He did not know which skill to choose. Flint Draw and Heavy Draw both sounded useful and fancy; deciding which one wins over the other was hard.

  As he jumped through the roofs with Min and Noa, his mind was preoccupied with the skills. Heavy Draw might be more versatile when he thought about it, and if he were to choose it, then he could hardly go wrong; it just sounds like a skill he would always need.

  But Flint Draw would allowed him access to more magic; his Arcanery has always been a concern for him. If he picked it, then he can truly try to tap into the realm of magic with this skill and Mana Arrow; if they could synergize somehow, then all the better.

  Using heavy draw would no doubt be good for his strength, but his strength stat was already his second highest; he preferred more stability. Suna made his decision

  Name: Suna Amor

  Level. 16 → 21

  Class: [Archer]

  Rune: 16

  Feat: 5

  Mana: 277/520

  Class Skill (5/15)

  - Archer Sense [Common]

  - Archer Backstep [Common]

  - Mana Arrow [Uncommon]

  - Moving Shot [Uncommon]

  - Flint Draw [Uncommon]

  General Skill (2/15)

  - Quick Draw [Common]

  - Drowfication [Rare]

  Strength: 209

  Dexterity: 353

  Vitality: 45

  Arcanery: 52

  Sense: 97

  “Halt!” Min raised her hand in a fist.

  Suna and Noa swerved to a stop. They followed her to a lookout between two houses, a tight pass filled with corpses that couldn’t lie down.

  Five Tieflings were dead, and their bodies were still standing, forced by the tight passes.

  Suna nocked his arrow, his body warming back up to prepare for combat.

  “Don’t worry, I will sense any enemies if they’re this close,” Min said, as she crouched, her head peering down to examine the wound without needing to go down all the way. “These are not arrow or bolt wounds… a slice wounds all in the throat”

  “Is it the Seeker Drow?” Noa asked, his face scrunched purple in fear.

  The Seeker Drow has been really active lately and had began targeting groups of five. James has decreed that if any group wants to go into town for a theft expedition, they need to bring at least five members.

  The Tieflings did not like this, but they eventually followed the rule as more of them kept getting killed by the Seeker Drow. And there was also the Beastmaster, too. Suna had no delusion that they could just wait and get stronger; the Beastmaster Drow would also get stronger in the meantime if they kept waiting. Also, the Drow faction that held the tallest tower, all of their members would moved to occupy the empty tower, thanks to the Seeker Drow and Beastmaster Drow. They would also get to harvest more and more runes. A faction actively grew stronger, and James knew they were on a hard timer, especially as the undead also began to stir from the depths. Which was why he planned to do it, to unite them.

  Min shortly decided they should keep going. She spotted two Drow patrols, and both were easily dispatched by her and Suna with a single shot each.

  As they went down to harvest the Rune, Min asked him, “Suna, I couldn’t help but notice… lately, the dead Tiefling has mostly been fourth and the fifth faction fighter. I can see their crests etched on their bodies.”

  Her eyes lifted, narrowing to him.

  Suna pressed her lips into a thin line, unsure how she was going to take it.

  “Was your training fruitful?”

  “It is, like you had watched”

  “Not my question,” she said pointedly.

  “Yes,” Suna answered. “It was. So we'd better get down in a hurry, I think Noa will be fine coming with us.”

  They climbed back up to the roofing area where Noa waited. The rugby player stood stiff as Suna climbed up. Something was wrong.

  “Noa?” ee asked, pulling himself up, offering a hand to Min.

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  Min, however, just jumped off the balcony and landed quickly in a crouch as she recognized the situation in an instant. She snapped to the north of them, her body tense as her yellow eyes shone.

  “It's her,” she breathed out.

  Atop a building, perhaps three buildings and two roads away, stood a Drow. Tall as a Matriarch, with a body slimmer and even more lithe like a cat as she flexed her muscles. She was far away, but for some reason, the thick cloud was nonexistent above her, beaming down moonlight upon her, bathing the [Seeker] wholly.

  Suna nocked his arrow, and Min was beside him, bow already drawn.

  In the Drow's hand was a kukri knife with double-edge steel; he had heard of what it could do, how the Tiefling feared it.

  “Guys? We run?”

  “No,” Suna said, earning a bewildered look from Noa. “It's been confirmed that she had a skill that made her track anyone who ran from her permanently. So don't run, Noa.”

  “And, according to the Tiefling I'd been working with, she gets faster and stronger once you're marked,” Min added. “And, we're not strong enough to handle her,” she muttered in the last part.

  “Then what do we do?” Noa mumbled.

  Min shot Suna a look, and he nodded.

  He kept his eyes on the Drow, and they moved in unison.

  Suna fired off his arrow alongside Min’s. The Drow dropped to the street below, and they were under no delusion that she would just go away.

  He summoned a Mana Arrow, and Suna shot it high up into the sky. The arrow exploded in a blue burst of Mana, coloring the night sky, which should be enough.

  The Seeker appeared on the second roof. Min and Suna shot again. This time, she did not drop down; instead, she blitzed across to the next roof, charging straight at their arrow. In mid-air, her Kukri tore through both of their arrows. She landed and burst forward again, closing the distance across the last roof that separated them.

  “Bloody monster.” Suna gritted his teeth. He drew again, his heart beating. The Drow slithered to a stop, and in a wrench of her hand, she hurled her Kukri knife. The knife whizzed through the air, arcing like a boomerang in a crescent toward them.

  “It will fly toward us! Don't dodge!” Min yelled. She and Suna targeted their arrows at the Kukri. Suna's arrow rushed forward, arcing straight at the Kukri, but it was cleaved in two parts, failed to stop the knife.

  Min's arrow, however, shot far from the Kukri trajectory. Just as they were about to pass each other, her arrow suddenly turned and clashed with it, knocking the Kukri aside. The knife spun and thudded near Suna's feet. He let out a shuddering breath before drawing again, spotting that the Drow was already on the roof; only a small road separated them. And now he could see her level.

  [Seeker Drow. Lvl 42]

  With a wholly silver tunic gleaming across her body, the Seeker Drow descended upon them. In her hand was another Kukri. That knife... Suna can see the slight distortion around it, just like he had seen many times in the past week. Min, beside him, aimed at the Drow, but Suna grasped the back of her shirt and yanked her backward.

  “Suna? What?” Min spluttered incoherently.

  Suna stayed his ground, and his eyes was still on the Drow. When he caught the magic gathering on the tip of the Kukri, he launched back with Archer Backstep. Wind rushed, gushing through the roof where he had been. A roof tearing led straight inside the bedroom.

  James' wind magic was similar; the only way to avoid it was to catch it being cast first.

  He released his arrow, and the Drow somehow still managed to whip out her other knife and parry Suna’s arrow. He backed away, and his hand kept moving between his quiver and his bow again. He kept firing, the string thrummed every second, and he moved left, still maintaining distance.

  In the corner of his eye, Min moved right and did the same as him, but she purposely fired way past the Drow, and her arrow turned around, trying to impale the Drow from the back.

  The Seeker Drow tried to advance on Suna as her hand kept moving like a whip, parrying every arrow. But when she stepped up, one of Min's arrows landed on her back. She grunted, then regained herself and refocused one of her kukris to parry Min’s next arrow.

  They managed to pin her down, but sweat ran down Suna’s forehead. The Drow’s hand kept getting faster and faster. Every slash seared through his arrow, and every sound they made once they clacked the roof was a reminder of how strong the Drow was compared to him. And the wound Min had dealt it was nothing—The Drow fought without any sign of pain, a reminder of their stat difference.

  Suna kept drawing and shooting. As his hand touched his quiver, he felt a growing hollowness. His arrows were about to run out. That made Suna stop shooting for a mere second, and that second was enough for the Drow. The Seeker Drow rushed forward, blitzing toward him. Suna let an arrow fly, only to have it parried.

  He cursed himself for hesitating; he skidded back, fully realized that this would make him fall. But he did it anyway. The world moved as he drew another arrow. In mid-air, Suna loosed another arrow while his body fell. The Drow dived down from the roof, splitting his arrow cleanly in two.

  As the ground approached him, Suna's eyes stayed locked on the Drow. A blue arrow manifested in his hand. He briefly heard Min and Noa scream at him—But they were silenced by the sound of rushing wind around his ear.

  After all of his training, there was always one trick in his arsenal that kept James frustrated—He even landed a couple of arrows on him. With the bright blue arrow in his hand, for a fraction of a second, he thought how beautiful it was, along with the moon far up.

  Suna cast another Archer Backstep. Mana gathered and coalesced around his feet. This would cost about three times more Mana, but it's quite a cheap price for how convenient it was. The moment his heel touched the ground, Suna's body stabilized and slid, sending ashes dancing in his wake.

  The Seeker just landed. Her eyes widened–clearly she didn't expect this, as her knives were still in the air.

  Suna aimed at her stomach, taking into account how long she would need to bring her knives down. He discharged his Mana Arrow, and the air buzzed in excitement. Ashes were blown away by the force of Suna's attack. The Mana arrow flew true. Wind spun around the Drow, pushing her silver tunic, and her body launched up–dodging Suna’s spell arrow. The Mana arrow burst into the house behind, obliterating the wooden door in a great crack of wood.

  The Drow hovered for a second before she kicked against the wall and propelled herself straight at Suna.

  Death was in front of him, and Suna drew his sword.

  Emotions are fake.

  A fantasy created by your brain.

  It is also a muscle, one you can train to conquer fear even in the face of death

  The Tiefling words resounded. But, before he could even take a proper stance, the Drow was there—twin knives seared across, and Suna somehow managed to block the first attack with his sword. But the pressure alone sent pain lancing through his hand, and his sword knocked out of his hand. The Drow spun, rearing her knife for another strike, but then an arrow streaked through, ricocheting toward the Drow. The Seeker Drow turned at the last second and parried the arrow.

  It was Min, firing from the roof.

  That bought Suna a couple of seconds, and now he had traded position with the Drow; there was enough space for his skill again.

  Suna skidded back again, creating space with another arrow trained at the Drow. He released, but she had already closed the distance and blocked both of his and Min's arrows.

  How was he supposed to fight this one?

  The Drow brought her knife up, and wind splayed forward. Suna saw the spell coming. He threw his body sideways, but the blade of wind cut through his shoulder and neck. He gasped, falling to the road, blood splattered down.

  Looking at her downed doe, the Drow Ranger nodded her head. A sign of respect? Yeah, he did not need that. What he needed was the Drow’s body, dead, to offer it to the altar.

  So Suna stood, but he could not draw an arrow, as he needed his right hand to close the wound, to prevent blood from spilling out.

  “Suna run!—Wait, Noa?”

  His head snapped up. The Drow mindlessly parried Min's arrow as she stepped forward to finish him. But she wouldn’t be able to parry the next one.

  Noa the [Warrior] jumped from the roof—Straight at the Drow.