∼ Day 24 ∼

Shock flashed on my face after having my attack swatted away that easily, not mentioning the speed too. But my eyes quickly hardened as I was now left completely open to a counter-attack. With the dark premonitions of my danger sense whispering in my ears, I unhesitatingly performed what would've been a world-class acrobatic feat back on earth as I twisted and contorted my body to evade the unseen attack heading directly for me.

It was purely my instincts and intuition that commanded my body in that split second, and to my delight, I managed to dodge whatever counterattack had been thrown at me, although just barely. While I hadn't even seen what had not only parried my attack and then almost instantly countered, my combat experience has lept leaps and bounds ever since becoming an Azde, allowing such a feat to be performed.

The second I landed on the ground, Blink had become available once again, without hesitation I used it to disappear. While Blink didn't really have a cooldown per se, it did have a downtime of sorts. It really depended on my body and mind's capabilities to activate the skill. It's quite hard to explain but what is certain is that Blink can't be used continuously without any lag time in between uses until I simply ran out of stamina.

Where I had appeared now, was in the group that I had brought with me here. I was currently using them as cover, whilst using Obscurement to camouflage my figure amongst the bodies of the monsters. With their current mental states and the succinct shock at what had just taken place, they didn't even notice me right in their midst. Standing in front of the group with an extremely sour and worried face, was the beastkin I had just tried to surprise attack.

By hastily analyzing what had just happened, my mind quickly pieced together what had transpired. Without a doubt, the beastkin had activated a skill to avoid death. I had no idea what the skill was, but there was no way that his agility and dexterity allowed for such an insane block and counter of my surprise attack. Even though I had a whopping 50 points in agility and him with his measly 35, that parry was more than twice the speed that I could even produce with an attack of my own.

Unless he had some crazy ability, trait, or title, that I didn't even know was possible to create such an ability, then this was almost certainly a skill. But if he had such a convenient and useful skill at the power-level of somebody like him, to make him basically cheat death and deliver a blow, then it was highly likely that it couldn't be used more than once or at least consecutively.

With that in mind, I launched my next attack. With the flash of something metallic, an object flew towards the beastkin who barely managed to swat it away with the claws on his hand. This had mostly confirmed my assumption as I once again used Blink to almost instantly appear behind the now scared-looking beastkin. The next second, I had torn open the nape of his neck and severed his spinal cord, instantly killing him with the swift use of Weak Infusing Slash.

[Fjende has taken 202 damage, a critical hit!]

[LVL: 35 - Lycan (Fjende) has been slain!]

[You have been rewarded with 2565 points of EXP]

[Congratulations! You've reached level 17]

[You've been rewarded with 1 skill point for reaching level 17]

[Skill - Weak Infusing Slash has reached LVL: 8]

The reason I dared to once again try to use the same attack without the fear of getting countered like before, was that I had stolen the gladius of one of the orcs in the group and thrown it at the beastkin. The attack was lethal if it would've hit, but it didn't illicit the use of that skill again. Instead, he had to block it on his own. Knowing that he most likely couldn't use that skill again, I swiftly ended the wolfman's petty life.

While this opponent was actually very powerful and high-leveled, I had managed to instantly kill him. This was mostly due to his arrogance and pride having underestimated my small figure. He was also more of a glass-cannon in the sense that he could probably deal lethal blows towards even someone like me, but his defensive capabilities were severely lacking. With him missing the opportunity to kill me when he had originally countered my attack, he lost most of his advantage, allowing me an easy kill.

Now that the "leader" now dead, I should have full control over this group. But to reaffirm my position, I let my aura rip loose over the shocked grouping of monsters.

"Follow my command and live, ignore them and die by my hand or the reavers." - Me

Even though most of the saurians, beastkin, and other various monsters didn't know what I was saying since I spoke in Rathian, they all understood my intentions. A collective nod of affirmation ensued my words, and everybody perked their ears intently to hear whatever I was going to say next. But before I could even get out a word, I was cut off by the shrill shriek of the reavers who were now advancing here.

To my dismay, we had already run out of time. But on the bright side, I saw that the reavers had split up. One was charging directly at us, another towards our neighboring group, and I could only wallow in selfish schadenfreude at the unfortunate last group that had to deal with two reavers at once.

"Quickly! I will attempt to incapacitate or impair its movement, you all will then collectively attack and deal as much damage as possible. We will continue this until the beast is dead!" - Me

I couldn't think up or derive a better plan as the reaver charging at us was now already within a hundred meters of our motley group of monsters. Turning on my heels, I charged straight at the creature that was currently dashing for us.

While me rushing the beast and fighting on the frontline instead of wasting the others' lives seemed like some heroic and selfless action, it wasn't actually due to some gracious or honorable reason at all. It was simply because I was the only one who had the ability to perform this part of my strategy, which gave the best path to survival.

Closing the distance between me and the reaver, I began to feel its oppressive and savage aura eating away at my confidence. But with a steely determination in my eyes, I used Blink to close the rest of the distance. I had only been within less than a dozen meters from the beast and wanted to appear beneath it so I could use Weak Infusing Slash on the inner tendons and sinew of the reaver's legs from where the base of the leg connected to the body.

-Or that was what the plan was at least. But that plan was quickly thrown into the gutter as the stark realization of my situation sucker-punched straight in my gut.

[You have taken 32 damage!]

Well, it was actually the reaver's hammerhead-like extremity that had brutally struck my abdomen. Although Blink sounded like a teleport, it's simply an extremely fast dash that consumes a lot of stamina. So while I was seemingly disappearing and reappearing in various places, I could still be intercepted with fast enough reaction speeds.

To my apparent horror, the blinded and hearing impaired reaver had actually reacted in time with my skill and lowered its head to stop me in my tracks. With a thrash of vicious intensity, the reaver flung my body to the side and continued unheedingly towards the group. As I crashed unceremoniously onto the hardened and dry earth of the fighting grounds, I could only clutch my bleeding abdomen while I tried desperately to get air back into my lungs.

That blow had punched everything out of me and I was now seeing stars. Luckily I had the mental fortitude to press through the haze encompassing my mind, and activate Mana Mending. As I didn't have access to any mana at the moment, the healing properties of the compound released from the gland within my body were only as effective as a normal Healing Surge charge from before I had advanced the skill.

But that was enough to at least alleviate some of the pain that was coursing through my body and stop the bleeding from my cracked skin-like carapace centered around my abdomen. The cold and soothing feeling surging through my body was like ecstasy compared to the flaring pain that had just been ever-present, and I could only bask in it for a few blissful seconds.

Regaining my bearing, I started to get back to my feet. But before I could get fully up, was met with the sounds of screaming and roaring filling the arena that had until now been dulled out by the pain.