Jacob pivoted slowly and moved the sword through the air without advancing.

The Mantis realm Charybdis instantly threw itself on the side, but it was one step too slow.

Seven insectile legs flew in the air together with their foul blood.

“Juliet, take the two away from us and then finish off the horde. After the battle, give some of your blood to Helena. It will close her wounds.”

Jacob’s aura was burning brighter than the flames, making him look like a Battle God. His expression was twisted by anger and pain.

“NOW! GO!”

Juliet had never felt such strong emotions coming from their Ancestral Bond and had fallen in a temporary daze. However, Jacob’s words left her ears ringing, and she immediately approached the two bodies on the ground, taking them under her arms and jumping up on a roof nearby. Right after, she started dousing every Charybdes she could see with flames.

Jacob felt his legs give in, but he stood still without moving.

I can’t move.

The fact that he had attacked the Charybdis from afar had been a necessity. The degree of focus needed to keep the aura under control made it impossible for him to move. Thankfully, in this state, he didn’t need to get close to cut. His Sword Aura was doing all the work.

“Scum.”

Jacob saw the Charybdis snarl and pounce on him. It was clear that the monster was still young; otherwise, it would have immediately fled the scene. However, stronger Charybdis were much nastier than this and would never take on a battle they could lose.

His arms felt like they led to him, heavy and almost impossible to raise.

I have ten seconds, or maybe less, before my body goes into shock and my organs start failing.

Jacob conducted a split-second assessment on himself and found he had not much time before he died.

He waited for the Charybdis to get close. The nightmarish creature was running madly toward him, anxious to kill him off. Even without many legs, it could still somehow sprint. Those damned things could always adapt.

But it wouldn’t have a long life.

Jacob felt the fetid stench coming from the maw of the monster, not something raw like a beast, but the putrid smell of a rotting corpse. He stared into the main eyes on the Charybdis skull and made a promise to kill off every Charybdes in existence.

This time, I won’t fail.

“Die.”

As soon as the monster was one meter from him, he struck.

The Charybdis didn’t even see the blow coming. Jacob’s mastery over the sword had made the weapon disappear while he slashed.

He bisected the monster eight consecutive times with one slash.

If someone had been looking at him, they would have wondered how something like that was even possible. The monster disintegrated mid-air, instantly stopped dead in his tracks. It was as if its momentum had been halted altogether.

The Mantis realm Charybdis fell on the ground as minced meat, dead.

As many true battles ended, it was anticlimactic.

Jacob fell on the ground right after, barely a meter from the rapidly-forming pool of blood of the monster. His body had been pushed way over the limit of what it could take without shutting down.

He had fallen head first, completely unable to move his body any further. The Sword Aura had cut through his muscles and Meridians. His organs, too, were damaged and still barely functioning. His heart’s walls were barely held together by the little Qi he had left in his body. The main organ of his body was beating slower and slower, while Jacob’s eyes were slowly going black.

I won’t recover anytime soon from this.

But he didn’t care. He had killed the monster, and Juliet was strong enough to burn to a crisp every other Charybdes. The ring of fire would make it impossible for the monster to evade. He had used Charybdis blood to enhance the flame effects against the monsters. It was a trick that he had picked up after becoming immune to their poisons.

F*ck.

The blood of the Mantis realm Charybdis reached his face, and he couldn’t breathe anymore.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if I died like this, huh?

He had fought a mighty battle and now would drown in the blood of his enemy. Honestly, it was truly an ending he envisioned for himself. Apart from finding the Plate, he had always been quite unlucky in his life.

Jacob started slowly slipping into unconsciousness, but not before feeling a great ripple go through the Ancestral Bond.

…

Juliet was breathing heavily. Her Mana and Qi were far from being exhausted, but she had to take care of two bodies and burn everything else to the ground. She didn’t even have time to catch sight of Jacob fighting off the Mantis realm Charybdis.

She did not know how that battle would go, but she trusted Jacob with her life.

“Come on, Jake, come on,” she mouthed to herself.

Juliet felt the air still, and all the Charybdes instantly stopped dead in their tracks. She turned toward Jacob and the Mantis realm Charybdis and saw that the latter was dead, cut in multiple parts as if a butcher had gone over his body.

But when she saw Jacob's face first in the pool of blood, she acted without even thinking.

Her body did something inexplicable to her.

Juliet had no idea how empathetic energy worked and how emotions influenced a person's path, of someone’s state of mind was ofter more important than even their talent.

She had felt Jacob’s pain through the Ancestral Bond as if it had been hers. And now, he laid on the ground, barely breathing, after killing off the scariest monsters in the region.

Juliet felt something hot on her back and jumped. Her body exploded with energy, naturally crossing the barrier between the Cockroach realm and the Mantis realm.

She abandoned Helena and Frederick on the roof without even looking back.

Two mighty flame wings had sprouted on her back, with her barely noticing.

In a second, she was clutching Jacob between her arms while her newly developed Aura of the Phoenix rampaged all around, giving the flames a mind of their own.

The Phoenix’s Fire started chasing the frozen and now retreating Charybdes. The monsters had finally realized they couldn’t win and started running madly toward the ring of fire Jacob had created with the Inferno Formation.

And maybe some Charybdis would have made it while being shielded by its kin. But, after Juliet broke through multiple bottlenecks in one swift move again, her flames had just become much stronger. Therefore, even the ring of fire blazed more fiery than before.

“JACOB!” Juliet screamed at ten in the morning, with the sun high on their heads.

It truly was not the right scenario for such a tragic battle.