The pain that one feels when their skin was being torn open was one that was very difficult to describe.

If a comparison had to be made, it would feel like how it felt to have a vat of burning hot oil poured all over one's body. The kind of feeling where the heat of the oil penetrates into your flesh in order to cook your insides until nothing could be felt but endless pain.

That was how Arran was feeling at the moment.

The wings growing from Arran's back were causing him to be drowned in a flood of pain and the only way for him to escape the pain was to destroy all the enemies in front of him.

Arran lunged forwards with a great leap and crossed a hundred meters that separated him and Kasack in two seconds. Raising his hands to strike him down, a shimmer of light manifested in his hands.

The light took the form of a sword and everywhere it passed, all obstacles would be cleaved apart like a hot knife through butter.

Kasack felt a threat coming from Arran and immediately flashed to appear behind him and stretched his hands out to capture Arran.

Arran who was entirely focused on his opponent unconsciously flapped his wings and in the next moment, he found himself ten meters away from Kasack.

Without having any time to figure how he escaped just now, Kasack was already in his face again and the space surrounding them turned murky and viscous causing Arran to put in extra effort to move his body.

It took him all of his power just to survive the rapid onslaught of attacks coming his way.

Kasack was growing more surprised by the minute.

As far as he knew it was already inconceivable that a mortal could be able to survive after receiving such a perverse amount of power for as long as this one had without exploding to his death.

Not counting the fact that he was able to move his body well enough to last so long against him, they had already been fighting for a while now.

All this just served to strengthen his resolve to obtain the treasure in Arran's hand. A treasure as powerful as this would allow him to greatly increase his power.

With renewed resolve, Kasack increased the pace of his attack.

He did not want to waste any more time in this lower realm any longer as he knew that a battle of this scale would attract unwanted attention.

Arran felt the pressure on him increase and coupled with the pain he was experiencing; he didn't know for how much longer he would be able to hold on.

It was at this time that he felt his strength starting to fade away and the power he was receiving from the bracelet start to disappear.

Kasack also noticed this and roared loudly

"Hahaha did you really think that you would be able to keep going on borrowed power?"

"If it were not for the treasure in for hands, you would not even have been worth my time."

"Now it time for this game to come to an end. But you can take pride in the fact that you were able to exchange a few blows with this great one before your death."

Hearing this, Arran finally started to feel desperate. He knew that Kasack was right. If it were not for the bracelet in his possession it would have been a really simple matter to kill him.

For a moment he started to doubt why his parents left it to him if it only led him to his death.

Stopping this thought, Arran chose to believe in his parents.

Knowing them, before leaving him with this, they would have already considered this situation and if they still left it for him then it meant that there was still hope to come out unscathed from this situation and that was the thin thread of hope he was betting on and why he had not given in to despair.

All he had to do was wait.

He didn't have to wait long

When Kasack saw that Arran still held a trace of hope he started to have a bad feeling. At this point, Arran had completely collapsed and was already dried up so much that he could not summon an ounce of strength.

Seeing this Kasack condensed a ball of energy on his hands and was about to finish him off, wanting to leave with the treasure when the situation changed.

From the skies, a blinding pillar of divine light descended and pierced through the battle, separating them both. Like a domino effect, more pillars of light pierced through the dark domain and surrounded them.

Arran saw from the light pillars a scene he would remember for a very long time.

Out of the lights came warriors clad in dazzling silver armor and long swords drawn from the sheaths by their side and in the center of all of them was the most beautiful woman that he had ever laid eyes upon.

The woman was wearing a set of purple gold armor that was hugging her body so tightly that the outline of her figure was clearly visible to all. She had a pair of long slender legs that flowed out her armor and she held a long spear that shone with a ferocious red light and gave off an intense killing intent.

The most eye-catching of all was the pair of fiery red wings that gave of an intense heatwave just by itself that grew out of her back. Her whole body was giving off a fiery aura that was meant to burn all her enemies with her presence alone.

From the eyes of Arran and all those who were bearing witness to this scene, it was like the heavens had opened spilling forth its army with an angel descended to vanquish all evils in the world.

Kasack was the most shocked of them all. He had expected to face other opponents who would try to vie for the treasure but he had never expected the ones who showed up to be this group.

Remembering who he was facing and the legends that spread about them, Kasack could not help himself but howl.

"How?"

"Why is it you?"

"Even for a treasure of this level, it should not have been able to attract your attention. So why have you come to vie for it with me?"

"Humph". Without even looking at him, the woman ordered.

"Kill them all."

"Leave the boy and get rid of the rest of them."

Hearing this, all the warriors in the sky roared and swooped down on Kasack and all the creatures on the ground. It was a complete massacre.

Kasack seeing all of this, did not wait for anyone to tell him otherwise before he immediately escaped. But the warriors did not give him the chance to do so and chased him all over the place.

Arran watched as the enemies that he found insurmountable were being massacred by the warriors in the sky.

Seeing Kasack, who had always seemed domineering in his mind and who could kill him with a thought, fleeing all over the place like a dog with his tail between his leg and was put in a sorry state, Arran knew that there was no way he would be able to survive if he was the one who was facing a siege like this.

That was not all.

The woman who seemed to be the one in command of these warriors, apart from giving the command had not made any other moves.

Whenever Arran looked at her, he would feel a suppression on his soul and he could feel his consciousness slipping.

Arran knew that the one Kasack truly feared and dreaded was her. He knew that if she were to ever make a move no one would be able to survive and even the earth would be at risk of destruction.

The battle was over in minutes and all the evil creatures were killed and destroyed. Arran did not see what happened to Kasack but he did not have the luxury of time to care about other things as currently all his last bit of strength was already spent and he could not keep himself conscious anymore.

The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the winged angel descending before him and looking at him with a very puzzling expression on her face.

Currently, the winged commander was staring at Arran with a very confused look on her face and she had a lot of questions on her mind.

She was feeling a very familiar aura from Arran's body and that was what was confusing to her. She had a sneaky suspicion and If what she felt from him turned out to be true, then there would be a lot of questions that had not been answered for a long time that would likely be raised up again.

At this moment, one of her men came before her interrupting her thoughts.

"Reporting to the commander, all the Shades have been eradicated."

"Unfortunately, the Shade leader was able to escape. At the last moment, he used a lifesaving treasure to pull himself into a space crevice and away from this world." The warrior reported.

He continued, "we have been able to follow the traces he left behind and was able to find the location of his world and without a doubt, it is determined to be a peripheral world at the border of the lower and upper realms. Should we give chase?" He asked.

Without giving it a single thought, the commander replied.

"Ignore him."

"This kind of trash is not worth our time."

"Understood." The warrior replied.

Following this, the commander turned her attention back to Arran and asked.

"What about the matter we came here for"

"The energy readings are coming from the bracer on the arm of this human." The warrior said.

"Is that so?"

"In that case retrieve it and let's be on our way."

"Yes." The warrior said.

Saying so he made his way to Arran and reached for his arm where the bracer was resting on. But as soon as his hand came in contact with it, there was a reaction from the bracer and the warrior was flung a few kilometers away from Arran.

Seeing this the winged commander frowned before she stretched out her hand and reached for the bracer only to elicit the same reaction... only on a more intense scale. If it were not for her strength, she would have been sent flying away like the warrior before.

She frowned and thought for a moment about how to take care of this situation. When the warrior returned with a disheveled appearance, she said.

"Pack up. We'll be taking him with us as we return."

Surprised the warrior asked, "is it very appropriate to abduct a native of the lower realms?"

Looking at the warrior, the commander said, "do you suggest that we kill him instead because it's obvious that we are not getting it off him unless he is dead."

Noticing the look on the commander's face, the warrior hurriedly lowered his head and said.

"I apologize; I spoke out of turn."

"Hmm. It's good that you are aware."

"We are strong but we are not bandits."

As she said this, the commander looked up into the sky and said to herself, "it looks like we have a lot of prying eyes."

Immediately, her entire aura changed and she gave off a powerful pressure that affected the space around her… distorting it into multiple folds that seemed to be on the brink of collapse.

Along with the increase in her aura, she raised her voice to the sky and said, "all of you that have set your sights here, scram now before I set my sights on you, if not, do not blame me for being ruthless!!"

Like a clap of thunder, even if her voice was not loud, it shocked the souls of all who heard it, and the people in the city all collapsed unconscious.

After a few seconds, the commander turned to her companion and said, "They have all left. Now hurry up and deal with the aftermaths of this incident, we are leaving."

Saying so, she picked Arran up and flapped her wings to fly up to the sky. Muttering under her breath she said,

"It looks like a storm is about to hit our people."

What happened here on new year's eve would later be reported as a virus outbreak caused by terrorist activity which led to the deaths of a few citizens and the mass blackout of the whole city.

No one paid any attention to the disappearance of a 19-year-old teenager.