Blood puppet.

'...Impossible!'

She stares at the scene in front of her, remaining speechless.

Frozen in spot, she looked at the black sphere with dismay—visibly overwhelmed by what she saw.

In front of her, fifteen meters away, a black sphere above which blood was still flowing, filled her eyes with anger but also exasperation.

Why does this sphere seem intact despite being caught in a destructive explosion?

This question gnawed at her will like rust oxidizing iron, gradually weakening her confidence.

A feeling of indelible unease paralyzed her eyes; despite her blood boiling over her veins.

Her current emotions were duality incarnate.

However, despite the powerful detonation caused by one of her ultimate skills, the surrounding walls were intact, leading anyone to believe that the explosion was not that powerful.

As time passed slowly like the beat of her heart, the sphere began to be sucked inward by a mysterious influence, exposing Mystic in Devon's arm.

On the latter's other hand, another black sphere, similar to the last big one was channeled but in small ping-pong ball size. The small black sphere continued to absorb the large one by continuously channeling it.

With more practice, Devon figured out a trick that allowed him to save his spiritual energy. This method consisted of recovering the spiritual energy he had used before.

To put it simply, even though he had almost used all of his spiritual energy to create the black shield, he recovered almost all of that energy through this cheating method.

'I didn't expect it to work this well.'

The first to be surprised was neither Miyorirath, nor Mystic, but Devon himself.

[Alert! You only have fifty percent of your spiritual energy remaining. Do you want to use evolution points to restore your spiritual energy?]

Devon was undecided for a moment.

'My skill is similar to that of this girl, but with some close differences. She needs blood that she must probably manipulate thanks to her spiritual energy, which is not my case.

After reaching level six, this dark energy control skill allows me to more easily create, as far as possible, what I want as long as I can imagine it perfectly.

Contrary to what I believed in the past, the energy consumption does not depend on the number of remodeling of my spell, but on its size.

To create a sword, the amount of energy required is less than that of a crossbow—in addition to being more sophisticated than a sword, the arrows of the crossbow are not recoverable and, therefore, less advantageous than a sword.

The shield and the others must follow the same operating system—like this protective sphere.'

In less than five seconds, he was able to make an overall analysis of his skill. It's a skill that he had never seen before, even in the webtoons he read.

'Blood control or shadow control is similar, but it seems that that skill allows me to control spiritual energy by materializing it, although supposed to be invisible. ...I must look for information before jumping to any conclusion.'

With that conclusion, he releases Mystic who is in his arms like a fragile girl.

But the latter still seemed in shock as she looked at the small orb floating above her beast's palm.

'The darkness had swallowed me up, depriving me of my five senses, what was that skill?' She whispers, unable to dots on i's.

'I remember though that he only has one skill, does this single skill have so many sub-skills, ...making it versatile in attack and defense as well?'

However, she didn't waste her time thinking about something she didn't have the answer to. 

Her eyes then focused on Miyorirath who had already manifested hundreds of crimson needles floating around her. 

'That skill again...' 

This time, Mystic didn't play with her luck by rushing at her like a bull. If it wasn't for Devon's intervention, she would probably be seriously injured right now. 

The walls and floor painted in red were still a reminder that she had to be careful. 

The most dangerous thing is that she doesn't know yet if her enemy's skill only works on her beasts. 

'I still don't know if this strange skill is related to the distance or her beasts.' 

Although the latter hypothesis was the most plausible, she wasn't tempted to verify. 

Therefore, she took a step forward, her eyes similar to those of a hungry wolf. 

For a simple reason, Miyorirath sped things up as she felt a shiver from Mystic's weird gaze.

She swings her hand, launching her bloody needles with her control.

To respond to this attack, Mystic sinks her blade into the ground with incredible force that creates a sonic shockwave.

This action did not block Miyorirath's attack but deformed the needles by giving them back their original shapes.

Miyorirath's frontal nerves swelled in exasperation, understanding what Mystic had just done.

'Tsk! She used that strange movement to disrupt my spiritual energy with her own!' 

However, she didn't let shock get the better of her fighting spirit. 

Her magical energy exploded from her body, turning into a surging wave that Mystic and Devon could feel through the air current. 

She was still well guarded by four wolves and the alpha who had not yet moved. 

Because of this feeling of reassuring security, she lowered her body and placed her palm against the cold tiles of the floor. 

Her pupils became more bloody red showing that she was using a high-level skill. 

"Fifth blood skill...blood harvest!" As these words were muttered by her, a strange phenomenon took place under the wary eyes of Devon and Mystic.

The countless pools of blood around them began to crawl towards her palm, channeling themselves into a huge sphere of blood that rivaled Devon's previous sphere in size.

But unlike Devon's sphere, that one wasn't empty from the inside but was formed of several layers.

The heavy smell of blood was no less than that of a battlefield.

The two didn't know what she was planning, but neither seemed in the mood to see her go through with this madness.

As the sphere split into small bubbles and floated above her five remaining beasts, Mystic looked at Devon with keen eyes.

Devon didn't need to hear what was on her mind to figure it out.

He created black arrows from his sphere and threw them at the remaining wolves.

However, due to the distance between them, Miyorirath had enough time to create a half-circle shield with one of his orbs.

'It lacks piercing power.' Realizing his arrow's weakness, Devon reshaped the rest of his black orb into a nine-foot thick spear that he threw with all his might.

Nevertheless, even though his throw wasn't perfect, he was able to hit the massive shield about thirty-five meters away from them.

Due to the brute force and the amount of energy put into the attack, the spear was able to pierce the enemy shield and take down one of the wolves right next to Miyorirath.

The latter's eyes tremble with fury at the sight. 'I have to take down that damn skeleton who specializes in long-range attacks first.'

She quickly made her decision.

At the same time, she did something quite unexpected.

Just after being exposed following the collapse of her shield, Devon and his master saw her control the bloody bubbles toward the four remaining wolves.

Upon contact, the three wolves saw their energies and strengths increase significantly beyond their simple ranks as advanced tier.

As for the alpha, everything seems different about him!

His size doubled as well as his fangs and claws.

But none of this bothered Mystic and Devon until a strange phenomenon occurred.

His greenish aura became greener to the point of having a dark tint making it stand out a little bluish.

Of course, even if the beast has not yet evolved, the current power at its disposal far exceeded that which it had ten seconds ago.

As for the remaining ten bubbles, they were all swallowed up by the alpha as a buff help.

Which quickly made his silhouette quite intimidating in the eyes of those who looked at him.

"Do you still want that wolf?" After a moment of silence to better understand the situation, Mystic mumbled to Devon with a wicked smile.

The latter did not answer her with words, but with eyes that seemed to show his smile.

'...I see, I like his audacity.' She mumbled after understanding Devon's hidden intentions.

After whispering these words, her face darkened as her gaze shifted towards her enemy.

'I've to kill her before another one comes back.' 

Loyal to this decision, she channels a significant amount of her dark aura into her blade that she grasped firmly with both hands.

However, Miyorirath didn't give her time to make the first move. 

Since the latter's main target was Devon, she ordered all her summons to attack Devon together. 

She no longer seemed to care about being alone against Mystic; although dangerous, she was confident that the latter would be unable to overcome her defenses with her fencer skills. 

On the other hand, the three wolves, guided by the leader of the pack, rushed toward their prey with both wild and devastating speed. 

Devon, in turn, did the same by moving away from Mystic, but backward. 

His goal, if there was one, would probably be to move Miyorirath's bodyguards as far away as possible to allow Mystic to fight more freely without hindrance. 

At the same time, Mystic also moved like a flash, passing over the pack of wolves toward his target.

Furthermore, Miyorirath didn't flinch or show any panic even after seeing Mystic appear out of nowhere a meter behind her, in her blind spot.

She was still inactive, not even moving her pupils to follow Mystic's movements.

This made Mystic's senses slightly agitated. But she didn't let this chance pass her by.

Her blade, imbued with her devastating strength and chaotic energy, mercilessly whistles toward her target's exposed neck in hopes of decapitating her in one blow.

However, just before her blade reached its target, it stopped dead!

Her body froze, unable to move even an inch!

-!

Before Mystic could comprehend what was happening to her body, a mysterious force pushed her hard back against the wall!

-BANG!

The impact force was so powerful that she could feel some of her ribs breaking.

'Keukh!!' She gritted her teeth, however, swallowing the blood that was rising in her mouth.

Although her target had not moved yet, she could guess that it was her fault that she ended up against the wall, in an artistic crater similar to her silhouette.

'What was...that?'

"You're stronger than I expected."

Miyorirath's sadistic voice cut Mystic's thoughts short as she wondered what had blown her hard against the wall.

She frowned at her without responding to her dull words as she stood up among the small debris.

Despite this impact, she did not leave her sword.