Looking at it from an immediate gain point of view, if one had to choose between killing more normal demons or killing specific demon shamans, they would normally choose the former considering the time wasted ignoring other targets for the sake of killing the shamans that produced low amounts of EP.

However, in my case, I chose to concentrate more on the shamans as it seemed to be more of an urgent matter than hunting normal demons, even going to the point of minimizing my attacks as soon as I had the rough coordinates for the next shaman out there.

Relying on my sense and guesses that kept giving me a bad feeling about the current situation, I couldn't abandon the thought that the shamans had to be eliminated before long!

'That is really unusual…'

It had merely been twenty minutes since the battle started, even then I already encountered six novice shamans and Long already brought me news of the seventh one! This was no longer just a guess, something was definitely wrong, proving my decision to focus on eliminating shamans till now as correct.

'This well of EP bags wouldn't suffer from drought soon anyway...'

Taking care of the shamans might make the beginning a bit slower for me but it still wasn't a waste since there was no way this whole army would suddenly vanish out of nowhere. In fact, the chances of that happening were only possible if these shamans were to do something similar to what that old shaman did.

Even for the sake of the quest, performance was a relative matter. Who knew if hunting these shamans didn't actually contribute as much. Besides, even with shamans as my main focus, I did hunt quite a bit in between especially with the help of the Wind Essence discs that my level bar was finally close to getting full once more!

With that in mind, my main focus was eradicating all shamans within the least amount of time so I could start to full-fledgedly hunt the normal demons and maybe level up a few times!

`~~`~~`~~`

"So… it should be you who helped that guy from earlier survive the trap that was set for him, right?"

After exchanging attacks and clashing weapons for nearly two hours, the tri-horned demon suddenly retracted his halberd and smiled as he asked in a sneering tone…

On the other hand, the man known as the Elemental Blade didn't bother trying to make use of this moment to attack, though he did keep his sword ready just in case.

He wasn't an idiot to think that this boss-level demon suddenly got talkative out of nowhere leaving many openings for him to attack. Although he seemed to have retracted his halberd, his elemental pressure stayed the same, any wrong move and the battle would resume once again.

'Let's take this chance to recover a bit…'

The Elemental Blade naturally understood that the tri-horned demon was likely to be plotting something judging from his weird action of stopping like that, but even though he did know, the only thing he could do was try to recover his essence and elements using this little window of time for in preparation for whatever happened…

Taking a quick glance at the Supreme Sword who has been engaged in a battle of 1 against 5, only having two injured opponents left at this point, the Elemental Blade gritted his teeth as he muttered something quickly before staring back at the tri-horned demon.

Two rings that were attached to his index finger shone in a faint light as their small formations were invoked before fading away, these two rings which could be considered as mini-sized treasures just turned useless like this. Of course, the Elemental Blade ended up recovering half his full capacity of both Sword Essence as well as his Quad-Elements.

He only had to fend whatever this demon had in hiding for a little more until the Supreme Sword finishes his fight and comes to his aid, once that happened, he was sure that they would be able to take this huge threat down and even aid a little in the battlefield before they temporarily lost their combat power!

"Yes? So what?"

As such, the Elemental Blade didn't hesitate to activate the special rings he kept for special moments like this and didn't mind engaging in a conversation with this demon if that was to delay him even by a little bit.

"Well, it doesn't have much of a meaning to it, but since that boy is a 'hunter'… he must have told you about 'that', right?"

A small smirk formed on the tri-horned demon's face as he continued delivering questions.

"That?" the Elemental Blade simply asked to let the conversation continue...

"Oh, he hasn't told you yet?" revealing a look of slight shock, the tri-horned demon slightly shook his head.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Is he that uncooperative? He really didn't tell you that we of the sacred race always have something ready for situations like this?"

The tri-horned demon clicked his tongue a few times before he sent a look of pity towards the human standing before him.

"...What 'something'?"

Although the Elemental Blade was almost fully trusting of this mysterious young Lan after all the help that he provided them with, he couldn't help but be slightly shaken with what he heard. After all, he was just betrayed very recently.

However, after giving it a quick thought, he decided to throw his doubt to the lake. The current situation which had already developed to this had only been possible thanks to his help, with it really a 'betrayal' to have kept something to himself?

Besides, from his actions till this point, the only reason he would hide something would be that they couldn't do something against it or…

'Let's just believe in him for now…'

"Did you really believe that we fully trusted those dogs to do things correctly for a plan that has been set in motion for so many years? We were actually quite shocked that they managed to achieve a performance as perfect as they did, albeit screwing everything at the worst possible moment. So, what do you think?"

The tri-horned demon kept raising his head higher as if he was looking down on the human standing in front of him. He was obviously ridiculing the humans for their incompetence and inability to notice what has been brewing under their eyes…

"You mean to say that you have the ability to change the current situation that is at a standstill of and turn it in your favor so easily, yet you didn't bother using it till now?"

As angry as he was on himself for being one of the biggest fools that deserved this demon's ridicule, the Elemental Blade still kept his original plan on stalling for time, whether the demon was bluffing or speaking truthfully didn't really matter to him at this moment!

If this guy really could just do as he pleased, then thinking about it further had no meaning, they would die anyway. On the other hand, if he was just bluffing then thinking deeply about it was exactly what his enemy wanted, which he wouldn't do so easily.

"I guess you really want to see for yourself!"

The Elemental Blade's eyes turned sharp as they glared at the tri-horned demon, something was definitely wrong indeed! His aura has been rising tremendously like a raging sea tide since a moment ago!