While the battle intensified before Christopher's eyes, the girl fought with astonishing ferocity. Despite her young age, she moved with the agility of a tiger and the ferocity of a wolf, dodging blows and countering with precise strikes but her opponents were no ordinary foes.
The soldiers of the Holy Temple she faced weren't just soldiers; they were knights belonging to the Sacred Path. One of them pressed his fingers to his chest and whispered in a deep voice:
"Divine Shield Technique!"
A radiant golden aura enveloped his body suddenly, doubling his speed, and rendering him nearly invulnerable to the girl's attacks, forcing her to retreat and shift her style to defense.
In contrast, another soldier raised his hand toward the sky and shouted:
"Pure Light Sword!"
Sacred power thickened in the air, and a sword of light formed, descending from the sky like a meteor, slicing the ground between the girl and the two soldiers. Within moments, the girl pulled a small dagger from her belt, quickly etched a symbol on the ground, and whispered:
"Earth Array – Soul Shock!"
A hidden psychic wave exploded, stunning the soldiers. One of them dropped to his knees, groaning in pain from the sudden mental assault.
Christopher watched from a distance, his eyes tracking every move, every slip or step. His heart beat rapidly a mixture of caution and awe. But suddenly, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of danger, an instinct older than logic.
He leapt forward without thinking, and the moment he left his spot, a violent explosion erupted behind him. Dust and stones flew, and through the cracked earth, a massive man, three meters tall, emerged from the heart of the dust cloud. Thick iron chains coiled around his body like snakes dragging behind him, and he held a massive hammer glowing with mana.
Everyone froze even the girl and the temple soldiers staring at the newcomer in shock.
Christopher quickly wrapped his purple scarf around his face without a word, but tension crept into his eyes. This man… wasn't ordinary. The air itself seemed to grow heavier around him from the sheer weight of his power.
The man took a step forward, but his eyes were dull, his steps heavy, as if he were out of control, muttering unintelligible words:
"Melina… run…"
One of the soldiers screamed in terror:
"Hunter Lux!"
Another followed in panic:
"Damn it! Why is he here?!"
"Didn't the Oathmaster stop him?!"
The name "Lux" thundered across the battlefield, and everyone flinched.
Lux slowly turned toward Christopher, then suddenly lunged like a storm, his hammer crashing down with unimaginable force.
Christopher raised his mana-enhanced sword to block, but the blow was devastating.
His defense shattered, and his body flew like a ragdoll, crashing into a massive tree. He coughed up blood violently.
He felt his injuries worsening and whispered to himself:
"Damn it… what is this, a gorilla?!"
With the corner of his eye, he looked at the approaching giant, then closed his eyes and pretended to be dead while silently connecting with the strange disc.
Lux's dull gaze lingered on his body for a moment, then moved away, as if Christopher no longer posed a threat.
He turned to the soldiers, his eyes glowing with madness. Then, as if injected with stimulants, he burst into attack.
He ran toward the commander, his hammer swinging in the air, shouting:
"RAAAH!!"
BOOM!!
The commander's sword clashed with Lux's hammer, and sacred power and mana exploded between them.
The commander gritted his teeth in anger and shouted while retreating:
"Fall back! He's become a Hunt Thrall!"
Then he roared:
"Damn you, filthy hunters!"
Amid the chaos and explosions, the soldiers quickly retreated, trying to evade Lux's wild strikes that tore through the air and shook the ground beneath their feet. Each blow from his hammer was enough to crush armor, break bodies, and shatter spirits.
The commander, who barely blocked the last strike, groaned under the pressure, the sacred energy around him scattering rapidly under Lux's bloody aura. He looked around and saw his soldiers falling one after another some injured, others dead without a chance to fight back.
Lux was a monster… but not just any monster. He was a "Hunter" drowning in the spiral of the hunt a spiral that wasn't just a loss of control. It was a curse borne by anyone who chose the path of the hunter. Unlike saints and demonic beasts, hunters didn't rely solely on meditation to gather mana. They hunted demonic beasts and sacred path practitioners, stole their essence, and refined it into pure, untainted mana that was easier to absorb.
It seemed ideal on the surface: absorb pure mana faster, evolve at a stunning pace.
But… there was a price.
The more you killed, the more you absorbed and refined, the greater your hunger to hunt.
You begin to feel uneasy in stillness, meditation no longer satisfies you, training no longer fulfills you.
You just want… to hunt, to kill, to consume.
Until you fall into the spiral.
And then, you become a Hunt Thrall merciless, restless, unable to distinguish friend from foe.
Just like Lux.
From afar, the girl removed the white ribbon from her eyes and opened her blue eyes, gritting her teeth, her features charged with anger and hatred:
"…Uncle Lux."
She was about to retreat when she heard a faint voice behind her.
"Hey…"
She turned to find Christopher slowly rising from under the tree, his hands trembling, blood flowing from the side of his mouth.
Despite his miserable condition, his eyes sparkled…
Not with fear.
But excitement.
Christopher moved forward with hesitant steps, his right hand gripping his sword's hilt, while the other wiped blood from his mouth. The pain still pierced his body, but he ignored it, focusing only on that familiar feeling deep inside the longing for thrill, for danger.
"It's time to test what I've copied…" he murmured softly.
He took a deep breath, then activated the first technique:
"Earth Shadow Steps."
In an instant, his steps vanished into the shadows, and he dashed toward Lux with speed beyond his expectations. The ground beneath his feet barely made a sound his body nearly ghost-like, visible only in fleeting flashes.
Lux, engulfed in his frenzy, didn't notice the approaching movement from the side.
Suddenly, Christopher appeared behind him, and smoothly executed the second:
"Sword Basics — Opening Strike!"
The blow launched straight and precise, like an extension of his will. It wasn't powerful, but it was focused, aimed at Lux's shoulder-neck junction.
The sword pierced the skin, and Lux staggered a step, letting out a terrifying growl and unleashing an aura that pressed down on the battlefield, but Christopher didn't stop.
"World Shadow Sword."
Mana burst from his blade, transforming into a long shadow enveloping the sword, stretching and rippling in the air like a living creature.
His technique suddenly shifted shadow and sword strikes followed one another, irregular, unpredictable, striking from bizarre angles as if defying the laws of combat. Some blows were real, others shadowy illusions glowing with mana that confused the senses.
Lux roared and swung his hammer, but Christopher had become faster, lighter, smarter. His steps danced between shadow and shadow, and his strikes attacked and vanished like dreams. The longer the fight went, the more he adapted to the techniques.
But with every strike, he could feel the immense gap between them.
One wrong move… and it would be over.
"I can't beat him, but…" Christopher thought as he dodged a wild blow that split the earth in half, "maybe I can buy some time."
During a brief clash, he noticed something in Lux's eyes a faint tremble, a nearly extinguished resistance deep within the madness.
"He's still in there… trapped inside."
Christopher moved again, this time not attacking, but focusing his techniques to destabilize Lux, to delay him.
From a distance, the girl watched with wide eyes, her grip on the dagger tightening, then she muttered:
"This man… he's trying to keep uncle from collapsing completely…"
In her chest, mixed emotions flared: fear, anger, and gratitude.
The girl whispered:
"If there's hope to save Uncle Lux… then maybe, just maybe…"
She raised her head, her blue eyes glowing with new resolve, then leapt toward the battle.
The girl jumped like a wild cat, and instead of attacking, landed beside Christopher, who was retreating in calculated steps, his breath heavy and sweat covering his forehead. He turned to her, surprised, but said nothing.
She said quickly, without looking at him:
"Keep him busy… I'll try to wake him."
Christopher looked at her, nodded, then returned to the shadows, activating "Earth Shadow Steps" again to begin circling Lux like an elusive wraith.
The girl stood in place, closed her eyes, and pulled from her chest a small necklace with a cracked blue stone. She whispered:
"The last time I used this stone… you told me not to use it as long as I could recognize your footsteps among everyone else."
She opened her eyes and focused all her body's mana into the stone, which slowly began to glow.
Meanwhile, Lux had begun to slow down not because the sword hurt him, but because Christopher was setting a rhythm around him: appear, strike, vanish. The strikes didn't injure him much, but they nibbled at him, confused him.
And as the aura of madness stormed around Lux, suddenly, a thin thread of blue light pierced through from the girl's stone.
Lux was stunned, his muscles froze for a moment, then he growled… but it wasn't a growl of rage this time. It was… more like internal pain, a suppressed struggle.
The girl shouted:
"Uncle Lux! It's me, Melina! Do you remember me?! You promised… you promised not to leave me alone!"
The giant's body trembled, and his dull eyes began to shift… a faint glimmer of recognition weak, but present.
Christopher ran forward, and with "Sword Basics," struck lightly on specific pressure points in Lux's legs, briefly disrupting his movement not intending harm.
"Now! Do it!" he shouted to the girl.
Melina closed her eyes again, raised the stone to the sky, and chanted:
"Heart Array — Blood Echo!"
A warm wave of blue light surged forth, flooding the entire arena but its focus was clear: Lux's mind.
The burly man screamed and collapsed to his knees, groaning as if battling a phantom within his skull.
Then… with sudden calm, the aura of madness faded.
His head bowed, and his body fell still.
Seconds passed like ages before he whispered in a hoarse voice:
"…Melina?"
The girl cried out and wept:
"Yes… yes! I'm here!"
Lux smiled… then his body collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Melina ran to him, clutching his massive hand as she trembled.
As for Christopher, he stood in silence, watching them, then smiled wearily and murmured:
"Well… I didn't die."
But deep inside, caution still lingered.
As he gazed at the touching scene before him, he heard the sound of screaming.