Author's note: Enjoy!

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Zaran took a step forward and the 'Devouring chaos' aura took a loose shape around him. He had used the bare minimum amount of ki to sustain the skill as he didn't know how much he needed to spend during the fight.

Cindarrah jumped on Kirin's back and yelled "GO GET HIM DADDY!".

The next instant Nuvahn and Kirin backed away from Zaran as they didn't want to be a disturbance during the fight.

Upon seeing this scene the Rotter knight cocked his head and give out a low groan, slammed his sword on his large round shield, then put his shield up in front of him while shifting its right foot back and bringing its sword right above his shield.

Zaran smiled upon seeing this as it was a fairly good battle stance and it showed that he would be fighting a worthy enemy. While slaying the previous hundreds of Rotters he had noticed that he still was far from being fully move his body the way he wanted to. This was a great annoyance to him as it effected his battle strength tremendously. To combat this problem Zaran had decided to solo any enemy he thought would both be beatable and be a challenging opponent if fought on his own.

While he was going to fight this Rotter knight on his own he had told Nuvahn, Kirin and Cindarrah to jump in the fray if things didn't go well at all.

Zaran slowly moved forward until he was 3 meters away from the Rotter knight and then stopped. One meter further the Rotter knight's aura started. While Zaran was confident that his 'Devouring Chaos' would be able to deal with it, he was still hesitant to start the fight. Yet once he was nearly in front of the aura the fear disappeared and a great battle lust replaced it instead. In a mere instant after stopping, he lowered his body and shot fort at his opponent.

The Rotter turned his shield to face Zaran, not allowing Zaran to take a free slash or stab at its body.

Zaran sneered upon seeing this and used 'Earth lance' and made it attack the Rotter knight's sides, while it didn't deal a great amount of damage, one of the earth lances hit the heavy armoured Rotter knight's shield, slightly knocking it back, giving Zaran a clear opening on its body. Zaran then used a 'Mountain strike' to further damage and knock-up the target. Right as the knockup effect of 'Mountain strike' was going to take effect, the Rotter knight used 'Shield wall' and slammed his shield into the ground which completely cancelled the knock-up effect and damage 'Mountain strike' would have dealt.

-75 (1925/2000)

Meanwhile Zaran's aura and the Rotter knight's aura were fighting a war of attrition. While neither's aura was damaged terribly, the collision of the two aura's started to steadily deplete Zaran's ki.

The Rotter knight's shield was still firmly stuck in the ground so Zaran circled around to his shield arm to land a clean blow on its body. Right before Zaran was going to land a blow the Rotter knight pulled his shield free from the ground, sending dirt and stones flying and instantly tried to bash Zaran with its shield.

Zaran used 'Earth lance' twice in quick succession to stop the shield bash, but the shield stopped the earth lances with ease while the Rotter's aura instantly turned the earth lances to dust. "FUCK!" Zaran thought and instantly roared "Crashing waves! Two waves!" as he hit the Rotter knight's shield with his greatsword, limiting himself to only using two waves of ki from the 'Crashing waves' skill to stop the shield.

Swiftly creating some distance between himself and the Rotter knight, Zaran instantly started 'Flash fire' and a familiar fiery red aura started to pulsate around him.

The Rotter knight stopped and watched Zaran as suddenly there were two aura's surrounding its target. As the first one was already clashing with its own aura the Rotter knight was very wary of the second aura.

Zaran sneered upon seeing this as this gave him the time that he needed to fully charge the skill. "Flash fire." he muttered followed by "Earth Lance". Because it first got hit by 'Flash fire' the rotter was unable to utilize his aura to stop the 'Earth lance' from hitting it.

-75 -400 (1450/2000)

The Rotter knight quickly recovered and tried to bash Zaran with its shield but Zaran skillfully slid to its shield arm side, however the Rotter knight seemed to have sensed that move and instantly moved his shield to the side, now trying to slam Zaran with the shield.

Eyes widening upon seeing the incoming shield, Zaran quickly somersaulted out of it's course. Still this action had left the Rotter knight wide open!

Quickly using 'Swiftness' Zaran's speed instantaneously increased and he quickly used 'Flutter' on the Rotter knight, critically hitting the Rotter knight with the last hit, dealing a huge amount of damage.

- 469 (981/2000)

The Rotter knight groaned ear-deafeningly loud and instantly concentrated a humongous amount of aura on its blade. The Rotter knight casually slashed down and an utterly terrifying sword energy rushed towards Zaran.

Zaran activated 'Tempered body' and used 'swiftness' to its limits and rapidly bent his body backwards. However even with the speed increase from 'swiftness' he was far from fast enough and was hit by a tenth of the sword energy, instantly taking a huge chunk from his health.

-638 (862/1500)

Shock and disbelief filled Zaran's and Nuvahn's eyes. They both had seen the damage just part of that energy had done. Still Zaran had no time to fuss over the damage that strike dealt and quickly straightened himself again.

"I CAN DO THAT TOO!" Zaran roared as he unleashed the minimal amount of ki to strike the Rotter knight with a 'Devouring chaos slash'.

-100 (881/2000)

The Rotter knight's aura had visibly weakened after using it's [strike of decay] and after being hit with 'Devouring chaos slash' and now it was no longer able to compete with Zaran's aura.

Noticing this Zaran expanded his aura and by doing this used up half of his remaining ki. The aura rapidly weakened further, unable to withstand the onslaught of Zaran's aura and in no time at all the Rotter knight's aura fully disappeared. However the fight war far from over. Zaran proceeded to use 'Gravity' to force the Rotter knight's shield to be pulled down and instantly followed up with a sideways slash to it's upper body.

The Rotter groaned and used all its might to pull the shield upwards, negating the effect of 'Gravity' but Zaran just sneered and with a flick of his wrist changed the course of his sword towards the Rotter knight's head and the knock back effect of Gigenkai took effect, sending the Rotter knight flying and crashing into the nearest wall.

-83 (798/2000)

The Rotter knight swiftly got up again and let out a fierce groan.

Zaran sneered and used 'Earth lance' to impale the Rotter knight to the wall, but the Rotter knight just met the 'Earth lance' with a 'Shield wall' and the damage was negated. However Zaran's objective was reached and the Rotter knight was still stuck with it's back against the wall.

Using 'Gravity' to pull the Rotter knight's shield towards him and then following up with the first two waves ki of 'Crashing waves' on the shield the Rotter knight's shield arm gave away and broke of from its body.

-339 (459/2000)

Having lost the shield the Rotter knight's body started to get affected by 'Gravity' and was pulled towards Zaran. Not having expected this outcome Zaran quickly took a few stacks back and created distance between him and the Rotter knight.

That wasn't the only reason why Zaran had decided to increase the distance between the two though. The Rotter had just dropped to a fourth of its health and it should be entering an enraged state. The Rotters they had met before all entered this state upon reaching a fourth of their total health and got a new projectile attack.

Thus Zaran decided to draw some distance between the two of them and see what happened to it. While he could easily kill the Rotter knight in two more hits he didn't want to be caught by surprise. At the same time even if he finished the Rotter knight off right away he wouldn't learn about the enraged state attacks of the Rotter knight.

But the Rotter knight just stood there, disillusioned about what had just happened. A few seconds passed and finally the Rotter knight moved again and instantly shot forward at Zaran, its speed without the shield being far faster than it used to be, so fast even that Zaran barely had any time to react to its first strike.

As the Rotter knight's sword came slashing down Zaran quickly shifted his blade and parried the hit. With a loud "HUA" Zaran kicked the Rotter knight away.

-10 (449/2000)

Recovering almost instantaneously, the Rotter knight stabbed towards Zaran, who still had trouble to deal with the Rotter knight's increased speed, and Zaran was barely able to bring his blade in front of him to stop the attack.

Being bothered by the current situation Zaran decided that it was time to finish the fight and quickly dropped his greatsword.

Not being able to let this opportunity go the Rotter knight slashed at Zaran... but he missed. Zaran's speed had doubled after letting go of his greatsword and he had swiftly moved to the sight even before the Rotter knight started his slash.

"Gravity... AND THUNDEROUS FIST!" Zaran roared as he pulled the Rotter knight towards him and hit it with thunderous fist, automatically critically hitting it because of the combination attack, depleting whatever was left of its health.

With a flash the Rotter knight's body disappeared, only leaving behind a small brown pouch, a sword, a small diary and a ring. The sword was absolutely worthless as it had 1 durability left and could not even be repaired. Upon seeing this Zaran rolled his eyes and stashed it far away in his storage ring, never wanting to see it ever again.

Sir durkhe's ringQuest itemThis ring is proof that you have found the bodies of the knights that had been sent into the sewers to investigate the situation

Zaran went back to Nuvahn and Cindarrah and quickly took a look at the small diary. It was a detailed record of the knight's various missions. Zaran flipped to the last few filled in pages and stopped on one that had the name 'Sewer investigation'. The knight had very detailed observations and made a note about every new piece of information he obtained. However it was still rather hard to read the notes as they were hastily written.

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Page 253

Initial observations:

After entering the sewers we met very little resistance. In the normal environment that would have an abundance of rats or even rat sounds on its own, only an eerie silence remained. Not even the usual animal corpses remained on the scene.

1 hour after entry:

We searched the preliminary perimeter around our starting position. What we found is... beyond words. In short we found corpses of Virul guards that were sent down here recently, however the only reason we were able to recognize them was because we found the new Virul crest that has been made three weeks ago, the rest had already decayed beyond belief. If we didn't find the new crest, we probably would've thought that these remains had been here for decades. Still no living creatures have been found thus far, only making me and my men more weary about this place.

2 hours after entry:

After finding a few more of the mangled corpses some men tried to leave the sewers and tried to head back to the surface. They met the fate that every deserter gets: death.

4 hours after entry:

Initial scan of the outer layers of the sewer system is done. We still have not found anything worth our time besides the mangled corpses here and there. We haven't found any living specimen either... I wonder where they all went to.

Page 254:

8 hours after entry:

Contact! When we went deeper into the sewers we encountered some hostiles. They are the same mangled corpses we passed by earlier. They move slowly and are mostly nothing more than a nuisance on their own but they are surrounded by a vile aura that decays armour, flesh, weapons on touch! However after we coat our weapons with light or holy magic the aura loses it's effect and allows us to effectively combat them, so we have been making light work of them!

8.5 hours after entry:

Although our initial few fights against these enemies have been easy, every fight depletes our mana and we regain it far too slowly to deal with the continuous stream of enemies. Moreover some new enemies have joined the fray, this being shield and sword wielding knights that still have the same speed and have their former battle skill.

9 hours after entry:

First casualties! Just a mere hour after the initial contact I have already lost five of my twenty men. Their mana had run out during the fight with one of the hostile knights and were swiftly killed thereafter. We started backtracking immediately after we lost them.

9:15 hours after entry:

Five more men were lost in yet another encounter with one of the knights. Our strength is lowering with each encounter.

12:30 hours after entry:

Total annihilation. A few hours ago me and my troops have been surrounded and carried away to the middle of the sewer system. What I am currently seeing before me thwarts reality. A sorcerer is performing horrible rituals on both alive and deceased bodies creating more of those abominable creatures we have been fighting on our way. Rats, dogs, humans, a bear... Every living thing the sorcerer found is being experimented on!

One by one my men are being picked and changed into one of those things... soon it is my turn... I will carefully hide this diary in my armour and I pray that this diary will fall into good hands and not into that of the sorcerers! If you find this diary hurry to the major's side and tell him to deploy the full force of the holy knights!

_______________________

Zaran carefully closed the diary and went over the information he had acquired. If the information is correct, which it should be, there are still some types of Rotters hidden in the sewers. Moreover there's the presence of the Sorcerer that is bothering him. While the party had grown considerably stronger after cultivating in the safe area, they too had been having troubles with their mana and ki recovery.

"Learnt anything new?" Nuvahn asked.

"Yeah... we're far from at the end of these things. Moreover they're continuously produced by a sorcerer. I think we should head back out and find a few party members we can trust." Zaran said, quickly summarizing the information he gathered from the diary and slightly frowning as he wasn't particularly happy about needing outside help. He was fine with Nuvahn helping him since Zaran knew he could trust Nuvahn.

"I've been thinking so too after your last fight. While we can easily dispatch normal ones right now, if we get those knights along with the normal ones I don't think we stand much of a chance." Nuvahn calmly said. "Would you happen to know anyone trustworthy?"

Zaran thought for a while before snapping his fingers and saying. "I do! My sister and her friend! Let's head back out first though, it's not safe in here."

The party quickly backtracked their way to the beginning of the sewers, opened the gate and shut it after them. Zaran quickly opened his friend list and clicked on Sylphie's name.

"Hey Sylphie, I need your help!"

Almost instantaneously an answer appeared. "EEEEH??? Where!? where!?"

"The sewers... I'm doing a quest but we need people with light or holy damage. You had a full party buff right?" Zaran asked.

"Ugh... you ask me to play with you but when you do it's the sewers? Really Zaran?" Sylphie replied angrily.

"Well... I could always find someone else if you don't want too but I just thought I should ask."

">.< Well I'll come but you owe me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Thanks Sylph. You know where the sewer entrance is?"

"Yeah, I'll be there in an hour or so."

Zaran swiftly closed the friend chat and told Zaran that Sylphie would be there in an hour.

"Allright I'll be logging out for a few minutes then. Be back in a bit!" Nuvahn said as his character started to disappear. Zaran quickly pm'd Sylphie and told her that he'd be off for a bit but that he would be back before she got to the sewers.