A shrill, metallic sound reverberated as the blades clashed against each other.

As before, Magna only used one arm for his attack in contrast to Loren, who used both arms. The difference was that this time the longsword had an absolute advantage.

“What kind of strength was that?!”

In their previous battle, there was no such thing as an absolute defeat, and even though it was a two-armed versus one-armed situation, the strength of the two of them were matched to some extent.

But this time, Loren was completely outmatched. His greatsword was flipped backwards and hit his body. Even so, he didn’t let go of the sword, and as he regained his stance with a shout, Magna closed in with another blow. He swung the longsword ever so lightly, but the blow pushed Loren’s body, which was defended by the greatsword, even further backwards. Loren had to do all he could to maintain his stance so that he wouldn’t fall down.

From the look of it, Magna’s arms were definitely not as well trained as Loren’s. Loren’s weapon should also have been more powerful, if not overwhelmingly so. But when they parried, it was as if something other than arms’ strength and weapon’s weight was at play, and Loren would be defeated.

“You’re using some tricks, aren’t you?!”

If Magna was using self-boost techniques, he would have been defeated instead, since it was hard to believe that Loren would lose against him if it was a contest of plain brute strength. Thus, Loren was sure that he was using something else other than demons’ self-boost techniques.

“Watch your mouth, lowlife. Do you plan to continue your disrespectful acts?”

“Stop ‘mongrel’ this ‘lowlife’ that! My name is Loren!”

Loren thought that telling Magna his name would make him use it. But the guy didn’t seem to have any interest in hearing it. He continued while completely ignoring Loren’s name.

“A mongrel introducing his name? How impertinent.”

“It’s better than someone like you, who still hasn’t introduced himself after all this time!”

“The Demon King has already told you my name, right? There’s no need for me to introduce myself to you.”

“What an attitude you have.”

Loren replied and attacked. His slash was so fast that it was hard to believe he was using a greatsword, yet it was easily flicked up just by a swing of the longsword. As Loren tried to regain control of his greatsword, Magna changed his stance and raised his shield up. Loren wondered what he was planning to do, raising his shield while Loren couldn’t make a counter-attack yet, but Magan’s intention soon became clear.

With his shield up, Manga kicked the ground and charged into Loren, who was trying to regain his stance.

The shield slammed into Loren, its impact knocked the wind out of him and sent his body flying. After a short moment of floating sensation, Loren slammed down into the ground. His breath caught in his throat at the impact, but he didn’t even have time to work through the pain: the longsword immediately came at him, forcing him to roll back to dodge. Loren was desperately trying to get away from Magna, but the moment he stood up, he was forced to fall over by another blow from the shield.

“Loren!”

When Lapis was about to run up to him, Noel shot at her. Lapis paid her arrows no mind and kept running, and Gula used her own body to shield Lapis.

“Out of the way!”

“Shut up. I’ll deal with you two.”

Gula’s power chewed through the arrows rained on them. Noel’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of her arrows being suddenly crushed in empty air, but she figured Gula must have used some kind of force to do it, and changed her aim to Gula.

Lapis spared a glance at the scene of arrows colliding with Gula’s power, then turned her attention back to Loren, who was knocked to the ground by the shield and Magna, who was about to run his longsword through him. She forced her way through his opening.

“Woman, get out of my way!”

“I don’t think it’s necessary to speak out loud everything that can be understood just by a look.”

Magna raised his shield at Lapais, and she drove her right fist into it with all her might. With a dull sound, the strong punch shook the shield, but it was Lapis and not Magna who had to step back. She looked astonished, but safely dodged the longsword’s thrust that followed.

In the meantime, Loren staggered to his feet.

“What the hell is this guy? He’s more than a little tough!”

“That’s also what I want to ask. He’s a lot tougher than the last time we fought.”

“What’s different from the other day is…”

As Lapis looked closely at Magna, he attacked her. She dodged with ease, and when he made for a follow-up strike, Loren’s sword slammed into this shield. He shook Loren off with an impatient shake of the shield just like one would shake off an insect, and Loren was sent flying.

“The shield? The shield strengthens the magic?”

“Is that how they work?”

Lapis didn’t know where the armor Magna was wearing came from. If it was from the same set, Lapis thought that it wasn’t so surprising that Magna’s power was increased by carrying the shield, something he didn’t possess when he last engaged in battle with Loren.

If that was correct… Lapis looked down at the black helmet that she still held in her left hand. She was holding it so that she could throw it into the crater at any time, but she couldn’t seem to find the right moment to do so. She had thought that now would be the right time as Gula was able to deal with Noel’s sniping, but then she was faced with the problem of Magna being too strong for Loren.

“If you ditch that guy, you might at least find the right moment to dispose of that, right?”

Magna chuckled, pointing at Loren with his chin. Lapis did not answer, but continued to pay attention to each of Magna’s movements. Surely, if she didn’t have to worry about Loren, she might be able to get free and throw away the helmet. But quickly dismissed that thought.

“It’s certainly important to dispose of this thing.”

Hooking her fingers on the helmet, Lapis light waved it around and said. It was a very crude way to handle things, and Magna’s eyes slightly narrowed. From Lapi’s point of view, this helmet, which they had to throw down into the crater, was no better than garbage.

“But compared to this piece of trash, Lonren’s life is undoubtedly more important.”

Lapis boldly declared, but Maga didn’t seem to take offense. He laughed.

“So, lady-killer, how does it feel, being protected by women?”

If not for Lapis’ intervention, Loren’s life might have ended when he was knocked to the ground by the shield.

In response to Magna’s mocking, Loren nonchalantly raised his greatsword without any anger. It was indeed a fact that Lapis had saved his life, and Magna pointing it out didn’t offend him. Loren was more confused as to why Magna would point it out in such a mocking tone.

“About that, you can fight like this thanks to that Dark Elf, can’t you?”

If it wasn’t for Noel, they would have gone at Magna three-on-one, and in that case, it was impossible to tell if Magna would have been able to overpower Loren as he was now. Loren was sure that the reason why Gula wasn’t attacking Magna was because Noel was holding her back, and it could be said that Magna was also protected by Noel.

“You get it wrong. I can fight without That.

He said, pointing at Noel.

“That person only followed me because she wanted to. I don’t care if she’s not here.”

“Sounds like there won’t be any rewards for her.”

“Instead of worrying about others, why don’t you worry about yourself? Don’t you see how reckless it is to try to fight me?”

It had been a complete defeat for Loren, even with his self-boost techniques in effect. He didn’t think the situation would be improved by much even if he entered the state where something in his head snapped.

“Well, that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up.”

“You still want to do it? It’s a shame that you don’t know your place in the world.”

The jacket Loren was wearing was a highly efficient item that was previously given to him by a high ranking vampire, the Divine Ancestor. It boasted a high level of protection that one would not expect from its appearance. But even with the jacket on, the damage Loren received from the blow of Magna’s shield was quite serious. If it weren’t for that jacket, Loren might have been driven to his death by a single blow. Right now, his body was screaming after the several hits he had taken.

“Do you have a plan?”

As Loren had declared that he didn’t want to give up, Lapis came up to him and asked while touching his hand. Loren felt something warm flowing into his body from where she had touched him, and the pain from the places where he had been hit with the shield and knocked to the ground receded.

“No, I can’t think of anything in particular yet.”

I’m sure Magna knew that if Lapis, a priest, touched Loren, she would use her healing on him. Yet he just kept a faint smile and didn’t stop her from approaching him. Well, having a priest heal his body wasn’t going to change the situation, and Loren grimaced as he felt the implication.

“It’s a shame for a mercenary to lose to a human in swordsmanship, get slammed with a shield, and then just turn tail.”

If it was against a demon or something, it might have been necessary to back off. But if the opponent was a human, Loren believed that as a mercenary who had earned his living in war, he should somehow defeat him. Of course, if he was out of options, it was important to run away without looking back, but Loren hadn’t exhausted all of his options against Magna yet.

“I’ll make that arrogant face of yours twist in surprise for once in your life.”

With his longsword and shield at the ready and a calm smile on his face, Magna provoked Loren.

“Try it, lowlife. What can you even do?”

“I’m thinking!”

Gripping his greatsword, Loren shouted as if to fire himself up, then slashed at Magna from the front.