'Damn it, I can no longer sense him.' Haru gritted her teeth. Her opponent escaped and the mana traces are also gone. 'Should I turn back to help guildmaster Ryouma?' she rolled her eyes in the corner, 'no, that'll be a bad idea. Maybe I should head to the front units to help them.' she thought and shifted her direction.

---

'This guy sure is taking his time.' Ryouma pondered as he glued his eyes to his opponent. 'He doesn't plan on attacking.' he held in his mind. 'In that case, I should strike first.' he strengthened his footing to prepare for a launch.

On the meantime, Erwin was thinking the same idea. He's planning to strike first. He was waiting for Ryouma to come at him and counter him. 'His preparing to attack huh?' he thought.

In one slick movement, Ryouma closed the distance and preparing to land a punch. Erwin saw him already, but for unknown reasons, he just stood there like a statue and let Ryouma to land a blow to him. The punch landed on his face and immediately exploded upon landing. Ryouma knew that he didn't miss his target. But to his surprise, the person who's body was supposed to be teared in pieces was still standing in front of him, completely unharmed.

"That hurts like bitch!" Erwin screamed. "Now," he took a deep breath, crossing his arm and staring at Ryouma, "my turn." he opened his arms and everything in front of him was sliced in half.

Ryouma sensed the danger and evaded the attack by leaning his body backward. 'What the heck happened?!' his thoughts was taking over. 'I was sure I managed to land a blow. But somehow, it didn't work.' he quickly stood on his feet and regained his stance. 'Immortality? No, that's not the case.' he wondered, 'I felt his body got ripped apart earlier.'

"What's wrong?!" Erwin spoked at Ryouma. "Confused isn't it?" he provoked him with a wide grin.

"What are you grinning for?!" Ryouma shouted annoyingly. "I'm gonna wipe that smile off your face, you damn foreigner." he screamed. 'Should I use my newly learned skill?' he questioned himself. 'nah, it's too early.'

"It's your turn now." Erwin arrogantly spoked. "I won't go easy on you, just to not hurt your feelings." he provoked him.

'Is he seriously...' Ryouma thought. 'Then I should atleast use unnatural fighting methods.' he lifted his finger and moved it upward, manipulating the enchanted spear that he buried underground. "Cursed enchanted magic: Infernal explosion!" He chanted before the spear popped out beside Erwin and pierced his right arm, cutting it in the process. Not too long, before an light and shallow explosion occured.

"Ahhhhh!" Erwin screamed in pain. But he laughed hardly afterwards, "that's just, felt incredible."

'His wounded now,' Ryouma carefully watched his opponent. 'I wanna know what's gonna happen.' he never took off his eyes away from Erwin, not even a blink. Slowly, he watched as Erwin's arm regenerated. In a few seconds, his new arm was fully constructed. 'What in the world...'Ryouma was too surprised to spoke and thoughts was flooding his mind. "I see, so that's the trick. Regeneration huh?" He spoked at Erwin. Ryouma called up his spear and caught it with his left hand.

"It doesn't matter whether you know it or not. The question is, can you stop it from happening?" Erwin lifted his chin and spoked at Ryouma with confidence in his words.

'I've got no chance of winning. In that case...' Ryouma thought, 'I really need to use that skill huh?' he already planned his way to victory and without hesitation, he runned forward and throws the spear. 'If he's really regenerating, then I just need to kill him before he regenerates.' he held in his mind.

Erwin ignored and avoided it. He focused his attention to Ryouma, observing his actions as he runned towards him. "This bastard doesn't care about my regeneration." he mumbled. When Ryouma was about to get close to him, he slashed the air to send a wave of energy at him. But Ryouma suddenly vanished from his sight and the only thing Erwin saw was... a spear. "What?!" is the only reaction he gave before sensing something behind him and rolled his eyes in the corner. It appears that Ryouma switched position with the spear.

Ryouma was now behind Erwin, charging his fist, "Explosion Magic: Explosive turbo!" he chanted before a quick explosion behind his elbow causing his punch to increase in both speed and power. The speed was too much that his timing and aim was a bit off and barely hitting Erwin in the neck.

Erwin quickly leaped away from Ryouma and turned his body to face him. 'That was close.' he chuckled, 'he's planning to overwhelm in speed, but that won't work.'

"I'm not done yet!" Ryouma said as he closed his left palm. He manipulated the enchanted spear that is now behind Erwin after the switch earlier. It went straight and pierced Erwin's back as Ryouma charged towards him. "Do you know the reason why I never used the cursed arm and the enchanted spear?" he spoked before punching Erwin directly to his abdomen to where the spear's blade was poking out. "It's to minimize the destructive power." Ryouma screamed as the cursed arm and enchanted spear started glowing.

"Boooooom!"

Both of them got caught by the massive explosion. Luckily, they were inside a crater that minimized the damage. But the shockwave was strong enough to shook the ground below.

---

On the meantime, Ryuga saw the explosion enveloping the battlefield, giving him more worries. "What the hell is going on over there?!" he uttered. Ryuga and Rein was already worried enough that they want to break the barrier but even the combined attack of the back lane forces can't even shake the barrier.

"We can't sense anything from outside and we can't contact them either. I've never been worried like this in my life." Ryuga worriedly stated.

"Herrrhhhooo, cssshhhk!"

They suddenly heard a interruption on their communicator. "What was that sound?" one of the team members spoked. The sound was too unclear to understand.

"An interruption? Someone is forcing his way through our communicator!" Rein spoked.

"Hello! Guildmaster Ryuga, I want to know the situation over there."

The voice was finally clear. Everyone heard it. Although some of them couldn't recognize the voice, Ryuga and Rein know who's the person spoking.

"This voice is..." Ryuga couldn't believe. Finally, a new hope shined through his eyes.

---

'Seems like Ryouma already started.' Haru thought as he stared up the sky where smokes from the explosion can be seen. 'I need to hurry to the first team. The last update we received was, there's a giant skeleton releasing a mysterious gas in the area. That must be a boss.' she thought, looking left and right while using her frost magic to navigate faster and smoothly throughout the area.

[WARNING]

ENEMY DETECTED

DISTANCE: 80m

"Eighty meters? The system detected it at this distance?" Haru uttered. The monster she was dealing with must be strong since the system detected it from far away. 'I need to be careful.' she kept in her mind. 'That must be it.' she thought as she sensed some mana traces in the air. She stopped as she reached the area but to her surprise, nobody's in there. 'There's no one in here. Taiga is the team leader of the front line, but how come there's nothing left? They got wiped out?' she looked around.

[NOTICE]

STAY IN THAT PLACE FOR 1 HOUR

'What? The system is...' Haru widened her eyes. 'There's something strange in the system.' she sat down and take another glance around her. "I can sense a completely dense mana from far away. No, bloodlust maybe. I think I should obey the system orders. Who knows what would happen."

The unpleasant feeling sh sensed was really someone releasing mana not too far away from her position. It wasn't Ryouma or anyone who has the capability to do so.

---

"Haaaaa... Ahhhhh... Haaaaah!"

Ryouma panted after surviving a near death experience. Luckily, his body was made for explosion tolerance. "I survive... because of pure luck. I didn't expect it to be that big." He uttered while still panting, remembering the sensation he felt during the explosion. "It's too bothersome to think that it was only the phase one." he uttered and looked straight in front of him. 'As expected,' he grinned after seeing Erwin still standing with half of his face slowly regenerating, "still alive? You son of a bitch!" Ryouma spoked.

"Hmmmmm..." Erwin groaned. "It nearly killed me." he spoked after his face was fully regenerated. 'if not because of my quick reflexes, all my cells in my body would've died in an instance. Luckily I somehow managed to pull out the spear before if explodes.' Erwin thought. 'And more importantly his enchanted and cursed technique went off unexpectedly. I think he can no longer be a threat.' he stared at Ryouma and saw his arm went back to normal again.

[WARNING!]

[Blessed item: Holy water potion]

Time left: 5 m 13s

"I need to stop fooling around. The time limit of the potion is about to come." Erwin murmured after seeing the time limit displayed in the warning screen. "I need to kill him."

'Phase one complete,' Ryouma grinned, 'Now for the phase two, I just need to activate the skill at the right moment. The skill takes time to activate ,so my goal is to survive for atleast 3 minutes. This will be bothersome since I can no longer use my enchantment and curse.' He looked at Erwin. "And this guy look even more disparate. But somehow I managed to figure out his secret."

However, Erwin's goal came in sync with his. One have the will to survive and the other one wanted to kill.

Erwin is the first one to attack, he swinged his arm horizontally, and poured a dense amount of mana, "Slashing magic: Divide!" he chanted.

"Swoosh!"

The sound of the wind getting sliced can be heard and the fallen rocks that blocking the way follows. Everything in front of him was cut in half.

Ryouma didn't waver, he remained calm and sensed the mana in his attack. The attack was far way too low, that's why he jumped and flipped over to avoid the slash. "That was as close." He uttered after a safely landing.

But Erwin didn't stop there, he sends two more slashes, both are horizontal and overlapping each other. "You won't avoid that one." He's too confident in his attacks.

"That's too fast," Ryouma grinned, "But that won't work." he strengthened his footing. In one push, he managed to evade the attack with one quick and long sidestep. "My turn," Ryouma pointed his palm at Erwin and squeezed his wrist using the other one. "Explosion magic: Mini bomb!" he blasted some small fireballs at him that explodes upon landing.

The explosion isn't enough to harm Erwin, but enough to annoy him. He felt humiliated and annoyed. "Bastard, do you think that'll kill me. Are you underesti–" he quick wiped out the smokes that blocking his vision and looked around him. He noticed Ryouma's presence vanished. "His gone, where the hell did that maggot go?!" He annoyingly turned his head in various directions. But the moment he laid eyes on Ryouma another light explosion landed on his face.

"boooom!"

"I'll call this trick 'Explosive dynamite!'" Ryouma was randomly running behind obstacles and throwing stones at Erwin's face that explodes upong landing. 'It's been a minute, two more minutes.' Ryouma runned towards Erwin who's taking his time to recover his stance. Ryouma runned in zigzagging motion and punched his face with all that momentum. "I can accelerate more!" he stated. Slightly twisting his leg, forcing ground below him exploded, launching him away from Erwin before he recover from that punch.

'Tsk, I can't keep up with his playful fighting style. He's just randomly messing around.' Erwin gritted his teeth. "How dare you mess with me using that failed magic of yours." He suddenly blurted, catching Ryouma's attention.

Ryouma stopped and asked, "What are you talking about?" Ryouma suddenly got curious, but still hid behind a rock just in case.

"In this world, there are a lot of magic exists. But only four of them stood at the top. Elemental, Cursed, enchantment, spirit, and alchemy magic. Those four dominates the magic universe and said to be the origin of all magics." Erwin got carried away and explained everything.

Ryouma was obviously just buying time, but the discussion was too interesting that he listened anyways.

"And your magic is a three attributive magic that combined elemental, cursed and enchantment. But because you failed to master the flame magic, you came up with an excuse to call it explosion magic instead. What a pity, your wasting your power here. You should come with us, the gods will guide you back to the light." Erwin spoked and smiled, extending his opened hand.

Ryouma was too surprised to spoke. 'So does that mean that I'm not at my strongest state yet?' He furiously glance at Erwin. "I see, but I'm refusing your invitation to your weird and creepy group, or should I call it a cult." he jokingly mocked Erwin.

"I see," Erwin squeezed his eyes shut, "I guess you have too much pride flowing in your veins." he slowly opened his eyes and looked at Ryouma with a threatening glance.