### Chapter: 248
The Forest of Giants
Two figures arrived at this location.
One was a red lizardman, standing upright like a lizard covered in scales, holding a staff and scanning the area with droopy eyes.
The other was a timid-looking girl.
With cherry blossom-colored hair, she emanated a strong floral scent characteristic of the Florian tribe.
In an odd twist, she was wielding a large sword with a handgrip extending behind her.
“Ugh, why do we have to be here?”
The girl groaned, prompting the lizardman to thump his staff on the ground.
“We’ve all been summoned here. We’re the only ones not bringing anything!”
Ixion was currently in quite a bind.
He couldn’t afford to pull deployed personnel away, even for preparations.
Thus, the total number of deployed personnel was three.
A hunchbacked man, the spirit of wisdom (Heixing).
The girl, the Demon Exorcist (Fuma Yi).
And lastly, a woman sporting pointed red ears.
Surrounded by an array of weapons, she glared around with annoyance through her eyepatch.
“Why is it raining like this? My kids are getting wet!”
This woman was Shua Delphia, the Nobility, known as the Armed Princess, a World Erosion creature.
Having once crossed paths with Kraush at the Demonic Bastion, she despised water and kept her distance from the rain.
“Is it true that there’s a direct descendant of Balheim here?”
She promptly directed her irritation towards Heixing and Fuma Yi standing nearby.
Noticing her glance, Fuma Yi shrieked and curled up, while Heixing’s expression contorted slightly.
“Newbie, we brought you along just to want you here. Mind your manners.”
“Hah, manners my foot! You guys begged me to come. What’s there to be polite about?”
It seemed Heixing and the Armed Princess weren’t on the best of terms.
Heixing disliked impolite people, while the Armed Princess couldn’t stand stiff and uptight folks.
Perhaps that’s why, while their gazes clashed, Fuma Yi trembled.
“Doesn’t it feel strangely cold?”
Fuma Yi, feeling cold from the surroundings, rubbed her arms.
The Armed Princess rolled her eyes in disbelief at such a simple observation.
“Of course it’s cold; it’s winter outside!”
“It shouldn’t be! Armed Princess. The Forest of Giants has opposite seasons! It’s summer now!”
No matter the torrential downpour, summer was summer.
The muggy, sticky heat of summer should be felt.
Yet they only felt an unexplainable chill.
“I’m weak against the cold.”
“Then just move to warm up!”
Heixing gestured for Fuma Yi, who understood his intention and leaned against a tree.
“Right! We just need to find him quickly and go back!”
Fuma Yi closed her eyes, focusing on finding Kraush.
Being a Florian, she could communicate with the forest.
Just then, Fuma Yi’s shoulder jolted.
Noticing her strange reaction, Fuma Yi and the Armed Princess turned to look.
As Fuma Yi opened her eyes, she slowly turned her head.
“Um, over there!”
With her shout came the sound of squelching mud being stomped on.
As the Armed Princess and Heixing turned their heads in that direction, they saw a boy standing there.
A boy barely past adolescence stood soaked from the rain.
There was an unexplainable chill emanating from him that sent shivers down their spines.
“Kraush Balheim!”
The Armed Princess recognized him first, widening her eyes in fury at the sight of him, recalling how he had once tricked her at the Demonic Bastion.
On the other hand, Heixing felt perplexed.
People described the boy as a blazing man.
Yet the energy emitting from him now was chilling, sending a deep sense of foreboding.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this day?”
However, unlike Heixing’s confusion, the Armed Princess was all fired up with rage.
Every time she thought of the thunderstorm and her child’s plaintive cries for her, she lost her sleep.
Now, she finally had a chance for revenge.
Without hesitation, she drew one of her thirteen special weapons.
The seventh weapon, the slice-kill grim blade (斥杀惨刀).
As soon as she pulled out the serrated blade, she swung it toward Kraush.
Kra-krack!
In that instant, the infinite length of the slice-kill blade hurtled toward Kraush.
Its edge was so sharp that it could split the very trees of the Forest of Giants, poised to slaughter Kraush on contact.
“Armed Princess!”
Seeing this, Heixing panicked.
After all, they hadn’t come here to kill Kraush, but to capture him.
As the slice-kill blade approached Kraush’s face…
Kraaang!
The blade collided with something in mid-air.
What was it? An empty void.
Yet, the slice-kill blade was stopped there in that void.
“Tricky little brat!”
Kraush had already overheated the Armed Princess, who was now swinging the slice-kill blade wildly toward him.
With every swing, the blade met nothing but empty air before him.
With each hit, the Armed Princess’s eyes glowed with increasing fury.
“This is ridiculous!”
The Armed Princess bellowed, halting her swings.
Clang! Clang!
Instead, she hurled the weapons strapped to her overflowing body into the air.
Boom!
As she stomped down hard, a dark dagger appeared in her hand.
A dagger resembling a flower blooming in black.
One of her thirteen weapons, Hell Flower.
As soon as she drew the Hell Flower, she plunged it into her chest.
Thud!
In that moment, her appearance began to change.
Black horns sprouted from her head, and a pitch-black tail emerged.
She had transformed into something resembling a dragon more than a noble.
Without hesitation, she snatched a weapon raining down on her.
Her ax was hurled toward Kraush.
But she didn’t stop there.
She continued throwing one weapon after another.
Each weapon was deflected before Kraush.
Yet, it didn’t faze the Armed Princess at all.
She leaped, reaching Kraush in an instant.
Then, she began swinging down the cascading weapons in a frenzy.
Boom! Clang! Kraaang!
Each weapon produced different sounds as they clashed.
All the weapons the Armed Princess wielded were specially crafted with unique traits.
Knowing the attributes of every weapon, the Armed Princess created a whirlwind of weapons in her space.
A Weapon Space.
In a mad frenzy, she attacked Kraush with gusto.
With rainwater fountaining around her, the Armed Princess built a towering mountain of weapons.
In front of her, Kraush stood, gazing at her with crimson eyes.
Her brows twitched.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that!”
As the Armed Princess yelled in anger,
“Kraush!”
Heixing’s shout snapped her to attention.
Before she knew it, Kraush’s thunderstorm was coming at her like lightning to strike at her neck.
Boom!
In an instant, Fuma Yi stood before the Armed Princess.
She immediately lifted her sword to deflect Kraush’s strike, redirecting the trajectory of his sword.
Kraaang!
As the sound reverberated, the previously shy Fuma Yi glared coldly at Kraush.
Yet Kraush’s blade didn’t stop.
The chill from it threatened to engulf everything around them.
“Ugh!”
The Armed Princess kicked the ground and retreated sharply.
Fuma Yi did the same, dragging her feet back.
‘Chill of World Erosion?’
Seeing that scene, Heixing’s brows furrowed.
‘That’s…’
Heixing possessed memories of such power.
The power of the White Dragon handled by the Ephania royal family.
This energy was certainly similar.
‘And that swirling current around his body.’
It was unmistakably the might of the White Dragon.
‘But, a mere aura shouldn’t deflect the Armed Princess’s attacks so easily, right?’
Even if it was an aura, it shouldn’t be enough to block the Armed Princess’s full-fledged moves.
“What strange tricks are you playing?”
Heixing thumped his staff on the ground.
At that moment, a current surged from his body towards Kraush.
Ka-ga-ga-gang!
The moment that aura collided with Kraush’s energy, Heixing’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Indeed, Kraush was wielding the White Dragon’s aura.
He realized just how Kraush was utilizing the aura.
‘He’s wielding it like a sword.’
Kraush sharpened the White Dragon’s aura as if it were a sword.
Sharp enough to deflect the Armed Princess’s fierce attacks.
The moment Heixing recognized this, he was astounded.
If this were merely wielding a sword, it would be one thing. But to handle something that could only be controlled through the mind with such precision—impossible!
“Hah.”
A puff of white breath escaped Kraush’s lips.
While Heixing was shocked, Kraush was consuming quite a bit of mental energy.
He had unleashed the unwieldy sword utilizing his instincts melded with the aura of the White Dragon.
[Are you insane? Testing such things against a World Erosion creature?]
Crimson Garden’s voice echoed loudly in Kraush’s ears.
But perhaps that was the only time to test it.
He knew that they wouldn’t kill him so easily.
Moreover, the act bore fruit.
The three World Erosion creatures hesitated to make a reckless move against Kraush.
‘It was worth exhausting my mental energy.’
The less the opponent knew about his powers, the more cautious they would be.
Especially when it came to battles between strong foes.
Kraush had thrown down the gauntlet.
Swoosh—
Under the pouring rain, the three eyes glared with suspicion at Kraush.
Alone, he was overwhelming the three World Erosion creatures.
If he had opted to remain hidden, he wouldn’t have made it out in this situation.
‘The scariest thing in battle is the imagination toward the opponent.’
The battle with the Glow Ministry to following fights with the skilled.
Not to mention the backing of Crimson Garden and Ebelasque.
Kraush had firmly established himself as a risk within Ixion.
Seeing such an image now, Kraush appeared to be even more formidable than before.
Naturally, the three would hesitate to make reckless moves.
He had seized the initiative.
The situation couldn’t be any more fitting.
‘Heixing Zerva, Fuma Yi Havilera, Armed Princess Shua Delphia.’
Kraush knew them all too well.
After all, he had dealt with the cleanup of the fallen World Erosion creatures before his reincarnation.
‘In this moment, I don’t know just how much they’ve deviated from what it was back then.’
When it came to battle, it was a different story.
The battlefield habits that stemmed from their world were engrained in them.
‘As long as they aren’t the likes of Black Witch, Beast King, or Swordmaster, I’ll be fine.’
If they were those opponents, Kraush would have bolted for his life.
But these three were not that formidable.
So the possibility of victory wasn’t entirely out of reach.
“If you don’t come forward.”
At Kraush’s words, all three reacted simultaneously.
A pulse of killing intent mixed from the Thousand Kill and the White Dragon aura erupted from his body.
“I will go!”
Let me show you how terrifying a poison-laden crow can be!
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