Crack!
With a short, crisp, earth-shaking blast, a dagger glinting with cold, razor-sharp light appeared instantly within the shattered space and viciously knocked aside the Rift of Destruction that was about to strike Ankazan's head. The high-pressure shockwave hummed alongside the vibrating blade, and the gray-black magical blade, deflected nearly ninety degrees from its target, veered from its original trajectory and brutally sliced through the soil and rocks around the crater.
Amid a chorus of crashing fragments, rubble torn apart by Destruction Power rolled down the sheer rock walls, while vast amounts of brownish-yellow soil debris turned into a mist that spread around the increasingly faintly breathing Ankazan...
Because of this sudden appearance by an "outsider," the relaxed atmosphere following the battle's smooth conclusion vanished at the flick of a blade. In its place came an indescribably cold, bone-chilling solemnity. The darkness within the crater had taken on an obvious sense of discord due to the distortion of laws, while the silver-white dagger wreathed in translucent black flames gleamed with savage brilliance against the dim background!
Sure enough, hunting a "Legendary-tier prey" had never been so simple!
"Whew! Whew! That was close, so close... Good thing I made it in time, my dear friend. I told you long ago that meeting a friend like me was an incredibly lucky thing. Look at you now—aside from that pile of slow-moving rocks, I'm the only one in the world willing to take a blade for you!"
The voice, almost like someone talking to himself, seemed to be expressing his feelings toward the mangled "Burning One" lying on the ground. At the same time, the words sounded like simple relief and self-mocking banter.
Yet beneath that nearly imperceptible hoarseness, genuine anxiety and sorrow echoed undisguised through the empty, dark bottom of the crater.