"Get off me, you fool…" the Whitelocke heir hissed while shoving the slumped noble off him.
He dusted his hands dramatically, as though the noble had contaminated his bloodline. "We already gave you a chance to surrender, but you refuse to heed our words."
The other nobles stepped closer, grouping behind him as if posing for a poster titled: "We Swear We're Not Going to Jump You."
Ren stared at them for two seconds.
Then laughed.
'They look straight out of some cheap shounen manga,' he thought. 'All that's missing is them shouting friendship and power of unity.'
Reina shifted behind him, slipping into a fighting stance with her legs planted on the ground and her hands glowing with ice.
It was going to be an all-out war.
The Whitelocke heir's eyes blazed.
Literal flames curled up his hair, along his forearms, licking across his boots. He took one step…
And burst into a sprint.
"CHARGE!!!"
Everything exploded into chaos.
The clearing became a battleground in an instant.
The Evermere heir had already transformed into a massive rolling ball… a perfect spherical nightmare.
His body was spinning so fast he blurred and his skin stretched unnaturally with expansion magic until he looked like a living wrecking ball made of rage and cholesterol.
He barreled straight at Ren.
Meanwhile the Whitlocke heir hurled himself at Reina, fire blasting from every limb like he was trying to cook her alive.
Ren dodged left, letting the Evermere ball shoot past him so quickly the wind nearly shaved his eyebrows off.
'How do I stop a charging ball of madness coming for me?' Ren wondered.
The ball was now skidding and had slowed down. It seemed it took a lot of time to change the direction he was going to because of the speed and Ren prepared to take advantage of the opening…
Only to feel something coil around his leg.
He looked down.
"…Vines. Seriously?"
His gaze snapped upward to the Thorn heir… he had green hair and his shirt was half-open, looking smug as hell with a dozen spiky vines writhing around his hands.
"Immobilized," The Thorn heir said with pride.
"Damned fucker," Ren muttered as he ripped the vines apart with brute force alone.
He hurled his wooden stick at Thornvale's head with enough power to shatter a bear's spine.
It whistled through the air…
Only for a ripple of sound to pass through it and completely disintegrate it into dust.
Ren's eyebrow twitched.
'Oh. That guy.'
Neon Aldercrest stepped forward with his hands raised.
Neon… the future best friend of the Protagonist and hero.
He was also Neon who was destined to survive every conflict through plot armor and also one of his least favorite characters in the entire series.
'I should cripple him first…' Ren thought happily.
But Neon was faster.
He blasted a wave of compressed sound straight at Ren.
Ren dodged… barely.
The soundwave hit him anyway, vibrational shock crawling through his bones.
It felt like being shaken by a giant hand. It was not painful, but unbelievably irritating.
And then…
BOOOOM!!
The Evermere cannonball slammed into Ren at full rotational speed.
Ren launched backward like someone had fired him out of a magical slingshot.
'…This didn't hurt as much as I expected.'
While flying, he calmly pocketed the box and necklace into the pouch near his chest.
Then like a martial arts prodigy he was, Ren twisted mid-air, planted both feet on a tree trunk and stopped dead.
His feet dug into the bark.
He breathed out.
"I'm weaponless and I'm being jumped…" Ren muttered.
His eyes flicked toward Reina.
She was holding her own by dodging the Whitlocke heir's fire slashes while blasting him with ice bursts.
Her element was disadvantaged, but she moved smartly and wasted less movement.
'At least she's competent,' Ren thought.
Meanwhile he was… not very competent without a weapon.
And then…
BOOOOM!
Just as Ren leapt off the tree, it had been blasted by a sphere made of shadow.
Standing where the tree had been was the Ravenire heir… he had pale skin, black hair and red eyes plus he was wearing nice drip too.
"Shadow blast," the heir said coolly.
"At least be fair," Ren muttered.
But the Evermere heir was already rotating again, ready to annihilate Ren a second time.
And right then…
The Briarhallow heir, the one Ren had previously ditched into the water, came sprinting out of the bushes with his face contorted in rage.
"FUCK YOUUUU!!"
He hurled a sword at Ren with all his strength.
Ren blinked.
Neon Aldercrest blinked too but with horror.
"NOOOOO!" Neon shouted, blasting wind at the sword in an attempt to stop it.
But all the windwave did was accelerate it.
Ren reached out… caught the sword mid-flight and grinned.
The blade was instantly enveloped in a blue glow… Blade Resonance activating instinctively in his hands.
Evermere was rolling toward him for the killing blow too…
"Perfect," Ren whispered.
He slashed forward.
SHRRRRK!!!
The sword tore through the spinning ball, carving a diagonal line across Evermere's entire torso.
Blood sprayed as the heir unraveled mid-roll and collapsed into a heap, groaning as he clutched his chest. He shrank back to his original size in an instant.
'There are healing mages in this world,' Ren thought. 'He'll be fine… Probably.'
The clearing fell silent for half a second.
Then…
"QUICK! BLAST HIM DOWN!" Neon screamed.
Everything happened at once.
The Thorn heir stomped and sent razor-sharp vines shooting toward Ren from the ground.
The Ravenire heir launched a sphere of condensed shadow at his head.
Neon fired compressed wind again.
The Briarhallow heir realizing his mistake, ripped a chunk of earth from the ground and hurled it like a boulder.
Several attacks converged on Ren from every direction… and all he did was inhale.
Then he tightened his grip on the sword and poured mana into the blade.
Then he slashed diagonally.
KRRRRRRRRRRRSH!!
All incoming spells… vines, wind, shadow, earth were sliced apart in an instant, torn open like thin paper.
Energy scattered harmlessly across the ground, blowing leaves in every direction.
Ren stood in the middle of a crater of his own making.
And grinned.
'Hahahahahaa!!!! I feel like an overpowered protagonist!'
Reina froze mid-fight.
"W…what the hell…?" she whispered, watching him from across the clearing.
The nobles stared at him like he had just punched gravity.
Neon's eye twitched so violently it looked like it would detach.
"This is bad!" Neon shouted. "Everyone… run!"