"It’s been a while," Adrian muttered as he looked forward, "hasn’t it?"

Standing before him was what he would consider an old friend....if your friends tried killing you.

But at least it had been kind enough to let him escape, so Adrian was back to repay the favor.

Yes,

What stood before him was the A-Rank bull, and just like before, it seems it had gotten another herd together again.

Ones connected to him with what seemed to be strings and it was currently sharing multiple elements with them.

The bull lifted its head, looked at him before letting out what sounded like a buff of recognition.

Adrian adjusted his gloves slightly before continuing, "You know, I’ve been thinking about our last encounter."

His tone remained casual, almost conversational, "You were quite rude."

The bull let out another huff in reply to his words.

Renelle, who had decided to come with him this time, watched the interaction with amusement.

One would think the two were friends with the way they were interacting, but she knew for sure that her butler held a grudge against the beast.

Why else would he want to settle this before the team that was supposed to pick them up arrived?

They had communicated their situation back to the Frontier and a bus, the same carriage that had gotten them to the Frontier, was supposed to be sent here as soon as possible.

Till then, Adrian decided to hunt the beast before him....and with Renelle here, there was no way he was going to lose.

He summoned four clones with the one that possessed Marion standing beside him, looking effortlessly cool.... especially with its expressionless face.

The clone looked directly at the A-Rank bull, but before it could do anything, Adrian placed a hand on its shoulder.

"That one’s mine," he said, "you’ll handle the herd.... Just make sure you don’t finish them off too quickly."

No way in hell was he going to let one of his clones steal his shine, especially in front of his Renelle.

He had delegated the task of dealing with the herd to it because it was the only one among his clones that could restrain them without killing them off.

Why didn’t he want them dead?

Simple, if they remained alive, the bull would keep sharing mana to them, keeping it at B-Rank and it would also be stuck in place.

With a nod of understanding, the clone turned to the herd and extended its hand. From its fingers came strings, but unlike Marion’s, these were completely black.

"Now then," Adrian looked directly at the bull, "shall we end what we started?"

A moment after his words, a sudden pressure fell on him but he didn’t seem bothered by it in the least bit.

It was pressure from the Bull raising the gravity around him, but it wasn’t truly trying to crush him.

Well...he took that back, because the next second, the pressure multiplied, creating a crater on the forest floor.

Fortunately, Adrian had switched places with a clone, reappearing close to the bull with a shadow spear in hand.

He hurled the spear so that he created a blast of air as it flew towards its target. But as with Cassian, the spear never landed.

Instead, it was met with a force that slammed both into it and Adrian. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

He was launched through multiple trees before forcefully stopping himself by grabbing himself with the shadows beneath his feet.

The ground behind him split apart from the unspent momentum that flowed through it, from Adrian.

"Well, this isn’t going well," he muttered as he spat out a mouthful of blood which was a result of the blast trying to rearrange his insides.

To his surprise, the bull suddenly turned towards him, and the next second,

It moved?

The damn beast could move from the start, even whilst still connected to its herd, it just chose not to.

Fortunately, unlike the last time they fought, Adrian could now actually perceive the creature’s movement.

Barely, but that was better than previously.

Its massive body crossed dozens of meters instantly before appearing directly in front of him.

The next moment, the bull was before him, with its horns enveloped in both flames and lightning.

He managed to put a shadow barrier between himself and the bull, causing the attack to land on it.

Although the barrier didn’t hold, it provided enough cover for Adrian to slam a shadow-coated fist directly into the side of its head.

BOOOOOM!!!

The bull staggered at the attack, but that too was just a distraction. Before it could recover, a large shadow spike from underneath it cleanly pierced through the Bull’s underbelly.

A moment after that attack, a violent gravitational blast erupted from the wounded bull in all directions, and entire sections of the forest were flattened instantly.

Even Renelle had to put up an ice barrier just in time to avoid getting crushed by it.

Meanwhile, Adrian landed several meters away with a satisfied smile on his face.

"Yes," he muttered while looking at the wounded beast, "this is exactly how I wanted our reunion to go."

He lifted his hand, and the spike was still piercing the bull.

The end of the shadow spike that was inside it split apart into multiple thinner spikes that violently spread through its insides like roots.

Black blood immediately flowed from the beast’s mouth and it immediately roared in rage and pain the gravity around them increased, threatening to crush everything.

Starting with its own herd that was restraining Adrian’s shadow clone.

The surrounding earth collapsed inward repeatedly while nearby trees were uprooted by sheer force.

But Adrian didn’t move, instead, he slowly clenched his raised hand, an action that wasn’t as simple as it was supposed to be.

But the moment his hand fully closed, multiple enormous shadow spikes burst outward from inside the bull’s body simultaneously.

And with that, it went completely still, dead.

Adrian quietly stared at the corpse for a few seconds before letting out a small sigh.

"There," he muttered, "that settles our grudge."

«Finally,» Noctis commented lazily from atop his head, «now take the core.»

But before Adrian could move toward the corpse one of the clones reformed itself from the puddle it had become, thanks to the increased gravity, and moved towards the corpse.

He could stop it, but he didn’t, instead, he curiously watched as the clone melted into a puddle again before wrapping around the bull, taking over it with [Shadow Possession.]

A moment later, the bull started twitching, life retuning to it as life returned to it.

No, it was more accurate to say that the clone was puppet-ing it.

The clone, now in the form of a bull looked towards Adrian before walking closer, bowed its head and then dropped something from its mouth to his open palm.

It was the bull’s core.

«...» Noctis looked at the bull for a moment without any words, after all, it already expected this.

«Before I absorb that, you need somewhere safe for a breakthrough,» the cat finally started and Adrian just nodded.

He handed the core to the cat, before dismissing the clones, and finally turned to his lady.

Renelle walked to him with a smile on her face as she asked, "I guess you’re done?"

"Hmm," he nodded before handing Noctis to her, "though I might need my lady to watch over me while I breakthrough."