. Athena charted forward with her sword in hand and so did her enemy.

Their swords clashed together with the sound of metal screeching loudly throughout the mansion, Athena had exhausted her mana and the fact that she was able to parry her enemies attack was a miracle. I only gave her a small amount of mana, like two hundred or something.

“How are you still standing?!”, her enemy questioned, she had used a highly skilled Swordsmanship sword skill together with all her mana.

She was giving her best, that was the answer. She wanted to avenge her parent and friends who were taken away from her.

I looked back forward, the guards were just a couple of feet away from reaching me. ‘I have to give my best too!’, I made up my mind on what to do and moved forward onwards to death.

I couldn’t use the same attack, I was only able to capture three of them because they weren’t expecting that. But, now they’ve seen it once and that’s enough to know how to dodge it.

I used sticky threads to grab the three guards that I had captured and glued them to the walls like a big caught in a spiderweb. ‘Thank god I watched that movie.’, I thanked a movie that I watched years ago on earth.

Only four soldiers went charging at me and their leader stayed behind observing the show. He probably knew that there was a high chance of failure, thus he chose to stay behind instead of the frontlines.

The rest of the soldiers only used swords to fight, the first soldier that got closer to me got hit in the stomach and is now writhing in pain. The rest of the soldiers decided to go together and attacked.

I wanted to increase the level of my ‘Swordsmanship’ Skill, so that I could become better and also, I like seeing the numbers go up.

The three of them used swords skills each and charged at me without leaving any openings for me to use ‘Thread Reeling’. I made sure to make as many openings as possible and unmaterialized my twin blades

“Ha! It seems he chose to give up.”, one of the guards said confidentially thinking that my swords were gone, and the morale of the guards went up and they started speeding up their approach.

I started gathering a lot of mana to the point where the air around me looked like it was trembling and vibrating. “Here I go”, I prepared for my last attack.

I held my two blades behind my back and readied my foot on the floor.

“Three”

The guards were approaching even closer.

“Two”

Athena was behind me fighting with all she could.

“…one”

There was suddenly a sound of a blade cutting through air itself, the guards were confused as to what suddenly transpired. Their enemy was nowhere to be seen in front of them.

“What hap-“,  the guards whose charge led to no avail fell one by one on the floor like puppets whose strings were cut off.

The leader himself fell to the ground with bloodshot eyes towards the youth right in front of him. “Wh.. what.. did you… do?”, the leader muttered those words with an almost invisible blade directed into his throat.

I pulled my blade out of his throat and returned it to the invisible scabbard I made from Dark Mythril and leather. The leader fell to the hard yet prestige ground without any visible injuries.

“I’m so glad none of them actually died”, I sighed relieved by how beautifully my bet went, I used my twin blades to attack their spirits instead of their physical bodies. I was worried that I could have possibly killed them, but they’re all still breathing. The mana used went towards another spell I made ‘Strengthen Body’, it’s a spell that uses mana to strengthen my body for a limited amount of time. What I didn’t expect was for me to be that fast, I concentrated almost all of my mana towards my feet to be really fast.

I was considerably tired due to the overuse of mana, I turned around to check on Athena. “Huff… it seems I have underestimated you….”, her tutor said having difficulties with breathing.

Athena was breathing heavily as well, the only difference was that she was unwounded while her tutor had cuts here and there on his body and his clothes were almost completely shredded.

Athena held her sword tremblingly, she was exhausted from fighting and using her mana. Her tutor in return picked up his sword from the ground and held it. “Let’s end this once and for all!”, the tutor said.

He charged forward faster than before and more fiercely, and Athena did so as well. “‘Radiant Silver Sword Slash!’”, the tutor used his strongest sword skill. “‘Increased Sword Strength’”, Athena released a simple sword skill that would increase her strength for a limited time.

Magic is not the only way to buff oneself up, sword skills or other can also due the same thing.

The tutors sword was radiating with a light far, far brighter than the one before, while Athenas body was glowing faintly instead of her sword.

As the two blades reached each other, kling the high-pitched sound ringed throughout the mansion that even the glass windows started vibrating in sync with the strength put on the swords.

Athenas sword was pressing into the glowing sword from her tutor, he was struggling to hold his sword against Athena.

Athena used a sword skill that increased her strength for a limited time, her strength already surpassed the average human thanks to the status system and her opponent as well. However, he was exhausted and wounded, while Athena was unfazed up to some extent.

Athena pressed her strength even further, her sword slowly reached her tutors shoulder as he struggled even more to keep his opponent from ending him.

“Huff… you think you can kill me? Puff… I can stay like this the whole day!”, he said. He was a trained killer, contracted by a noble’s daughter to kill a whole family and to destroy a village, all that just to make a girl suffer. There was no way he would be lying, even if he was he wouldn’t give up easily.

“Don’t worry, I was counting on that!”, Athena said with a triumphant smile.

Athena transfered mana into her sword and it started burning like wildfire, her tutor understood what she meant and at that moment his glowing sword got snapped into two pieces.

“AAAAAAHHHH!!!”, he screamed as Athenas blade cut right through his body. He fell to the ground bleeding from his injury, he touched the line of the cut. Checking, how deep the wound was and conducted that he wouldn’t survive.

Athena slowly walked forward and kneeled down, looking at her tutor. “Do you feel bad for what you did?”, Athena asked. He used what little strength he had left to look at her and said. “I don’t. I’m used to killing people, whether it’s nobles, commoners, monsters or Kings and Queens. I kill them if I am payed at a fair price.”, he answered.

“Aren’t you scared of dying?”, Athena asked another question. “If I’m ready to take another’s life, I need to be ready lose mine as well.”, he responded coughing a little bit of blood in the middle of his sentence.

Athena still gripping on her sword, held her sword to her tutors’ neck and said. “Final words?”, her tutor lied back down. “Just make it painless.”, those were his final words before Athena cut his head off.

His head rolled off like a ball, Athena stood up and looked up at the corpse “With this I’ve avenged them.”, she said with tears streaming down her cheeks.

 

<< The levels of ‘Enhanced Agility’, ‘Enhanced Mana’, ‘Intuition’, ‘Enhanced Muscular Strength’, ‘Automatic Mana Recovery’, ‘Chant Revocation’, ‘Thread Refining’, ‘No-Attribute Magic’, ‘Swordsmanship’, ‘Dark Attribute Magic’, ‘Dark Aura’, ‘Flame Manipulation’, ‘Thread Reeling’ and ‘Distorted Mind’ have increased. >>