Everyone present, human and demon alike, turned pale at the sight.
The purple-haired girl behind Huo Yuhao stared blankly at the scene. She had never expected the knight who had suddenly appeared to be so strong. In mere moments, he had wiped out all the Fourth-Tier Wolf Demons.
But were there knights with the ice attribute? How come she had never heard of them?
And is this person really that age? Am I not the Reincarnation Saintess my great-grandfather spoke of? How can the gap between people be this big? Great-grandfather couldn't have been lying to me, could he?
Elsewhere, in an ancient tree, the middle-aged man in white saw what had happened on the battlefield. His eyes widened, and he thought he was seeing things.
"Is he a knight or a mage? Why does he look so strange? He's ridiculously strong, isn't he? When did the Knight Temple raise such a terrifying genius?"
"Judging by the ring on his hand, that should be an Inheritance Ring. An ice-element knight? With talent like that, I wouldn't want to send him to the Magic Temple either!"
"Let's see how he handles the Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon. If he can defeat an opponent above his tier, then... he's truly invincible!"
On the battlefield, the Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon facing Huo Yuhao saw him deal with its subordinates in an instant. Its pupils abruptly contracted.
But Huo Yuhao gave it no time to react. After landing, he pushed off with the tip of his foot and shot toward the Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon like an arrow loosed from a bow.
His longsword thrust straight forward. Ice-blue sword light gathered into an exceedingly fine point of ice at its tip, stabbing toward the Wolf Demon's throat.
The Red-Eyed Wolf Demon was, after all, Fifth Tier, and its reactions were swift.
It turned aside to protect its vitals, but the tip of Huo Yuhao's sword still cut through the fur on its shoulder. Ice-attribute Spiritual Energy seeped in through the wound, slowing its left shoulder by half a beat.
The Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon's expression changed drastically. It finally understood why this knight had been able to wipe out its kin so easily.
There was something wrong with this person's Spiritual Energy: it was abnormally sharp. The Demon Clan's bodies were already far stronger than humans'.
Yet even though it was Fifth Tier, a Fourth-Tier human had cut it so easily. It was simply absurd.
It let out a furious roar and struck at Huo Yuhao with its right claw, trailing dark red demonic energy.
Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Power anticipated its movement. He crouched and slid beneath the wolf's claw, sweeping his longsword upward at the same time and cutting a long gash across the Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon's belly.
Ice-blue Spiritual Energy burst inside the wound. The Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon howled in pain and pushed off with all four limbs, trying to leap back and open the distance.
But it couldn't jump.
As Huo Yuhao slid beneath it, he had already pressed his left hand against the ice and cast an Ice Cave Technique.
The ice beneath the Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon's feet abruptly became a hole. Its hind legs sank into the ice and were frozen fast by ice-attribute Spiritual Energy.
It struggled to pull them free, but the ice was too slippery. Its front claws pushed off, and its whole body lost balance and crashed heavily onto the ice. Its chin struck the surface, making its teeth clatter.
It fell flat on its face like a dog eating dirt.
Huo Yuhao didn't waste the opportunity. He rolled to his feet and raised his longsword high. Ice-blue Spiritual Energy gathered madly along the blade, and an Ice Slash took shape on its edge, more concentrated and sharper than ever before.
But the Wolf Demon was Fifth Tier, after all. It roared and spat out a mass of dark red demonic energy, which exploded in the air and shattered the ice beneath its feet.
It broke free of its restraints and rolled to its feet, its scarlet eyes filled with rage.
"Human, you're courting death!"
It opened its great maw, and a beam of dark red demonic light gathered inside before blasting toward Huo Yuhao.
Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Power anticipated the beam's path, and he dodged to the side. The demonic light grazed his shoulder and blew several large trees behind him in half.
Huo Yuhao didn't retreat. Instead, he charged forward.
His left hand rapidly formed seals at his side, and ice-blue Spiritual Energy gathered in his palm into a ball of ice the size of a fist.
Inside the ice ball, following his own idea, he compressed the Spiritual Energy to its limit, then injected a wisp of extremely unstable ice-attribute Spiritual Energy into the center as a trigger.
This was a new type of Ice Explosion Technique he had developed from the Ice Ball Technique, drawing on the Ice Explosion Technique, a skill of the Ice Jade Scorpion Left Arm Bone from his previous life.
Besides casting this new Ice Explosion Technique as magic, he also applied it to his longsword. Whenever the sword touched an enemy in battle, the Spiritual Energy on it would explode, breaking through their defenses.
On top of that, after his sword pierced an enemy's body, his Internal Spiritual Power would also explode, leaving the enemy completely unable to defend against it.
Just as Huo Yuhao prepared to use the Ice Explosion Technique, the Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon was gathering a second beam of demonic light. By then, Huo Yuhao had charged within three steps of it.
He hurled the ice ball. It struck the Fifth-Tier Wolf Demon squarely in the chest, and then-
Boom!
Ice-blue light erupted, and ice-attribute Spiritual Energy exploded into a cloud of icy mist against the Wolf Demon's chest.
A bloody hole the size of a fist was blasted into the Wolf Demon's chest, and dark red demon blood gushed out.
It howled in agony and fell backward, its limbs twitching as it struggled wildly, but the light in its scarlet eyes gradually dimmed.
Huo Yuhao didn't stop. He rushed forward and thrust his longsword straight ahead, its ice-blue sword light piercing the Wolf Demon's throat.
The Fifth-Tier Red-Eyed Wolf Demon's body went rigid, then crashed to the ground.
Huo Yuhao withdrew his sword and turned around.
In less than a hundred breaths from start to finish, all eight Wolf Demons had been dealt with.
Standing amid the ice covering the ground and the Wolf Demons' corpses, Huo Yuhao breathed out a puff of white mist.
His breathing was somewhat rapid, and the hand holding his sword trembled slightly, but he stood straight.
The fierce battle had consumed more than half of his Internal Spiritual Power. Fortunately, his constitution was special, so he used up somewhat less energy than usual when casting magic and using skills.
More importantly, his Internal Spiritual Power also recovered quickly. That was why he could use magic repeatedly.
Still, it had been his first time facing a Fifth-Tier demon, and he had been somewhat careless and suffered a minor injury.
A burn marked his shoulder where the demonic light had grazed it. It stung fiercely, but fortunately, it was only a flesh wound.
He hurriedly used ice-attribute Spiritual Energy as a cold compress, and the pain soon disappeared. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.
After doing all that, he looked down and checked his condition. Once he had confirmed there was nothing seriously wrong, he raised his head and looked toward the other side of the clearing.
The little girl was still standing where she had been, rather than hiding as he had told her to.
Huo Yuhao wasn't angry about that. After all, the little girl had been worried about him.
Then, dragging his somewhat weary body along, he walked toward her.
When the little girl saw him coming, she hurried over and supported him, looking at his injured shoulder with some concern.
Huo Yuhao noticed her gaze and smiled reassuringly.
"It's all right. I've already treated the injury. There's nothing wrong now."
The little girl seemed eager to speak, but when she opened her mouth, all she could manage were two sounds: "Ah, ah."
Seeing what the little girl did, Huo Yuhao's whole body jolted as he suddenly realized something.
"You... can't you speak?"