Seeing Calvin charging toward him, the earth elementalist hurriedly waved his hand, intending to unleash another barrage of earthen spears.Before he could complete the motion, however, a tendril of darkness burst out from his shadow and wrapped tightly around his arm, stopping the movement halfway and delaying the attack just long enough for Calvin to completely close the distance.The man immediately swung his other hand forward, raising a thick earthen barrier to intercept Calvin's descending slash, but Calvin's darkness blade split straight through the barrier before tearing into the man's arm.The instant the blade made contact with his body, Calvin immediately reformed the weapon, sending darkness elemental energy crawling up the earth elementalist's arm before it raced toward his neck and condensed into a thick rope around his throat.Calvin landed on the ground without wasting a single movement before grabbing the darkness rope with both hands and

Fortunately, although the car drew a few glances from people who noticed the broken window, they weren't stopped by the police on the way back.After returning to the hotel, Calvin left the task of reporting the incident to the chauffeur and headed back up to his room.The moment he closed the door behind himself, he flopped down onto the couch, heaving an exhausted sigh before removing his cross bag and tossing it onto the floor.“That was a pain to deal with.”Calvin clicked his tongue in faint annoyance as he recalled the completely unnecessary fight he’d been forced into because of Jim.“Just seven people, and I’m already exhausted afterwards. Really, I’m too weak right now.”His elemental energy reserves were currently below 25%, and that was after he’d already recovered a fair amount since the fight had ended.Considering that he’d fought multiple D-Rank elementalists and one

"You say you're a big shot, but there's a hint of unhappiness in your tone," Calvin said.This was the first change in her tone that he'd decided to comment on after noticing it, and Shelia paused for a moment in silence before replying."True. I mean, I am a big shot in this part of the country, but in the wider world out there, A-rank elementalists like me are a dime a dozen."As much as Calvin would've liked to refute her, if only to keep her in a better mood, he knew that simply wasn't the case.This part of the country had a relatively small elementalist population, making it much harder for someone to come across elementalists here. In other places, however, such as the capital city, Aegall, a person had a much greater chance of running into an elementalist while simply walking through the streets.Naturally, with a much larger elementalist population, the number of higher-ranked elementalists was also significantly greater.It was bec

Even the bats that had been consumed by flames regenerated in exactly the same manner, their burned flesh restored by the dark energy before they once again took to the skies.Calvin's eyes narrowed at the sight, and his thoughts immediately went to the three bats he'd killed only minutes earlier.‘Those bats didn't get back up after I killed them.’He then remembered how the storm had suddenly intensified the instant those three bats died, followed almost immediately by the torrential rain.Calvin silently watched the two bikers as they rode off into the distance, and from their actions and reactions, he arrived at a conclusion.“These men don't seem surprised that the bats aren't dying from their attacks,” he muttered. “Then there's also the fact that the storm started the moment those bats were killed by my hand.”A possibility immediately came to Calvin's mind, and he pressed two fingers against his te

As Calvin moved through the city, the other elementalists also noticed that the bats had begun flying back toward the centre.The two elementalists on the bikes whom Calvin had encountered earlier frowned at the sight."That's not good," one of them said. "These bats suddenly stopped attacking. The only explanation is that whatever's inside that cocoon we found a few days ago is calling them back.""Could that thing be accelerating its emergence?" the wind elementalist asked.The two of them, both C-rank elementalists, together with the lightning elementalist and the wounded researcher Calvin had spoken with earlier, were actually members of the same team.A few days earlier, they had attempted to investigate the centre of the storm and had discovered the cocoon hidden within it. However, they had been intercepted by the bats and had even lost one of their comrades because of how many bats had attacked them."Now's not the time. We have to f