Xal shot towards Fox, swinging his sword expertly with all of the intent to kill.

Fox whistled in appreciation, it was rare that you’d find a high-school boy who was ready to kill. She knew within that very moment that he’d taken someone’s life before.

It only made Xal even more interesting in her eyes.

Under what circumstances did he have to kill? Who did he kill? How many times has he murdered?

She thought of such things as she flawlessly avoided every single one of Xal’s rapid attacks.

Fox hadn’t tried to counterattack at all, she just danced out of the way of his sword and seemed to be enjoying herself.

Xal was growing agitated by her lackadaisical attitude. To him, this was a serious fight to the death, but Fox was acting as if this was a sparring match between two friendlies.

“You won’t be able to dodge forever, so I’m not really sure what your intent is,” Xal grunted.

Fox stopped moving. “Trust me, if I felt like it, by the time I stopped dodging you would have died of old age.” She took one of Xal’s attacks full-on, but if did nothing except for cut through the uniform she wore. Within a matter of milliseconds, however, that tear patched itself together as if nothing had ever happened.

Xal gritted his teeth. “Did you use body fortification? I’ve never seen a body that was uninjured by my blade.”

The woman shook her head. “Nope.” She pulled out a dagger from her belt and swung at Xal, who, in turn, raised his sword to block the attack that seemingly had no force put into it.

Much to his surprise, when the two blades collided, a huge blast of power surged throughout, creating a strong gust of wind that snapped the trunks of trees in two and blew the neatly stacked unconscious bodies of the King class’ defenders far, far away.

Xal could feel his arm shaking even after Fox pulled away her blade. He was glad he took his own personal blade instead of the school-issued one because it certainly would have broken with a single strike.

He reevaluated his opponent. It wasn’t that she was putting in minimal effort because she didn’t care, but rather, this was how much energy she needed in order to deal with him sufficiently.

Xal felt humiliated.

He thought that she was either holding back because she was too arrogant and didn’t think he was a worthy opponent, he thought that she was underestimating him.

She hadn’t. She had calculated the difference between their strength and acted accordingly. Fox was only using the necessary amount of energy to handle him and nothing more.

Was this how his opponents had felt when he had treated them the same way? He could feel his face burning.

Fox laughed and the two continued to trade blows, Xal barely having enough strength to completely block her blows, and her adding a little bit more power with each and every swing.

His arms were throbbing in pain, he could tell his katana would break if she hit it another time. Still, he couldn’t back down.

“Is this a game to you?” he found himself asking Fox.

She tilted her head, cupping her chin with her right hand as if she was pondering this. “Mm, I wonder. Is this a game to you? Are you having fun?”

“No, and as for the second question...”

Was he having fun? He rarely fought people of this level, as frustrating as this was... “Yes.”

“I see, that’s good then,” she said with a laugh. “Too many young people nowadays are so serious and stuck-up.”

Xal couldn’t help but smile as he thought of his two bodyguards. “I suppose that’s true. It’s a shame you’re my opponent, we could have become good friends, I think.”

“Who says we’re opponents?” When Xal scrunched his face in confusion, Fox amended her words, “I never attacked you. You came at me first, I’m just defending myself.”

Xal thought that she was making herself out to be far more innocent than she actually was.

“Hey, won’t you join me?” Fox asked, spreading her arms out as if she was going to embrace Xal.

The young man snorted. “No.”

“That’s a shame.” She shook her head slowly. “Let’s start the test now,” Fox said.

“Test?” Xal questioned, but she didn’t respond.

Four, black orbs appeared above her, they then blobbed together and created an even more massive sphere that screamed of death. It slowly began to rise into the air, still sphere made no noise, which was strange since all magic always emitted a faint humming sound.

Xal went on guard, not knowing what to expect at all. The ground began to grumble and groan as if a great beast had been awoken. Chunks of the earth rose up into the air and were dissolved into tiny particles as they were pulled closer to the sphere before being devoured by it.

He could only watch in amazed horror as the surroundings were pulled inside into the abyss. Everything crumbled before it was sucked in, even the trees and blades of grass.

When the sphere finally reached its critical mass, it rapidly fell into itself and compacted into a far smaller sphere. A dark purple glow radiated from it along with black lightning crackling without a noise.

“Don’t die,” was all Fox said the moment that the sphere could no longer hold itself together and exploded in a burst of brilliance.

Xal was hit by a surge of mana that he desperately tried to block with his sword, but it was snapped crudely in two. The mana struck him in the heart and his body crumpled to the floor, convulsing violently at the mana overload that could very well kill him.

The surge also completely wiped out anything else that had been left standing, it all disintegrated upon impact and was blown away in the wind. It created a strangely beautiful effect that contrasted with Xal, as he was bleeding from every pore and clutching his neck as thick, pulsating veins bulged and seemed to be filled with some black liquid.

Xal had lost most of his vision so everything was black with only some splotches that broke through the darkness and revealed a colorless world that was foreign to him.

The pain that was scorching through his body was incomparable to anything else he had felt in his entire life.

Was this death?

In his fading consciousness, he thought this is what death felt like.

Unbeknownst to the Xal who had lost his hearing quite some time ago, Fox was clapping. “Good job, good job, you survived. It’s okay to go sleep now.”

The pain was vanquished and a very much welcomed relief spread throughout Xal’s entire body as he relaxed. His consciousness finally left him and he slept peacefully.

“Now then, time to talk to him, he should have completed his job a while ago,” Fox said to herself.

...

Vyne sat under a patch of sunlight, he wrote in an old, leather-bound book with yellowing pages. His quill scratched against the dry paper as he wrote in a beautiful cursive font. Of course, the words he was writing were less than beautiful, if anything, they were grotesque as they described in a dreadful amount of detail his latest deeds.

A beautiful woman appeared next to Vyne, her radiant hair reflecting the sun’s light. She pushed the kitsune mask she wore to the side of her face, revealing her attractive face that could rival Tear’s in terms of appearance. While Tear’s was angelic, this woman had a more elegant and classical beauty that would never grow old.

She was the woman dubbed Fox by Xal, and affectionately known to us as Erebus.

Vyne stood up from the rather disfigured corpse he sat on, bowing to his master. “You look absolutely captivating as a woman, my lord.”

Fox’s full lips pulled into a smile. “It’s been a while since I last used this form.”

“Oh? You’ve used it before?”

“Yup, even though I referred to this form as transformation magic, that’s not really what it is. High-tier dragons are capable of shapeshifting, so I’m able to change myself to look any way I want to. When I first met Triton, it was in this form, he tried to make me his, so I had to beat some sense into him~”

Vyne’s lips curled into a smile, the thought of Triton being beaten to a bloody pulp was somehow refreshing to him. This imaginative (sadistic) man couldn’t help but conjure up the scene of Triton being beaten by Erebus.

“How was Xal?” he asked about his master’s original purpose for them doing this.

“He was interesting without a doubt. It seems like he isn’t able to harness his power to the fullest yet, but he’s well on his way. Right now, he probably can’t defeat you, but he could possibly win against Tear. For a human, he’s amazing.”

“So you were satisfied?” Vyne couldn’t help but smile as he heard his master speak so excitedly.

“I was, he was able to pass my test. Anyway, I see that you have procured two test subjects? But one of them is still alive...”

“His strength was far greater than what a human of his skill set should be capable of, so I decided to keep him alive so that you could investigate him, my lord.”

Fox bent down next the man who was barely alive. “Hmm, I see. Good job, Vyne. They’ve hidden it well, but he has certainly been enchanted. Keep him alive, Mae will benefit greatly from having him to experiment on. Dark Mist should be here soon, so be prepared for his arrival."

Vyne nodded his head.

“Also, you know those two guards Xal has? I want you to kidnap them and bring them to Dark Mist to take also, have him tell the doppelgangers to transform into these girls, them suddenly going missing could be troublesome for us so we need to cover it up.”

Vyne’s eyes filled with excitement. “I’d be honored to do so.”