Chivis was sleeping peacefully while leaning against the trunk of a large tree. She was having a nice dream, which was evident from the smile on her lips. And this peace was cruelly destroyed by the loud ringing sound from the silver bracelet she was wearing.

  Suddenly hearing a loud ringing sound, she woke up with a start. Looking at the bracelet on her right hand, a red color was twinkling through the gem. Someone must have found a high-ranked Ascender and was asking for backup. She lightly combed back her disheveled hair and got up.

  The forest, which had been destroyed in yesterday's fight, was completely restored to its original state. The sound of birds and crickets was faintly audible. From the look of the sun, it was nearly afternoon.

  Chivis moved towards the rock in the middle of the space, free from trees and plants. Looking at the scene ahead, a sharp glint appeared in her eyes. Lester was lying face up, his body sprawled like a sack. Some drool was even visible at the corner of his lips. Wanting to share the morning experience with him, Chivis heavily kicked him with her foot.

  Lester was flung away and crashed into several trees. They all broke trying to break his fall. Coming to his senses, Lester rapidly took in his surroundings. Not seeing anything amiss and Chivis waving at him, he relaxed his guard. "At least try to be a little mindful," he said.

  Rolling her eyes, Chivis replied, "You should be the last person to be saying that." Saying so, she moved towards Mikart, who was tightly huddled in a corner.

  Sensing someone approaching, Mikart's security spell alerted him, and he woke up, his gaze aimed straight at Chivis. Then, moving his eyes towards Lester, he heaved a sigh of relief.

  "So, what happened?" Lester asked after meeting up with the two.

  "This thing was ringing," Chivis said, lightly shaking her right hand. "It was a request for backup. Most likely against a higher-ranked Ascender." Hearing her words, Mikart's memories drifted to Balvin, and his breath sped up. He lightly shook his head to clear his mind. "Let's avoid it this time. I don't think it's a good idea to frequently provoke Balvin."

  "What if it's someone else?" Lester asked with a questioning gaze.

  Mikart looked straight at him. "Then more so. At least Balvin may let us go after beating and bruising us a little. But what if it's the one who killed all the Soul Casters in Liam's City? We only progressed in Rank last year. Considering that, we would be dead before we even knew it."

  Lester wanted to argue, but a warning look from Chivis prevented him from doing so. His Goddess always taught them to welcome harsh challenges, but in this situation, where he was outnumbered, he could only follow the majority and back down. "Then let's continue following the route we mapped yesterday," he said, having to at least get the last word in.

  "Sounds good," Mikart said after some thought.

  "I'm also in," Chivis chimed in.

  Getting all their things ready, they went on their predefined path. After some moments had passed, the broken trees beside the rock started to move back toward their trunks. After reaching the trunks, they began to attach themselves again. Sometime later, the clearing was back to its original state. Nobody could tell whether anyone had been there or not.

  It had been nearly a day since Balvin had found this hidden cave. At first, he had thought that this was a trap laid out for him. While being constantly on guard, he had thoroughly examined every nook and cranny of the cave. And to his surprise, there was literally nothing more except for the spell and the corpses.

  Carefully bending down and observing the cyan spell drawn on the ground, he easily recognized it. It was one of the Ascension Spells used by an Ascender from the old ages. Its spell diagram had been stored and preserved in their library before their fall.

  Not all Ascension Spells were complex; some were simple and could be constructed with the spell diagrams, and anyone with enough energy could use them. Its only drawback was that the power consumption was much higher than the creator's, and the power was still weaker. But it was still enough to deal with any unsuspecting Paragon, which was quite visible from all the frozen corpses all around him. There were nearly twenty dead here.

  Slowly squatting down, he started to erase the spell. Even a slight misalignment could result in this cave blowing up, which would easily alert his enemies to his presence. After some careful work, the spell was completely erased, and he was holding a small marble of cyan color. After being freed from supplying continuous energy to the spell, the marble radiated a pressure around its surroundings just by existing.

  Balvin slightly furrowed his brows. He was quite familiar with this presence. It seemed that things were more complex than they initially appeared. Since he was completely alone this time, he decided to wait for someone to appear here.

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  Moving into the Void Realm, he started to use the strings of space to construct a cocoon to surround him so that nobody would be able to easily detect him. Soon, he was surrounded by small silver strings, and every inch of his body was tightly covered by them. Then he continued waiting in this state.

  And finally, after nearly a day, in the afternoon of the next day, his waiting had borne fruit. He felt the fluctuating ripples in the Void Realm. Someone was coming here, and from the movement of the fluctuations, it was an Ascender.

  The space before the entrance of the cave tore open, and a man covered in all black stepped out. His face was also covered with a black mask. In one hand, he carried the corpse of a dead Ascender, and in the other, a small black dagger. Hurling the corpse onto his back, he started to move inside. But just as he had moved a few steps, he felt a tingling sensation on his neck. Hurling the corpse ahead, he jumped back. The place where he had been was completely consumed by the void, and only nothingness existed there.

  "Tsk, you guys are still as sharp as ever when it comes to your deaths."

  Since the surprise attack didn't work, Balvin launched a full-force attack at the newcomer. The space in the surroundings cracked open. The world tried to send them both into the void, but Balvin resisted the pressure. In response to this, several invisible chains made from the will of the world enveloped him, reducing his effective strength.

  The masked man did not resist the force of the world and was ready to be thrown into the Void Realm. But due to Balvin's attack destabilizing and breaking the space of the Material World, he was stuck and had to take Balvin's attack head-on. He rapidly enveloped his entire body in black flames and, raising his dagger in front, took the large sword head-on. But even that was only enough to deflect the direction of the attack.

  The dagger was broken in two, and half of his body was blasted into ice particles. His remaining eye contained a trace of deep fear. If he were not a Rank Two Sovereign, he would have been dead several times over from this injury alone. At that time, the force of the world enveloped him and sent him into the Void Realm. Balvin was not ready to release his prey and followed behind.

  Entering the Void Realm, he saw the projection of a large sword moving to crush him. Gathering the elementals from the surroundings, he also recklessly inserted elemental energy from his Nexus Rings into his sword. After he felt enough power was gathered, he simply slashed forward. A single sword slash was sent out from the sword. And when the descending black sword met it, the result was the black sword being completely frozen. For a normal attack from a relic, this was enough to counter it.

  Then Balvin moved his gaze toward the masked man, who was also recklessly using elemental energy to heal his body. Catching a string of space beside him, he tried to escape, and Balvin followed closely behind. However, the restrictions on him from the world were still present. This caused him slight delays.

  Using the strings of space as a travel medium, a dangerous chase began in the Void Realm. Now and then, the masked man took out a small ceremonial dagger and swung it. That swing created a black sword with power comparable to an attack from a Rank One Demigod. But Balvin easily countered it and narrowed the distance.

  Just when Balvin was about to catch up and was just a hand's length away, he felt an unusual flow of elementals in the Void Realm. The elemental winds suddenly appeared in front of them. The masked man directly jumped into them, but Balvin did not follow this time.

  He slowly extended his hands, and the elemental winds clung to him and started to disperse the ice elementals covering his body. Withdrawing his hand, he moved back. The elemental winds were harmful for any elemental Soul Caster, more so for Rank Ones like him. Soon, the momentum of the winds was starting to increase, and the masked man was also nowhere to be seen, likely somehow escaped. He decided to return to the cave.

  Tearing the space, Balvin appeared at a completely decimated place. Just the shockwaves from his attack had destroyed the cave and the corpses inside. Even the Ascender's body was badly damaged. Just when he thought it was over, he felt a strong presence lock onto him. He had a bad feeling about it and was about to escape when he heard a roar.

  "Church of Frost!"

  A blue-haired middle-aged man had appeared above the ruins. Looking down, he saw the dead bodies frozen over, and his gaze locked onto the bald man carrying a large sword.

  Balvin felt this was turning out to be one of the worst days of his life.