Right after the massive shockwave passed through Eryas, without wasting a second, he turned to the right, facing Hars. He dashed straight towards Hars with the knife in his hand, pointing at Hars.
At that moment, Hars was looking intently at the fight below. At first, he didn't even notice that Eryas turned towards him and dashed onto him.
Hars's reaction was a little bit too late. He only manages to move his hand to stop the knife. The black knife bites deep into Hars's palm. He manages to stop Eryas's assault, and both of them are at a standstill.
Eryas, who was still trying to push the knife in, was shocked by how strong Hars is. Hars moves his hand and the knife to the side, revealing his face.
"Mister Eryas, may I know what you are doing?"
Eryas tries not to show his surprise at Hars's strength on his face.
"Don't play dumb with me."
With that, Eryas let go of his knife. He hopped backward and reached for the sword. The sword was unsheathed and was held in both of his hands. His grip on the sword tightened until blue lights shone at the handle. Then the light travels to the engraved rune on the blade. The sharpened enchantment is activated. He dashed forward again, swinging the sword at Hars.
***
Earlier at the workshop, Eryas was resolute in his proposal to Greg. He removed his broken watch and extracted the battery runestone, then tossed the stone to Greg.
Greg catches it and takes a look. He was surprised.
Greg was taken aback by Eryas's request. "Kid, where did you even get this thing?" he asked, his surprise evident in his voice.
"Thats not important right now. What I want you to do, is to insert that runestone into the sword."
Greg was surprised at Eryas's request.
"Why would you want to put this stone inside the sword? Do You know how dangerous it is?"
"My bad, I guess I forgot to tell you the important part. For your information, I cannot use magic."
Eryas doesn't like going around telling people he is manaless, but in this situation, it is essential to disclose his condition. He knows his request is dangerous, so that is why he needs Greg's trust.
Greg was left even more speechless. He turns his head, looking at Clara. She smiled and then nodded before speaking.
"It's true. When I tried to treat him, my healing magic didn't work. Eryas is manaless, uncle. He cannot use magic."
Greg sighed.
"Alright. I pretty much understand it. Well, it would hurt my reputation if I cannot do something like this."
Greg starts working on the sword. The sound of an anvil being hit with a hammer filled the entire smithy. Both Eryas and Clara waited, watching Greg do his job. Eryas was in awe as he watched the beautiful process of smithing unfold before him.
The heat from the smithy room suddenly reminded him of how hot it was today before the explosion. Everywhere in the area of dust now felt cold because the sun never reached them. Only a partial amount of sunlight penetrated the smoke dust.
After a few moments, it is finally finished.
Eryas holds the sword in his hands, looking at it thoroughly. At first glance, there was not much difference. Then Greg said to him,
"I made it so that the enhancement will activate when you hold it tighter. Because of the size of the runestone you only had around five minutes only, before the battery completely drained."
Eryas said, smiling.
"Thank you, Mr. Greg. Five minutes is good enough. We'll discuss the payment after this mess," Eryas said, expressing his gratitude towards Greg.
***
Watching Eryas dash onto him, Hars raises his staff, aiming at Eryas. He tried to cast darkness magic, but the black magic circle that forms at the end of the staff immediately breaks. Hars was stunned by what happened and couldn't even react.
Eryas is closing in, a side-step to cut off Hars' hand at the forearm. Hars immediately hops backward a few meters away from Eryas, trying to back away from him.
Hars stopped the backward momentum using both of his legs. When he regains his footing, he turns his gaze on his missing arm. A deep, dark black blood flows out from the cut. He tried to focus his dark mana on the cut hand, but nothing happened.
Then he realized something: his eyes turned to the hand where the knife was still stuck in the palm. A wide grin appears on his face before he laughs.
"What an interesting piece of weapon you have here, anti-magic."
Hars took out the knife with his mouth before spitting it out to the ground. He continued.
"As far as I know, there is only one group that uses anti-magic. The assassin of the Black Dragon."
The black blood from both wounds on Hars's hands slowly stopped dripping. The wounds slowly closed, until the cut-off hand instantly grew back.
Eryas's eyes widened in surprise at what he saw. He holds the sword with both hands, readied to fight.
"How did you know?" asked Hars.
"Well your presence itself shows a lot of clues. But the most revealing thing that confirms it all is when you talked about the sentient one. "
Hars looked at Eryas, intrigued.
"You know too much about darkness creatures, especially about how they spread their corruption. And your personal magic seems to be too convenient in this situation. Someone with magic that can determine the location of a darkness creature suddenly appears."
Hars laughs.
"So you made a conclusion based on all of that only."
"Sort of. But mostly it was just a bet."
This time, Hars's laughs turn louder.
"Interesting, a bet? with those reputation never would have i thought that assassin of the Black Dragon would make a decision based on a bet."
"Huh, I'm not one of them anymore."
Hars holds his hand that had just grown back earlier. He twists his hand, trying to get familiar with it.
"Then, those fools won't come for me if I kill you then." Hars's voice turns more sinister.
The small, old man's body slowly grows larger. The hunch back of Hars slowly straightened. The wrinkles on his face disappear, and each of his teeth turns pointy. His eyes turn entirely black. Hars slowly walks forward, approaching Eryas. Eryas adjusted his grip on the sword and his stance. As Hars walks, a long whip starts growing from his lower back. It was tail. A long black tail.
'I don't think I can win this.'
Eryas tries to control his cool.
"Huh, so this is what the sentient darkness creature, a demon, looks like."
Demon, that is the title for the sentient darkness creatures. Any living beings that are tainted with darkness will become demons if they manage to stay sane. But even if they manage to withstand the corrupting power of darkness, they themself will not retain any memories from the past. Instead, they would become completely different people, as if they were born anew.
Eryas needs to do something. He couldn't afford to wait for Hars to make the first move. So he dashed forward. But this time, he doesn't have the advantage. This time, Hars was utterly aware of Eryas's action.
All nails on both Hars's hands grew longer until they turned into sharp black claws.
Then the sword and the claws clashed, causing a spark around them. They are both trying to push each other. Eryas then speaks.
"Why? Why did you attack Veloria? Why does it need to be today?!"
Eryas was mad about all the trouble he had gone through because of this mess. But the one thing that makes him even angrier is that, because of this mess, he didn't even manage to find Helena and right his wrongs.
"It doesn't matter when we attack. In the end Veloria will fall!" Hars speak with a menacing voice.
Then Hars increased his strength and pushed Eryas away.
Eryas was pushed back but immediately launched an assault against Hars. He swings his sword, trying to hit Hars. Hars didn't fight back, but instead blocked every attack with his claws. Eryas felt weird about it.
Hars, who noticed the expression Eryas made, started to grin. Hars talk during their clash.
"I see." He laughs a little.
"You cannot use magic at all."
Hars changed his stance from defense to attack. Now, Eryas is the one who needs to block Hars's attacks.
He was having difficulty defending himself as there were two sets of claws coming at him, and each one was packing powerful blows that could throw him.
'Crap! This is not good.'
At one point, his grip on the sword weakens, and eventually the sword flies from his hands due to the blow he receives. Immediately after that, Hars sends an upward slash right at Eryas's body, causing him to be thrown back and roll on the ground.
Eryas held his breath, trying to bear the pain he felt. Luckily, he was wearing the breastplate; otherwise, that blow would have finished him off. Even with the armor, it did not fully protect him. The sharp black claws still manage to penetrate it and scratch his body, causing it to bleed. Eryas tries to turn his vision towards Hars again, but at the same time realizes the black knife lying near him. He grabs it and slowly rises from the ground.
Hars, who was just looking the entire time, starts giving his remarks to Eryas.
"No wonder you didn't give much presence at the meeting, and when you greeted me from behind. Now it makes sense, you are manaless."
Hars laughed as he was mocking Eryas. He continued.
"What did you even think you could do? Humans are considered the weakest race because they couldn't use magic very well, but you. You are worse than humans."
Eryas took a deep breath. Hearing those statements hurts his heart. The laughs that followed also stung, but he endured them. Eryas looks at where his sword is. It was quite far. He wanted to run for it, but was suddenly interrupted by the presence of two creatures that jumped in front of Hars.
It was two black dogs with dark eyes. Its black fangs look terrifying, covered in blood and saliva.
"You're not even worth it for me to kill. You were better off dying with these two."
Then Hars taps his feet on the ground, commanding the two black dogs lunge towards Eryas with their menacing fangs.