As he stood atop the pile of bodies that were his comrades he looked at the chaotic battle. So far only a handful of mages had fallen compared to the scores of monsters.

Without the sturdy trolls to soak up the damage the casualties were only escalating. Picking out a nearby target he used [Stampede]. Appearing before the woman like a runaway train.

She had been busy fighting a small group of goblins and had not noticed his approach until it was too late. His halberd swung down, deep into her shoulder. Snapping her collarbone and a few ribs. She cried out in agony before the goblins jumped all over her. Dragging her to the ground.

Gyn passed by tossing his usual mixture of bombs. Disrupting the Mages from casting their spells. Bright flashes, acid and shrapnel were the gifts of the day from him as he laughed while tossing a few more.

This made Kace smile even though he was on a battlefield. Strangely enough he was beginning to really enjoy times like these. It made him feel alive.

He impaled another mage on his spear tip, lifting him up and swinging the halberd to drive him off of it. The poor mages body was sent flying into the crowd.

Kace felt something dangerous. Perhaps by instinct. Looking to where he felt it was coming from he noticed the old man who had been atop the walls. Many of the mages were now beginning to gather around him.

'This looks bad' Kace thought as he quickly rushed to the scene.

The closer he got the more obvious it became that they were attempting to use some kind of large scale magic. Grugda had also noticed and rushed to his side.

The old man amongst them raised an eyebrow as he watched the pair approaching. With a wave of his hand several ice spikes were formed. Then they proceeded to rain down on Kace and Grugda. Kace waved his halberd around blocking them just as they came into his reach while Grugda used matching earth spikes to counter.

Once they were in the clear Kace cast [Silence] towards the old mage. The black cloudy bolt was easily avoided at this range though. It seems he had been expecting it after watching their approach to the ice walls.

Other mages had begun to notice them clashing and more mages peeled away to join the old man. Working together to suppress Kace and Grugda.

"Grugda. Can you give me enough cover to get in amongst them?"

"I believe. So." He grumbled, his speech as slow as ever.

"Let's do it then."

Earthen walls began to erupt from the ground all over the place. This was to prevent the Mages from knowing exactly what walls Kace would use to approach them.

As he ran between the walls he prepared himself to use his trump card. If he did not use it here then it would not be worth the price they would have to pay to take the town.

Walls constantly got destroyed and rebuilt as Grugda held off the mages. Luckily he held on until Kace raced out from behind the last wall.

[Empower]!

The surrounding mages faces all paled as a jet black magic array spread out with Kace as the centre. It began emanating a black fog as the mages felt a portion of their strength leaving them.

Kace on the other hand was ecstatic. With so many of them around all his attributes rose by quite a significant amount. 'The effects are rather good.' he thought as he analysed the changes to himself.

Although his intelligence and wisdom were boosted by the largest amount the gains to his other attributes were still large enough to allow him to go toe to toe with the group without his magic.

[Kinetic Vision]!

He activated this to help him make the most of his new strength within the time limit he had. As all sorts of spells rushed at him he was able to avoid every one of them by small margins to remove any excess movements.

Releasing his aura to top it off some of the mages doubled over and began to vomit. The sudden shock to their senses too much to bare. Kace meandered through the group cutting down the ones unable to fight back first.

The mages were beginning to panic as they had never even heard of a monster like this before, so they had no idea what spells were best to use against him. Kace jumped, side stepped, ducked and danced his way through the storm of magic. Every swing of his halberd sending between one and three lives to meet the reaper.

Like a deranged artist he was painting a gruesome scene. His paint, the blood and bodies of the mages. His canvas, the grounds around the Mages Association. Grugda was impaling them as well with earth spikes and spears while they were distracted.

By the time [Empower] only had a minute left they had cleared up all the small fries. Leaving only Kace, Grugda and the old man left standing. Contrary to the situation the old man did not seem affected in the slightest at being outnumbered.

Kace took this opportunity to look at the man's stats he had activated when the fighting began.

Name: Victor

Class: Mage

Level: 10

HP: 480/500

AP:110/110

MP: 600/900

Kace almost vomited blood when he seen this. The guys main stats were obviously intelligence and wisdom yet his health was so much more than Kace's. The MP he possessed was the most troubling. He had obviously been conserving his strength as much as possible since the battle began.

He was also twice his own level. 'This isn't going to be easy.' he thought nervously.

Grugda stepped forward. Staring hard at Victor.

"Sir. I deal. You support. His strength. Not far. From me." He said in his slow tones.

Kace checked the party window. On the journey here he had played about with his new systems that had been unlocked. Just now in his party were Grugda, Kharja and Gyn.

He opened Grugda's stats to see how he was faring.

Name: Grugda

Class: Druid

Level: 8

HP: 400/620

AP: 140/180

MP: 400/840

Grugda's situation was worse than Victors in all terms apart from AP. This gave Kace a feeling of concern. Sure there was a chance that together they could deal with this foe but that depended on if Victor would focus his power on Grugda.

Suddenly Grugda roared. On his status bar a buff appeared.

[Natures Wrath]: Unique Skill to the Eljein. Recovers 200 HP and 200 MP. Increases magical damage by 20% for three minutes.

Kace's eyes went wide with joy. Now Grugda overshadowed Victor in terms of status. A soft green glow emanated from the Eljein giving off a sense of pressure.

This drew the gaze of Victor as he focused on this new threat. The pair continued to stare down each other as the tension rose.

Victor broke first and fired an icebolt to test the waters. Grugda responded with a magic that Kace had never seen him use before. A windblade slice the ice in two as it hurled onwards towards Victor.

He in turn used an ice wall to block and from behind it rained lighting down on the Eljein. Not one to be outdone Grugda secured himself in an earth dome preventing the lightning from reaching him. At this point Victor felt the earth beneath him shift as it attempted to swallow him.

It was clear that with the buff from [Natures Wrath] it closed the difference in level between the two. Facing each other now as equals. Though on Grugda's side there was still Kace.

He rushed around the side of the ice wall and fired [Silence] as Victor stumbled away from the earth trying to devour him. However Victor, even though he was being pressured, blocked it with another wall and countered Kace with fire this time. Forcing him to take a step back.

As Kace retreated Grugda landed a blow. He manipulated the air into whips that lashed at the mage bringing his health down to 350. Now preoccupied with with defending against this fresh assault Kace activated [Stampede] and [Cursed Weapon] simultaneously.

The next moment he was swinging his halberd at Victor who had a smile on his face. The halberd barely scratched him before he stamped his foot causing an ice pillar to ram into Kace's chest.

The pillar rose quickly in a diagonal into the air as it knocked the wind from Kace. It halted suddenly and the velocity from the sudden rise launched Kace clean over the Mages Association building to the far side. Where he landed heavily on his back.

Struggling to his feet he began limping back to the battlefield. The blow and the landing had broken a few of his ribs and injured his leg. Using the halberd for support he struggled on.

As he made his way around the large building the sounds of the battle between Grugda and Victor grew deafening. He watched the party bar as his anger grew. Grugda's health was falling rapidly with the increase in intensity of their fight. Luckily Kace had managed to scratch Victor so at least one stack of the curse would be active helping Grugda out.

The sky made a turn for the worse. A giant storm cloud appeared above their battle and grew more threatening with each second. At the same time the earth began to rumble beneath Kace's feet.

Then it happened. Kace could feel pure violence emanating from the earth as spears of lightning rained down from the cloud. It seemed as though the very apocalypse had come go visit. Kace watched as Grugda's health depleted faster than before with baited breath. Praying for his friends survival.