As the situation turned pretty intense in another place, Kai thought it would be better to cut the mermaid first before thinking about this. At the very least, he got some clues about why they tried to attack him. And looking at how the turtle seemed to like him to the point he invited him himself, Kai thought there must be something more about this.

He took a deep breath as his team had gone to their respective positions.

"Soldiers, take care of the surrounding creatures and make sure you are not hit by her because I am afraid I can't protect you," Kai commanded and warned them at the same time.

"Yes, Sir!" The soldiers could also understand that and spread around the battlefield. With their eight thousand soldiers, twenty thousand beasts shouldn't be a problem. The only problem would be these two, so Kai needed to kill or at least stop the mermaid from interfering.

He leaped toward the mermaid with his Vibration Sword, finding that the elemental moved at the same time as him. It sent his fist toward Kai, but the latter had no change of expression in the face of this. Instead, he seemed to have predicted it as a magic circle appeared below his feet, launching him a few meters upward.

The mermaid looked up—Following his movement—and pointed her finger as a small water ball appeared in front of her index finger, shooting it like a bullet.

Instead of dodging this, Kai decided to use his Oscillation Shield to see the power behind that bullet, but the next thing he found was a small crack on his shield.

'Seriously?' Kai was in disbelief. The mermaid should have been weakened because she was on the land, but he could finally understand why the turtle called her Princess. She deserved such a title with this amount of power.

"Ho! You are able to withstand that attack?" The mermaid squinted her eyes in a bit of excitement, but before she could do anything, her vision was taken away by the movement from the side.

She lifted her left hand and created small torrential water before clenching it as tight as possible. Two bullets suddenly fell when she opened her hand again. The torrential water earlier used to soften the impact while her strength alone was so strong to destroy the bullet.

Ayaka already went around her and appeared behind the mermaid, swinging her spear with all that momentum.

At the same time, Sofia created a few huge ice spikes and shot out toward the mermaid.

The mermaid glanced left and right. She finally lifted up her golden staff and stopped Ayaka's spear before blowing her away while destroying the ices with her bare hand.

"Kai!" Because she was locked by the two, Kai had enough time to launch himself downward. His two hands were already on his swords, ready to slash her.

The mermaid narrowed her eyes and smirked.

"I am not alone." Those were the words of her as she commanded the elemental to crush Kai with its two hands.

"I am also not alone." Kai smirked.

"!!!"

Suddenly, a shadow appeared as he punched the two hands. To everyone's surprise, the punches generated wind pressure, blowing the water hands.

"Leave the water elemental to me."

"Thank you, Uncle Michael!" Kai smiled as he slashed his swords downward.

"Tch." The mermaid had no choice but to jump off the elemental, saving herself.

"…" Kai observed the entire situation, including when he struck the elemental body.

Although it was a bit hard to the point he could step on it, the medium was still water. He asked Michelle, "How is it?"

"No. I can't channel my Shadow Slash even though it's hard enough to be stepped on."

"Is that so…" Kai sighed, knowing that he couldn't take advantage of it. He glanced at the mermaid and smiled because he was the one looking down on her now.

Michael walked behind him and said, "I will handle this elemental."

"Yes. I will leave it to you, uncle." Kai nodded. Michael was the current head of the Graham Family, but he received the title, not because of his status as the first child. Instead, he received recognition from the family because of his fighting style.

He had no weapon and armor, but his fist was far stronger than a normal person. Not only that, the way he used his wind magic was very peculiar.

Just like how he blew away the elemental's fists, he used that punch to channel a torrential wind, creating a powerful force that could stop it.

His weapon is his body and his armor is his wind magic. That was Michael's statement about his fighting style.

To be honest, Kai felt this peculiar fighting style quite interesting. Sound and Wind were a bit similar in a sense because the sound needed air to travel while wind directed it.

After assuring that nothing would come from his back, Kai signaled the group to get closer before he charged at the mermaid again.

"Don't think you have won just because of an earlier surprise attack." The mermaid snorted.

A magic circle appeared on Kai's hand as he flicked his finger.

*Ding!*

The sound traveled through the air, but the mermaid simply raised her hand, creating a block of water. The sound might not be destroying her concentration, but it should affect her even a bit… If she didn't add a twist to the wall that is.

"You humans were the one producing this, right? I should give my thanks." The mermaid smirked as the wall turned into an Acoustic anechoic chamber's wall. It was a wall used to make the world's quietest room. With that triangle-shaped pattern, she managed to perfectly block the Sound Wave from Kai.

"!!!" Kai widened his eyes, never expecting that she would use something like that. However, lightning magic flew from behind him, striking the wall.

"Electric Lance." Tasha knew Kai was about to go around her, but it would mean that such a technique could be used again to stop him. She didn't want the mermaid to think that way, so she destroyed the wall, allowing Kai to go straight.

Kai smiled and slashed his sword.

The mermaid rechecked everyone's position before she took Kai's blows head-on. Kai leaped back again as he exclaimed in surprise. "Seriously?"

His Vibration Sword could only graze the golden staff, this was the first time he saw this.

"This was created with the hardest material. Even normal protectors weren't this hard." The mermaid paused for a moment. "I have acquired enough data from you, so I know that as long as I am fast enough to pull back, your weapons won't be able to cut my staff."

"…" Kai's expression turned serious as he charged at her again. He took a glance to the right.

Obviously, it didn't escape from the mermaid's eyes as she shifted her position to the left and raised her staff to block Kai's swords.

*Clang!*

He struck the staff from above, trying to pinning the mermaid down even for a few seconds. During this time, Ayaka ran as quickly as possible while releasing all her killing intent.

The mermaid tried to block Ayaka with her staff, but she suddenly felt a pain spreading from the other side. She took a glimpse and gritted her teeth, flying away.

Ayaka indeed came from the right side, according to Kai's glance, but he set up another ambush on the other side. With Sofia's camouflaging technique, she was able to mask her presence like that of a magical beast and punched her on the stomach.

Kai didn't let this chance go and leaped to the sky, trying to use gravity to pin her down to the ground.

The mermaid spun her staff and stomped the spear butt to the ground, giving her enough force to stabilize her form.

"Tch." Kai clicked his tongue and struck the staff instead of the mermaid.

"You are not strong enough to stop me." The mermaid said before feeling the incoming attacks. Two water walls appeared on her left and right as she strengthened it like a rock to block two bullets coming from the left and an arrow from the right.

Kai moved his hand away and pointed her palm against one of the water walls. He remembered that the elemental was hard but still like water, so he tried to blow away this water.

"Sound Blast!"

The green magic circle generated a shock wave that hit the water wall, but it only jiggled, not destroyed.

"As expected, you know that we can manipulate the characteristic…" The mermaid narrowed her eyes as she asked with a cold tone. "Who taught you that? The practice level of your home is not enough to learn about this."

Kai kept his poker face as he kept his ignorance. "Manipulate? You can manipulate the characteristics?"

The mermaid frowned, wondering if he was acting or not. She gritted her teeth and clenched her grip. "I am going to make you talk when we return!"

"We? I have no plan to come with you. No, do you think you can come back?" Kai snorted.

"As expected, you were the one planning all this." The two twitched their eyebrows as both of them tried to get all the information from their opponents.

"You are going to come with me dead or alive." Kai released his killing intent. Since Isabelle's and Tasha's attacks couldn't come, he decided to press down the mermaid, but to no avail.

It seemed that their strength was equal, but Kai had used all of his strength, including the exoskeleton, so Kai might have no other trump card to increase his strength while the other party might still have something up in her sleeve.

The two then continued clashing with their strength as the situation became intense.