Warlock of War: My Ares System



"I'll play it safe… yes," I muttered, and as the array of panels disappeared from my vision, a merman nearly identical to the merman that I had fought previously appeared. The only difference was that instead of a tight uniform of black clothes, this man was clad in chainmail and a longsword made from iron. In addition, that debuff caused him to glow a tiny red aura. 

And as soon as he spawned in, I gathered mana in my hands and once more used [Advanced Demonic Fire Magic] while in tandem using [Summon: Lesser Fire Spirits]. My green flames pushed through the atmosphere and threatened to melt him and all of his gear, yet within the blink of an eye, all of my mana had been frozen in place, and the green flames were cut in half. 

"You…" I began to sweat as the merman smiled lightly… until he saw balls of fire with smaller balls acting as a tail behind them. His face instantly dropped upon realizing that these summons were now their own lifeforms yet still under my influence. 

He clicked his tongue before raising his sword up and dashing towards me. His mana exploded out as if he wanted to slaughter me right here and now, but before he could even get close, my cute little summons coughed up small wisps of fire that the man couldn't help but cut down. 

"Just like I thought… well, this will make beating your ass a little easier." 

While I let my summons do most of the work, I hung back. He was already debuffed so I can only assume his stamina is even lower than before, but even then I had to be careful. I needed to dwindle him down as much as possible before I can have a chance at even touching him. 

There was a small plan that I formulated in my mind this entire time but for some reason, something tickled my consciousness. Something about this wasn't right. How was he able to just straight up to cut through my magic… was there something else about that sword or was it a skill. 

"I have too little information," I muttered to myself before seeing one of my flaming summons get cut down. 

He was decently smart. He instantly went for my summons as he knew they would be a nuisance, but I guess there was something that he wasn't aware of… I could cycle my mana once more through my body. 

With just a bit of concentration, I was able to get my mana to flow through my body once more while the swordsman was stuck dealing with chopping down these summons of mine. And as my plan began to further develop, I lightly chuckled. 

"Geez… Orion, I'm so thankful some of you rubbed off on me," I smiled, my lips practically touching both of my ears. It was something sadistic and something that came from the depths of my soul as I watched the man chop down my last fire spirit. 

At this moment, he was unaware of the fact that I could use skills again. I never showed it in the past match because I was busy fighting the actual monster, so I doubt the executives would create a monster that is aware of this fact… so I needed to keep it a secret until the right moment came to me. 

"ARGHHHHHHHHH!" The merman shouted vigorously, charging straight towards me with his sword at his side, both hands gripping that blade of iron. 

FWOOSH 

The blade swung over me, chopping off only a centimeter of the black tips of my hair. It was wide and crude, yet it felt like he was drawing me into something so I instantly took a step back. And it seemed my intuition was right as his knee had lifted, expecting me to charge right into his guard in order to negate his ability to use his sword. 

"You're too obvious," I continued to smile before this time he brought the guard of his sword close to his chest and was ready to unleash a puncture attack. Yet, I knew that he could pull something different at any time, so I stayed on guard while shuffling a bit back. 

Once again, he charged in, this time taking a lower stance and going in for a precise stabbing strike meant to puncture me from below and follow up into my heart. It was a strange attack that I had never seen before, but after he had missed badly, he went in for a couple of other slashes that I easily dodged. 

Not only was that chainmail and the heft of his sword slowing him down, but the previous fire spirits had definitely taken away some of his stamina and mana. On top of that… that debuff was doing wonders. 

We tangoed for a few minutes with me mostly dodging. There were a few times I saw some openings, but they were clearly artificial, so I didn't fall for the bait and made sure to keep my distance. 

He began to slow down quite a bit and his anger was pushing through that calm facade he had disgustingly plastered all over his face. And after I straight up just began to run away from him, cackling with amusement, he balled up his fists and turned upwards. 

"ARGHHHHHHHHHHH!" 

All of a sudden, he was engulfed in a dark red aura and his eyes glowed like a demon. He had a sort of demonic presence that sent chills down my spine. He charged toward me with all his might, ignoring whatever mental and physical fatigue that had been built up. 

I had no clue whether this was actually supposed to happen or maybe I triggered some kind of event that pushed him to his limits, but what I did know was that I now had to take this seriously. No longer was my strategy working, but seeing how he's entered this pseudo-berserk state, I doubt he was in his right mind to hinder my mana again.