Inside of a tube filled with green liquid, Sebastian was in a deep slumber. The surroundings of the tube was full of dust as it was showed the length at which he slept.
The tube itself was slightly cracked as it struggled to contain his power within. Soon, the cracks started to appear more often until it finally shattered.
Shatter!
Step! Step! Step!
Two figures walked down a set of stairs and arrived into the room with the tube. Upon seeing his body on the ground, they rushed over and kneeled to inspect his body.
As the were inspecting his body, it took them a minute to realized a powerful presence was revolving around them as if it was trying to scare them off.
"Should we wake him up?" Bastian asked.
"Hmm... Awakening him now will probably ruin or delay the results but he needs to wake up now. He's been there longer than I could've imagined." Ragnar said.
Tapping his glaive against Sebastian's chest, a strong and violent vibration shook his body. In an instant, a strong sinister presence descended upon them and triggered both Ragnar's and Bastian's mind into combat.
While they were on the defense, they looked at the Sebastian as they heard him waking up. As soon as he had awakened, he stared at the duo and blinked before speaking.
"What are you guys doing?" Sebastian asked.
"You were emitting that presence?" Ragnar mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothing. We were just messing around." Bastian replied.
Looking at his surroundings, Sebastian saw the accumulation of dust and could assume that he was out for quite a while.
"How long was I out for?" Sebastian asked.
"A total of fifteen months." Bastian revealed.
Surprised by the length of time, Sebastian ran up the stairs and outside the Dark Guild HQ. He immediately noticed the realm tears and a few strange shadowy beasts in the air.
"Those are beasts that roam in between realms. If you're thinking about attacking one, don't. They required a special weapon to kill."
Thinking about weapons, Sebastian remembered the dwarves were making his weapons.
"Are the dwarves done with my weapons?" Sebastian asked.
"Weapons? Oh! They're nearly done." Bastian replied.
"Nearly? I thought you said it would take two weeks."
"Well, they forgot that you couldn't use magic so they're remaking them to suit your needs."
A newspaper flew by Sebastian and glancing at it, his eyes widened in shock as he see the front picture and the text. He then grabbed it immediately and read through it.
'The werewolves were attacked and pushed back?! They lost nine cities and multiple villages…'
Continuing to read through, Sebastian didn't see anything concerning his friends so he breathed in relief.
"What happened to my friends?" Sebastian asked.
"Your friends? They're doing great. They finally achieved Peak-F Rank in both magic and swordsmanship." Bastian revealed.
Processing the information, Sebastian noticed seven girls were approaching him. Staring at them in confusion, Sebastian saw them kneel onto the ground and bow their heads.
Feeling their presence, it was revealed that they were Low/Beginner E-Rank.
"Don't you remember your demon friends?" Bastian asked.
Instantly, he remembered them and a sensation of proudness and joy entered his mind. While he was undertaking missions and getting stronger, he helped and encouraged the slaves he had freed to become strong.
"They struggled during training but they overcame those obstacles. They always keep your words in mind and exceeded our expectations." A man came out of the shadows.
Recognizing the man's voice, Sebastian lunged at him and slammed him into the ground.
"I finally got you!" Sebastian shouted, happily.
The man was none other than the one responsible for his training. He always gave him unnecessary tasks to finish and even admitted to giving him tasks that weren't part of the training.
"What the hell is the matter with you?!" The man asked, angrily.
"You know what you did!"
"Wait…" Looking at Sebastian, closely, the man realized who it was. "Sebastian?!"
Instantly, the man disappeared from his grasp and his entire presence disappeared.
"Whelp, I'm gonna go while you catch up with them. They probably want to have a chat with you after such a long training." Bastian said, walking away.
Staring at the seven girls, Sebastian didn't know what to say to them. They indeed exceeded his expectations and even got stronger than him quickly.
"How was the training?" Sebastian asked.
"The training was hard and rough but we always kept your image in mind. We needed to get strong, if we wanted to be useful to you." Lilith responded.
"There's no need to kneel before me. We're equals, not master and slave.
"We're doing it out of respect for you. You save us from that hell hole."
"Very well. I've recently received a power-up and I want to test it out. It'll be useful if I figure out the ways you fight so in future I know your specialties."
Walking away, Sebastian signaled the girls to follow suit. Upon entering the colosseum, Sebastian noticed the damage the colosseum sustained was repaired and looked to be stronger.
Immediately, Sebastian struck first as he quickly drew his blade and released a wave of red aura toward Lilith.
Before the attack could hit Lilith, a wall of darkness rose and shielded Lilith against the attack.
'Dark Magic? No… Does she have multiple affinities toward other magic?'
Suddenly, a large wave of fire rose from the ground and was going toward Sebastian.
'Kate has fire magic…'
As the wave of fire was a few meters away from Sebastian, it disappeared and one of the girls came lunging with claws.
Slash!
'An illusion? No, the heat was there but the magic disappeared?'
Bang!
Slamming into the colosseum wall, Sebastian noticed an object levitating high up in the air. While his focus was on the object in the air, the wave of fire reappeared and enveloped his body.
'Body transformation, fire magic, dark magic, possible illusion magic, and the others are unknown.' He analyzed
Soon, the fire disappeared and a strong presence descended on the colosseum. Each girl took a defensive stance and began to look around for Sebastian.
Bang!
Kate was slammed into the wall as Sebastian decided to test out his new strength. His speed far exceeded his expectations as with a single step, he appeared beside Kate and that was without flash step.
Ayame was quick to react and took the charge against Sebastian by engaging in hand-to-hand combat. The speed behind each movement surprised Sebastian as he realized she was on par and getting faster with each strike.
'An innate clan ability!' Sebastian noticed.
After learning it could be innate clan ability, he already found the right job for her, an assassin. An ever increasing speed would great against unsuspecting enemies, who never would think of such abilities.
'I'll just have to increase my speed.'
His body began to heat up as his body slightly turned green. As he skin slightly turned green, his speed was increasing at a rapid rate.
Bang!
Stab!
An ice attack from behind had pierced through his leg. From the sky, a medium-sized Chimera beast appeared and flew down before biting down on his arm.
'This is getting fun!'
Yanking his arm from the Chimera beast's jaws, he slammed his fist down onto the beast's head, killing it in one blow. With a single step, Sebastian appeared beside one of the girls named Sadie and attempted to strike her abdomen.
Bang!
Surprised, Sebastian was counterattacked by her and received three swift blows to the abdomen, chest, and face.
Swoosh!
Slash!
Another girl appeared beside him, wielding a sword and slashed at the side of his body.
Drip!
Swoosh!
Stab!
The girl with the claws appeared and stabbed Sebastian in the abdomen with her claws. The teamwork between the girls surprised Sebastian. Never would he have thought that they would excel as a team.
"Flawless Style: Slamming strike!"
A huge force of energy was transferred to Sebastian's leg as it slammed into the ground, shattering the whole floor and taking each girl by surprise.
"Flawless Style: Tornado Kick!"
The air around Sebastian pushed each girl away and surprised them.
BANG!
Releasing his kick, two of the girls were swiftly dealt with as the attack wasn't something they had seen before.
Both of Sebastian's arms were partially transformed into claws and slamming his foot into the ground. He pushed off the ground and disappeared from their visions.
Stab!
Stab!
Two more girls were taken by surprise as they felt themselves being stabbed in their abdomen.
"Don't be surprised. I've always been faster and stronger than everyone." Sebastian said.
The two girls soon were replaced with a pile of earth.
"What?"
Two dark hands appeared on both sides of Sebastian and closed on him. Upon closer inspection, the girls realized Sebastian was using his strength to prevent the hands from fully closing.
Multiple black tendrils rose from the ground and grabbed his arms, attempting to pull his arms back to his body.
'Impossible! They all shouldn't be able to wield Dark Magic!'
The sudden realization hit Sebastian hard. Never in his wildest dreams did he think that he would recruit seven people with dark magic.
Golden flame appeared on Sebastian's body as he was utilizing the Flame of Rage. His strength increased by a large margin as he managed to push back both of the dark hands and ripped the dark tendrils off his body.
In a single step, Sebastian appeared beside Lilith and slammed his leg into her side. The girl beside Lilith couldn't react in time as she received a blow from the backside of Sebastian's fist.
Soon, Sebastian felt another slight increase in power as the green toxin from the tube was finally taking an effect on his body.
Swoosh!
One of the girls appeared beside him, augmented with lightning magic. Putting her hands on his back, she discharged all the electricity into his body.
Kate appeared in front of him with a fist of fire and punched him in the stomach, burning him in the process.
Black tendrils appeared again and proceeded to pull Sebastian down to the ground. Normally, he would've been able to break free but this time, there were several times the normal amount of black tendrils.
"Combination style: Shadow Coffin!' The girls shouted in unison.
A shadow hole formed beneath Sebastian as the black tendrils were pulling him into it. Once his back touched the black hole, he began to sink into the hole.
'They're planning on putting me in a shadow prison?'
After a while of struggling, Sebastian was fully submerged in the shadow hole. The hole then closed and Sebastian was never seen.
Inside the shadow prison, Sebastian saw nothing but darkness. Although he didn't mind it, he felt like he was being watched by something.
'They actually managed to beat me… I suppose it's only natural since we're all on the same rank. But man, who would've guessed that they all had Dark magic.
I suppose they can utilize Shadow magic since it's similar and they have a large affinity tree toward other magic.'
A hand reached out to Sebastian and accepting the hand, Sebastian was taken out of the shadow prison.
"Congratulations, you've beat me." Sebastian said.
"We were only able to beat you because you didn't come at us with the intent to kill, otherwise you would have beaten us and killed us." Lilith replied.
"True. My strength far exceeds all of yours and my speed as well. I could probably kill you with on fist strike, if I had used all of my strength."
While they were chatting, Bastian was in the colosseum seat. He watched the entire fight and was able to tell that Sebastian could've killed them in a single second.
Even if the girls were E-Ranked, that didn't mean they were able to take hits from Sebastian's strongest attacks. They ranked E-Rank in both swordsmanship and magic but their body's durability wasn't E-ranked like Sebastian.
They also didn't have access to War Body skill like Sebastian. Many other factors would have affected the result of the fight as well.
'The toxins didn't increase his strength at all… Unless they're struggling to increase his strength.' Bastian thought.
"There you are!" Sebastian said, appearing beside him.
Shing!
A blade appeared near Sebastian's throat as Bastian reacted with such swiftness that Sebastian couldn't even see coming.
'He's faster than I thought…' Sebastian thought.
"It's about time you finished. Ragnar wanted me to take all of you back to HQ for missions." Bastian said.
Nodding, Sebastian whistled and all the girls appeared by his side and ready to go.
'If this line up of powerful individuals were to get stronger, they would be unstoppable.'
Bastian's vision was different from everyone else as he was able to see the actual presence of an individual and potential instead of feeling it. Each girl was emitting a strong potential and presence that even he wasn't able to ignore. Their potentials were radiating from their bodies and filled the entire colosseum.