"What the heck is going on?!" Although he had a lot of questions he wanted to ask Herellia at this instant, he knew what he had to do at this moment.

Survive, and calm Herellia down.

As dust was scattered thanks to collision of Herellia's blood red tendril and his darkflame barrier, Aurus was able to easily distance himself from Herellia, activating [Zenith Spirit Transcendence], which he could not activate earlier due to suddenness of her attack.

Just as Aurus was about to locate Herellia's current position, his decision was cut short as he sensed Herellia's blood red tendril moving in a sweeping manner as it got close to his body.

"[Supreme Sanguine Art: Reap]."

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

As usual, due to Herellia's superior movement speed, Aurus was not easily able to path out the trajectory of the tendril, only relying on his tempered instincts and reflexes to dodge both. Fortunately, even though the tendril could reach out to whatever height Aurus was hovering at, Aurus would always fly higher before the tendril could reach him.

Currently, Aurus was now around 15 meters above the ground, only 10 more meters remained between him and the ceiling of the hall. He looked at Herellia for a bit and heard the click of a nonexistent tongue from her as she started to hover off the ground as well. Not long after, the extremely big blood red tendril that she used to attack Aurus was now split into 5 smaller and thinner blood red tendrils, but their length was still the same.

Using this time of respite to catch his breath through photosynthesis, Aurus then commanded Staff No. 2, his current weapon, to come out as he wanted to even out the playing field a little bit.

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

But before he could truly summon out Staff No. 2, Herellia took the initiative to attack, commanding the 5 tendrils to spiral into one large tendril, as if the attack looked like a large red drill aiming at Aurus.

"[Supreme Sanguine Art: Pierce]."

"[Barrier of the Spiritas: Maximum Defense]!"

Whoos.h.!.+

Bang!

This time, although Aurus was not able to infuse darkflame into his barrier, the collision between the tendrils and the barrier did not destroy his barrier in one shot, but rather dimming the light of the barrier by a little bit, making him think that choosing this skill was truly worth it.

While Herellia was retrieving her tendrils, Aurus took this time to command the system through the Battle module.

"System, formulate a plan that will incapacitate Herellia to the extent that she can't attack back."

Ding!

Not long after, a small screen on the left side of his field of vision appeared, giving Aurus the skills he needs to use to do just that.

"[Spirit Sword of Seven h.e.l.ls]!"

Whoos.h.!.+

In an instant, Aurus conjured a blade from the Anima making up his body, infusing with SP not long after as it radiated a pure white glow.

"[Darkflame Manipulation]!"

Swis.h.!.+ Swis.h.!.+ Swis.h.!.+

This pure white glow was then accompanied by multiple embers of darkflame that wrapped around the blade, giving the blade Aurus created a holy yet demonic type of feel.

Then again, who would care about a fight between two Inanimates?

Feeling the powerful aura radiating from the blade, Herellia could not help but intensify the aura radiating from her body as the 5 tendrils split up into 25 thinner tendrils. Without hesitation, she shot those 25 tendrils towards where Aurus was in a flower formation.

"[Supreme Sanguine Art: Bloom]."

"Take this! [Darkflame Sword of Pride]!"

Whoos.h.!.+

As the blade and the tendrils got closer to one another, their auras started to emanate from the surroundings. At first, the two of them were neck and neck in terms of intensity, but not long after, some of the tendrils making up the flower formation started to shrivel up, letting Aurus know that his conjured blade was strong than the tendrils.

More and more of the tendrils started to shrivel up, only leaving a single one behind as the blade zoomed towards Herellia, slas.h.i.+ng horizontally on her body, breaking the circuit of her blood red engravings as she was flung towards the walls of the hall with a bang.

Bang!

Due to the power stored inside the blade, Herellia was not only flung into the wall, she also made a decent dent into it, around 5 centimeters or so.

Looking at the screen on his left side and seeing that there were no more moves for him to do, Aurus let out a light sigh as he came closer to Herellia.

Rumble…Rumble…

Of course, Herellia thought that it was not over, trying to budge her way out of the wall as she wanted to attack Aurus once more.

"Must…protect…alliance…" Herellia muttered softly as she mustered all the strength she could at this moment, wanting to attack one more time.

"Herellia…" As for Aurus, he was just a few meters away from where Herellia was at. He tried to call out to her, but it seemed that she was still adamant on fighting against him, ignoring his call. He then infused some of his SP into voice before shouting once more, "Herellia! Snap out of it!"

Bang!

As Aurus' voice reached Herellia's sense of hearing, the cloth that seemed to block her rationality was finally removed, stopping her futile struggle for good. She looked at the hall for a bit before asking herself, "W-What happened?"

"We fought, that's what." Not long after, Herellia heard a voice answer her question. At the instant she turned her field of vision to look at the origin of the voice, Herellia found an extremely familiar silhouette. "Aurus…what…"

At that instant, the memories that did not seem to be processed during the fight, now came to her as the aura that covered her body changed from extreme rage to intense somberness.

"I…" Herellia was at a loss for words after realizing what she has done. She maintained silence for a bit as she tried to gather her thoughts. After a while, she then muttered out a simple "Sorry."

"Although I feel wronged for being attacked, no problem at all," Aurus replied. He could not help but sense the complicated aura radiating out of Herellia's body as he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Haah," Herellia could only sigh. "Although a week has pa.s.sed since that incident, the safety of the alliance is still in jeopardy."

"A week?" Aurus could not help but think about this. Isn't this the same time when he left the alliance to hunt for bosses? "Did something happen while I was gone? Did I do something wrong?"

"No, you did nothing wrong at all," Herellia replied with a somber tone. "It's just that…to think that I placed my full trust on him."

"Before you continue your answer," Aurus interrupted Herellia just before he thought she would continue, pointing towards where she was. "Let me help you out of there and heal you up. Sorry for going so hard on you."

"Mm, it's not your fault," Herellia maintained her somber tone in her replies. "Rather, I want to thank you for bringing me back to reality. I might just be overthinking right now, but the possibility still exists."

Aurus controlled Staff No. 2 to head between the dent and Herellia's body, before controlling it to move like a lever, popping Herellia out of the dent he made from the attack.

"[Darkflame Manipulation]."

"[Formosus Exuberance]."

"Combine!"

"[Formosus Exuberance: Chaotic Healing]!"

Whoos.h.!.+

Aiming the healing skill towards Herellia, a great chunk of her HP and injuries were healed in that short burst of healing power. Not long after, small embers of darkflame covered her body, recovering more of her HP and injuries until she had none left.

"Woah," Herellia could not help but say. "This healing skill is quite strong."

"I grinded it for a long time before it could reach this level," Aurus radiated an aura equivalent to a wry smile as he continued, "Then again, I can't compare to your level of grinding, seeing that you have had the system far longer than me."

"When did you know?" Although Herellia wanted to be the first one to tell Aurus about her system, it did not occur to him that Aurus already knew about her system.

"From the part where you talked about the G.o.ddess of Kins.h.i.+p blessing you," Aurus replied. "Anyways, what happened while I was gone?"

With the topic back to what it originally was, Herellia could not help but sigh for a long time as she looked at Aurus, sensing the improvement he had after going out for a hunt. "For now, only I know about this since I did not bother spreading it to the other Pillar level members. As for you, since you're a fellow system user like me, it won't hurt me telling you this."

With a serious aura covering her body, Aurus realized that something big had happened while he was gone. "What happened?"

"h.o.r.ell left the alliance," Herellia replied.

"What?" Out of all the things he least expected, this was something truly out of his expectations. He could not help but stay silent for a bit before asking Herellia, "You're joking…right?"

"Nope, not at all. I wish I was," Herellia sighed. "As for the reason, it's actually worse than you might think."

"How worse could it be?" Aurus asked.

"I told you about the Animate that wants to control the whole Tempest Cliff, right?" Herellia tried to refresh Aurus' mind.

"Yep, I remember it quite well," Aurus replied with an aura of affirmation.

"Well, although h.o.r.ell said that he was going to leave the alliance to not affect it while he was transitioning into Animate, his true purpose was to head back to that Animate, sensing that his mission was now over," Herellia replied with a somber yet serious tone.

Bang!

As if fireworks went off in his mind, Aurus could not help but stare at Herellia with disbelief. "Are you serious?"

"Follow me, I'll lead you to my secluded area. I'll explain more in-depth there." Herellia turned around and faced the pathway that led to the small ecosystem as she started to hover off the ground.

"Alright then," Aurus accepted her wishes since this incident did ultimately have something to do with the safety of the alliance. As he started to hover off the ground, he then heard a question from Herellia that made him slightly dumbfounded.

"Hey Aurus, do you want to become a Pillar level member?"

"Wait…are you serious?"

As they continued to traverse the pathway, a few seconds later after Aurus' question, a soft voice from Herellia answered his question.

"Yes."