"…" The octopus halted its step and stared at Rain, realizing that Kai had anticipated this. He turned to the turtle and nodded his head. "We shall eliminate them here."

"Try it, Octopus." Rain shouted as the summoned barriers earlier closed in their distance, recreating the same move as the turtle. He planned to crush that barrier to make it feel like he got punched.

The octopus raised its eight feet and slammed all the incoming barriers like nothing.

"…" Rain was quite surprised because this was the first time he saw his barrier break in an instant. Normally, people would need to attack it two or three times, but the octopus seemed to be stronger than he expected. No wonder people like Nathan or even Ria Ross had trouble with them.

The octopus released another bolt of light from its mouth, but Rain's reaction was faster than previously, blocking the attack before it could reach anywhere. In fact, they were in the middle of magical beasts, so no soldiers would be harmed.

He stood on his barrier, several meters above the ground, and smiled. "I will be having a fun time with you, Idiotic Octopus."

Meanwhile, Michelle already brought the group and faced the turtle. She even had summoned her Dark Version.

"Ho. It seems that you have grown so much during the past few months." The turtle narrowed his eyes before summoning a giant shield, pushing it toward them.

"It's to defeat the likes of you." Dark Michelle didn't hold back her words while summoning her swords.

However, Michelle had a different opinion after watching how strong this person was during the previous battle. She linked up with Dark Michelle as the latter summoned her scythes.

"These scythes will cut you down." Dark Michelle smiled as two of them struck the barrier while the rest pierced the ground as her supporting strength to stop the barrier.

Surprisingly, she managed to do it.

Michelle took this advantage to move around him and slashed her sword. "Shadow Slash."

The turtle fell silent and created a barrier to block the incoming attack. It was where Ayaka and Sofia appeared, both pointing their palm toward him.

"Scarlet Explosion."

"Ice Spear."

The turtle used his barrier to force Ayaka to create the magic circle not beneath him like the way she wanted to, but on his barrier.

At the same time, a barrier emerged from the ground. Sofia's Ice Spear was big. The length alone was longer than the octopus's height.

With the weight behind the spear, it should be enough to injure him, but the turtle was far better than she expected.

The emerging barrier pierced the spear—perfectly in the middle—and broke it.

"…" Isabelle and Tasha furrowed their eyebrows, wondering how they could penetrate that barrier. Although they didn't want to admit it, the power of the barrier was far stronger than they expected. They believed that it was impenetrable by their current strength.

"What should we do, Tasha?" Isabelle asked.

"Stick to the plan." Tasha nodded with a serious expression.

"Fair enough. I will improvise after that." Isabelle took out another sniper rifle, planning to strike the barrier with both weapons.

"Can you time it with my arrow?"

"I am not sure. I need to keep adjusting it for a few hours before we can find anything. You don't mind?"

"The number one sniper needs a few hours? Are you serious?" Tasha smirked, taunting her.

"Of course it is for the worst case scenario. My best prediction is thirty minutes, but we will be draining our magic power. You don't mind that?"

"If it's only thirty minutes to sixty minutes, my magic power is far more than enough." Tasha nodded. "I will start moving in case our attacks are not effective."

"Roger." Isabelle nodded and adjusted her scope. "What is the target?"

"Let's go with the head. From our distance, we simply need to adjust the aim a bit. The rest will depend on the timing." Tasha drew her arrow, preparing to release the first shoot.

"First one. My arrow will reach the target in 1.2 seconds. You go with 1.1 or 1.0 seconds."

"Okay."

"Now!" Tasha released her arrow before Isabelle shot in succession.

One arrow and two bullets flew in succession.

As one would expect, the arrow and bullets had a different trajectory even though it looked like they would hit the same place, striking the barrier that was stopped by Dark Michelle.

"We will keep trying."

"Sure."

When the turtle saw this, he summoned a few more barriers to attack Dark Michelle so he could push his barrier again, but four figures suddenly appeared, destroying the smaller barriers and protecting Dark Michelle.

They were Tommy, Nicholas, Eve, and Eva.

"Tch." The turtle clicked his tongue, noticing that it wouldn't be that easy to break past them. It was like the S Rank Spider facing Kai and the other elites to buy time for Ria Ross. In that case, he needed something more special.

"What should I do…" said him while narrowing his eyes.

Meanwhile, Kai had an intense clash with the starfish.

He kept smashing the shield with his Sonic Sword, but to no avail. The shield was made of the hardest material they could find, so it was impossible for Kai to destroy it.

On the contrary, the sword was a bit worse than he expected. During the clash, the starfish kept deflecting Kai's attacks as if he didn't want to have both swords clashed.

Noticing this pattern, Kai took a deep breath and stopped attacking. "Why are you attacking us by bringing this horde?"

"It's for Earth. As long as humanity perishes, we won't need to face other danger anymore."

Kai narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I am sure that you already know it. You, humans, keep hunting us down while destroying the environment. If we wait for another ten years, the Earth won't be a place for living anymore. Rather than having such a race in this place, it's better to remove them no matter the consequences."

"You know what? There is no good if you can't find something bad. You can't say you are living a better life when you don't know what a bad life is. It's a part of the natural cycle." Kai shook his head helplessly. "I do admit that humans bring bad things, but if there is no human, it will be someone else."

"You think we are the same to the likes of you?"

"Do you consider yourself a crocodile? Definitely not, right?" Kai shrugged.

"You…" The starfish gritted his teeth and jumped forward. "I will kill you right here and right now, so no one can hinder our plan."

"Hoh? A plan, eh?" Kai narrowed his eyes. He was sure that it was just a slip of the tongue, but knowing that they had a hidden plan was good because they could prepare for anything that would come to them.

"…" The starfish fell silent as if realizing a slip of the tongue.

"What? You are not talking right now?" Kai taunted him to get more information, but the latter had raised his guard, making sure that he didn't give any valuable information.

The starfish couldn't handle Kai anymore and released its power, striking him with a powerful strike.

"…" Kai furrowed his eyebrows, noticing the weight of the strike and used his Sound Blast to counter it.

Bang.

The clashing sound was surely one of the loudest they had today. At the same time, that attack released a powerful shock wave, not only from Kai's Sonic Boom but also from the starfish's.

"You…"

Kai smiled and used his Sound Blast to launch him to the side before bouncing back using the same Sound Blast but from another direction.

The starfish managed to react again by swinging both sword and shield.

It was tough to follow Kai's random movement, but as one would expect from a protector, he didn't go down easily.

Kai got some hits every now and then, but it only gave him a small crack, not more than that. The starfish's metal skin was really hard.

"Why are you defending this whole time? Are you sure you can defeat me like this? You are not like that turtle after all." Kai laughed.

"You!" The starfish didn't mind if Kai insulted him alone, but when he heard him mixing the old turtle in it, he became enraged, planning to chop Kai into two.

"What? You want to kill me? I am not that easy." Kai snorted and struck the shield with both swords, finally pushing him back.

"!!!" The moment he realized it, the starfish adjusted his balance to stop Kai's momentum. He couldn't afford to make Kai gain more confidence.

On the other hand, Kai was smiling brightly. That alone managed to rile up the starfish, but more importantly, he already had another plan for this battle.

Suddenly, just like how the octopus sent the first attack, Michelle also sent a support attack to Kai.

"Artha!" The turtle shouted, but he was too late.

Michelle's Shadow Slash could go over his shield, so even if he wanted to block it, he couldn't.

The starfish realized it and jumped backward, but Kai used his Sound Blast behind the starfish's back, launching him back, so Michelle's Shadow Slash could hit him.

"You—" The starfish quickly rotated in mid-air, planning to stop the attack with his shield.

Kai destroyed his plan once again by sending a kick to push the shield away while stopping the sword with his own sword. Due to the Sonic Boom, he managed to even push him closer to the Shadow Slash.

"Sh*t!" The starfish cursed as he took the hit.

Boom.