“You shouldn’t be here….” Lyra growled at Grok. She clearly kept her distance from the orcish warrior.

“Neither should you,” the orcish warrior answered lightly. Suddenly a gunshot was heard and Grok swiftly sliced the bullet aiming at Tier. He then angrily snorted, “Especially him.”

Tier didn’t know why the shot triggered Grok, but he was more amazed by how the warrior could slice a flying bullet just like that. Not just about Grok’s reflex, but also about how the sword was allowed to do such a thing in this game. Perhaps, one of Grok’s custom abilities was a passive to enable the sword to perform such slicing capability? Such ability sounded too risky and too gimmicky unless the warrior was that confident with his own sword skills.

Talking about risk, Tier realised he’s also in a perilous situation. It was somehow very hard for him to stand up. A small effort in trying to raise up had made him nauseous and his body was somehow too heavy to respond properly. Thus, he just slithered his way towards the nearest tree.

“What the hell are you talking about, baldie?” Slicer barked.

Grok glared at Slicer, which promptly caused the rogue to take a step back. “That hunter’s division was supposed to have a battle now, or did Rosdan kick his division out of the fight as well?” The warrior mumbled to himself.

“Stop messing around, Grok!” Lyra lunged forward. But Grok quickly countered with a very loud warshout that pushed Lyra and Slicer back.

At that moment, Xildur dove from far off the flank. He managed to avoid the shout and released some energy balls at Tier.

Suddenly, another presence came into the fray. A dark skinned female human rogue interrupted by kicking the energy balls away. It was Sami.

She hastily approached Tier and dragged him, letting the rakhs lean on a tree. “Okay, boy, I don’t know what happened to you. But we need your help to keep an eye on the surroundings, scream if you see someone coming at you,” Sami requested. Then, she gently patted Tier’s shoulder.

“I…ukh.. Will try,” Tier said. His dizziness got a bit harder due to the sudden movement.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I…”

Tier’s words were interrupted by a loud bang. It was coming from Grok who blocked an energy beam from Xildur, protecting both Tier and Sami.

“Thanks, big boy.” Sami grinned at Grok. She quickly turned to and checked Tier’s eyes like a paramedic. “Okay, you stay still,” she said.

The female rogue then stood up. While brandishing both of her daggers, she warned Grok, “Something is wrong with our boy here, can you defend, Grok? Imma deal with Lyra.”

“Okey-dokey, bro. She’ll definitely beat you, but I like your guts.”

“Really? Can’t you give me some more kind and encouraging words?”

“I’m just honest, bro.”

Tier couldn’t move much afterwards. He could only watch Grok and Sami fight valiantly against Lyra’s gang. Though things felt a bit blurry at times, he still could grasp the general condition of the whole situation.

As what Sami had asked, she was the one fighting Lyra head on while Grok focused on defending Tier from Slicer’s and Xildur’s attacks. Weirdly enough, the mysterious sniper suddenly stopped attacking.

Had Grok guessing who he was made him cautious? Or was there an ulterior motive? Tier, no matter how dizzy, couldn’t avoid feeling that something was up about the sniper.

As Grok had predicted, the brave Sami was having a hard time against Lyra. All of her tricks and even the ability to create mirror images - an ability reserved for human rogues - were not that effective against the shaman.

Instead of trying to avoid or outplay Sami, Lyra would just opt to overpower the rogue. Even when facing the mirror images, Lyra didn’t care much about which one was the real one and just struck at everything around her. Both her lightning and fire element based abilities are also relatively effective against Sami since she would cause damage to her surroundings on every attack. Therefore even if Sami evades, she will still suffer some damage.

However, Sami was not that helpless. As Tier had seen in her duel against Tsalazar, Sami was very nimble. The only strike that actually hit her was from some side damage. None of Lyra's attacks actually landed squarely on her. However, the difference came from Lyra’s capability to heal and overpower Sami if the rogue had to resort to bluntly blocking an attack.

The most amazing part, the two also engaged in a heated debate during the course of the fight. Sami’s point was similar to Manna’s during previous fights against Lyra. On the other hand, Lyra mostly ignored the argument or resorted to saying that Sami knew nothing and should stop playing the nice person.

A rather completely different sight was seen on the other side of the battle. Grok managed to hold back both Slicer and Xildur single handedly. Yes, it was not just his battle shouts that gave him the advantage. Tier realised that Grok’s true strength was in his ability to wield a two handed sword.

Grok didn’t look like a gamer that knew how to play his character. The orc somehow had the vibe of a person who practises real sword fighting. He seemed to know very well the techniques required as well as the exact details and flaws of his weapon.

The orc masterfully parried an attack, shifted the centre of gravity by a slight movement, then slashed with the opening that he made himself. The combination of both the movement of his swords and his swift - yet mindful - steps made him a lethal foe to fight against.

For example, when Slicer performed a vertical slash, Grok blocked it by raising his weapon horizontally above his head. The orc then slightly shifted his sword to redirect momentum to the outer side of his body, he then stepped aside and simultaneously slashed back.

One slash was enough to cut 800 to 1,200 points of Slicer’s HP, causing Xildur to be busy healing Slicer instead of attacking. Even Lyra was getting involved in trying to heal the clearly outmatched Slicer.

Grok’s graceful fight and Sami’s fierceness had swayed Tier so much that he started to forget about one more opponent. Right when Grok managed to drive Xildur away, there was a gunshot heard from afar. Tier heard it clearly, he knew who the target was, but his body was still refusing to move.

Then, the unexpected happened.

A flaming spirit ball named Sid appeared before Tier. It opened its mouth, ate the bullet like a snack, and exploded. Luckily, the explosion dealt no damage to Tier.

“That coward is still there?” Grok snorted. He quickly shifted aside to stand before Tier and the direction where the shot was coming.

At the same time, Tier wondered if he was hallucinating since Sid appeared once more before him. The spirit ball apparently had a face, a mischievous one especially when it grinned. The two stared eye to eye for a moment before Sid flew away and ate an energy ball from Xildur. Instead of exploding, this time it got bigger.

“My, my, poor boy,” greeted a soft, heavy, and seemingly pampering female voice accompanied by a soft hand that rubbed Tier’s hair.

The crippled hunter slowly tilted his head to look at the new person appearing in this place. Tier didn’t know if she was weirdly masterful in concealing her presence or if it was him that was too weak to realise the person supposedly had approached him at least a few seconds earlier.

The person was a beautiful human lady named Esferta. She smiled gently at Tier while her long fingers softly stroked his head. She wore a rather provocative dark blood gown with black lining and laces pattern. On her other hand, there was something seemingly like a ceremonial war scyther which was bigger than herself.

Warlock.

The word appeared instantly in Tier’s mind at the sight of Esferta. Her appearance that seemed like a deadly succubus, her inexplicable concealed presence, and Sid that was definitely a summoned demon were the main points that revealed her class.

“Sorry I was late, I was supposed to help those two handsome friends of yours, but apparently they managed to deal with DeusVult,” said Esferta who kept her smile while patting Tier’s head, “Now, leave everything to big sis.”

The soft smile on Esferta’s face turned vile when she looked at Xildur. With a motion of her hand, she commanded Sid and her scythe - which apparently can float on its own - to block Xildur’s and the sniper’s attacks. Esferta herself was focusing more on afflicting Xildur with magical curses.

The two spellcasters quickly got involved in a heated fight by throwing their magical attacks at each other. Xildur appeared to have a bit of advantage at first with his swift movement and ability to heal. Meanwhile, Esferta was rather static. This caused her to receive more damage as Sid and her scyther were more focused on defending Tier. The disturbing part was that Esferta often moaned or chuckled when she got hit.

Tier felt that something was not right. And he soon found out why.

Esferta's playstyle was rather subtle to figure out. At first, her damage over time was only 100 points per tick. Very small damage compared to Xildur’s 17,000 HP.

However, the tick slowly ramped up to 1,000 damage per tick in addition to the mystic’s movement becoming slower. This had caused Xildur to refocus his attention from attacking to healing himself and trying to get rid of Esferta’s curses. Further, the damage from her curses seemed to heal her as well. This enabled Esferta to fight in a rather relaxed manner despite some of her own abilities cutting down her HP. Sid and her scythe were just distractions. It was her who slowly sapped away Xidur’s strength.

Finally realising his position was not so great, Xildur casted some ice magic at Sid to destroy the soul to pieces then flew away at the opening. Having watched the situation unfold before her, Esferta remained impassive. She smiled at the newly reformed Sid.

Suddenly, a deadly aura emanated from her as she raised Sid with her hands. A gleam of cunningness was reflected on Esferta’s eyes when she kissed Sid and said, “Sid: [Consume].”

Sid inflated a bit then disappeared. It suddenly appeared again to intercept Xildur’s flight. The soul sphere’s mouth opened wide, twice the size of the opposing svannire. Unable to redirect his flight course, Xildur was eaten alive by Sid which promptly performed a chewing and swallowing motion before exploding.

Tier shivered when Xildur instantly died. He didn’t see any corpse left. The mystic was definitely sent to the afterlife complete with an exploding body.

Manna’s [You Will Pay for Your Transgression] was scary enough for Tier. But at least, that ability still has a glamorous feel to it. On the other hand… [Consume] was a total horor scene.

“Duuudee, awweeesomee!”

Suddenly a loud happy clapping was heard in the forest, causing the fight to stop abruptly. No one dared to continue their moves in the presence of Steven the GM as if fearing the smallest mistake could give them some banning.

Confused by the sudden stop of the fight he had been happily spectating, Steven asked, “Duudees, why stop? Go on, continue.”