The man examined the stick in his hands with an interesting look in his eyes.

Then he smiled.

"Nature yearns for mastery… a call too overwhelming to ignore."

He sighed and casually swung the fine staff upward. Immediately, everything that was suspended in the air cleaved into perfect twain.

Lucien's face went cold as he saw the trees, sliced apart so cleanly. And fall apart, shaking the ground. It was unbelievable to look at. The sword path was only one, it should have affected only one tree but all the others floating around were affected as well, it was as if the strikes were reflected.

Lucien wanted to ask himself how, but belatedly remembered. This was a game and there were people with bizarre skills. Perhaps, this was becoming too much of a reality for him than he should.

He sighed and tried to calm himself.

Meanwhile Gaya took a step back and got closer to him. She muttered beneath her lips.

"Lord Cien. We need to run."

Lucien looked at her, surprised that the world could ever even come out of her mouth.

If Gaya who was hot headed and of course had enough power to back up her temper was suggesting they run, that meant she had realized how bad of a news the man really was.

Then indeed he was bad news.

Lucien leaned closer and whispered.

"You looked right into my head! Why are you even fighting in the first place!'

Gaya rolled her eyeballs to the corner of her eyes, if she could turn, she looked like a wife that would stab her cheating husband to death.

"I will create a diversion, return to Vel'Rhameir at all cost."

Lucien nodded, readying himself.

"Let me help you."

"Stay out of this."

Gaya hissed annoyingly.

Meanwhile the man dropped the stick a little lower, looking like he was inviting them to attack, he was dazzling with openings.

Gaya didn't wait for the man's invitation. Her amber eyes blazed with renewed fury as she raised both hands skyward.

"Forest's Wrath."

As the words left her lips, every living tree within a two-mile radius responded to her call. Ancient oaks groaned and twisted, their massive trunks bending like rubber as they swung toward the man like colossal clubs. Vines erupted from the earth in writhing masses, seeking to entangle and crush. The very air filled with a hurricane of leaves, each one hardened to the sharpness of steel blades.

Gaya raised a corner of her lips, as she fixed the man with one hell of a flare.

"Elemental Storm!"

The morning mist condensed into ice spears that fell like rain. Lightning arced between the trees in a deadly web. The ground itself became her weapon—quicksand here, molten stone there, razor-sharp crystal formations erupting everywhere the man tried to step.

Despite all of this, the man did not seem concerned, in fact it seemed that Gaya's earlier attacks had moved him more than this one was, even though this one was even more vicious and she was transforming the nature of the earth, the forest, rewriting its laws.

The man smiled after a few more observations with his eyes.

"Impressive… but utterly futile."

Lucien watched in awe as Gaya orchestrated destruction on a scale he'd never imagined possible. The entire forest had become her ally, and she wielded it like a master conductor leading a symphony of devastation.

However, the man brought an even more devastating shocker. He simply raised his sword and fell his hand, and all at once, both the things that could be sliced and the things that could not be sliced, were sliced.

Lucien almost forgot to breathe. His eyes dazzled. But honestly, he didn't have the time to admire the man's astonishing play with the sword.

This was his chance to run away.

While the man was completely occupied with Gaya's relentless assault, Lucien turned and sprinted away, as he was running, he suddenly found something slithering in the bushes.

Even though he was in so much hurry, Lucien was too vengeful of a person not to stop.

His eyes glinted with an evil light.

"Oh oh oh, if it isn't my captor."

Lucreatia had retreated to what she probably thought was a safe distance, coiled behind a cluster of boulders, her serpentine form gleaming white in the chaos.

A cold smile spread across Lucien's face.

"You want to retreat like the snake you are? Captor?"

The snake of course, shuddered slightly, Lucreatia could feel Lucien's cold murderous eyes upon her.

She was not as small as a common snake, but her size was pathetic compared to her gloriousness a few moments ago.

Lucien extended his hands and picked up the snake, it filled his entire hands.

Lucreatia coiled dangerously and shot at him but Lucien caught her by the neck, clenching it tightly while looking at her with a maniacal grin.

"Evolution Online is a very interesting game. I can actually fish out snakes who are actually players and treat them like the snakes that they are. How satisfying."

Lucreatia writhed desperately in Lucien's grip, her small fangs snapping uselessly at his fingers. Her once-majestic serpentine form had been reduced to something barely larger than a common garden snake, vulnerable and pathetic.

She hissed weakly, her voice now a mere whisper compared to the commanding tone she'd possessed earlier.

"Please... mercy..."

Lucien's grin widened as he held her at eye level, watching her squirm.

"Mercy? You were going to devour me whole just minutes ago though. But don't worry—I'm not going to dirty my hands with your blood."

He turned toward the ongoing battle where Gaya and the mysterious man were locked in their deadly dance. Lightning still crackled through the air, and the very earth continued to convulse under Gaya's assault. The man's green staff just casually drifted across, cutting all that came his way in a single stroke. Just as he cut them down, Gaya already had more coming at him.

Lucien decided and said to her with a small smile.

"I'll let fate decide your punishment."

With that, he drew his arm back and hurled Lucreatia like a projectile directly in between Gaya and the man, with the storm of their onslaught.

"NOOOOO—!"

Her scream was cut short as she sailed through the air.

The white serpent tumbled helplessly through the chaos, straight into the path of a massive ice spear that Gaya had conjured. The crystalline projectile, meant for the man, instead pierced clean through Lucreatia's diminished form.

But that wasn't the end of it.

As she fell, still impaled by the ice spear, she crashed directly into one of Gaya's lightning strikes. The electrical energy coursed through her body, cooking her from the inside while the ice simultaneously flash-froze her organs.

The man, noticing the unexpected projectile, casually deflected her trajectory with his staff—but his casual swipe sent her careening into a patch of molten earth that Gaya had created.

What remained of Lucreatia hit the superheated ground with a sickening hiss. Steam rose as her form was simultaneously burned, frozen, electrocuted, and finally dissolved by the acidic properties Gaya had infused into the molten rock.

The man observed with mild amusement, glancing at the spot where Lucreatia had met her end.

"Well, I suppose that's one way to dispose of a pest."

Gaya, not even sparing a glance for the snake's demise, continued her relentless assault. If anything, the interruption seemed to fuel her anger further.

"FOREST DOMINION!"

Lucien didn't wait to see what new devastation that spell would bring. With Lucreatia's fate sealed and Gaya providing the perfect distraction, he turned and sprinted toward the forest edge.

Behind him, he could hear the thunderous crash of trees, the whistle of the man's staff cutting through air and magic alike, and the rumbling of earth being reshaped by forces beyond mortal comprehension.

As he ran, Lucien couldn't help but smile grimly. Lucreatia had gotten exactly what she deserved—caught in the crossfire of powers far beyond her diminished capabilities, destroyed not by his direct action but by the very chaos she had helped create.

This way, he was not a player killer, but she ended up dying anyway.

It was poetic justice at its finest.

The sounds of battle grew fainter as Lucien disappeared into the deeper parts of the forest, leaving Gaya to orchestrate her own escape from the increasingly dangerous confrontation with the mysterious swordsman.

Gaya and the mysterious man stood for a moment and looked at each other, with a cold expression.

Then she smiled, strangely.

"It is you isn't it? Long Xieren, Dragon of the East."

The man paused with a little raise of his right brows.

"The snake I told, but you I didn't, to recognize me in an era that has long forgotten me. Are you perhaps…"

His eyes widened.

"My… descendants?"

Gaya frowned with a disgusted look in her eyes, as if she had just tasted something very bitter.

"What the fuck? Who the hell are you calling your descendants you pervert."

The man widened his eyes slightly.

"Ahah, I have not been called that in about thirteen thousand years… you can't be my descendant… you possible lived thirteen thousand years ago… hmmm… but a human cannot live that long—"

He suddenly stopped mid-sentence, looking at Gaya with puzzled scrutiny, then his eyes finally flew wide.

"Oh Goodness! Golden Finger!"

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