After the earlier discussion concluded, Chloe instructed the attendant to bring us refreshments. As we waited, the conversation naturally drifted toward the logistics of our upcoming raid.
To be entirely transparent, I remained privately skeptical regarding our numerical strength for the mission. While I fully acknowledged that Chloe operated in a terrifying category entirely her own, and that I wasn't exactly a slouch—being fundamentally incapable of permanently dying and all—the cultists still appeared to possess a staggering number of combatants.
We numbered what? Eight individuals in total?
Regardless of how monstrously powerful we were as isolated individuals, the lingering tactical risk of being completely overwhelmed by sheer numbers was still very real. I decided to voice my concerns directly to the group.
They abruptly paused their ongoing conversation and turned their collective attention toward me. The identical shifter twins tilted their heads in unison, their eyes gleaming with a sharp, predatory light.
The giant of a man named Arum looked at me with deep understanding, offering a reassuring smile. As for Kalia and Lorn, they didn't bother reacting in any capacity whatsoever; for all the attention they paid, I might as well not have spoken at all. I remained thoroughly puzzled by their collective lack of concern.
Prince Eric offered a smile dripping with schadenfreude before turning his attention directly to Chloe.
"You didn't happen to brief him on our respective backgrounds, did you?"
"I simply didn't have the time, Prince Eric; circumstances here have been exceptionally hectic. I believe I only mentioned your existence to him recently," Chloe replied with a wry smile.
From that brief exchange, I acutely felt as though I was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.
"Before we proceed, Miss Chloe, who exactly is this gentleman?" One of the twins—Liye, if I recalled correctly—raised the question.
"Ah. Yes. My apologies, I should have handled introductions earlier, but Kalia's revelation completely derailed my train of thought."
Chloe turned to the group, gesturing toward me. "This is Samsara Yu. He was the one who successfully located the enemy's hidden headquarters. He is also my partner, and I must ask that all of you accord him an appropriate measure of respect. As for precisely what classification of entity he is? That remains a subject of ongoing research. If you insist on slapping a rigid label on him, I suppose 'Undying' serves as a fairly fitting descriptor."
I noticed Lorn raising his eyebrows, his eyes gleaming with complex, shifting arcane symbols. Kalia cast a sharp, calculating glance in my direction as well, her eyes flaring with a deep crimson hue. Both of them appeared to be mentally dissecting me as if I had suddenly transformed into an infinitely more fascinating specimen.
Everyone loves a good supernatural mystery, right?
"To directly address your numerical concerns, Samsara, our collective headcount should not pose an issue—unless we happen to encounter entities operating in the terrifying league of my father, or god forbid, Atticus," Chloe calmly reassured me, her voice radiating absolute confidence in her strike team.
"Every single one of them is independently capable of going toe-to-toe with a large horde of middling supernaturals simultaneously. As for top-tier supernatural threats, they can each comfortably manage at least three of them at once," she added.
My pupils constricted sharply. I had to radically revise my internal evaluation of these people. While they might not be quite as obscenely powerful as Chloe herself, all of them clearly sat dangerously close to her tier.
"If you remain unconvinced, Mister Yu, we are more than welcome to step outside for a sparring match," the giant-like Arum offered helpfully. Though his tone remained warm and affable, his eyes burned with an undeniable battle-lust.
I was momentarily taken aback by his sheer, candid directness.
"That is actually an exceptional idea. It will allow us to establish a much clearer baseline understanding of one another's capabilities," Lorn chimed in. Unlike Arum, however, I strongly suspected Lorn wasn't offering to reassure me; rather, he was seizing a prime clinical opportunity to study and analyze my anomalies.
I suppose his academic curiosity had truly spiked following Chloe's formal introduction.
Minutes later, we found ourselves standing out in the sprawling rear garden of the mansion. Lorn executed a series of intricate hand signs before thrusting his palms upward. A complex protective ward—remarkably similar to the invisible barrier surrounding Atticus's estate—snapped into existence, completely encasing the entire garden perimeter.
Chloe tipped her chin toward the main house, and I instantly grasped the safety protocol.
"Well, it is done. This specialized barrier should insulate us effectively from both prying mortal eyes and unwanted interruptions," Lorn informed Chloe.
"Now then, shall we get started?" Arum stepped forward, having already stripped off his upper garments to reveal a massive, heavily scarred torso. He spoke directly from the center of a cleared, circular patch of grass designated to serve as our improvised ring.
I let out a long, long-suffering sigh and dragged my feet toward him.
It was rapidly becoming glaringly apparent that questioning this group's collective combat capacity—even indirectly—was an aggressively terrible idea. Ever since the sparring proposition had been floated, I had tried mentally arguing against it as wholly unnecessary. After all, I held absolute, unwavering trust in Chloe. If she explicitly stated that our squad was sufficient to crush this demonic cabal, then we were more than enough.
Standing face-to-face with the 2.04-meter giant, I felt thoroughly dwarfed.
He possessed a structural build that screamed raw power and unbreakable sturdiness. Intricate, tattoo-like markings covered his skin, originating just below his chest plate and winding backward out of sight. Upon closer inspection, the ink resembled some form of primal, humanoid beast.
"I am human. Specifically, a shaman hailing from the Lowa Tribe on the Roath Continent. You could broadly define our discipline as a specialized form of magic user, I suppose. Our practices center heavily around spiritual entities; we bind powerful spirits directly to our physical vessels, granting us the ability to channel their raw attributes," Arum introduced formally.
"At the age of thirteen, I successfully bound one of the mightiest ancestral spirits recorded in my people's lore. Its name is Valken, the spirit of the blood-spilled earth. Since that day, I am it, and it is me."
Following the traditional introduction, he bowed respectfully and smoothly dropped into a grounded, low fighting stance.
It was a strict cultural tradition of his tribe: for an honorable duel to commence, both participants were required to declare their true names and geographic origins. Naturally, I followed suit.
"I am Samsara Yu. I have no concrete knowledge of my ancestral origins beyond the fact that I was born in Nebula City, located a few dozen kilometers from here. As for precisely what classification of being I am, that remains equally unclear. The sole absolute I can offer is that I am truly undying. At least, nothing I have encountered thus far gives me any logical reason to believe my life will ever permanently terminate. With that said, please do not feel obligated to pull your punches or exercise restraint. Killing me is, after all, merely a temporary inconvenience," I stated dryly.
Concluding my speech, I executed a polite bow mirroring his.
I assumed a tight, defensive posture, refusing to underestimate him after the glowing endorsements Chloe had provided.
"Very well, my friend. Let us begin," the giant rumbled with profound satisfaction.
Instantly, the dark markings etched across his skin began to flare with a brilliant luminosity, and the whites of his eyes turned pitch black. His irises and pupils merged into an indistinguishable, solid shade of violet, resembling a glowing purple moon shining in an absolute void.
He was abruptly wreathed in a roiling, dark purple aura within which the transient, shifting silhouette of a monstrous humanoid beast materialized.
I was instantly slammed by an inhuman wave of suffocating hostility and raw bloodlust.
Without warning, he pounced. He moved with a terrifying acceleration that made zero physical sense for someone of his massive, heavy build. Before I could even blink, I was forcefully knocked airborne as a relentless, thunderous rain of blows battered my body. Each individual strike landed with earth-shattering weight and kinetic power.
It appeared Arum had taken my invitation to "not pull his punches" quite literally.
CRACK.
The sickening sound of breaking bones echoed across the garden multiple times, indicating that I had just fractured a staggering volume of my skeletal structure. Finally, the brutal barrage ceased, and I collapsed heavily onto one knee, gasping for air.
Even as I knelt, my rapid-regeneration protocol kicked in instantly; my torn flesh knitted together seamlessly, and my shattered bones mended themselves at an astonishing rate. Within mere moments, I was back in fighting shape.
I rotated my wrists and loudly cracked my neck, still feeling a residual ache from the impromptu beating.
"You certainly pack quite the devastating punch," I remarked, genuinely impressed.
"And you possess an absurd degree of resilience for such a small frame. Any ordinary, lesser supernatural would have been deader than a corpse ten times over by now. The frequency and velocity of my strikes are ordinarily more than sufficient to completely overwhelm the healing factors of even mid-tier, combat-oriented sups," the giant thundered back in an almost feral voice.
"Is that so? Well, I am genuinely grateful for the compliment. However, I believe it is finally my turn to reciprocate," I murmured.
Every trace of emotion instantly bled out of my voice. I was now fully, unreservedly committed to the spar—which meant deploying everything at my disposal to secure dominance.
My Willpower answered my mental summons, instantly surging forward to shape the colossal outline of a giant, translucent fist. It functioned as a direct psychic projection of my own physical hand, rendered faintly visible solely due to the violent warping of the surrounding air currents.
I pulled my arm back and threw a devastating punch forward, bridging the vast distance separating us without physical contact. The atmospheric pressure tore apart with a deafening screech.
Pure shock colored Arum's face as he caught the cart-sized, invisible psychic fist frontally. He was blasted backward through the air, tumbling and gouging a deep, chaotic trench into the dirt before finally coming to a halt.
Our surrounding audience fell into dead silence, entirely taken aback by the casual display of raw devastation I had just unleashed.
This was no intricate, multi-layered spell or refined martial technique; it was simply the sheer, unadulterated application of brutal, overwhelming power—completely devoid of finesse.