Jarak Lockster

Their faces instantly reddened in embarrassment. Kingsley wanted to move from this humiliating position right away, but he couldn't move with the little strength he had. "Uhm…Colleen… Can you help me stand?" he asked, flustered. "I'm terribly sorry."

"O- Okay, let me help you. You're injured so…it's not your fault." She managed to keep her cool, but she couldn't hide her shaking voice and flushed complexion. It was the second time today. What in the world was wrong today for two men to have a moment with her breasts?

~

'So, this guy is planning to use that gigantic sword to slay the mother Earth Wyrm? Can he even lift that?' Blaze thought doubtfully, though she was quite curious.

The enormous sword Jarak had stabbed into the green blood-splattered ground served as great intimidation, its height towering over the whole lot of them even as a considerable part of the blade was hidden into the ground it pierced. However, with its current size, they all could hardly imagine how he would utilize it.

"Come back, oh, my vampire!" Jarak whispered under his breath. The Vampiric Blade shifted in response to his words, moving along swiftly as if it had a mind of its own. It disconnected from the ground, leaving a deep cut on the dungeon floors as the blade flew back towards its master. Jarak caught the hilt with ease, wielding the monstrous weapon as if it were weightless.

Blaze gasped in shock. 'Impossible! How can he lift such a huge sword?!' she wondered. 'And…he can manipulate it without touching it, too?!'

Everyone else shared the same feeling of disbelief upon witnessing such magic; they couldn't believe what their eyes had just seen.

With a nasty smirk, Jarak swung the Vampiric Blade, slicing the Quindragon's head off in one fell swoop. It fell to the ground with a sickening thud, rolling across the grounds before it came to a stop before Kaiser's feet. Kaiser flinched, disgust flashing across his face as he bravely glanced down, the open eyes of the wretched, severed head staring straight up at him.

The Quindragon was dead, and the other Earth Wyrms wasted no time digging into the ground to flee from the vicious creature and his sword that slayed their mother.

"Bah!" Jarak wrinkled his nose with distaste as he watched them disappear one by one, kicking the ground with annoyance as it shifted beneath its feet. Once they were all gone, he glanced back up at his sword and said, "Shrink, my vampire!" With one simple command, the Vampiric Blade returned to its original form, looking quite harmless now.

Then, Jarak turned his attention towards Blaze. And only after Jarak faced her was when she noticed the strange markings on the right side of his body retracting. She watched them fade away to the point they looked as if they were never there.

'His mind-blowing strength must've come from those magical tattoos,' Blaze deduced. But she was yet to find out if her assumption was right.

All of a sudden, Kingsley shouted from a distance. "Blaze, be wary of him!"

Blaze heard the urgency in his voice and took his warning seriously, kicking the ground to launch herself backward, landing beside Kingsley and Colleen. "You know him?" Blaze queried with a frown.

"That's the backstabber, Jarak Lockster, an ex-official of the Solargard Faction's Council," Kingsley explained carefully. "That man single-handedly assassinated the Solargard Emperor to steal his legendary sword, the one we just saw. He was a 4-star dragon-slayer before he left, Blaze. He's not someone you can handle alone… We're in danger…"

Blaze blanched, trepidation rising up her chest as Jarak approached them as he stifled another yawn, scratching the back of his head in a lax manner. He was supposed to go back after he took care of the Quindragon, but Blaze's display earlier left him with questions, questions that he was eager to know the answers to.

"That small fry… I don't exactly know him, but he is correct," he said, pointing a nonchalant finger in Kingsley's direction. I am Jarak Lockster, the assailant of the Solargard Faction's Emperor." Though his tone seemed bored, the way he acknowledged his own crime made him sound prideful.

"I don't really care about any of you but... you, woman." Jarak's finger shifted pointed from Kingsley to Blaze. "How did you manage to wound the Quindragon? You're just a mere human."

'Me? A mere human? Aren't you just a human yourself?' Blaze wanted to say, but she only smirked. "For someone who stole a magical sword and already have magical tattoos, you sure seem greedy for other methods to strengthen yourself," she retorted.

"You-" A scowl formed on his lips and he stood up straight, looking down on the red-haired woman before him. "I thought you were smart, but it seems you still don't know your place. That guy already told you what you needed to know, yet you dare act like that in front of me?"

Though he seemed nothing more than a stupid man with a powerful weapon, the chilling aura of death about him was indeed too much for any of them to handle.

But Blaze didn't back down, staying headstrong to the end. "Tch, who cares?! Don't flatter yourself. A person like you wouldn't spare me and my comrades anyway…," she said bitterly.

Jarak chuckled, completely ignoring the nasty look Kingsley was shooting him. He never expected the woman to be that quick-witted. But he figured it was all for the best. Engaging in a battle against Blaze would better prove his assumption of her unprecedented overall power. Wasn't it better to just get straight to the point?

"Heh. Alright, alright, you got me there. But nothing changes," Jarak gibed, "because all of you are going to die here!" And in a rather provocative way, he sheathed the Vampiric Blade back in its scabbard and backed away with his arms held wide open, a devious grin on his face. It was an open insult to the dragon-slayers, a blatant sign of arrogance saying that he could defeat Blaze, their most skilled dragon-slayer, without the help of his legendary weapon.

Colleen placed a hand on Blaze's shoulder, worried and wanting to be of assistance. "Blaze, I'll help you."

Blaze shook her head and brushed Colleen's hand aside, all the while keeping her steady gaze on Jarak's. "No," she said. "You saw how powerful he is. I appreciate your offer, Colleen, truly. But you'll only be in the way against him."

Colleen wanted to protest, but she knew she couldn't change her friend's mind, so all she could do was reluctantly agree. Blaze was being serious. Colleen, Kingsley, and all the rest could do nothing but hope for her victory.

Blaze returned her dragon-slaying javelins to their place at her back, not appreciating the chivalry her opponent showed her. She wanted to fight him on equal terms. She glared at him, fire lighting in her sharp eyes.

"Bastard!" she cursed. "I hate to use this because it leaves me hungry right after, but you leave me no choice. I'll make you regret not using your blade-" She vanished.

Wooooosh!

Without a moment's delay, Blaze sprinted towards her opponent at lightning speed. She leaped off the ground and flipped forward in the air, creating momentum to perform a forceful, downward kick.

Jarak looked up at the incoming attack and flashed a wild grin, putting up his guard to block it with his crossed forearms. But to his surprise, the kick's strength was way more powerful than what he imagined, sending him flying across the Quindragon's lifeless body.

Boom-!!

Blaze's foot slammed onto the ground where Jarak stood seconds ago, forming a crater and sending a surge of cracks through the tough ground.

The dragon-slayers watching from the sidelines were left speechless, mind-blown from the impact made from just a single kick.

'How- how did she do that?!' Kingsley wondered. He turned to Colleen, but she shook her head, seeing the question in his eyes. Even she didn't know what was going on. Colleen knew Blaze was unbelievably strong, but not to an extent like that!

From the cloud of dust, Jarak emerged, laughing like a maniac. It was as if he'd just struck gold, paying no heed to the dull pain where he was struck in the arms. "Hahahaha! That's no ordinary kick, is it? If I didn't change the direction of the momentum at the last moment, that kick would've buried me alive! Hahahaha!"

Blaze clicked her tongue. Was that really something to laugh about? She planned to end her opponent in one move, catching him off-guard before he could activate his magical tattoos from earlier to fight back. But her attack failed without the tattoos even showing up, proving that Jarak was much more than just the magical power he possessed. She hated to admit, but she had underestimated him.

Some distance before her, that crazy obnoxious bastard was still cackling like some broken record put on max volume. It had only dawned on him then. "HAHAHAHAHAHA! IMPRESSIVE! Who would have thought I would get to see a Hyper Surge user in my life? You're unbelievable!" he burst, wiping his bloody nose with a swipe of his hand.

"Hyper Surge?!" the dragon-slayers surrounding him voiced out, stunned. "But isn't that a myth?"