Martial Online.

"What powerful transformation magic!" Montgomery could hardly believe his eyes as he watched the spell take effect.

Beowulf drew circles in the air with his finger and at that moment, the purple-winged butterflies started flying down towards Montgomery.

From being beautiful creatures, they turned into horrible, flesh-eating monsters with razor-sharp teeth and glowing red eyes.

Montgomery rubbed his hands together, and then lightning shot out of his fingertips, evaporating the ugly-looking butterflies from existence.

At last, one of the lightning bolts zigzagged through the air and struck Beowulf in the chest of the powerful magic armor.

"Rah!" Beowulf roared loudly and then used his fingers as lightning rods, suddenly controlling the powerful energy with ease.

The silvery lightning danced around his fingers, and then he stabbed his finger through the air and shot out bolts of lightning straight back at Montgomery.

Rumble!

With a deafening rumble, the lightning bolts slammed straight into Montgomery and knocked him off his feet. He crashed into a wall, still electrified and smoking from the impact.

"Ah!" A few caged people were also hurt by the impact.

Beowulf, after seeing that, waved his hand and made all the cages disappear from the warehouse with the purple mist.

He also made sure to break the locks so the caged people would be able to escape whenever they reappeared in a safe location.

"You were here for them, after all." Montgomery said with a rough voice and climbed out of the broken wall with his clothes smoking.

"That's correct." Beowulf said without any intention of hiding it.

"Hah." Montgomery laughed mockingly. "You think you're a good guy? Just how many people have you killed to become this strong? Are you trying to get some positive karma so you won't end up in hell?

"No matter what you do, you have the blood of thousands in your hands."

Beowulf didn't answer the obvious provoking attempt, and instead, he snapped his fingers.

At that moment, all the dock workers disappeared from the docks, and a thick, impenetrable purple dome descended from the sky and covered the entire dock.

"With this, the rest of the city won't suffer from our fight, and no one can interrupt us."

Montgomery felt like some kind of defensive barrier had descended over the docks, but he scoffed and said.

"That won't stop the church from trying to break through. They're relentless and will eventually break through it.

"That's why I never got to finish my fight with that bastard Edegron!"

"They can try, but before they succeed, you will be dead!"

Beowulf roared and flew through the ceiling of the warehouse, breaking it apart with the sheer force of his magic power.

And then, dark clouds started to gather over his head, signaling the incoming storm of destruction and chaos.

"The Dark Void Creature!"

Montgomery gently put his arms to his side with his palms open, and then the dark void below his feet started to wrap around him like a shadowy cocoon, enveloping him in its embrace.

In that moment, Montgomery completely disappeared into the dark void and suddenly started to look like a creature of darkness.

After that, he started to grow larger and taller, suddenly poking his head through the warehouse's ceiling. He was now unrecognizable as the man he once was, transformed into a terrifying being of immense power.

With a size of thirty meters, he looked like a creature of shadows, made of some kind of black smoke without any discernible features or form.

His eyes were two swirling pools of darkness, devoid of any emotion or humanity.

As he stomped once, the warehouse collapsed completely, and the darkness started to swallow the dock like a hungry beast.

Beowulf spread his arms wide like a bird that unfurled its wings, and then silvery lightning descended from the dark clouds above him and struck the monstrous creature with a deafening crash.

The sound of the lightning reverberated through the night, echoing off the cliffs surrounding the dock.

"Wroooh!"

Montgomery, who was transformed into the monstrous creature, let out a painful roar and staggered backwards after being struck by the lightning.

After stopping himself before falling to the lake, he opened his enormous palm wide and shot out a dark beam of energy towards Beowulf.

Beowulf vanished into the purple mist, but then the dark beam shot through the dark clouds and made them all disappear.

At the same moment, the dark beam struck the purple dome above, but it couldn't break through the protective barrier and eventually disappeared.

Swoosh!

Beowulf appeared in the air behind the monstrous Montgomery and summoned thousands of the ugly-looking butterflies that looked desperate to eat Montgomery's flesh.

He then controlled all the thousand butterflies, and made them fly straight to the shadowy monstrous, which didn't seem to have any flesh.

Still, the ugly-looking butterflies flew through the monstrous creature and started eating its shadowy substance.

"Wrooo!"

Montgomery felt that very vividly and screamed in annoyance.

Eventually, he crossed his arms in front of him and crouched slightly, suddenly looking like he was shrinking in size.

At that moment, he let out another powerful cry and then smashed his arms to the side, which caused his enormous body to explode into black lightning that crackled and surged in all directions.

All the ugly-looking butterflies died instantly and fell to the ground, their bodies disintegrating into ash.

At the same moment, one of the black lightnings struck Beowulf in the chest and threatened to break through his impenetrable magic armor.

At the final possible moment, Beowulf grabbed the black lightning with his bare hand and throw it to the ground with a thunderous impact.

As the black lightning struck the ground, it exploded and created a mushroom cloud of dark smoke and flames.

At the bottom of the dock, a large crater was left in its wake.

In the place of the monstrous creature, only Montgomery was left, whose clothes were in rags, and he had clear injuries from the blast.

Some of his flesh had been eaten, and he had some burn damage.

"Who the hell are you?" Montgomery asked painfully. "Are you from the church? But you clearly aren't using Sacred Soul to do magic, so what the hell is going on?

"Only the church would have magicians as strong as you, but they would never invite someone who uses the Dark Arts to their ranks… or would they?"

Montgomery narrowed his eyes, and he wouldn't be surprised if the church invited someone as strong as Beowulf to their organization, but just not publicly.

Instead, he could be some kind of shadowy figure working behind the scenes.

In his long life, he had seen the church do some evil things that made him question whether there was any goodness in the world, but he had never heard of them having someone who practices the Dark Arts in their ranks.

After all, they think of them as heretics that should be wiped off the face of the planet.

"I am part of no church." Beowulf said and summoned a purple-

petaled flower in his hand. "You, on the other hand, have lots of power. So, why are you doing human trafficking? It sounds quite below your status."

Montgomery scoffed and shook his head.

"Yes, I sell them away as slaves to some powerful people. However, whenever they've gotten tired of them, they send them back to me so I can kill them personally to increase my mana pool.

"I've found it to be quite effective in increasing my power."

Beowulf frowned with a disgusted look.

"You dare to look disgusted?" Montgomery laughed. "You've killed more than me; I am sure of it!"

Beowulf stayed quiet, not sure whether he had killed more than Montgomery.

He had killed thousands in Martial Online, but Montgomery had lived over a hundred years, and in that time, he must've killed tens of thousands of people.

In Montgomery's mind, Beowulf could've only gotten this kind of power by killing hundreds of thousands of people throughout his life.

However, in reality, Montgomery had killed more people than Beowulf had.

While Montgomery killed weaklings, some children, and some new magicians to increase his mana pool, Beowulf, as Ambrose had, killed powerful players that would be incredibly powerful in this world with their strength.

'Maybe they've already found out about this, but the stronger people you kill, the stronger the mana pool will be. The magic attacks will be stronger, and the mana pool will deplete much slower.

'That's why, because I have killed very strong players in that underworld place and powerful people like Mars, my mana pool is incredibly dense as a result!

'That's why my mana pool depletes very slowly and my magic attacks are very strong!

'Montgomery has definitely killed more than me, but he has killed weaker people than I have.'

Beowulf, however, didn't bother to waste his breath explaining all of that to Montgomery, as he had already made up his mind to kill him once and for all!

"Enough of this chit-chat." Beowulf raised his finger to point at Montgomery and said coldly, "Die."

"Raaaaah!"

Montgomery screamed like a wild beast, and from his back, hundreds of black arms protruded like creepy tentacles.

"I have not shown all that I am capable of doing!" Montgomery screamed. "I'll show how I've managed to live so long!

"My magic reigns supreme!"

"Neither have I…" Beowulf looked at the purple-petaled flower in his hand and smiled, "So far, I've just experimented with different things.

"No more."