System vs Rebirth

'How the hell did this happen?' Noel asked himself as he was looking up to see Anna's face. Anna was sitting behind the tree while her hand was holding his head and burying his face on her breast.

…

A few minutes ago.

"How is the situation on the other side?" Anna shouted while carefully deflecting a few Mid Level Demons' attacks.

Her answer came in the form of action. Noel suddenly rushed to one of the Mid Level Demon and covered his sword with the Spiritual Energy.

Mega Slash.

Noel struck the Mid Level Demon's head, only to be stopped by its horns.

If it were three weeks ago, he would be useless against the Mid Level Demon. However, this time was different.

As soon as he saw the demon stopping his attack, Noel took a step back and looped around the demon. In fact, he was going around the several Mid Level Demons to hide himself with their bodies.

'As expected, the Low Level and Mid Level Demons don't have that much intelligence. Mid Level Demon is better, but they're still using their instinct.' Noel thought as he saw the Mid Level Demon chasing after him, slipping past several demons.

Using that to his advantage, Noel could bother the other demons.

"Ooohhhhh!" The demon let out a roar as if informing the other demons who had yet to realize Noel's appearance due to him not saying anything.

When the other Mid Level Demons turned around to find Noel, Anna charged forward with a smirk.

Her sword and body had been covered by lightning. Her jumping speed felt like a bullet as she appeared next to the demon in an instant.

After that, her sword struck the demon's horn. Unlike Noel, she had a complete control over her Spiritual Energy. Even if the demon could stop her sword with its horn, the Spiritual Energy sparked, resulting in the same reaction from the lightning.

The spark cracked the horn and Anna released all her strength to push forward, destroying the horn and cutting the demon's head.

"…" Noel narrowed his eyes, thinking, 'As expected, her control of Spiritual Energy is so high. I can't kill her with my meager ability for now.'

Seeing one of them getting killed by Anna, all the demons turned around and directed their anger toward her.

Noel used this chance to approach the demon from behind to attack their softest spot.

However, Noel took one step further as he pointed his palm forward.

Ice Control.

The skill allowed Noel to create ice around him, so he covered the soil with a thin layer of ice, causing the demons to fall down.

"Kill them!" Noel shouted as he and Anna jumped to the demons together.

Noel killed two Mid Level Demons during the confusion with the help of his Mega Slash while Anna took care of four. With the addition of one Mid Level Demon, she managed to kill five Mid Level Demons in total.

"Nice ice ability." Anna nodded with a serious expression.

"Not as strong as your lightning ability."

"Come on. Mine is powerful, but yours is versatile." Anna smirked.

"Hu…" Noel took a deep breath as he didn't want to continue the conversation. He looked around while making sure that they were not watched by the demons. "We have been pretty deep inside the forest. Although the stronger demons living in the deeper region make sense in one way to another, I still don't understand why…"

"A tree can grow in a good soil, right?"

"Yes."

"But there is another theory about it. The richer the soil is, the more it contains the Spiritual Energy. You might not be able to feel it or see it right now, but this world is filled with Spiritual Energy.

"The demons like to live in an area rich of Spiritual Energy. As for why stronger demons live in the deeper area, it's simply because the deepest region is where the Spiritual Energy is concentrated. The rest is simply hierarchy."

Noel thought for a moment and asked, "In that case, does that mean the deepest region has the strongest demon?"

"Yeah. We're already a bit too deep right now, so we should pull back soon."

"So, a higher ranking demon, an Advance Level Demon?"

"Perhaps. I'm not too sure currently, but let's just—!!!" Anna stopped abruptly and turned around, staring into the woods.

"Anna?" Noel was confused but remained vigilance when he saw Anna's solemn face.

Suddenly, Anna ran toward him and dragged him while putting her finger on her mouth as if signaling him to not make a single noise.

They hid behind the biggest tree in the area. She even held him close so that he didn't stand out.

"Don't make a single sound or release your Spiritual Energy if you don't want to die. I'm going to use my power to erase the trace of our Spiritual Energy," said Anna with a low voice while raising her right hand. Her index and middle finger rose as if she concentrated her power into the fingertips.

"Wh—" Noel was confused, but Anna hurriedly grabbed his head and pulled his head into her breast as the means to silence him.

Noel was startled by Anna's action. Despite the hatred, he still couldn't deny the fact that Anna was the most beautiful woman among the Knight Apprentice. And to think she would have his face buried on her chest, it was unthinkable as a noble.

However, when he raised his vision, he stopped struggling. No, he stopped every little movement.

Anna had closed her eyes to get more focus, but her forehead was covered with sweats as though she had been utilizing a great amount of Spiritual Energy.

Noel knew that this was a dangerous situation, so he decided to cooperate with everything she said.

He didn't dare to move even though he was curious about what she saw.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, the answer to his curiosity appeared.

He felt an immense Spiritual Energy coming toward them. Unlike their Spiritual Energy, he could sense the killing intent and bloodlust emanating from this creature.

Although he couldn't see its figure, he felt dread that his body was trembling.

This was the reason why Anna panicked and did the unthinkable.

In the end, Noel also closed his eyes to calm his heart. He wanted to make sure that his body was in the condition to respond to the worst case scenario.