Clad suddenly closed the gap between the two in a matter of half a second as he looked directly at Marouce.
"What!?"
"Did he get faster!?" The rat king thought as he used a teleportation spell to cast another spell at him, but every time he did so, Clad was already too close for him to use one without risking self-harm.
[MANA BULLET]!
Marouce shoots multiple mana shots at him, but he parries the first two with his blade, then dodges the last 3 by barely moving around before dashing in and hitting him with a knee straight to the stomach, sending him flying into a wall. As the smoke of the fallen debris filled the room. The mage shot multiple beams of mana from the smoke towards Clad, but he jumped over them rather easily and swung his blade in the air towards where the attack came from, sending out a wide arc of mana that flew straight to Marouce.
BOOM!
The smoke dispersed immediately as it was revealed that he had blocked His attack by creating another barrier with mana. Marouce and Clad looked at each other for a second before he asked the mage a question.
"Hey.."
"What?" The rat king replied.
"I am going to ask you a question."
??
".....Go ahead.." Marouce said, slightly confused
"Who is Azorath?"
...
"Azorath is my lord, and he is also the savior of my people, without him i wouldnt be alive."
"I know that, I mean as in like 'a person.'"
"..."
Marouce stayed quiet; he knew better than to give away important information to an enemy of his leader, so he simply made a lie, mixed in with a bit of truth in it, so as not to raise any suspicion from Clad.
"...He is quite a kind person id say, and he is also very calm; however, he is also the strongest human I've ever laid my eyes upon."
Clad thought about what Marouce said for a second and came to a simple conclusion: he was lying. His reasoning behind that conclusion was mainly because what he heard about Azorath from the elf queen didn't match what he told him in the slightest bit.
"Hmmm, I see...." Clad said as unnexpectedly rushed towards him, coming at him with a barrage of attacks, not letting the rat king retaliate, even if he was losing his advantage, he still had a card up his sleeve.
"Get off me!" Marouce shouted as his voice deepened, becoming darker and more sinister, while sending Clad a few meters away from him.
!!
"What insane strength!" Clad thought as the mage started to grow in size, his anger fuelling him as he slowly transformed into a rat-like humanoid monster, reaching a height of almost 15 feet tall. The monster roared loudly, shattering the windows of the hall in progress and leaving Clad with a harder challenge to overcome.