The assailant was a beautiful woman, she was dressed in armor over a knee-length white dress. A protective armor covered her head, legs and arms. The valiant features of her face with clear blue eyes resembled a Valkyrie prepared for war.

But, Leo ignored all this and stared at the broad silver wings on her back. Her wings awed him a little.

'Analyze'

[Hearst]

Level ??

Age: 2140 Female

Race: Apostle

Strength: 10000

Vitality: 10000

Defense: 10000

Agility: 10000

Magic: ∞

Magic Defense: 10000

Skills: [Disintegration] [All Elemental Affinity] [Spell Mending] [Mana Manipulation] [Limit Break]

'2140 years? Infinity mana? She is definitely someone related to Ehit.'

He smirked at the so-called Apostle. "So Ehit finally decided to pay attention to me, honestly, I am flattered."

"A mortal like you shouldn't call the Lord by his name. I, Hearst shall teach you that," she said in an emotionless voice, but his perception allowed him to sense hidden anger in it.

"Wait, let me ask a question before we fight. Does Ehit live in a place called Asgard?"

Hearst inclined her head to the side. "Yes, that is where our creator lives."

Leo burst out in laughter hearing this. "I didn't expect your shitty god to copy something from Earth. First Valkyries then Asgard, can you even be more unoriginal?"

"No need to mock me or My Lord, for I possess no emotions."

The apostle declared and flapped her wings, torrent of silver feathers cut through the air and charged toward Leo.

He waved his hand, a wall of blazing red flames appeared in front, the mana imbued silver feathers crashed against the flame wall. The result, every single feather perished in moments.

A mocking grin floated on his face. "Is that all you got? If so, then I'm disappointed."

"In the name of our Lord, I'll eliminate any irregularity."

Her cold voice turned even colder and she summoned two large greatswords, each longer than 2 meters and more than 30 cm wide.

She vanished, no, she moved faster than human eyes could perceive. But, with his new skill, he perceived every movement as if she was nothing more than a normal human.

He equipped his cursed sword and lazily raised the sword with one hand.

Clang!

Her giant sword struck his pitch-black sword with enough force to kill any monster in the abyss, yet, he blocked it without being pushed back an inch.

"C'mon show some power, or it might get boring."

Her eyes opened wide, her pupils still emotionless. Seeing her, a strange thought came to his mind, what if I try [Bind] on her? I can get all the information about Ehit and Asgard. But he shook away the thought.

The Apostle tried her best to hit him, he dodged her attacks easily with his elevated senses.

'I need to finish it quickly, this skill is taxing on my mind. Nah, let's fight till my heart's content. No better way to train my skills than in a deadly battle.'

He reversed the grip on his sword and slashed at her throat.

She hurriedly flapped her wings to retreat and glared at him from a safe distance or so she thought.

He smirked and shot a wind blade at her.

Swoosh~

She crossed her sword to defend against the sudden attack.

He lightly tapped the ground and closed the distance, a burst of silver aura exploded around Hearst's body. She finally used limit break to raise her stats by 3x.

A dazzling smile appeared on his face as he stopped the rift walk skill and used wind magic to keep himself afloat. Her sword clad in disintegration element tore the air itself and arrived in his chest, he parried the attack with his sword covered in gray aura.

'Cursed sword's aura can negate her disintegration?'

Hearst also noticed it, still, she continued her assault, every move of hers aimed for his vitals. Her current stats were more than twice of Leo's. That didn't stop him, he dodged every attack with a minimum of movement, a predatory grin fixated on his face.

'Didn't I always fight at a disadvantage? The behemoth, wolves, and cyclops. Well, I failed in the Hydra fight.'

Swoosh~

Hearst greatsword arrived in his face, he tilted his head, missing the sword by a hair's breadth. Her move left a narrow opening for him to exploit.

He used the back of his hand to slap away the sword, her lax stance crumbled even more. He raised the sword in his right hand and struck down.

Clang!

Hearst managed to block the attack with her left sword at the last moment, but her stance was completely broken.

The sword vanished from Leo's hands, he grabbed both her hands and pulled her with all of his strength.

Bam!

His strengthened knee hit her jaw. Hearst angled her head backward to minimize the impact.

He suddenly let go of her hands, Hearst flapped her wings to regain some balance. The cursed sword appeared in his hands, he smirked and manipulated every bit of his mana to boost his physical strength and struck down.

Zing~

The sword ripped through the air and hit her mana imbued wings. Like a meteor, she crashed into the sands.

His stats weren't enough to achieve this feat, but he raised it by [Body strengthening], a derivative skill of mana manipulation.

[+Body strengthening (I)] (Active skill)

Allows the user to strengthen the whole body using mana. One unit of mana is converted into one point of strength.

With his enormous amount of mana and endurance, he was able to strengthen his body 2.5x without breaking a sweat, raising his stats to nearly 30000.

Hearst flew out of the sand and glared at him coldly. The corners of her wings were charred. She gathered silver feathers in front of her and arranged in a strange formation, they overlapped with each other and created a magic circle.

He kept floating in the air and gazed at her curiously.

"Hellfire Tsunami"

A tide of crimson fire that scorched the very atmosphere attacked him. The area of the spell was so large that the crimson red replaced everything in his vision.

He grinned wildly in the face of her attack and shot his own flame breath.

Boom~

Both flames clashed and exploded, the shockwave knocked him a few meters back.

"How many like you are there in Asgard?"

"The Great Lord can create any amount of us disposable tools," she said, her voice filled with fanaticism.

"The fuck? That's scam. All of you have infinite mana?"

He shot a skeptical gaze at her. She must be lying, he thought.

'Still, I'll need an army to fight against them. I can kill a group of them if I go all out.'

An image of a group of rabbit-eared assassins came to his mind. No, I can't use them like this, besides, they are Shea's tribe. Any of their deaths will make her sad.

He looked at the now silent Hearst and whispered, "Time to end this. Limit break."

A blood-red aura enveloped him, he slowly landed a dozen meters away from Hearst. A trickle of blood leaked from her lips and dropped onto the sand.

She was pressured by the man in front of her. She never came across anyone who could injure her except the traitors she killed before.

"What are you? You aren't human. Are you a descendant of traitors?"

"Technically, I'm a half-human and half-monster."

"Monster?"

He ignored her and equipped a black dagger in his left hand. Hearst also readied her swords and charged at him.

Both sides collided with deafening noise and started trading blows with a speed that left afterimages.

Hearst hands were numb, she noticed the casual smile on his face. A strange feeling welled up inside her when she saw the smile.

'Am I losing? To a mere human? I, the great enforcer of My Lord losing to a human?'

Her attacks became more and more aggressive, the more emotional she became.

'Oh, she's getting impatient now.'

He noticed a strange glint in her eyes, he recognized it easily, the same glint he saw in his own eyes sometimes… Rage. She was getting angry at him. He smiled in amusement and decided to push her harder.

He lightly evaded her sword aiming at his throat. He capatalized on her mistake and plunged his dagger into her forearm. Grabbing the dagger in reverse, he dragged it past her elbow. The dagger shone blue and froze the flowing blood.

The greatsword slipped and fell on the sandy ground. Still, her eyes were emotionless, even after suffering such a horrible wound.

He kicked the sword away and thrust the dagger toward her throat. She ducked down to dodge, he smirked and rammed his right knee in her face.

Crunch~

His casual blow crushed her nasal bones, blood spurted from her nose and dyed the sand below red. He grabbed her hair and pushed his left knee in her face.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

One after another powerful knee hit her face, every one of his attacks was enough to blow a human head in pieces, but the inhumane apostle only suffered superficial wounds.

Once he got a little tired, he pulled her up by hairs. Looking at her swollen face, his anger somewhat cooled off. Her cold expression before was replaced with something strange, it was a mix of shame, anger... and a bit of… pleasure?