Rohan had long launched himself towards Rudith, not wanting to give her or her group any time to recover.

He gripped the shaft of his spear so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he slashed through the air, sending the dangerously sharp tip straight for Rudith’s head.

But his attack was predictable and Rudith managed to dodge it. In terms of strength, the two were equally matched. Rudith had been an Awakened for much longer and was already at the peak of F rank by this point, while Rohan’s strength was boosted by his own Firestone Skin gene.

"You’ll never get away with this! I’ll never let you two have a relaxing day inside the Origin Realm again! I’ll make sure to hunt you down every time you enter this place — you’ll never be able to cultivate or progress your rank so long as I am around!" Rudith spoke again, throwing threats out left and right.

She really let her emotions loose this time, not giving a damn what anyone thought about her, and Rohan could practically feel her spiteful nature infecting the air around them.

"What’s funny is that I was going to say the same thing!" Rohan jeered.

When his opponent was already flying into a rage like this, it was basically required to continue egging them on! The angrier she became, the more unhinged she’d be and more mistake she’d make.

His words clearly struck a chord in Rudith, causing her to push herself even harder.

However, his plan quickly started to backfire, as Rudith did something he never could have planned for.

Flames spurted up around her and covered her entire body, encasing her in a deathly hot aura of orange fire that Rohan didn’t dare get close to.

’What the fuck is this??’

"I may have underestimated you, but you’ve also underestimated me! I rarely ever need to unleash my gene’s ability like this — consider yourselves lucky!"

’Fuck, that’s a gene? I thought she was just another strength type Awakened! And this feels like an Elite tier gene as well...’

Rohan understood now how vastly little he actually knew about Rudith and her group. Memories of his short time fighting alongside them began to flash through his mind, and he realised that she kept most of her abilities hidden from the very beginning.

When fighting beasts, she always just used her sword and her natural skills to take them down, and with relative ease as well. Even when she went off to fight the Elite Soldier Ant, she did it out of Rohan and Elane’s sight, so he couldn’t even know how she and Joe managed to do that.

All he knew was the types of weapons they used, and small habits they did while fighting, but other than that he knew very little!

’Fuck, this is actually getting dangerous!’

His Firestone Skin protected well against the flames and saved him from a lot of discomfort, but that was only externally. The intense heat radiating from Rudith made the air temperature rise rapidly, almost to the point where it felt like stepping back into the boss’ chamber again.

Looking at Rohan’s retreating figure, Rudith sniggered. "That’s more like it! Let me give you a taste of what hell feels like!"

Thinking things couldn’t get any worse, they did.

Rudith’s fire aura shifted from her body to encompass her sword, and she slashed across the air between her and Rohan in a wide arc, and shockingly, a flaming blade was sent flying out towards him! 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

’What!? She has ranged capabilities too??’

Rohan raised his spear in front of him in desperation and used his arms to block his face where he was most vulnerable.

Sizzle!

He grit his teeth in agony as the flaming blade hit his arms and roasted him alive. His Firestone Skin was especially good at taking physical attacks, but when it came to elemental attacks like this, it wasn’t amazing.

’Thank god her ability is fire-type... If it were any other elemental attack, I might’ve been toast!’

This reminded Rohan that he should look for something to protect himself against Elemental attacks in the future.

As the name already gave away, Rohan’s Firestone Skin was best at fending off against fire based elemental attacks, though that still came secondary to its physical capabilities.

After tanking the flaming blade, his arms were in agony as a thin layer of skin where it first made contact had melted entirely off, revealing the vulnerable layers of muscle underneath.

’One attack is all it takes for her to negate my defence...’

Rudith had to do a double take of her own, though. She was fully expecting her flaming blade to take Rohan out in one shot. Never did she expect him to have Elite tier defence. ’In that short time since last seeing him, he’s managed to reach this point??’

Her concern began to grow.

Thud...

However, Rudith snapped her head to the side as a sudden sound brought her attention back to the other battle taking place away from her face off against Rohan.

The two had been so focused and locked in on killing each other, that they had completely zoned out the fact that they weren’t the only ones in there fighting.

"Sarah!"

And when her eyes scanned the scene before her, she was appalled to find that Sarah, her closest friend in the Origin Realm, had become Elane’s next victim.

Unfortunately for her, Elane had the stronger bow now, and combined with her two talents backing her up, she was a force to be reckoned with all on her own.

Rohan also caught a side glance at the other battle taking place, and was shocked to find that Elane was able to hold the others off by herself just from the threat her arrows posed to them.

’Her Perfect Ally Gene is something else...’

The fact that she was twice as strong as her normal self while fighting along side him was like having a broken cheat on his side.

Even before, Elane’s arrows packed a harder punch than he could with his Horned Rabbit Spear, but now at double that power?

’It’s no wonder she could take Sarah out, even though she might be the better archer skill wise...’

It was hard to tell how strong she was previously as every kill they did was an instant kill ambush, so this was a real eye opener for everyone there.