Lan covered himself with lightning across his body and punched a cult follower in the stomach. With his other hand, he swung his lightning-forged spear backward, cutting down some opponents.
"The barrier where Enrico is disappeared."
In the air, he noticed the barrier had vanished—a sign that his personal rival had returned, because if he had died, their friends would have known.
"I'm sure he wouldn't die."
Descending onto a house, he saw his two subordinates fighting and noticing the same thing with a bit of apprehension. Of course, they had been helped by Enrico's letter telling them to go to that real dungeon, but they still remembered being beaten.
"Seems you two still hold a little grudge."
"Don't you, sir?"
Jorge approached with his crystal sword, blood dripping from the blade. Serious the whole time, he seemed to have matured compared to before.
"Yes, but it's far more beneficial for me to be on his side than against him, so make sure you don't let that grudge toward him or Kai get the best of you."
Lan had learned to think more over these two years, because if he hadn't, it was very possible his bastard brother would take his place. Ever since he lost his fight against Enrico and fell so far in rank, his father didn't trust him as much anymore.
'The good thing is that I regained almost all his trust by becoming a fifth circle.'
"That's right, Jorge, don't ruin our chance to rise higher."
Diana looked at Jorge with a certain coldness. She had her own issues with Enrico and Valença, but if it meant more power, she would bow her head—she did exactly that with Lan and Elowyn.
'The only problem with bowing my head to these two was that my power didn't grow as much as I wanted.'
If the two had matured, she had matured a lot as well. But previously she was a coward chasing power; now she had mainly gained more cunning.
'And to make it worse, just one letter from someone I don't like made my power grow more than these two.'
She was still loyal to both Lan and Elowyn, but now she simply felt she had made the wrong choices in following them. But no one should be fooled—she didn't regret joining them.
'I'm simply going to bow my head to a third person now. Of course, if it were an enemy of the two of them, I would never do it.'
Loyalty was what her family valued most, so even if offered better things, she would never abandon the people she swore loyalty to. She was only accepting this well because both Lan and Elowyn wanted to ally with Enrico.
'Why does that guy have so much ability to evolve himself and others?'
Lan felt something strange and dangerous at a far distance. In these two years he had created a perception magic by leaving small lines of electricity in the air, allowing him to sense when something dangerous happened.
'Something really strong appeared but suddenly vanished… worse, it was Nartheis energy.'
"Lan, what are you doing?"
"Princess."
The three saw Elowyn approaching and immediately bowed. Elowyn's hair was a bit longer than before; now she wore it in an elaborate half-braid. Two thick braids fell down the sides of her head, connected in the center by a golden thread. Below, the braid loosened into wavy loops, and finally her loose hair fell down her back in luminous waves.
'Why put so much effort into her hair? Just yesterday it was normal, and that must have taken a long time for her maids to do.'
"It seems my consort has left the barrier."
Her eyes went directly to where the barrier originally was, making all three feel a slight chill at her serious tone when speaking about Enrico.
"Yes, princess, would you like us to go talk to him?"
"…not yet. I want to see his reaction when he learns about the deal between our families."
The three stood expressionless as a comedic sweat-drop slid down their heads. Her expression was the same as always, but it seemed she was planning to cause chaos for her consort just by seeing him return.
'Finally my eyes will have some relief.'
Turning around, she began walking toward Narisse to prepare her meeting with her consort for when he received the news of the arranged marriage between the two.
'I really hope to see his reaction, even if I still don't like him that much.'
The three behind her began to sweat, but not for comedic reasons. It was because they only noticed moments later that there were several corpses pierced by golden weapons, showing signs of torture and exposed bones visible at a glance.
'As always, cruel.'
Above the larger barrier around the battling mages, a person watched everything with a hint of curiosity on his face. Behind him, a portal appeared and Hao came through dragging Sandro by his left foot as if it were nothing.
"So, brother, how do you see my students?"
"More interesting than I thought. Who would have guessed that in just one day three aberrations would reach the sixth circle."
"I knew—wait, what? Explain, I just got here."
Surprised, Hao quickly approached his brother's side. Victor raised a finger, making all the remaining enemies drop dead, leaving the mages still fighting stunned. He immediately turned to his brother and replayed all the previous battles directly into Hao's brain with just a look.
"I didn't think that just by returning that boy would have reached the sixth circle."
"Well, if you consider he spent two whole years without truly resting and still survived all of that, it's not that surprising."
"You're right—and besides, I'm proud of the two students from my academy who kept up with him."
Pride swelled in Hao's chest, mainly because Victoria seemed to be doing so well, all thanks to him. Enrico would surely abandon that eighth circle to be trained by him. Seeing his brother scratch his nose with a proud expression, Victor shook his head and then commented:
"Victoria, Enrico, and Kai—I acknowledge these three have far more potential than I do."
Hao looked at his brother, shocked that he admitted that so easily. His brother was very proud, so admitting that was simply impressive.
"Well, those aren't the only interesting ones. That hidden aberration is the same level."
"You're talking about her? I already gave you the experiments from that research, so don't do anything to her."
With a sigh, Victor looked at his brother with some boredom over how uptight he was.
"I know, relax. I won't open her body to do research."
"I hope so, because if not, I'll arrest you."
Frozen by his younger brother's words, Victor wore an incredulous expression. A second later he began laughing at how absurd that was, while Hao kept insisting he not do anything.
"All right, I promise by our mother."
"Good. You better keep it."
Both looked toward where Lira walked, stepping on corpses as she looked to where Enrico's barrier had been, wearing a mad expression since she felt that power. Her cheeks were flushed as she took a deep breath.
"I can't wait for our rematch, my rival."
Lira was a monster hiding many things in her body and, like those three, she was an aberration—but she preferred showing that only to her rival. At least the first time he saw her in that state had to be with him, and until then she would remain a hidden aberration.
"I really can't wait."