"But first, how about I even the playing field a little?" s.h.i.+ro grinned.

"What do you mean?" Kier frowned.

"A little level up." She replied and snapped her fingers.

Suddenly, all of the red mist that had surrounded her enemies started to spark.

Explosive Miasma!

*BOOM!!!!!

Exploding into a giant ball of fire, Kier widened his eyes in shock and confusion. First, he hadn't seen her use a magic circle so it couldn't be higher than tier 1, the most basic types of spells.

And second, no tier 1 should have the kind of power to kill the elders along with the a.s.sa.s.sins.

However, it did just that. What Kier doesn't know was that this was the special reward for being the first one to kill the h.e.l.l hound.

"Ah! Isn't that skill what the h.e.l.l hound used!?" Alura cried out in surprise as she watched from the sidelines. However, Isaac quickly covered up her mouth and pulled her aside before s.h.i.+ro gets annoyed at them.

While he may be a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t, he knew that s.h.i.+ro wouldn't hesitate to kill them if they interfered with her work.

"So it was you who completed the raid." Kier asked after hearing what Alura had shouted out.

"Nope. All I did was kill the second to last boss. I still missed out on the final boss." s.h.i.+ro shrugged.

"But I apologise for the wait, now the playing field is a bit fairer wouldn't you say?" She smiled and pointed at her icon.

[Nytri LVL 57 Elemental Sword Sage]

After killing the level 60 elders with the a.s.sa.s.sins, she was able to increase her level by 2.

"A difference of 3 levels is a wide gap between geniuses." Kier replied.

Stomping down, three tier 3 magic circles erupted out from under him and encased his body in a layer of white flame armour.

Raising up his hands, sparks of fire formed into swords and shot towards her.

"Heh, child's play." s.h.i.+ro grinned. Pulling out G.o.d Slayer and Ataraxia, she twisted her body and deflected all of the swords that stabbed towards her.

Phantom Path!

Flickering towards Kier, she kept her body low to the ground.

Grabbing one of his swords, Kier swung it horizontally, causing a wall of flames to erupt out from under s.h.i.+ro.

However, she had already entered the rift the moment she had sensed danger. Exiting near Kier, she twisted her body and swung her black at the back of his body.

"Solari Arts: Defence."

Flicking his sword into a reverse grip, a trail of fire wrapped around his and protected his body.

The force of the cyclone threw s.h.i.+ro into the air as she was surprised that the reaction.

'Seems like his martial arts also transfer's momentum.' She thought with a frown. In that instance where she was thrown up into the air, she clearly felt all of the force she used return back into her body.

Landing softly on her feet, she narrowed her eyes at Kier.

"What's wrong? Didn't you say that you wanted to fight me?" He asked as he swung his sword.

"Solari Arts: Obliterate."

*BOOM!!!

A cage of fire appeared around her, sealing away her paths of escape. Just the temperature alone was quite problematic to deal with.

Taking a deep breath, she readied her swords.

"Chimera Arts." She muttered. Suddenly, two elemental orbs appeared around her and started to draw in all of the ambient mana.

Fusing the elements of Dark Star and Glacial, she had two conflicting elements trying to fight each other in the stage of fusion.

Just the amount of mana that they were absorbing had weakened the effect of Kier's attack.

Understanding that thing's would be ugly if he let her be, he quickly dashed towards s.h.i.+ro.

But before he could even use a skill, the G.o.d slayer sword had already appeared in front of him, ready to cut him in half.

Quickly reacting on instinct, he raised up his sword in an attempt to block it but widened his eyes in a mix of surprise and horror. The sword had phased through his attack as if it was just an illusion but he could clearly feel the danger.

'It's that weird skill she used against Isaac!' He thought to himself.

"Solari Arts: Dispersion!" He shouted out as his body s.h.i.+fted into fire just before her sword could cut him.

"Tch!" Clicking her tongue, s.h.i.+ro watched at Kier retreated.

However, when he reappeared, he wasn't unharmed. There was a trail of blood dripping from the bridge of his nose. Any later and he would have had a rather serious cut across his face.

"Fuu…." Breathing out heavily, Kier didn't expect her reaction to be so swift. Despite trying to activate a dangerous skill, she was still able to mult.i.task and keep him at bay.

*BOOM!!!!

A ray of light shot up into the sky as the fusion was complete.

[Temporary Element Added: Mystic Ice Star]

'Mystic Ice Star huh? Interesting.' She thought with a smile and coated her swords with a condensed layer of this element.

As she did this, her blades seemed to be coated with an array of s.h.i.+ning stars, each swing would leave a small trail of particles behind that would freeze anything it touched.

"Round 2." She smiled.

*BANG!

Cracking the ground beneath her, she decided to go all out and push her body to its limits without the use of berserk skills.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!

Kier tried to fend her off with his fire but they were countered easily. Not only that, her sword seemed to grow stronger each time it dispersed his flames. Almost as if it was absorbing his fire's energy.

However, before she could continue the fight, she suddenly felt a s.h.i.+ft in the mana as a large spell had just been invoked.

Retreating a few steps, she looked into the sky.

Mana threaded together into a thin thread of sorts and had covered the entire city in a dome. Not only that, lightning flickered through the threads, threatening to turn anyone into ash should they come too close.

"Fun time's over. You live. Now you better get you sh*t together or else this city is over." s.h.i.+ro warned as she jumped onto the roof.

"Wait. What do you mean?" Kier frowned.

"It seems like the reinforcements are here. We're trapped in a cage." She replied before disappearing.

Narrowing his eyes, Kier sighed slightly before turning around.

"Alura, Isaac and everyone else who is still alive. I want you to return to your families for the time being and warn them. A fight is about to break out and we'll need every capable adventurer in this city." Kier commanded as they nodded their heads.

Meanwhile, s.h.i.+ro was making her way through the city at incredible speeds. Meeting Yin and Lisandra at the tallest tower, she glanced down at the city.

"We'll set up a few defensive measures around the city walls then we'll intercept our invaders." s.h.i.+ro grinned.

"Invaders?" Yin furrowed her brows.

"Yup. Seems like the reinforcements that the Sermak family were waiting for had arrived. I don't like some of the families but the citizens shouldn't suffer for their mistakes. Lessening their burden is a win win for us since we'll be getting a lot of EXP for trying to help them." s.h.i.+ro shrugged.

"Oh? So you can say that we're getting a feast for helping them?" Yin grinned as she understood what s.h.i.+ro meant.

Adventurer's naturally held a bit more EXP when compared to their monster counterparts. Slaying 100 adventurers would yield more EXP than slaying 100 monsters of the same level. She knew that s.h.i.+ro would stick to killing monsters unless humans provoked her therefore, the invaders were just a huge feast for s.h.i.+ro.

"But there might be a lot of them. At high level too. Would we be able to take them on?" Lisandra asked as she had her concerns.

"Short answer is no. Even if we're powerful, should they continue a constant bombardment, even we will need to retreat into the rift and run. Hence why we're going to be giving some to the families to kill. We'll loop around the back and bombard them from there, once we do that, not only do we force them towards the city, it also prevents us from scaring them away." s.h.i.+ro replied.

"I see…" Lisandra nodded since that is indeed an option. By cutting off their escape option, they can increase the number of kills they get while also allowing the city to finish off the strays.

"Yin, we'll be counting on you for the manoeuvres." s.h.i.+ro turned to Yin.

"Hehe~ Don't worry about it and count on me." Yin patted her chest and transformed into her phoenix form.

Jumping on her back, they flew into the air and used Rift Walker to bypa.s.s the cage.

'It's time to farm some EXP.' s.h.i.+ro thought to herself in glee. Her levelling speed had been quite slow so this was a perfect opportunity.