Chapter 6: Battle

Clang—

The two clashed swords in a single strike.

Both fell back.

Rod retreated up the slope, the black cloak that could deflect blades snapping and fluttering in the hot night wind.

He stood tall and straight, his features handsome.

The cross-shaped steel sword in his single hand gleamed with white-blue Lei Guang, arcs of electricity dancing along the blade from time to time.

He truly looked just like a knight my lord from a storybook.

"Speak your name, ranger."

Ali said coldly.

The words came from the heart—before leaving home, he had once read human storybooks to his young sister, and in them were knights just like Rod.

Now, it was as if the knights from the book were dueling.

One was a blindly loyal knight of the kingdom, the other a pioneer of the new world.

Rod did not answer him.

Instead, he seized the gap to cast a spell.

Chang En Fa Yin.

Minor Body Art Enhancement.

Two layers of light covered his body, then sank into it.

Just as he was about to move, another layer of green light merged into his body.

Within it, a familiar scent of trees.

Rod immediately knew it was Vivian secretly giving him a buff.

Looking at the translucent folds growing on his skin, it was probably the Tree Spirit's Tree Armor Art.

Rod's confidence surged.

"Hah—"

He charged forward sword-first.

His speed was more than thirty percent faster than before.

The distance closed rapidly to within five meters.

The halfling Ali retreated while raising the staff in his left hand.

Pure mana stirred, and three mana bolts shot forth.

The steel sword swept through.

One mana bolt exploded mid-air.

The remaining two burst against his body, but under the dual blessing of Chang En Fa Yin and Tree Armor Art, he barely took any damage.

Ali's eyes went wide, greatly surprised that the mana bolts had been useless.

That brief hesitation let the distance between the two widen a bit.

Ali steeled his mind, putting the halfling's agility to its utmost use.

He weaved around the trees, nearly brushing against them.

Every time Rod closed the distance, he would cast a spell to stall.

So from an outsider's perspective—

Rod was suppressing the halfling Ali.

"He doesn't dare close to melee?"

That was Rod's first thought.

In truth, this kind of stalling tactic was exactly the picture he wanted to see.

The moment he had laid eyes on this group, Rod had judged their overall strength.

Why not just send Tally to face the equally fifth-tier halfling?

Rod's idea was a mid-tier horse against a top-tier horse—stall for time.

Top-tier horse against bottom-tier horse—Tally finishes quickly and comes to help Rod fast.

This was almost an open little trick.

Could the other side not see it?

On the other side.

As a young succubus, her combat experience was absurdly thin.

Although there was talk of inheriting her mother's memories, those memories contained absolutely nothing beyond the steamy stuff!

The bone knife sliced through the air with a cutting sound.

Sadly, from start to finish it never struck anyone.

After she transformed into a female orc, her strength crushed them by a wide margin, but she simply had no combat technique at all.

The remaining three underlings were initially intimidated by her massive size, but after a few exchanges they immediately discovered the truth of being strong outside but hollow within.

They circled around Tally, laughing and mocking, stepping in to slash at her every now and then.

"This is a succubus? How weak."

"Something's off with the boss over there, let's wrap this up quick."

"What's there to fear, the boss is just toying with him. Let's have some fun with this succubus first."

Tally seemed to fully bring out the orc's lack of brains.

She began to thrash about wildly, swinging her cleaver in a frantic, frustrated frenzy.

"What's going on? My face is so itchy—do you guys feel it too?"

Suddenly, one of them spoke up.

Hearing this, the other two both felt that the skin exposed to the air was reddening and festering to varying degrees.

The bald man immediately sensed something was wrong.

"It's a spore-type spell! They still have someone else!"

"Isn't that what succubi use?"

"Idiot, why would a succubus use a spore-type spell."

"Damn it! Finish this fast!"

Just at that moment, Tally's blade lodged in a rock with a chop.

She couldn't pull it out.

"Perfect chance." the bald man shouted.

The three rejoiced, each unleashing their strongest spiritual arts and charging forward at the same time.

Swoosh!

The spiritual light sliced into the beastfolk's body.

Like cowhide.

Yet there was no feeling of cutting through flesh and bone.

"What's going on"

Suddenly.

A cup-sized bone spur pierced straight through the bald man's heart.

He spat out a mouthful of blood, still dazed.

He turned with difficulty toward the remaining two companions.

Likewise, the other two were also pierced through by bone spurs.

He immediately understood—the succubus had been feigning weakness all along, waiting for the chance to kill all three of them at once.

Tally revealed her true form.

She pinched her nose, her heart-shaped tail swaying in midair.

"Why do you guys smell so bad? I don't have the slightest appetite."

Rod used the recoil of his Repulsion art to suddenly surge forward a great distance.

He swung his sword.

Clang—

The mage's barrier shattered at the sound.

Rod immediately raised his hand crossbow and fired a bolt.

Ali grunted, caught off guard and stabbed in the shoulder by the crossbow bolt.

Even worse, he saw that all three of his subordinates had already passed on.

"Damn it!"

He clenched his teeth hard, swung out an air blade, and just barely blocked Rod's heavy strike.

At the same time, he activated the spell he had been charging for a long time.

"Shadow Assault!"

The shadows on the ground stirred strangely, then became solid.

"!"

By the time Rod sensed something was wrong, it was already too late.

The black spikes formed from the shadow easily pierced through the Chang En Fa Yin's qi membrane and the Bark Armor art.

They pierced his heart.

Rod was pinned to the spot, the whole of him.

Ali exhaled a breath of stale air.

"If the firelight hadn't been too bright, making the spell hard to form, you'd have been dead long ago."

The pain point of shadow magic—places that are too dark or too bright don't work well.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"A mere fourth-tier, and yet you made me waste a sixth-tier spell ring."

Shadow Assault was a one-use spell ring he had exchanged for within the cult—one of his trump cards.

If not for this guy's stacked shields being too thick, making low-tier spells unable to harm him, he would never have burned this trump card.

He was quite heartbroken.

But the divine peaches of a fourth-tier human and a fifth-tier succubus, added to this mission's reward, were enough to make it all worthwhile.

Ali looked toward the succubus not far away.

He found her staring fixedly at him, eyes wide.

As if she meant to carve his appearance deep into her heart.

"A succubus that doesn't run away—still fairly rare."

He raised the staff in his left hand.

"Let me borrow your divine peach— Gyaaaaah!!!"

Just as he was about to circulate his mana, an unbearable sharp pain suddenly shot through his chest.

He looked down.

A steel sword pierced clean through his body.

Blue-white lightning crazily danced along the blade, destroying every bit of flesh and blood it touched.

Ali strained to turn his head.

His eyes instantly went wide with fury.

"You you—"

Behind him, Rod, drenched in blood, held his sword in both hands.

Rod bared his blood-filled mouth in a grin.

"Surprise."

Ali spun around and slashed out a blade of Qi.

His movements were sluggish, and Rod dodged it with ease.

At this point he couldn't be bothered to wonder why he was still fine after being stabbed through the heart.

Ali frantically fished a magic potion from his bosom, and without caring what it was, poured it down his throat in one go.

Rod wanted to stop him, but he was heavily wounded and his body wouldn't obey.

Soon, the halfling's figure slowly blended into the surroundings.

"Invisibility Potion?"

Rod flung a handful of poison powder and lime in that direction.

A stumbling, fleeing figure was revealed.

Tally's arm transformed into a bone blade as she rushed over.

Before she could reach him—

Five sharp, thick vines burst from the earth, piercing straight through that figure and lifting it into the air.

Blood splattered across the ground.

Rod was stunned.

He looked toward Vivian, who was walking out from the edge of the woods.

"Vivian?"

Vivian's face was, as always, unreadable.

She gazed at the flames still raging fiercely on the trees.

"Forest. Destroyer. Die."

Rod was momentarily dazed.

He couldn't help feeling that Vivian was somewhat similar to that extreme plant protector from Earth's DC comics.

"Impressive, Vivian."

When no one was paying attention—

A burst of bright light flared to life atop one of the thick vines.

"Even if I die, I'm taking someone down with me!"

Ali was still in his invisibility state, glaring viciously at Rod.

Fifth-tier spell: Oil Fire.

"You're not serious, bro."

Rod cursed inwardly.

One of his hearts had been pierced through; under such grievous wounds, he had no way to move quickly at all.

"Careful!"

Boom!

Tally appeared in front of him.

She caught fire, then rapidly shed her skin.

The flames, along with that layer of skin, were flung to the ground.

She stood before Rod with arms crossed, a proud smile on her face.

"That should count for five days now, right?"

(End of this chapter)