A massive golden bear with eight limbs bulldozed his way through the area, knocking down trees in its wake as if they were twigs.

What was the most distinct about that creature was that its eight limbs were made out purely of golden light that matched the color of its brilliantly glowing fur shining like the miniature sun.

“ZZZHHHHOOOO-EEEEEEEE-MMMIIIIII…!”

The creature breathed out dark mist and focused its bloodshot eyes on the black-haired man.

“…hey there, furball… say… Is it my fault? I beat you up so hard that the filth managed to take over you…?”

Zoemi sighed, recognizing the monster as the same one he chased off when he first meet Alan – the boss monster – the creature also recognized him, but not in the same way…

“ZHHHOOOEEEMMIIII!”

The eight-limbed golden bear growled, salivating heavily as the monstrous jaws were trying to articulate a human speech.

“And you even brought all of your underlings to make me face a rampage all on my own after I will kill you… It makes me wonder… Can the scum possessing you can see and hear me?”

Zoemi raised his brow with a grimly amused expression and asked, nodding up at the massive salivating beast.

“GHHHRRRRAAAAARGH…!”

Whether it was the golden bear’s attempt at saying something or just a beastly growl was up there for debate, but it still made the black-haired man smirk.

“You were watching me, weren’t you? That’s why you got this furball to bring all of his little friends. I am not sure why you want the people around me dead but… nah, I imagine that you just want to get under my skin, don’t you? Cherro?”

Zoemi’s smirk turned into a grin and he asked directly the being pulling the strings on the monster puppet.

“GHRAAAAUUUUGH!”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

The golden eight-limbed bear roared and the black-haired man nodded with understanding despite not understanding a shred of meaning behind the sound.

“Let’s get it over with then, shall we? Law of Aries.”

Zoemi snickered and reactivated the star power that he deactivated to let it cool down even a bit before the encounter.

*WHOOOSH*

Then, he charged at the monster and his hand shot out through the air, aiming straight at the creature’s head…

———-

“…”

Alan was sitting down hugging his knees right by the gap between the entrance of the cave and the stone blocking it.

It was difficult for him to tell the exact time, but the sounds of the battle from the outside simply did not stop.

How many opponents there were?

Judging by the different cries there must have been a lot of different species of monsters there, and their numbers must have been staggering.

Alan did hear Zoemi speaking to one of the creatures, and as the one involved, he figured out what was going on.

The black-haired man must have been facing a boss monster.

That, in turn, would mean that even if Zoemi won, he would have to face the full brunt of the rampage – and that seemed to be the case.

The young man hugged his knees tighter, staring into the gap from which a faint warm breeze was pushing its way into the cool cave.

Unfortunately, when it comes to rampages, the strength of the monsters wasn’t the most dangerous factor.

No.

The biggest threat for anyone in the vicinity of that natural disaster was the sheer number of bloodthirsty monsters attacking anything in their battle for supremacy.

Alan worried about Zoemi’s power – he already saw him overwhelm enough opponents already.

…but the natural limit of the active use of star power was a different thing…

The black-haired man joked about doing some endurance training to use the law of Aries for a prolonged time, but the truth was that as long as the star power remained active and used up the spiritual energy of a user, it will begin generating heat.

And the jump would not be gradual – after constant use of spiritual energy for upkeeping the law of Aries even a minute over an hour would generate enough heat to scalding the user.

Even with the mastery of all six star levels of the law of Aries the longest time someone kept it active was one hour and ten minutes, and it was recorded that after that time that martial artist’s clothes caught on fire.

“…it must be over an hour already, right…? Will he really be okay…?”

Alan couldn’t help himself and let out a bothered sigh.

*whoooooo*

“…huh…?”

As if in response to Alan’s worries, the area he could see through the gap suddenly lighted up and the heat coming from the outside suddenly increased exponentially.

The young man hidden for his own safety clung onto the boulder blocking the exit and pressed his face against the cool stone in an attempt of catching even a glimpse of what was going on.

But instead of seeing anything, his other senses picked up on some disturbing things.

The smell of the smoke, of the burnt fur and searing flesh.

The surface of the stone got warmer and warmer with each second.𝒐𝓥𝓁xt.𝗇𝓔t

The pained screams of dying beasts.

*WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

A wolf-like monster running for his life was swallowed by a pillar of fire that was clearly shot at it, turning into a charred corpse as soon as the flames passed.

“What in the world is going on there…?! Is it another magic-using monster!?”

Alan flinched and let out a worried yelp, moving away from the gap, back into the relative safety of the shelter dug out in stone by the black-haired man.

Mana is poison.

That much was obvious so the young man’s fear was completely justified.

“Shh.”

“?!?!?!”

As he was backing off, Alan bumped against someone who should not be awake – Aaron’s father, Rhodes.

The man grabbed Alan and covered the young man’s mouth with his hand, whispering into his ear.

“Seeing that we are locked and not exactly in a situation in which escaping would be a smart option, why don’t you tell me about yourself and more importantly the black-sheep guy that’s absent? Also… how the hell do you know about monsters using magic?”

The dark sect’s member asked, feeling Alan tensing up in his grip.

“Do not scream, not that it matters because the outside is so loud anyway, but my son needs more time to recover and it’s better to not disturb him.”

Rhodes added and slowly took his hand off Alan’s mouth.