Right there, amongst the ash, a beaten up, burnt man in his late thirties, with dark brown hair and gray eyes, was sprawled over. The bottom of his marital artist uniform held on fine but the upper part got devastated, hanging on his left shoulder by a threat.

But his attire wasn’t the part that suffered the most.

The fallen man’s right hand, shoulder, and a big part of his right side were gone, pulverized by the ridiculous heat that not simply burnt it, but straight up crystalized the tissue, stopping all possible bleeding from occurring.

“Clint… didn’t you say that the Blood Star sect has only one Supernova level marital artist… and that she has reached the supernova level in the law of Taurus…? Does this look like it was caused by earth element…? GUH…!”

The wounded man called Bevan groaned, gulping down his saliva with great difficulty and trying to get up but merely tumbling over, not used to having one less limb.

“If you can complain then you are fine. And don’t try to push the blame on me – I was working with the information gathered by the Star Pagoda and the Heavenly Archer sect. Also, you were told to not engage the unknown black-haired man.”

Clint let out a relieved breath before scoffing at Bevan.

“You know how far away that guy was? Ugh…! I barely saw the movement and reacted to it!”

The dark-brown-haired man complained, inhaling a mouthful of ash and spitting it out immediately after.

“Also, don’t make it seem as if there is a time when I can’t complain. I would complain even on my deathbed. And I will definitely complain to William about what happened here. Urgh… Law of Virgo.”

Bevan added sounding oddly proud of himself and activated the healing star power.

“If there is a stray marital artist capable of doing that to you of all people in the wild, then it definitely is a valid reason to bother the Heavenly Star warrior about. The big shots have to update that guy’s threat level.”

Clint nodded his head at the other man and reached out to help him get up on his feet.

“Shut up… if I had more time to practice the law of Aries I would have been fine. Urgh… now that position of the headmaster that I was offered doesn’t sound so bad… do you think they’ll still hire me?”

Bevan scoffed grumpily before taking the hand of the copper-haired man and asking with a heavy sigh.

“You’re quick to sack your career as a martial artist, don’t you think? Isn’t your law of Virgo on…”

“It’s not regenerating.”

The copper-haired man shook his head and smirked at the dark-brown-haired man while helping him up, but his words of encouragement were interrupted by a dry statement.

“Whoa there, maybe give it some time, alright?”𝑜𝑣𝓵xt.𝗇𝓔t

Clint’s eyes widened and he looked up at the taller man, trying to figure out whether it was just Bevan’s usual complaining or was he serious this time.

“I have been injured before, Clint. Even lost limbs more times than I will ever admit. This feeling… My right arm isn’t coming back… also… I think… It’s more serious than I thou…”

The taller man shook his head and started swaying to the sides, unable to keep his balance. All of a sudden, even though he was talking just fine moments earlier, his eyes flashed whites and he fell forward.

“Bevan?!”

He would have fallen face-first into ash, but Clint reacted in time, catching him immediately.

“…yeah… let’s get you somewhere safe first…”

The shorter man patted the unconscious man’s back and nodded with a heavy sigh, looking towards the sky with a worried expression.

—–

“…ghhhh… grhhhhh…!”

A deer-like monster with reddish stripes over the yellow body was breathing heavily while drooling buckets.

It stumbled its way out of the woods and moved towards the human settlement visible in the distance.

Despite having the body of a herbivore, that particular species was not only carnivore but venomous as well.

Although there was clearly something wrong with that one specimen.

As it was breathing, a thin black mist was getting pushed out of its nostrils just to be inhaled again without dispersing.

“…fhind him… gheth shthrongher… khill… Zhooeemii…!”

The deer-like monster let out a specific series of noises that were almost legible – the problem was that the clearly human speech was coming out of a beast’s mouth.

“…shthrongher… khill humansh… ghet sthrongher…”

*WHOOOOSH*

The possessed monster neighed and a sphere of condensed wind appeared between its prongs, howling furiously about to be unleashed in some sort of wind magic attack.

“Khi…? Iill…?”

As the monster continued its walk, something flashed in the sky over its destination, causing the normally cautious creature to look up in search of potential danger – or dinner – and…

*THUNK*

*haaaaaa*

A translucent ice sphere stabbed straight through the deer-like monster’s skull, killing it and pinning it to the ground in one shot while the spell it was conjuring released into the air with the soft sound resembling a person breathing out in relief.

After a little while, a blue-haired young man with a strict expression approached the carcass from the direction of the human settlement the creature was originally aiming for.

“…hmm…”

The young man furrowed his brows, grabbing onto the spear and lifting it up together with the monster’s head for a closer examination.

He had a particular pair of eyes – one was blue, just like his hair, while the other was completely black – not just the iris, the entire eyeball was completely black.

Murky black to be more specific.

“L-lord Perserios…! Please wait…!”

While the blue-haired man was inspecting the creature in silence, someone else came running from the same direction and joined his side.

A green-haired young man.

“You suddenly created and threw that ice spear out of nowhere! You should at least give me a warning! I didn’t know what to tell the people escorting us! Ugh…!”

The man complained, giving the blue-haired young man a disapproving look before moving his attention towards the dead monsters and shivering from disgust upon laying his eyes on it.