Ironclaw shook his head and tried to get rid of any pessimistic thoughts in his mind.

He was the only master-ranked champion present on the adventurer's side and the moment that he gives up is the moment that all hope will be lost and everyone, including himself, will undoubtedly die.

Of course, Ironclaw himself knows that his chances of winning were pretty much slim or maybe even none at all.

However, the moment that his line of thought would steer in that direction, it was pretty much no different than digging his own grave.

That 'slim' chance was already enough to ignite his desire to fight and survive the crisis that befell them.

As an adventurer, the number of times that he had experienced a life and death situation was almost uncountable, he was not mentally weak enough to despair despite the overwhelming difference of strength between both sides.

Nevertheless, not everyone was like Ironclaw as a small portion of the adventurers here had already despaired and accepted their fate, their eyes had already become lifeless.

Seeing Ironclaw was charging at him, the skinny man wore an amused expression, even though his face could not be seen due to the cloak that covered his face, Ironclaw could tell that the skinny man did not feel threatened at all.

He gripped his spear tightly, Iron Edge was bathed in red light and he made a stabbing motion that aimed towards the skinny man's head.

The spear penetrated through the cloaked man's head without obstruction, however, Ironclaw frowned because he didn't feel like he just hit something and felt like he just stabbed nothing but air instead.

His feelings didn't betray him, the image of the skinny man's figure suddenly distorted and was covered in some dark energy.

Ironclaw's body jolted, he turned his head to the right and made a defensive position with his spear.

A dark ball of energy was hurled at him.

*Klang

Sparks flew as Ironclaw got dragged backward a few inches away due to the impact.

He gritted his teeth and swatted the energy ball away, it landed somewhere on the ground, and exploded, causing a large crater to form.

Ironclaw glanced at his trusted weapon, there was smoke coming out of it, it was probably caused due to the collision between that magic attack and his spear.

Ironclaw looked at the cloaked man who was sitting on the rock, his figure still looked distorted until it was slowly covered in black and started changing into something.

"Illusion?"

Ironclaw said and turned his head to look at the seemingly empty dark void.

Out came the real cloaked man who was walking slowly towards him in a nonchalant manner.

"Well you are not wrong but..."

The cloaked man's words trailed off as he pointed his fingers towards the rock that we sitting on.

Ironclaw's eyes followed where the cloaked man's fingers were pointing, his brows shot up, and put himself in a defensive stance.

A human-shaped black creature with no facial features charged in his direction, the creature's fist collided with Ironclaw's spear.

"A slime?"

He gritted his teeth and tensed up only to discover that the slime was weak.

His face contorted and showed an agitated expression.

'He is looking down on me'

Anger boiled inside his head, his previous fear was washed away and was immediately replaced with anger.

He turned his head to see the rest were fending off the necromancer's summons, surprisingly, the master-ranked summons just stood still and took the role of spectators while the expert rank summons and below did all the dirty work.

Ironclaw could see that the two rock golems, the ninja and the minotaur surrounded the other adventurers in a square formation while completely ignoring Ironclaw's battle with the necromancer.

He did a deep breath to calm himself down, there was no merit in getting agitated in this precarious situation, one wrong move, and everyone here gets sent to the yellow springs.

Mana gathered in his right arm and quickly covered his magic weapon.

He thrust his spear forward with great precision and aimed toward the small magic core inside the dark slime.

The summoned slime noticed this and changed the location of the magic core inside itself in an attempt to avoid death.

However, Ironclaw's attack speed easily surpassed the slime's reaction speed, without much effort, a big hole appeared on the slime's body, and the slime easily dissolved into the ground.

The dying slime turned into an intangible shadow and retreated toward the necromancer.

Ironclaw snorted coldly before initiating another attack with his spear, the mana stone on Ironclaw's magic weapon lit up as a laser was shot out of the spear and annihilated the shadow before it could return to its master.

"I hope you didn't need that"

Ironclaw glared at the necromancer while mocking him.

The cloaked man did not get flared up from Ironclaw's provocation and cackled, seemingly amused.

"Don't worry there is more where that came from"

The cloaked man said and pulled out a gray orb.

The orb itself had a cursed design with a red eye in the front and a small orange gem embedded in the center.

"Release your resentment, rise my minions"

A burst of dark energy surrounded Ironclaw and the necromancer, exactly 100 slime monsters appeared and stared at Ironclaw with a murderous gaze.

Ironclaw's eyes bulged from shock and his mouth was wide open.

"A-a master-ranked magic weapon? With an actual magic core... what the fuck"

Ironclaw uttered while his voice quivered.

No one would blame him for reacting this way, not only were they outnumbered and outmatched, but the other side also had a magic weapon, and to make it even worse, it was a high-ranking one to boot.

He realized that the situation he was in was no different from bringing a knife in a gunfight, the tiny bit of hope that he had in his heart came from the fact that he has a magic weapon while the other side doesn't.

Even if the other side was a super first class while Ironclaw himself was only a second class, he was confident that even if he could not defeat or kill the enemy, he could at least escape with his life but the appearance of a magic weapon shattered that hope.

Ironclaw clenched his left fist until his fingernails pierced the layer of skin, it didn't take a lot of time until his left hand was drenched in blood.

He gritted his teeth from sheer frustration and anxiety, his head was thinking of many ways to get out of this predicament alive, thinking of ways he could escape, he no longer had the leisure to worry about others.

Ironclaw was an adventurer, not a hero, he prioritized his survival above anything else.

His team members, his reputation, the mission, and the rewards were not on his mind, all he wanted right now was to live another day.

His eyes kept darting around, the only exit was the way they came from, but the powerful master rank summons was blocking the path, in other words, he had to go through them if he wants to escape.

The necromancer could see through his thoughts and spoke in an amused tone.

"Are you giving up already? You're no fun"

The necromancer pointed his fingers at Ironclaw.

"Kill"

At his command, the small army of slimes rushed towards Ironclaw in a frenzied manner.

Ironclaw forcibly stopped himself from shivering and launched multiple attacks.

Several slimes were annihilated in a second, the monsters were only novice-ranked so their speed and power were nothing special, but their numbers were too troublesome and slimes would only die if their magic core were destroyed.

So attacking anywhere else on its body would be useless.

The magic core... mana stones in their bodies kept moving around to avoid getting killed easily so he had to be precise with his attacks to kill them.

Even though he was confident in his abilities in utilizing a spear, each attack requires a great amount of concentration and focus.

It was like this particular battle was testing his skills in the spear.

Slimes are weaker and easier to deal with compared to goblins.

However, with a necromancer commanding them and making their mana stones move around in their bodies, the difficulty in killing them suddenly rose.

But as expected, as a master rank, he had already wiped out half of the slime army without breaking a sweat.

But this did not make him complacent, the alarm bells inside his head kept ringing without stopping, and the uneasiness in his heart grew bigger.

He looked straight ahead and saw that the necromancer was smiling throughout this battle like he was watching a circus.

'He is toying with me'

He could at least tell this much.

The necromancer's master-ranked summons had not moved an inch ever since they appeared while the man himself was standing there acting like a spectator as if he wasn't involved in this battle at all.

'You are going to pay for looking down on me'

Ironclaw pledged in his heart.

After killing a dozen more slimes, his magic weapon, Iron Edge, lit up in red light, he ignored the remaining slimes who were charging at him and made a motion in initiating a piercing attack with his spear.

A laser was shot out and was headed towards the necromancer at breakneck speed.

The cloaked man was not surprised by this and cast a blood-red shield to block the attack.

With a magic weapon on hand, the shield that he put up was more powerful and durable compared to what he used on the rock monsters.

*Crash

The eventual crash sent shockwaves throughout the surroundings, causing the ground to tremble, some adventurers even fell on their butts.

"Oh?"

The skinny man tilted his head when he saw that the shield that he put up was shattered with that one attack.

"Well, that is to be expected that you were capable of at least this much"

The necromancer praised but the person who was on the receiving end of said praise was not happy in the least.

He had already vanished from his spot, and he knew that his attack would not be able to kill his opponent in one go.

He used his earlier attack to create an opening to make a run for it.

The speed that he displayed was nothing to scoff at as he passed through the adventurers before they even realized it, his gaze locked firmly on the exit.

The adventurers who saw this had their faces paled, some felt horror, some were enraged, and some felt like they were betrayed, all in all, they did not react positively to the fact that Ironclaw was running away, leaving them behind to die.

Seeing that his prey was attempting to escape, the necromancer did not panic.

"Stop him"

The necromancer commanded with a cold voice.

The ninja who was standing still like a statue ever since it was summoned finally moved and intercepted Ironclaw's path of retreat.

Ironclaw expected that his escape tactic would not go smoothly and reacted quickly.

His magic weapon lit up once more, without pausing his steps, he braced himself and glared at the ninja in front of him.

"Iron Edge, Increase"

He chanted.

He waved his spear in a circular motion, several illusory floating spears suddenly appeared around him, the floating spear's appearance looked very similar to the magic weapon that he held in his hands.

The floating spears positioned themselves and pointed towards the ninja and were then launched with the speed of a fired bullet.

The ninja quickly threw several exploding shurikens to block Ironclaw's attack.

*Boom

*Boom

*Boom

Continuous explosion sounds reached everyone's ears.

An even bigger shockwave reverberated throughout the surroundings that made even the necromancer cast a barrier to protect himself.

The tip of a glowing spear suddenly approached the ninja's head.

The ninja raised its katana, coated with dark energy to block the attack.

The impact caused the ninja to be pushed back a couple of meters away.

"Tch"

Ironclaw clicked his tongue seeing that he failed to land an attack on the ninja.

He charged forward, and his spear glowed once again, he sent a laser attack towards the ninja, the latter crouched down to dodge and slashed with the katana, aiming for Ironclaw's neck.

Ironclaw did not pause and launched an attack of his own.

The two weapons collided, creating a spark but the ninja's katana could not compete with a magic weapon and was smashed into countless pieces.

Ironclaw was elated and continued his attack with even more momentum.

The ninja leaned to the side, and the tip of the spear managed to graze its shoulder, surprisingly, no blood came out.

Ironclaw did not dwell on this, he knew that the ninja was only a summoned creature from the necromancer, it was an entity made of dark energy that did not possess an actual vessel.

Even if he was able to kill the ninja in front of him, as long as the necromancer had sufficient mana, he could just summon them once again.

Ironclaw did not waste his time tangling with this ninja and took advantage of the situation to run towards the exit.

Just as he was about to step forward, a cold and rough voice echoed.

"Shadow Bind"

The shadow under him suddenly materialized into numerous arms and grabbed his lower body, pinning him down.

"Shit"

Ironclaw cursed and tried to get out of this binding spell.

He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his upper body, he looked down only to see a hand cascaded with dark energy piercing his chest.

"Wha-"

He let out a weak voice and turned his head to see that the ninja had already gotten up behind him.

"Motherfu--"

That was all he could say before he let go of his spear and kneeled on the ground.

Celine: Ha! Called it.

Revlo: Mother, you seem to have a grudge against this Ironclaw guy, I wonder why?

Celine: I just don't like the look on his stupid face, reminds me of that bastard king that I castrated.

Ironclaw: T_T