Chapter 78: Training With Dareon

The next day, Azrael is on the sixth floor of the dungeon to train with Dareon. Azrael just spent his time yesterday adventuring, and he used his day off to sharpen his combat skills with the skeleton knight.

Clink! Clink! Clink!

Sparks from their clashing blades briefly illuminate the dark and empty hallways of this floor. Streaks of their glowing eyes from their own multipliers are drawn along the maze as they travel leagues of distance in a matter of seconds.

They are currently in their peak physical form. While Dareon is drastically buffed by his Overdrive technique eightfold, Azrael is almost at the maximum potential of the Combat Form spell, which doubles his original physical strength and speed.

Clink! Boom!

Every time they clash their blades, powerful shockwaves ring out to the surroundings. If a normal person were to take just a single of those powerful wind explosions, they would have burst to a pop.

Their hypersonic battle could have caused massive destruction to the surroundings if they were not in this massive and indestructible dungeon. The battle of two catastrophe-class threats may be apocalyptic on the surface, but this is just a regular training session for Azrael.

"Hmph!"

As Dareon is chasing Azrael in a high-speed pursuit, he suddenly accelerates his speed to the full throttle. The kilometer gap between them gradually shrinks to less than two hundred in less than a second.

"?!"

Azrael quickly realizes Dareon’s sudden speed boost. At that rate, Dareon would be able to catch up to him in no time.

But Azrael cannot increase his speed any further without cheating. After all, Azrael forbade himself from using his wild magic like the colossus golem’s momentum charge to enhance his raw speed.

The whole purpose of their training is for Azrael to utilize the full power of the Combat Form, which he has yet to achieve, before Dareon can teach him his techniques. Dareon has recognized his strength, but the knight is not satisfied with his speed.

His reasoning is that a person requires sufficient mental speed, which correlates with raw speed according to him, to handle the power of Overdrive with their own body. If Azrael cannot double his speed, Dareon would deem him unfit for Overdrive.

He knows that Dareon’s full speed surpasses his. If he wanted to outspeed him up, Azrael had to force himself to surpass his current limits.

Faster and faster!

Dareon is getting closer to him. Azrael tries to use his agility and turns sharply at every corner and intersection he sees. However, the knight still would not slow down, but he does not increase his speed any further, which means Dareon is at his full speed. But even so, Dareon is still slightly faster than him.

Shit.

They are traveling at Mach eleven, and they have explored the maze a few times already. They are like the coyote and the roadrunner, but accurate to the real-life counterpart, the canine is indeed the faster one, and he is about to catch him.

Fuck! Come on!

Out of desperation and sheer will, Azrael pushes himself further to his limits and ultimately reaches the max speed he can achieve in his Combat Form. For the first time in their training, Azrael has matched up his speed with his master.

"!!"

Dareon is genuinely shocked by Azrael’s sudden acceleration. But Azrael is not stopping soon. After equalizing their speed, Azrael continues to run faster, and the gap between them grows apart. Before Azrael knows it, he has reached the speed of Mach twelve, the fastest he has ever been purely on Combat Form.

Since they are both on multipliers, they have a time limit before they run out of mana. As the one with the greater multiplier, Dareon is about to burn all of his mana after activating it for around seven minutes. He then gradually slows down before he deactivates Overdrive once he comes to a full stop.

"I admit defeat!" Dareon’s loud words echo in the empty hallway. "You win this time, Azrael!"

Dareon stands on his spot for several seconds before he senses Azrael’s presence from behind. Azrael just navigates his way throughout the maze before stopping behind the undead knight.

"Looks like I finally beat you, Dareon," he says with a smug smile.

"Congratulations, Azrael. You have finally been able to outpace me."

"To think that I did, you managed to maximize the full power of the Combat Form. Do you think I can handle Overdrive?"

"Now that you can double your strength and speed, you just reached the bare minimum. But you have physically prepared yourself to start the training for Overdrive."

"So can I start now?"

"Not yet, Azrael." Dareon quickly dismisses him. "You may be able to fully utilize the Combat Form, but it is uncertain if you can maintain it for the rest of the duration of the spell."

"Can I ask why?"

"Techniques not only require a peak physical body but also consistency as well. Once you reach a certain threshold, you have to maintain it and not fall behind; otherwise, you’ll lose your focus and ruin your progress. That’s why the majority of the ones who attempt to learn techniques fall midway, as they lack the commitment to stay on the path."

"That sounds hard and very tedious. Learning techniques must require sacrifice to foresee better results. I am now curious how much time you have spent before reaching your current strength."

"Like I said before, I could only multiply my strength fourfold using Overdrive before my lord turned me into an undead, and hundreds of years after that for me to reach eightfold."

"So you never reach anything above that for tens of thousands of years?"

"While it is true that I could never multiply my strength more than eight times, it does not mean that I did not get any stronger. My strength gradually keeps increasing over the years after all."

"I see. If you have reached your limit, all you have to do is to maintain it."

Unbeknownst to Azrael, Dareon estimated that his power level was around six hundred thousand when he turned into an undead.

After living for twenty thousand more years, Dareon continued improving himself by repeatedly reaching his limits. Currently, he has tripled his power level and greatly improved his proficiency with Overdrive.

"Like I said before, I cannot start teaching you the Overdrive yet. You have to show me how consistent you are when it comes to using your full power. But I’m kind of out of mana right now, so let’s continue later."

"Well, you need your full power to even catch a glimpse of me after all."

◆◇◆◇◆◇

Meanwhile, in the imperial capital of Siafran.

In a busy street not so far from the Adventurer’s Association building, a group of four men is loitering along a narrow alley between two buildings beside the road. They seem to be waiting for something in the shadows as their eyes are glued to an inn just across the street.

"Just how long are we waiting here, boss?" One man complains. "We have been waiting here since before dawn."

"..."

The leader of the group, whose name is Mors, stays silent at a response to the man’s question. These men are the same party of adventurers whom Azrael crossed paths with in the dungeon yesterday. For some reason, they are waiting for them to come out from the inn they are staying in.

"Didn’t you say that you cannot fight him? We are not here to look for a fight, aren’t we?"

"When I reported him to the boss, he immediately ordered me to bring that person to him."

"What? But why?"

"According to him, he has not heard anything about that person until I brought it up to him. He investigated everyone who might pose a threat to his operations, but this person never came up. He said that there is no way a powerful person like him could stay in a low profile."

"So, was he saying that he might be hiding his true identity?"

"That’s right. The boss even said that he might come from the underground world."

These men actually belong to an underground organization that operates across the continent with their big boss as the head of the whole organization.

The organization has been involved with many illegal activities occurring on the continent, such as the production and distribution of illegal drugs, smuggling contraband, assassins for hire, slavery and human trafficking, and so on.

The sudden appearance of Azrael in the empire sends panic to the organization. They have been thinking, "How come he slips from their keen ears and eyes?" In fear that he might pose a threat, they tasked Mors to handle him.

"Well, our investigation reports that that man just started adventuring, which supports the idea that he has a hidden agenda in the empire."

"Exactly." Mors nods in agreement. "That’s why we are tasked to collect him."

"Even knowing that we might stand no chance against him?"

"Fret not. The boss provided me with a powerful item to restrain him. He claimed that it could even immobilize an archdragon."

"Don’t those only exist in the legends?"

"Trust me. They are real, and they even compare that person to such a monster. It means that we might be having a hard time."

Learning that they have a powerful item in their hands, the men’s minds calm down a bit. However, there is still uncertainty within them.

"But, boss, I don’t think the four of us can fight them ourselves."

"Who said that we are alone? Just look around."

When the men scan the surroundings, they spot a few familiar faces nearby. Several parties that have ties to the organization band together to catch a single man.

"Unbelievable. With this many people, there’s no way he can win."

"So once we caught this guy," one man says. "Can we have the reward? You know..."

"Of course," Mors says with a sinister grin. "The boss only demands the man, so that woman is reserved for us."