The astonishing speed at which Rowan slaughtered the D-rank monsters left everyone in disbelief. His brute strength and extreme swiftness caused Eliman and Dragun, who hovered above him, to gape in astonishment.
"How did he get so stronger?"
"How is he moving so fast?"
"What the hell? He just slaughtered dozens of them with a single slash!"
"Am I dreaming? How is this guy fighting ? What kind of power does he have? He is just an apprentice-rank mage for crying out loud!"
Both Dragun and Eliman voiced their shock and confusion as they watched the scene unfolding below them.
"Has he always carried that sword?"
Eliman turned to Dragun and asked.
Dragun shook his head calmly, his eyes still fixed on his son.
"I've never seen him with that sword. No one has," he said. "I wonder how he got his hands on it."
Eliman fell silent and continued to watch Rowan.
The young lord moved like the messenger of death. Every single movement brought pain and demise. Both weak and strong monsters, fast and slow, even the largest and smallest, were not spared.
It was as though death accompanied him simply as he passed through their ranks.
Not a single monster, regardless of strength or agility, could land a blow on him.
Before they could even determine his new position, he would appear behind or in front of them—and their end would follow instantly.
"That sword… I've seen it somewhere before. Not the real one though, but an ancient illustration of it inside a temple dedicated to a powerful godly being."
Eliman turned to look at the middle-aged mage with a surprised expression and asked, "You've seen it before?"
"No," Dragun shook his head. "I've only read about it: the weapon without limit, the dreaded Harvester of Souls. It's rumored to grow stronger with every soul it claims, enabling its wielder to reach previously unattainable heights of power."
Eliman's eyes brightened.
"That matches what I read, too. According to my source, it absorbs the life force of every living being it slays and grows stronger from it."
"Hmm… well, soul and life force aren't that different if you think about it. The constant remains that this sacred weapon can grow stronger indefinitely."
Eliman nodded at Dragun's words. It wasn't unusual for ancient artifacts to have conflicting stories surrounding them.
As the two turned their attention back to Rowan, they couldn't help but wonder if he felt no fatigue at all.
At the entrance of the village, Merla and a soldier who had exited the battlefield stood and watched the conflict raging far away from them.
The constant cries of monsters echoed, reaching even the farthest parts of the village.
"Why are all the monsters retreating?"
"They're not even trying to attack us—what's happening?"
"Why aren't Lord Dragun and the other mage doing anything? What are they looking at? Is Lord Rowan in trouble?"
The soldiers chattered among themselves.
After they had successfully left the battlefield, they expected the monsters to chase them and attempt to invade the village.
But instead, the monsters turned their backs on them and began flocking away, as though something was calling them.
The scene was astonishing.
Monsters are known never to abandon their prey, especially when it's weak and helpless.
Yet these monsters were doing exactly that.
Like ants drawn to sugar, tens of thousands of monsters were streaming toward whatever was happening.
Merla was just as confused as the others.
Her mana reserves were spent, leaving her too drained to continue battling.
She joined the soldiers and stepped away from the battlefield.
"This is so unnatural for these monsters. They should be swarming us."
She murmured under her breath.
At that moment, with the little mana she had left, she summoned a single purple hobgoblin.
The appearance of the huge, muscular hobgoblin startled the worried soldiers, but they quickly regained their composure as they recognized the creature.
Merla ordered her summoned creature to sprint toward the hordes.
The purple goblin vanished into the ranks of monsters with ease, sneaking deeper into the chaos to reach the center of the commotion.
After several minutes of pushing through hordes of various beasts, the hobgoblin halted in the middle of the battlefield, directly beneath the floating positions of the two mages.
Below it, countless monster corpses carpeted the ground. More than half were headless, and the rest bore wounds that indicated they'd been killed by a blade.
Through the sensory link with her summoned creature, Merla saw exactly what it saw.
She could see the corpses, their wounds, and the live monsters frantically filling the spots where their comrades had died.
A single name flashed in her mind as she took in the sheer number of bodies.
As she still pondered about the chaotic scene, her creature's eyes captured a swift movement not so far away from it.
Under her astonished gaze, a blurry figure appeared behind a group of brute monsters who were frantically moving around in search of their opponent.
The figure lingered for only a second before vanishing completely.
Once it disappeared, the brute monsters froze and collapsed, lifeless.
The sudden slaughter stunned both the hobgoblin and its master.
They barely had time to react before several more monsters collapsed not far away.
This time, they failed to catch sight of the killer.
The purple hobgoblin, acting on its own instinct, tilted its head in every direction, trying to locate the monster's executioner.
The cries, growls, shrieks, groans, and other noises from the massive horde made it impossible to track the killer by sound.
The sheer number of monsters and the killer's lightning-fast movements also prevented them from spotting him.
Merla heard a familiar voice whisper through the sensory link. Thanks to that link, she could not only see but also hear what was happening around her summoned creature.
She shouted, startling the soldiers around her.
"What's happening to him?"
Roland and the others rushed to surround the summoner.
She tried to figure out how to explain that they should worry more about the helpless monsters than their beloved lord.