His mind consumed by pain, Haruki struggled to stand tall in front of the raging dragoness. Her body flaring like magma had the ice pillars and wall turning into hazy white mist, obscuring Haruki's vision.

'I feel weird…' Although great pain coursed through his body, the hurt itself was healing him internally. Unbeknownst to him, countless passive abilities of Asmodia were already draining him of mana, but the pain kept healing that damage as well.

"Why the hell are you doing this Rose?" Haruki asked, glaring right into her eyes.

Clutching his fist, he took deep breaths to try and calm his body from the fear of facing a potentially mortal enemy. Within her flaming eyes, he could see the reaper ready to scythe his head. However, with much left to do in his second chance at life, he wasn't going to let her trample on his plans.

Returning Haruki's gaze with not a glint of emotion, Rose refused to answer the young duke's question.

"Is this about what I said to you about your kids?" On the very mention of her kids, she clicked her tongue in annoyance.

"Don't you dare speak a word about them!" With lightning speed, she dashed forward. "I just don't care what you have to say, we can be together again once I kill you anyway!"

Grabbing him by the collar, she flung him towards the already shattered wall. Tearing through the ice, Haruki's body broke through and fell inside the room behind it. While the ice wall was still crumbling and the effect of her touch filled the whole place with mist, Roselia passed by Haruki's two servants to make her way closer to his body.

Astonished by the sight, Asuka tried to rush forward, but appearing out of thin air, a collection of magic circles boxed her inside the magic prison. Upon noticing the anomaly, Moriyana was just about to use Garden of Illusion to escape before Rose trapped her as well.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Rose mumbled as she continued to walk forward.

Holding her hand sideways, Rose opened a crimson-red portal right beside Moriyana.

"What?!" Moriyana screamed as the head of a giant flaming falcon attacked her through the portal.

Biting her by the arm, the head flailed her around before throwing her far away from Roselia. As she laid with her body crumbling under the hurt, the falcon climbed completely out of the portal.

'That should keep her busy.' Halting at the sight of something moving inside the mist, Roselia squinted her eyes to get a better look at Haruki's shambled body. 'What…how?'

Keeping her composure as she noticed Haruki standing tall with not even a hint of blood or bruise, Roselia knew that killing him was going to be a lot harder than she'd imagined. Unaware that her own attacks were healing him, she prepared to unleash yet another spell.

"Omni-" However, this time before she could cast the spell, a strange presence stabbed her from behind.

"Darn, my fencer!" Getting her fencer melted by Roselia's body, Riley used swift-wind magic to get far away from the dragoness.

"You idiot!" Growled Roselia, trying to spy out the invisible spy.

"I'm still here…" Appearing behind her, Haruki whispered into her ears. "Dragon's bane!"

Punching Rose in the spine with one of her own abilities, Haruki sent her flying face toward and crashed onto the ground. 'Might as well make use of her abilities, right?'

'New clone and body form acquired: Roselia Ironfrost!' As the announcement rang inside his head, a maniacal thrill took over Haruki's heart.

"Wha-what the hell?" Pulling herself off the ground, Roselia glared back scowling at the duke. "How the hell did you use that ability?!"

Flinging her towards him again, she was left aghast when a sea of her own clones appeared all around her. Reconsidering her attack, she stopped in place before leaping away from the clones protecting their master.

"It seems like there's more stuff I can use with the leftover mana," holding his hand forward, Haruki began casting an offensive spell that consumed all light around the place. Left in the pitch dark, the only thing visible were Roselia, her clones, and the Falcon Moriyana was fighting.

Ordering the clones to attack Rose, Haruki shot a mana-consuming spell toward the Falcon. The moment the sphere hit the flaming bird, it consumed it in an instant and transferred the mana directly into Haruki's body.

"Aghhhh!" Roaring out loud, a wave of light coming out of Rose destroyed all the clones and consumed the dark.

As the light returned to the world, she was fuming with rage. Turning to look at Haruki, she noticed all three of Haruki's servants standing right behind him.

"Thanks for freeing Asuka," Haruki whispered, glancing at Riley from the edge of his eyes.

"You won't be thanking me when I tell you what Mother said about the situation," a bit ominous Riley's reply left a lot to the imagination.

"What do you mean?" Haruki asked, reading up yet another spell.

"Are you done chattering up there?!" Once again dashing towards the group, Rose was ready to attack. However this time, she was much better prepared on how to outwit them.

Posing as the distraction, she clenched her fist to fake an attack. Noticing her moving towards them, they all scattered away from each other.

"Got you!" She smiled, chuckling to herself.

Although Haruki and the rest had escaped Rose's punches, in their attempt to move out of her path they failed to keep their caution up from other threats.

'Fuck...' Standing right by a bomb-like sphere fissioning out heat, they all shared the same thought. 'Dark magic shield!'

Despite being able to pull their shields up in time, they all took great damage as the magic bomb blasted in their faces.

'Shit!' Cursed Rose, taking a portion of Snow's damage onto her because of the cursed bond. 'It hurts every time I hit him, but I don't care, I shouldn't care! I just wanna see my brother free even if that means I'd die alongside the damned duke!'

Recovering from the blast, Haruki didn't have enough mana to use Asmodia's healing ability. As for the rest of the crew, they were all lying between the shrapnels breathing and panting slowly as they edged towards death.

'Dammit! Even though I have countless skills of hers, I'm still limited by the mana at my level!' Looking back at the smirking dragoness, Haruki could only think of one plan.

"I'll teleport us all away, we can think how to deal with her later," whispering to his servants, he began opening a small portal under their bodies.

"We'll die if you do that…" speaking between her muffled breaths, Riley grabbed onto Haruki's legs. "Mother told me how to defuse the situation, but if we escape now, we're all bound to die."

Hearing her words, Haruki instinctively stopped the portals from expanding anymore.

"Tell me," he requested, glaring down at her.

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