Chloe clicked her tongue in annoyance after recovering from the shock. Somehow, an archer could control the magic attack of the enemies and even use it against them. Thanks to that miscalculation, Chloe lost thirty survivors that were armed with firearms. She had planned to weaken Ryan a bit more with long-ranged attacks, but that was no longer a luxury that she has. At the very least, after all that fighting, she learned something, Ryan wasn't a melee fighter.

There was no telling if Ryan could concentrate the elemental attacks of another type, so Chloe dashed toward him. Confirming her theory that he wasn't a melee fighter, Ryan tried to stop her charge with the shield, but he wasn't fast enough, and she hit him in the stomach and made him fly for several meters.

That had been a mistake. The very moment the survivors noticed that Chloe decided to fight, her allies stopped attacking. Knowing that Ryan was an excellent archer, they couldn't just light some torches either. Otherwise, they would become easy targets.

Before Ryan could even land on the ground, Chloe was already running toward him, and this time, she was coming to finish him off once and for all. Using half of the remaining mana that he had, Ryan fired several Earth Bullets. Chloe's first instinct was to protect her head, and so she did it. That had been another mistake since Ryan only aimed at her stomach. The pain made her lost all the air in her lungs and, at the same time, made her trip. As much as Ryan wanted to finish her off as fast as possible, the very moment she fell, he also landed on the ground and rolled several times.

When he got up, Ryan saw that his health had decreased to thirty percent, and his ribcage hurt the hell out of him whenever he breathed. More than a few ribs had been broken, but only that much didn't stop Ryan from equipping his bow and summoning a bone arrow. At the same time, Chloe got up, trying to recover from the damage to her stomach. She tried to move, but her legs were stuck on the ground. Chloe touched them and confirmed that while she was lying down, the earth had swallowed her feet. That had been, without a doubt, one of Ryan's actions.

Ryan pulled the string, and then Chloe began to sweat cold. She didn't have the courage to pull her legs from the earth and rip his feet to survive that predicament. Even if she survives that, she couldn't imagine winning that battle without her feet.

"Wait!" Chloe shouted.

The Ryan of one month ago would have stopped, perhaps he would even show some mercy, or at the very least, he would ask why she tried to kill him. However, the current Ryan wasn't interested in anything that would make him waste his time. Nonchalantly, he fired the arrow when he confirmed it had just enough power to destroy Chloe's bracers alongside everything behind it.

As expected, the bone arrow pierced through the bracers and Chloe's arms, but in the end, it pierced her heart. For a while, Ryan wondered if he had underestimated her defensive capabilities or if he just held back in order not to make her body explode in several pieces. In the end, it didn't matter.

You obtained 19.256 coins.

Ryan sighed… to think that someone could have killed him in just two attacks. He knew that he had been neglecting his defense, but… Regardless, Ryan still could see some shadows moving around, trying to see what had happened. So, he still had some work to do, and he wouldn't stop until all those who tried to kill him share the same fate as Chloe.

After half an hour, the sun began to rise, and the light revelated one hundred or so corpses around the dungeon of the lion-like monsters. Killing these people had been much easier than Ryan had expected. After all, even without heat-vision glasses or anything like it, he could see in the darkness thanks to his night demon's blood. Still, the number surprised me a little. He had seen around five hundred survivors on the previous day, so it didn't make any sense that only one hundred attacked him. Apparently, Chloe only selected those who worked in the protection of the city to help on this ambush.

Suddenly, Ryan heard the sound of something moving. It was weak, but Ryan also felt a presence. When he approached, he saw Victor, half-dead with deep burn marks all over his body.

"You monster…" Victor said.

"Yeah, I am a monster, and you are the innocent one here," Ryan said. "Why did you attack me? Just to save some coins? Are you guys retarded?"

"We have lookouts outside… the city…" Victor said. "They saw you with a dragon… you are working… with them…"

Ryan couldn't believe that… everything happened over a misunderstanding. That was so crazy and stupid… why would a dragon work with a human? A single dragon was more than enough to kill five hundred people and their survivors' camp. If those idiots had just used their heads a little…

"I am working with a dragon, but not for the motives you imagined," Ryan said. "I guess this was inevitable…"

"Don't involve the others in this…" Victor said. "They know nothing of this… they are unrelated."

"As if I could blame them for your stupidity," Ryan said. "Still, I wonder how they are going to survive here without your help."

Strangely enough, Victor didn't say anything after that. There was nothing more to say. He couldn't beg for his life, nor could he ask Ryan to look after the other survivors. Still, there was no point in Ryan pondering about dirtying his hands again at that point in time. So, he just ended Victor's suffering with an arrow on his heart.