’Wh-what are these strange texts?’ Vlad muttered inwardly, staring at the quest window.

"Stop eating dirt, idiots! Get up and break his bones," Ronald snarled at his subordinates.

Except for the one Vlad had knocked out with an uppercut and the one Chloe had sandwiched between Theo and Matteo, four of them now stood between Ronald and Vlad.

’They can’t see these messages hovering in the air?’ Vlad’s brows furrowed as he realised no one was reacting to the system messages.

He brushed them off as hallucinations from his injuries and turned his focus to the enemies ahead.

Vlad could barely see or hear clearly from the blows to his head. The burning sensation across his torso and his determination to protect Chloe were the only things keeping him conscious.

He raised his arms before his face, hands clenched into fists, and muttered,

"Bring it on."

The duo who had first attacked Vlad were the ones to move. One came barehanded while the other swung a metal rod still dripping with Vlad’s blood.

Vlad stepped sideways, dodging the descending rod by a hair’s breadth, and drove his fist forward into the oncoming punch of the other opponent.

Their knuckles met with a loud crack, followed by the sharp sound of breaking bone.

"Aghh!! My arm," the man screamed, his knuckles shattered and his forearm snapped in two from the force of Vlad’s punch.

"You fucking monster!" 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The rod came swinging at his temple in a wide horizontal arc.

With Chloe now safe, Vlad had no reason to take the hit. Just as it was about to connect, he caught the rod with his bare hand and yanked it toward him.

The man came lurching forward with it. Vlad drew back his other fist and drove it squarely into the man’s face in mid-air.

"Take this, fucker!" Theo shouted, wrapping his arms around Vlad’s torso in a bear hug, his fingers digging into the burned skin.

Vlad’s brow twitched in pain as blood seeped from the wounds.

"I told you to be more careful in this city!" Another voice rang out, accompanied by a fist that struck him across the jaw.

"Have you ever been lashed across the face by a whipping branch while collecting firewood?" Vlad asked, fixing the man with a sharp stare, completely unfazed by the punch.

"What the hell are you spout—"

Before Matteo could finish, Vlad’s open palm slammed into his face. His nose shattered, blood burst from the impact, and his body flew several feet backward.

"This is how it feels," Vlad murmured between heavy breaths. With all the movement, blood from the open wounds at his temple and the back of his head was leaking at an alarming rate.

"Vlad, look out!" Chloe’s scream pulled him out of his daze. He raised his head to find a large fireball hovering above Ronald’s outstretched hand, its size even greater than the ones he had cast earlier.

Without wasting a moment, he drove his elbow into the back of Theo, who was still clutching at his torso. Grabbing him with both hands by the stomach, Vlad hoisted him onto his shoulders and hurled him toward Ronald.

’He won’t be able to attack now that his subordinate is in the way—’

The thought died abruptly as a smirk spread across Ronald’s face.

With a flick of his wrist, he launched the fireball forward.

The blazing sphere first engulfed Theo in mid-air, then struck Vlad head-on.

"Ha-haha, you could have survived if you had just backed down, kid," Ronald muttered, sweat trickling down his temple from exhaustion.

’I can’t believe a kid with no knowledge of magic pushed me to use my ultimate move,’ he thought, his half-lidded eyes fixed on the dancing flames and billowing smoke before him.

He turned his gaze to Chloe beside the flames, slumped against the wall.

He took a step toward her, thinking, ’I will leave this city after handing this girl to the—’

"Where do you think you are going?"

Vlad’s voice cut through the flames like iron.

Ronald’s head snapped around to find Vlad still standing amid the fire, his burned forearms raised before his face, shielding it from the blaze. His skin had turned molten, scorched and blistered. Layers of blood had painted his torso red, filling the air with a sharp metallic stench.

He staggered forward, crimson eyes locked onto Ronald, casting a long shadow over him.

Ronald instinctively stepped back from that terrifying stare, his body breaking into a cold sweat.

With rapid movements of both hands, he began casting another spell. Waves of fire spiralled along the motion of his hands, converging at the centre and compressing into a dense sphere.

But before he could finish, Chloe snatched the iron rod lying beside her and threw it at him.

It connected with his shoulder, shattering the spell mid-cast. Blood burst from his mouth and the flames vanished.

"Shit, this bitch caused me mana backlash," he coughed, spitting blood.

He had already burned through most of his mana across three consecutive fireballs. Gritting his teeth, he dug into the last reserves of mana within him and summoned one final fireball.

"Die, you mon—"

"Eat this!" Vlad roared, his fist punching clean through the fireball and slamming into Ronald’s gut like a sledgehammer.

Ronald folded from the impact, saliva spraying from his mouth. Vlad didn’t stop. He drove another uppercut into the same spot, then another and another. With each blow Ronald’s body rose higher into the air, blood pouring from his mouth. Only when he had risen to Vlad’s eye level did the barrage of missile-like punches cease.

He crashed to the ground with a heavy thud, eyes rolled back, stomach destroyed.

Ding...

[Congratulations! You have completed the first quest!

First Quest: Surpass the Fire!

Description: Defeat Ronald, the Two-Ring Mage!

Status: Completed]

[Claim Reward]

---

Vlad staggered toward Chloe on unsteady legs, bent down to her level, and asked, his voice thick with exhaustion and pain,

"Y-you alright... Chloe?"