Whoosh!


    A strong gust of wind was sent at Nichs, and the fire covering his body was nearly blown away. He clicked his tongue, before sending a fireball at Basil. Being the agile Mage he was, Basil dodged the fireball easily.


    Boom!


    The fireball hit the Magic Barrier behind him, and it actually trembled under the force. Still, Basil was unperturbed. He arced Kusanagi, and a wind de flew at Nichs.


    Watching the iing de coldly, Nichs shot a concentrated fireball at Basil. "Hmph! Don''t you know air is m—!" Nichs was forced to dodge the iing wind de.


    sh!


    The ce where he had been standing developed a deep trench due to Basil''s attack.


    He looked at Basil in bewilderment.


    "Why the hell my fireball is cut through?!"


    "Idiot. Air is mmable for sure. However, a high pressure one is a different story."


    Basil snorted coldly, before dashing at him. Gritting his teeth, the three Magic Circles behind him shone intensely. He overwhelmed them with Fire Mana, causing their color to turn red.


    "Let''s up the game for onest time!"


    He dashed at Basil.


    With high pressured wind des spinning around Kusanagi, Basil greeted Nichs head on.


    Boom!


    Two power shed against each other, causing an amazing explosion that destroyed the specially made floor.


    While Nichs recoiled in shock due to the immense power he felt from Basil, thetter was observing the former calmly. Nichs was using [Overheat]. It was a technique that risked one''s Magic Circles for immense power.


    There was no special incantation needed to utilize it. One had only needed to overwhelm one''s Magic Circles with Mana, and the rest would be history.


    More often than not, people lost their Magic Circles due to it, or worse, they died. Still, in time of peril, it was quite useful.


    Although Nichs was in peril, he didn''t really need to utilize it. However, he was already losing himself. Therefore, he didn''t care about the consequence.


    "[Fire Whip]!"


    Two long whip of fire emerged out of his grasp, and he sent them at Basil.


    Basil, who was on the receiving end, dodged them calmly, and sent his own long range attack. That was, of course, his weapons that he controlled with his [Master of Weapons].


    Woong! Woong! Woong!


    Nichs widened his burning eyes in surprise, and dodged the weapons frantically. ring at Basil right after, he decided to do a frontal attack.


    Boom!


    He sted the floor to propel himself forward. Like a bullet coated in fire, he reappeared instantly in front of Basil. He swung his fist at Basil, but Basil dodged it sessfully.


    Boom!


    His fist was explosive. Even his burning body could scorch anyone''s skin in his proximity. However, his opponent was Basil. He had years of experience, and countless way to defeat Nichs.


    Boom! Boom! Boom!


    Each time Nichs swung his explosive punch, Basil would p it with the blunt side of Kusanagi. Surely, being blunt didn''t mean it wasn''t sharp. Nichs would curse each time his skin was ripped apart by the wind des coating Kusanagi.


    Basil, surely, didn''t stop there. He was slowly engulfing himself and Nichs inside a sphere of wind he made. It was done to suck the fire covering his body away.


    Thetter, being the lunatic he was, didn''t register this fact. He merely swung his fist like there is no tomorrow.


    Boom!


    Basil finally used his Magic Circles. Mana umted around him, and he could finally control it better. He had been holding himself to use Magic Circles to minimize the usage of his depleting Mana. Now that Nichs was perfectly caught in his trap, he had no reason to hold back.


    Whoosh!


    Gasp!


    Nichs lost his ability to breathe normally. He was suffocating. Inside the wind sphere encapsting them, only Basil could breathe normally.


    Basil watched the suffocating Nichs, and the fire covering his body sucked by the wind slowly, but surely.


    "Kuuhh... You... bas...tard!"


    Nichs red at Basil in rage. Each time he looked at Basil''s face, he was reminded of his former lord, Halton Rothermere. Although the simrity of their facial feature wasn''t really apparent, the way Basil carried himself really resembled his father.


    Atst, the fire covering his body was sessfully sucked away, and all of his Mana was used to support his lungs. He was breathing heavily, as his lungs could hardly contain any air from the surrounding.


    After some time, Basil dispersed the wind sphere, and looked down at Nichs coldly.


    "I will normally behead you right away. However, I have something to ask you. Therefore..." Basil pointed Kusanagi at Nichs'' chest, and exploded the Mana outward. "Answer it to your very best."


    Boom!


    "Gahak!"


    Nichs was thrown away like a bullet. His chest was bleeding due to the attack. The skin opened, and the blood made a trail in the air, while he was airborne.


    Basil moved his feet to the sprawling Nichs. Nichs was bloodied from head to toe. His skin was full of shing marks due to Basil''s wind des.


    Upon arriving there, Basil crouched, and stabbed Kusanagi on the floor, right beside Nichs'' neck.


    "Tell me about my father."


    "Kuhuk!" Nichs coughed painfully, and tried to activate his Magic Circles only to find he had lost it. Heughed humorlessly, upon realizing Basil had destroyed them with his earlier attack. "As expected of you. You have figured you''re adopted, huh?"


    Basil didn''t respond Nichs. He merely pointed his index finger at Nichs'' opened skin, before infusing Qi to it.


    "Agghhh!!!!!! What are you doing, bastard???!!!"


    Nichs shouted painfully at the rampant Qi in his blood flow. He felt like his body was being fried from the inside.


    "I have two facts for you. One is fun, while the other is cruel. Fun fact: for someone who is foreign to Qi, it is very corrosive. Cruel fact: anything said after ''fun fact'' is never fun."


    "You... ba..s.....tard!!!"


    Basil stopped infusing his Qi to Nichs'' blood stream, and stared at him coldly. Thetter red at him murderously, however it didn''tst for long.


    "Ha-ah! What a turn of events." Nichsughed humorlessly. He had thought he could somehow fight back. However, he soon found he couldn''t even twitch a muscle. Sighing to himself, he asked Basil once again, "Did you say you want to hear about your father?"


    Again, Basil didn''t respond. He merely inched his pointer finger closer.


    "Okay, okay! I will tell you about your father." Nichs shouted frantically, before sighing at Basil''s cruelness. "To tell you about your father simply, he was a betrayer..." He recounted everything about the man named Halton Rothermere.


    Basil heard his story intently, while also observing Nichs'' expression. It changed from time to time. It was sometimes filled with nostalgia, anger, excitement, sorrow, and hatred. He made myriads of expression.


    When Nichs hadpletely recounted the past, he stared at the pondering Basil. "That is all I can say about your father. He was the first person ever betraying me," He said neutrally.


    Basil turned his gaze to him, and merely nodded his head. He didn''t mean to ept Nichs'' words, he was just agreeing with himself. He had heard some of his father''s history from Irene, and all she had told about his father matched with what Nichs had told him.


    However, the strange part also matched. That means, there was something more to his father''s history that none of the two knew.


    "What are you going to do from now on?"


    Nichs asked the standing Basil curiously. Basil didn''t say a thing to Nichs. He merely gripped the handle of Kusanagi, before infusing his Mana into it. Kusanagi shone briefly, before a wind de was produced out of the de.


    It swiped the unexpecting Nichs'' neck cleanly in one hit. Nichs didn''t even know he had been decapitated. He was still looking at Basil, and tried to form some words, only to realize he wasn''t able to do so.


    "Fun fact: human''s head still bears consciousness for thirty seconds after decapitation," Basil remarked casually.


    Nichs'' decapitated head widened its eyes, before eventually closing them for eternity.


    The barrier Nichs had set, which Basil was supporting with his Mana, was finally deactivated. Shirley could finally see her father''s decapitated head. However, she didn''t register it in her mind. She was preupied with something.


    It was the evidence of Catherine''s betrayal over her family. The young Shirley was shocked. She couldn''t believe what she was seeing.


    She had thought her father had been lying. It turns out, her mother — her kind mother! — had done that wretched thing to her family.


    She couldn''t wrap her head around it.


    Basil ignored Shirleypletely, and went toward Catherine. Thetter, who was witnessing the former''s fight with Nichs since the beginning, stared at the former emptily.


    "What? Are you going tough at me? Or perhaps, you are also wanting to have a taste of me?"


    Basil quirked his eyebrow in amusement. "Very bold of you to assume I will ever ''taste'' a public use." That actually managed to get a reaction out of Catherine. Surely, Basil wasn''t done yet. "Also, I will notugh at you. Predictable stupidity is never funny."


    Catherine''s empty eyes were quickly filled with emotion. They were filled with resentment and indignation. Basil merely smirked in faint amusement, while looking down at her.


    "You know... In the past, you married a newly rising Marquees, after sessfully seducing him. Nichs was stressed out of his mind he went crazy. Shirley, who didn''t know anything about the real situation, met with Nichs."


    Catherine had been listening to Basil at first. However, the more she heard, the weirder the thing. She was simply bewildered by the story Basil was recounting.


    How could she not? After all, this story belonged to the timeline where Basil hade from.


    "Nichs raped his own daughter, before killing himself out of guilt. Surely, the news was quickly spread, and you, as Shirley''s mother, despised her to your very core. You disowned her, and left her alone..."


    Basil paused, before continuing, "However, it didn''t stop there. You even allowed your new ''husband'' to vite her, saying she was a public use. Bad rumours about her were spread around, and she eventually killed herself out of stress."


    Basil''s eyes glinted, and he stared at Catherine iprehensibly. Catherine couldn''t understand a thing Basil was saying. However, there was something in her chest that forced her to cry. She didn''t even realize her eyes were already flooded with tears.


    "W-what is this...?" She asked in genuine puzzlement. Her voice was riddled with sorrow. However, Basil didn''t n to answer her. He merely asked, "What is your plea?" She stared at Basil with teary eyes for a while, before her mouth unconsciously provided him the answer.


    "I... I only wanted to be free."


    Basil closed his eyes, and muttered, "Then, freedom you get."


    Stab!


    Kusanagi was sent down at Catherine''s heart.


    Catherine had done everything to free herself from her past, leading her to do things that had led her to death. Little did she know, the only way to be free of her past was embracing the past itself.


    That day, Catherine, who had been caged by her past, finally achieved what she wanted. She finally gained freedom.


    Along with that, her soul was also freed from its mortal shell.