Both Zalanir and Hiina went after the long-haired man without any agreement between them. Zalanir scurried to the side while firing earth bolts nonstop. He wanted to finish the enemies as fast as possible when they were clearly injured to avoid any unnecessary development. Who knew what might come? He couldn’t really rule out the possibility of reinforcements — heck, they got one in the case of the assassin, though with how the man appeared out of nowhere near Eiselen to strike her when she just moved forward, Zalanir had a doubt that he had been following them for a while already — or that somehow the enemies could catch a second wind.

  Hiina, once again, turned out to hold a similar line of thoughts. She threw a ton of kunai into the air and made them rain onto the enemies. Eiselen, in a burst of speed, slid and dashed to the side. Lightning sparks popped, lingered, and sizzled along her track. And blood as well. It dipped down and sprayed onto the floor.

  At the end, Zalanir even saw her puke out under her feet a mess of saliva, gore, some nuts and thin, long strings. As for her accomplice, sadly for him that he only managed to swipe and parry a part of the bombardment with his sword.

  “Argg, I will kill you all,” he tramped toward Hiina with kunai still planted on top of his shoulders and his back.

  Zalanir couldn’t see his face or his front, but after a certain period when Hiina continued to decorate him with a steady stream of kunai, the man crashed to the side in the end like a tree had its base notched and pushed from the opposite direction.

  You have slain [Human — Level 47]

  To his surprise, Hiina also fell down. She didn’t lose consciousness, but with how she was gasping for breath and how shaky her body was, maybe she had exhausted everything with the last rainy attack already. Or maybe her wounds were worse than shown?

  Zalanir was hesitant about whether to come and check her out, but decided not to and turned to Eiselen instead. Though he didn’t even make two steps before the monster from the other “battlefield” zoomed over and scratched his right shoulder with a big wooden spike. The assassin was on its tail and arrived a second later.

  Zalanir wanted to retaliate for that sneaky attack, but he decided to swallow a bitter pill for now after using Identify at the small bastard and seeing that it was a peak level D-grade.

  [Birduomera — Level 49]

  The position now became Zalanir and the assassin guarding off the two paths. If he had to count Hiina as well, then the three of them would form an acute triangle embracing the enemies in the middle, with Hiina being the farthest vertex and his the nearest.

  “Young man. I see that you are not an enforcer. Why risk your life fighting for them? They are just a presumptuous bunch who talk loud. How about you join us? How does a clear path to the Second Ring sound?” Eiselen fixed her eyes on him while having a forced smile. She was still inhaling and exhaling heavily, so even that smile deserved a clap for the effort.

  Zalanir didn’t expect to be the target of a … recruitment attempt in this situation. From the corner of his eye, the assassin had twitched his body slightly toward him. Hiina hadn’t done anything yet, but he could tell that her eyes were also on him. All of a sudden, Zalanir had become the center of attention. Words really were scary like that, sometimes.

  Well, information was key, so he needed to extract more before making a decision. Though he sort of knew that 90% he would still stay with the current side. Being a member of a cult sounded to him even more limited and ominous compared to being an enforcer.

  “Second Ring?” Zalanir faked being enthusiastic by having quicker breaths.

  “Right? It’s all our aim, isn’t it? The sooner, the better. We have direct communication with them, so finding a spot to sneak in is a real possibility.” Eiselen glanced at the flying creature.

  “By worshipping monsters?” Hiina scoffed.

  The birduomera snorted a wood spike aimed at Hiina, making her roll to the side to dodge the attack. If her gaze would kill, then Zalanir was sure that a battle would have taken place now. With her always talking about killing, maybe she was really injured to stay down like that.

  “If you have another way, then I’m all ears.” Eiselen smiled. With blood still dripping out of her mouth, she looked like a vampiress in a fiction movie. She needed to stop smiling when trying to be friendly if that was the best one she could pull.

  Zalanir had no idea what the tanned woman was talking about, but based on her words, it seemed like a good deal from her perspective. From what he could deduce, it sounded like a hard place to get into, maybe a forbidden area? He had already asked about it once, so probing it again would make him an idiot. A mental note for himself: found what the Second Ring was about.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “You sound like you would switch sides if we tell you the way?” He tried to sound smart by asking a natural follow-up question. However, his random and meaningless question somehow put him into the spotlight even more, as all eyes were on him once again. He cursed himself for this stupid, spur-of-the-moment action. Luckily, the cultist boss came to his rescue this time, intentional or not.

  “You know one? Then, come to our side. I’m sure the prophet will love to talk to you.”

  “Enough with the talking. Kill them!” The assassin (Makin) lunged in with one of his swords. The other one was tucked horizontally on his back. Despite losing an arm, the man seemed to still treasure that pair. Zalanir was amazed that he was still standing and fighting with that handicap. He remembered the plump man was out of consciousness back when they raided the anthill and got his hand cut. Being able to fight like this made Makin’s stock in his mind just increased by two notches.

  Despite using a sword, Makin didn’t approach the enemies at close range, but stayed when he was about five meters apart and slashed the air. A wave of flames cleaved through the air before landing on a vine wall. The attack exploded at the point of impact, spraying embers onto the floor and burning away the wall. The birduomera seemed fine-ish, but Eiselen had to take two steps back, which Zalanir took the opportunity to fling three air bolts at her. Two of them missed by a hair, but the third one hit her square on the chest, briefly destabilizing her foothold and knocked her away.

  Zalanir had the advantage here, being rather fresh and ready to brawl, so he edged over step by step while firing a mix of air and earth bolts. He had seen players loosen up or play with empathy when the opponent was visibly injured or troubled, but that was a mistake. Zalanir preferred finishing the match as fast as he could so that there was no opportunity for the opponent to mount a comeback. A tried-and-tested strategy he had used and found success in finishing Eiselen’s accomplice earlier, so there was need to change anything in his approach.

  Eiselen rolled back on the floor, but Zalanir was getting closer by the second, so her window to dodge his bolts was getting smaller and smaller. He had even maintained a distance of about five meters to avoid any desperate attempts from her, as well as formed a barrier in front. In his mind, victory was nothing but certain and only a matter of time now.

  But Eiselen was a peak D-grade, and a boss of her cult. A second could change everything in a life-and-death fight, and Zalanir, despite already being rather careful already, hadn’t prepared for an overwhelming fierce assault from his opponent.

  A moment ago, Eiselen was still rolling backward, but then, she pushed her body up in precise and clean movements, twisted her body to avoid the bolts, and loaded it up with sparks. A blink of an eye later, she surged forward, maneuvered around the barrier, grabbed Zalanir’s left leg, threw him to the right, and leaped onto his body. That sequence of events happened so fast that he couldn’t register what had happened. He should’ve formed a barrier on his arm so that he could at least block when her hands pressed down onto his chest.

  A sudden, intense burn shot searing pain straight from his chest to each and every fiber of his body when she jolted him with some kind of lightning through her hands. It was as if his body was being poked by thousands of needles at the same time. His brain froze at that moment, but his body reflectively pumped up and his left hand swung at the woman like it was doing a one-handed backhand.

  Freed from both her attack and her weight, Zalanir slowly recovered from his dazedness and regained his sense of the body. First were his feet, his legs, then came his arms and, at long last, his neck. His hand failed on the first push up but succeeded on the second and thus provided enough force to lift his body up and allowed him to sit on his knees. Just not long ago he had seen Hiina shaking, and now his whole body was mimicking her. Goosebumps usually popped up and went away in a matter of seconds, but now, they stayed. It was like he had just become a lizardman with this amount of scales. In the top right corner of his viewport, his health bar was raging for his attention by flashing its color nonstop.

  His hauberk was already tattered with a huge cut in the middle from the previous fight, but now, it was no longer usable. On both halves where that crazy woman placed her hands now printed two holes that were still heating on the edges. His white undershirt taken from the pit’s barracks was still in one piece, but its color had turned red, brown, and orange by numerous blood dots and lines.

  Within an arm span away, Eiselen was lying motionlessly on the ground. If not for her still blinking eyes and undulating chest, Zalanir would have thought that she had died already. She was an absolute mess. Her jaw was somehow torn open at both ends, exposing cheek teeth and a mess of flesh and saliva. Blood oozed out not only from her mouth, but nose, ears, and eyes as well. Her hands specifically had their flesh turned black and atrophied. The skin wrinkled and cracked from the fingertips up until her wrists, like a riverbank suffering from a heavy drought. It seemed that whatever she did to muster that much strength to power her last chain of attacks had now delivered its toll on her body.

  Without much thought, Zalanir pointed his index finger at her and released an air bolt. There was no need for any words or empathy from him. If he had that, he would be the fakest person in the world, or perhaps the most benevolent, probably.

  But he was neither. She had tried everything to kill him, and he needed to respect that by giving her a fitting end to the battle that she had given her all, even though she started out not in a favorable condition. If he had suddenly treated it as a low-stake battle, then what were all of her risks for?

  Zalanir did see the birduomera try to get to his spot on at least three occasions after he survived the Hail Mary attempt from Eiselen, but lucky for him, the assassin intercepted the monster every single time. Makin was on the losing end though, so Zalanir needed to get things done soon so that he could be of major help.

  The reason for his delay after confirming the skill was a certain notification that would be hard to ignore in this situation. He needed every bit of help to confront the birduomera.

  You have slain [Human — Level 49]

  Level advances to 43

  [Adaptability Bolt] modifications available