Chapter 64.

A blast of fire consumed the plants that were in the area that he had just been standing in.

Adrian winced at the smell of burning plants and the stinging pain in his arm and continued to dodge the blasts. Aultcray didn't stop. Hadn't stopped. And tons of the trees and vines he had grown in the clearing had been burned to cinders. He was happy that he had not interrogated Aultcray in the middle of the city. Adrian had moved him just in case the man was as powerful as the Book Hero but hiding it for some reason and it had paid off. Even so, he had not expected the mess he was now in. Malty was supposed to be dealt with.

He carefully tracked Aultcray even as he triggered his Dash. For a moment he felt free and then he stumbled as his skill was disrupted.

Adrian was used to it by now.

Blindsight fed him false images, Mana Sight failed to be consistent, Dash was interrupted, Sword Projections were dissolved and Sword Beams ended abruptly. Night Vision flickered giving him a headache.

Malty was dangerous but she couldn't disrupt more than one or two of his skills at a time and it was never for very long. Unfortunately, it was long enough for Aultcray to actually have a chance against him. And her mysteriously climbing levels did not encourage Adrian.

Adrian saw the next set of fireballs coming. His skills weren't something he could trust but his stats and his eyes were enough. He triggered both Dash and his Hundred Sword and felt a grim satisfaction as his Dash failed to activate. An instant later the fireballs had been intercepted and his sword flew on towards Malty and Aultcray who were cowering behind a series of mirror-like reflectors and a barrier made out of chains.

The swords struck hard and exploded in an example of elemental fury. Fire, Ice and lightning bloomed on the surface of the barrier and shattered it.

Aultcray snarled and unleashed a massive blast of reddish energy that destroyed the swords and the vines that had been sneaking upon them. The Vassal Hero quickly set up the barriers again before placing the mirrors in an odd configuration.

He fired the red beam of energy on the mirror and it reflected off it before hitting the next one and then the next much faster than before. Adrian realized what was happening a moment before it occurred and Dashed out of the way, wincing as he stumbled out of it a second later and running out of the range of the attack.

Aultcray turned the final mirror so that the beam followed the Sword Hero. Adrian triggered his Thousand Sword and Dash again. Malty was quick to crush his Dash but before she could do the same to his projected swords Aultcray's barrier had been shattered and the Cane Hero had been forced to stop his attack.

He was going to die. The thought was abrupt but undeniable.

Malty had already disrupted his teleportation once. The skill was too slow to activate. Adrian was fast but not so fast that he could avoid the Cane's bombardment without a lot of luck. Distance didn't stop Malty from interrupting his skills.

Neither Aultcray nor Malty were a threat alone but both of them together were pushing him. It still unnerved him that they had actually managed to injure him. Not even the Book Hero, who had been a hell of a lot stronger, had managed that.

He was thrown out of his thoughts when the ground beneath his feet shook. A quick check on his underground plants confirmed his suspicions. Earth magic. Adrian quickly created a second step platform and felt a surge of satisfaction after it was disrupted.

Dash took him away. Blindsight revealed the spikes that had emerged from the ground.

Adrian grimaced and prepared for the attack to follow. Aultcray had not let him cut loose yet and Malty's continuous disruption stopped him from taking to the air or just annihilating her father with a massive Sword Beam. Disruption wasted mana and left him vulnerable so he did the only thing he could.

He ran.

Dashed away and moved away at his greatest stat driven speed. He counted on Blindsight and his senses to move and tried to create some distance.

Aultcray didn't let him.

A curtain of fire emerged in front of him and a massive set of earthen spikes rose at his position.

Aultcray was quite far away but his sheer skill at projecting magic was stunning. Adrian blasted the curtain with a Sword Beam, cursed as it was disrupted and then Dashed away from the flames as they condensed at his position. A quick turn let him see that Blindsight had lied to him again.

Aultcray wasn't as far as he had assumed. The dissonance of Blindsight insisting that Aultcray was still on the ground and the truth that he had taken to the sky was jarring. The man had moved up, standing on a barrier with Malty. Adrian's plants ceased to block his vision. He had aerial supremacy and Adrian would be dead if he failed to run or stop Malty.

Without more than an instant of thought, he dismissed the Slave Seal that bound her. It was foolish. The seal should not allow her any power over him, in fact, it was giving him a small edge because it tracked her position but this was his best shot.

He tried to activate his Dash and moved upwards. It would tempt her like nothing else to leave him stranded in the sky.

He hoped that it would work but the expected occurred as she cut off his skill. For just a moment the world slowed and his lungs felt like they were too full. Then, the moment was over and he was falling.

His body was upside down and his head was twisting as Blindsight and his eyes fed him conflicting information.

"Die!" Aultcray was smiling like a madman as he fired off a massive burst of lightning that bounced around his mirrors until it had been amplified and was coming from behind him. He shut off Blindsight after it was proven wrong again.

He felt like he'd cut off his own eyes. It was horrible not to be able to see everything.

Adrian activated his sword projection, launched one sword at the attack, another at Aultcray and the last was created directly underneath his feet. He kicked off of it and launched himself back to the ground barely avoiding the sparks that survived his counter on the lightning.

Malty had her eyes closed and was chanting. Adrian's fear multiplied. He glanced at Malty's level that had been climbing throughout this battle. She was-

His mind paused even as he commanded his plants to rise higher.

She was in his fucking party.

He kicked her out and clarity filled his mind as the consistently low-level annoyance of having his Blindsight flicker and lie to him faded.

Adrian's attention turned upward and terror-filled him. His eyes could see nothing but Blindsight was not so easy to deceive.

He manifested ten swords and his attack lanced out. Swords Beams struck Aultcray's barriers. Some were absorbed, others shattered their targets while others bounced the attacks back right at him.

Adrian wasn't there anymore.

Nearly a kilometre above his previous position Adrian triggered Ten Thousand Swords and changed a fair fraction of the swords produced into his Anti Magic swords. A mere moment before he launched his attack he witnessed the panic that Malty displayed. She had moved closer to her father and had stopped chanting.

His attack struck. Within a second Aultcray and Malty were left defenceless. They only lived thanks to the chains that seemed to degrade his swords which Aultcray used both as a barrier and a means to get to the ground.

Adrian's plants met them there. His most lethal creations swarmed the royals. To their credit, Aultcray and Malty reacted well. A barrier and a multi-element blast were used to keep the plants at bay.

It was a pity that the plants were only a distraction.

He consumed half a dozen potions, grateful as the pain in his arm vanished, even as the remainder of the swords he had summoned using his skill descended. The vanguard negated their barriers, both the ones that existed and the new ones Aultcray created, and the rest reached them and exploded.

Malty smiled before she was consumed. Adrian felt an odd sort of terror rise as he felt absolutely certain that the girl wasn't Malty.

Blindsight confirmed that their bodies had been destroyed. The Cane was still there but he paid it no mind. Instead, Adrian created a couple of swords and blasted the area further with some beams before using his plants to cover the place in acid. He didn't stop trying to destroy the area until he received two notifications.

One Level 122 Human Killed 15,000 Exp Received

%#$^&#$ was killed 45,984 Exp Received

Adrian should have been stunned at the massive exp gain but his attention was on the massive portal in the sky. A portal that seemed to be shrinking. It's edges visibly warping as far as his Blindsight was concerned.

Malty had not been chanting to disrupt him. She had apparently been doing that using the party system. It made some degree of sense. The party system allowed kills to be shared and then enhance a person's soul. It was a complex ritual system that connected the people in it. Malty or whatever she had become had exploited it.

Her chanting had somehow created a portal. It wasn't like the cracks in the world that the Waves rifts were like. This was something different. More...stable for the lack of a better word. The only thing that he could compare it to was the strange rift that the Book Hero had created.

The idea was worrying. The thought of this thing somehow exploding like the Book Hero's attack had was a little terrifying. Especially if the range was larger.

Adrian was tempted to just run away...but this portal could be the one that led to Isis and Naofumi. He had to try to access it. At least register it to his sword if he could not access it but before he could muster his courage. He received a notification.

Dragon Hourglass in 'Melromarc Capital' Activating

Teleport to Location?

Adrian's eyes widened. He quickly checked on the countdown timers for the Hourglasses and then just stared at his status screen.

All of them had been pushed forward.

A quick check confirmed his suspicions. The closest Hourglasses had their countdown time reduced the most. The Cal Mira Wave would happen in a month rather than in three months. The Zeltoble Wave wasn't as badly affected and would happen tomorrow and all the others would take place a little bit earlier. Even the most distant Hourglasses, the ones on the other continent, had their countdown altered.

He checked for Malty-no, the entity that had replaced her- again as he realized just how dangerous she might have been. The Hourglasses had been working against her. He couldn't be certain what they had done but she might have been only this weak because of the Hourglasses. Adrian took a breath and tried to think but his head felt light as he realized that he had been dealing with something very, very powerful that could take away his only source of strength.

Adrian quickly searched for the Cane and found it just lying inside a crater full of poison. Its mana was badly drained and it seemed completely inactive.

He was pretty sure he knew where that thing got the power to open the portal from.

Adrian used his plants to remove the Cane from the pool and Dashed forward to pick it up. His poison resistance allowing him to ignore the poison and moved back up into the air to avoid the horrible smell of burning plants.

None of this helped him ignore the pain of the Cane as it shocked him.

"Stop," he said, shaking the weapon, "I just want to know who your next wielder is so that I can meet them."

He felt a little foolish talking to a gemstone tipped staff but he was pretty certain that the weapons were at the very least very well designed and responsive artefacts. The way the pain stopped and the sensation of disappointment he received was confirmation enough.

He frowned and then shook his head. He didn't have time to play guessing games with the Cane. There was a Wave active. He needed to get there and he needed to deal with the portal. Adrian glanced at the distortion in space. It was still invisible but his skills let him see that it was shrinking.

"Just stay with me for now." he said, wondering where to look at when addressing the Cane, "I need your help to retrieve the Shield Hero who is in another world."

For a long moment, Adrian got no response. Then the Cane began to glow and turned into motes of light.

"Hey! Wait!" he started to say when the motes entered his Sword and he got the feeling of acceptance.

Vassal Cane has been bound to the Legendary Sword to regain power. Do you accept this action?

Adrian was uncertain. The Cane had been used by whatever that thing was. What if it was still under her power? Her body might have been utterly destroyed but he wasn't willing to assume that she was dealt with.

The risk was undeniable but it was also a fact that he needed the Cane and it was possible he'd need it soon.

"Fine," he said, deciding to speak to Fitoria as soon as possible. She was his best shot at deciphering this, "I accept."

He stared at his sword and wondered at his fortune. Somehow he had gotten what he'd wanted. Sure, he expected complications but he was making progress. There had been a part of him that had given up on Isis and Naofumi.

He ignored the shame. Now was not the time to bother with such emotions. He'd make it up to them by getting them back.

Adrian Dashed to the portal, his heartbeat spiking as he approached it, and reached out to it with his sword. The notification was expected and heart-rending. Even his relief that he hadn't set off an attack didn't reduce the bitter feeling that welled up.

Legendary Heroes may not invade other worlds. Please step away from the rift leading to 'Dimension B'

Dimension has been registered.

He sighed and then activated the teleport to the Wave after verifying that the portal was vanishing. He would have liked to study it somehow but he wasn't capable of it and honestly, he was happy that whatever Malty wanted was being ruined.

Adrian wanted to hope that this was over. Hope that Malty had just awakened a superpower due to the trauma he had inflicted on her and that she wasn't something a lot more dangerous.

The space around him began to shatter and Adrian dismissed his silly thoughts.

This world wasn't kind enough to allow for that.

His appearance directly above the Castle Town with the Wave in full swing was more than enough proof.

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