"Ah, I guess it’s too late to leave now," Marion said moments after he offered to escort Adrian to the city.

Just after his words, a heavy pressure fell on them, but neither seemed to be bothered by it.

Because both were far above whatever just appeared in the ruins, in rank.

"Well," Marion rolled his shoulders as he headed towards the entrance, "let me handle this first and then we’ll head out."

Adrian followed behind with both hands in his pockets as he pushed the door open and they were immediately faced with the corrupted beast responsible for the sudden pressure that fell on them.

It was a massive wolf-like beast, its fur made of complete darkness, though that might just be because of the perpetual darkness in this dungeon.

It had glowing red eyes and large canines dripping with saliva, probably from its hunger.

ROAR!!!

The moment the two stepped out of the house, it let out a loud roar which caused Marion to exhale softly.

"Ah," he said, almost disappointed. "One of those."

Adrian stepped beside him, gaze calm, hands still in his pockets.

He remained unaffected, not because the beast was weak, but because, thanks to his recent breakthrough, he was a lot stronger than it was.

And handling it would be easy, but he didn’t.

After all, he wanted to see what type of tricks Marion had up his sleeve, especially given that he was quickly getting corrupted.

So he didn’t move a single step, Marion, on the other hand did.

He raised one hand lazily, with palm facing forward.

"Don’t get dramatic," he muttered.

A moment after his words, the wolf was flung to the side, slamming into multiple broken buildings before coming to a stop.

"Telekinesis," Marion said with a chuckle as he turned towards Adrian, "pretty useful right?"

Adrian nodded, finally understanding how he had easily pulled the bird down from the air earlier.

And given his range, then he was probably pretty strong, A-Rank maybe?

The wolf rose again, a lot angrier than previously, but instead of rushing to attack, it lifted its head in the air. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

And the next second, it let out a loud howl.

"That’s not good," Marion muttered and he suddenly looked around the surrounding darkness.

For a few seconds, nothing seemed to be happening, but then, the next moment, Adrian suddenly spotted multiple figures in the distance ahead.

"Definitely not good," he muttered as he walked towards Marion.

"I apologize," he said the moment Adrian reached him, "it seems my carelessness allowed it to call for back up."

"It’s fine," Adrian muttered adjusting his gloves just before more wolves reached their location, "I still have a couple of tests to run anyway."

The first wolf regrouped with the pack of eight, and they immediately began growling at the duo.

In response, Adrian’s shadow suddenly extended beneath him and the next second, five silhouetted figures rose from the shadow.

[Shadow Clones]

Thanks to his breakthrough, he could do up to eight clones at a time, but he preferred to use only five for now.

Another improvement that his breakthrough brought about was the fact that they could now use as much as sixty percent of his original strength.

So they were as strong as a normal C-Rank him right now and still a bit weaker than he was at the same rank.

But it should be enough for this.

One of the clones, the same Adrian who had left on lookout previously, turned towards Marion, who was also looking at them with a bit of surprise.

"Your spirit allows you to duplicate yourself?" His surprise was because this was an ability he hadn’t seen before, and it definitely didn’t seem like a variant of an elemental ability.

"Something like that," Adrian vaguely responded as he turned back to the group of wolves before them.

"How interesting," Marion whispered to himself as he also turned towards the corrupted beasts, "very interesting indeed."

The corrupted beasts didn’t hesitate to attack for long, because the next second one crouched down low and lunged towards one of the clones, its maw wide open and ready to tear it apart,

[Shadow Swap]

Before the wolf could reach the clone, it teleported away, causing it to bite nothing but air.

The clone reappeared by its side with what seemed to be a shadow dagger in its hand.

Without hesitation, the clone jabbed the dagger deep into the wolf’s skull, and without giving it a chance to struggle, the dagger got longer and pierced through its brain and exited below.

The wolf’s body, as if its strings had been cut, suddenly fell lifelessly to the ground.

But its movements had already caused the other wolves to also move to attack, two of them lunging towards Marion.

Just before they could reach him, a sudden force bent the trajectory of both wolves mid-air, slamming them into each other and then towards the opposite direction.

BOOM.

They crashed into the ruins, but unlike the first, they lay there unmoving, dead.

As Adrian had suspected, the clones had managed to handle the wolves with relative ease, and a few minutes later, the corpses of the wolves surrounded them.

Neither Marion, nor Adrian seemed as if they had just been in a fight as they didn’t look the least bit bothered.

Especially Adrian, who didn’t have a single ruffle on his clothes at all.

"You’re pretty strong," Marion turned his attention towards the Butler, "though that’s to be expected, since you’re probably a personal butler."

"Hmm," Adrian nodded, saying nothing more, but it seems Marion was still curious, so he asked again,

"What noble family do you serve?"

"The Ardent family," Adrian answered.

"Ah, the grand dukes," Marion said with a chuckle, "funny thing is, I also used to belong to a branch family of one of the grand dukes before all this."

He placed a hand on his lips, "though I don’t think I was important enough for them to send spirit mages in search of me."

Marion went silent after that before he looked at Adrian and added, "But it might also be because I joined the military instead of the main family’s spirit mages."

Adrian said nothing in response as he continued for a while before he suddenly stopped himself.

"Right right," he turned to the side, "if we’re to leave for the kingdom, we have to do so right now."

Adrian nodded before looking at him and saying, "Lead the way."