Looking at the person that had stopped his attack, Marcus was surprised by their characteristics.
That was because they looked like a young girl that was around maybe sixteen or seventeen, but also because they were a fox beast person.
Yet the most striking feature that Marcus noticed was her three fluffy golden tails that matched her hair.
However, as stunned by her appearance as he was, Marcus could feel a sense of danger emanating from her and jumped back getting away from her.
And even though he had his entire attention focused on her, so far, she had barely glanced at him as her attention was on the man he had nearly killed.
"Knox report, who is that?" The golden fox girl said wanting to know Marcus' origins.
"Uh captain is that not the commander of the mountaineer brigade? He has the most powerful weapon and felt the strongest." Knox said still assuming Marcus was the enemy leader.
Sighing the girl seemed exasperated by Knox and said, "I keep telling you that you need to read the reports now that you are in a command position. The commander of the mountaineer brigade is a middle-aged man with black hair and fights with a three sectioned staff. This person is obviously not him, or any of the other officers of the brigade."
Rubbing his head, Knox looked a bit embarrassed and said, "Then who is he? He is really strong."
For the first time the captain of what Marcus could only assume were the rebel forces, took a good look at him and a scowl appeared on her face.
"I do not know who he is, but he does seem familiar. He might be a high-ranking agent that works directly for the crown." The rebel captain said.
She then turned back towards Knox as if Marcus' presence was no threat to her and said, "Take this."
"You sure captain, this is you emergency elixir." The man who was apparently named Knox said.
"It is fine. I cannot have you dying on me when we only have so many capable fighters."
Nodding his head, Knox drank the elixir and his wounds quickly healed and even his arm began to regrow.
After that the fox beastgirl turned to looked at Marcus and said, "I am sure that you have already noticed but the mountaineer brigade is all but wiped out. I have already killed the commander and all of his officers so do not expect any help to come. Now if you surrender and give us any information you might have, I will let you live out the rest of your life in a cell."
'Level fifty-three. Not only does she have a high level, but she gives me a similar feeling to Quillon. Also, those adamantine kukris she has are pretty high quality. Even just looking at them from here, I can tell they were one step away from getting the system's recognition.'
Analyzing the situation, Marcus was a bit curious as to what was going on, and now that he was not actively getting attacked or having to dodge explosions, he had taken a moment to assess everything.
Also, Roxene had already quietly snuck back to him and entered his companion storage, so he was ready to disappear in an instant, and had just been watching for curiosity's sake.
'Hm, well this has been an interesting development. But right now, I need to make my way to Forlorieous. So, I should take my leave.' Marcus thought.
Putting his scythe away, Marcus held up his hands as if surrendering and said, "As captivating as this whole situation has been, I must be going now. Goodbye."
After saying that Marcus went into his ghost form and began floating up and away, leaving almost everyone that had surrounded him flabbergasted.
However, there was one person who kept their calm and began searching for Marcus, and that was the rebel captain.
But when all of her normal senses failed to locate him, she channeled spiritual energy into her eyes and spotted Marcus floating away.
Thinking, he had made a clean break, Marcus began talking to Roxene about what had just happened, when he suddenly felt a tug on his back.
It was an alarming feeling since he had no idea where it came from, how it was affecting him, or why his danger sense had not warned him.
Turning around he saw it. What appeared to be a translucent chain was attached to him, and following it down he saw that the other end was affixed to the rebel captain.
Grabbing ahold of the chain Marcus tried to rip it apart, but it would not budge no matter how hard he tried.
"You are not going to break that connection unless you kill me, or I release it. I am going to give you one last chance to surrender." The rebel captain said up into the air towards Marcus.
Of course, all of her fighters wondered why she was yelling into the air since as far as they could tell there was nothing up there.
Sighing, Marcus figured that this chain must have been some type of unique skill, since even when he tried soul devour on it nothing happened.
Floating back towards the ground Marcus resigned himself and reappeared.
"Very well. Then I guess I will have to kill you."
Pulling his scythe back out Marcus charged towards this fox girl who had used some type of skill to tether them together.
However, even as he approached, she just smirked and readied her twin kukris.
Slashing with all his might while activating the enchantments on his scythe and using his powerful slash skill, Marcus aimed to blast the girl back and then unleash a barrage of powerful spells.
Yet that is far from what happened as her kukris lit up with bluish silver flame and she met Marcus' attack head on with one of her blades, while cutting towards his neck with the other.
Luckily, while she had spiritual energy channeled in her eyes in order to see Marcus if he was ethereal, she was not yet using it to enhance her blades.
So, Marcus sprung past her, making the area where the kukri would have cut into ethereal, as he brought his left fist straight towards her head.
'Inferno Fist.'
Casting one of the new tier five spells he had learned, Marcus' fist became engulfed in incredibly hot fire.
BOOM!
As his fist struck there was a massive explosion of white-hot flames that should have killed the golden fox beastgirl, but instead, it was Marcus' arm that had been blown to pieces.
Feeling the sting of his now missing arm Marcus jumped back right before a slash cut of his other arm.
'What the hell just happened.' Marcus thought as he looked at his missing left arm that had for some reason been injured by his own spell.
But as he remembered what had happened, he recalled that some sort of shield that looked like a tortoise shell made out of diamonds had appeared and intercepted his fist.
'Damn she just deflected my own attack back at me. Talk about a broken ability.'
Understanding what had just happened Marcus could only think that this fight really was not going to be an easy one.