*rumble* *rumble*

The Earth Snakes move with fast speed, wrecking every construction on their path. Their objective is only one, the soldier standing on the watching tower.

“How terrifying. Only by seeing them moving together like that I know how much destructive they are. But that’s also more of the reason I have to buy more time for the others.” Harold starts moving, running toward the empty residential area.

Jumping from building to building, with the mana boost, Harold has finally entered the residential area. However, at this moment, the snakes already catch up with him, one snake opens its mouth wide, ready to plunge and swallow him whole.

*Kleng*

A sound of a metal hitting the wall, and Harold immediately moves to the right at high speed. Rather calling him moving, something forcefully drags him to the right and he just allows himself to be pulled like that. The abrupt movement causes the snake to miss, only slamming at the buildings without affecting the solder a little bit. The old scout is pulled to the top of another building and kicks on the roof, ready to run in another direction. Before continuing, he collects a hook attached to a string coiling around a column. Confirming that the hook is functional, he nods then continues to escape.

Confused by the sudden escaping of the prey, the snakes stop for a moment then continues pursuing. What does the destruction caused by several Earth Snakes look like? imagine multiple container trucks simultaneously running randomly into the buildings in the city, crashing every wall in their places, and still keep going at high speed without caring. The whole residential becomes a ruin in only a few seconds.

In the midst of that destruction, Harold still survives. He jumps agilely from building to building, dodging every snake coming at him by only a few meter apart. His hook allows him to move in an unpredictable manner that the snakes have no way to catch him accurately. However, everything has a limit. Moving so intensely without taking a breath wears both his physical and mental state down. The hook flies again in the mid-air, but it bounces off the wall, not landing on the edge of the targeted building. The sound of it hitting the wall tells him that his time has come to an end.

(Ah, it seems that I have reached my limit. I guess it is the end for me here,) That is his thought when he closes his eyes, with a mouth opening right behind him.

*BOOM*

Part of the building next to Harold is suddenly blown away, kicking off a dust smoke covering the entire area. Affected by the sudden wind, Harold stumbles, nearly falls off the roof until regaining his balance right at the edge.

“What are you doing? Hurry and move away! There are more of them.” A girl's voice shouts out.

Controlled by the hard trained instinct, the solder immediately recovers the hook and throws it to a different building, moving out of the smoke area. Only then, he sees the appearance of his new reinforcement. A girl in full body red armor with unseen design, her arm is carrying a long curved sword with a long handle. He is not unfamiliar with her, one of the few honor guests of the mayor’s house. Despite being a young age, she has an aura of a seasoned warrior. Thus, she stands out a lot in the soldiers’ eyes, in a positive way.

“You should not come here. I am luring them here to buy more time for the mayor. He will soon contact with the reinforcement and bring them here. Only then, we can strike back and kill these snakes. Girl, you are a strong warrior and I do not deny that, but this is not the place for you to die. Only an old man like me is enough to fulfill this task.” Mistaking her intention being the same as him, he advises the girl.

“We do have reinforcement? That’s great. But waiting for them is too long, and when they arrive, there will be no one left. I cannot allow that. That’s why I will kill all of these snakes right now.” says Yuuko confidently.

“What nonsense are you talking? Go back to where you were now!”

“Sorry, but that’s already too late.” Yuuko turns to the area in dust.

The dust has settled, leaving the area visible. The snake surfaces from behind the building. However, there is a deep red scar on its eyes, making the Earth Snake more intimidating when glaring at the culprit of its injury.

“You see, old man. The aggro is on me now. You should use this chance to escape. With you here, it will be more a hindrance to me than helping.” Yuuko speaks while spinning the handle of her blade.

Seeing the situation, Harold knows that the girl in front of him is much stronger than him. Using the sword to create an air blade and deal that much destruction. That’s the power of those in the realm of the Sword Commander. He expected that she is quite strong, but not to the extent of a commander. Different from the normal soldiers, commander tier officers are a whole different league, having a strategic meaning in the battlefield. Perhaps, she has something that can turn this situation around.

“I understand. Then I shall leave it to you.” He salutes then quickly moves away from the battlefield.

Seeing the source of this chaos running away, some snakes run after him, only get stopped by an air blade that cuts a whole building apart.

“You shall not pass, monsters.” Yuuko says calmly. To get all the attention from the snakes on her, her katana glows brighter in the blue color, along with louder screeching sound in the air. The snakes can all sense that weapon is extremely dangerous, more than the arrow cannon that the archer just shot.

*Puff* With a sound, Yuuko’s image suddenly disappears in every monster’s eyes, along with the screeching sound. Before any snake can understand anything, the screeching sound comes again but from a different location. Yuuko appears on top of a snakehead, sword pointing down on its forehead. With a strong stab, the katana pierces through the giant skull. Netherless, the snake still survives, screaming in agony and thrashing around in order to shake her off. Yuuko still holds the katana tightly.

A screeching sound suddenly plays in the air. Around the blade that is embedded inside the snake's head, mana forms sharp razor edges and they moves with a high speed, tearing the brain tissue inside. This is one of Yuuko's new techniques as she researched the use of mana these last few days. With her current mana manipulation level, aside from embedding mana inside weapon to temporarily powering it up, she can condense mana around the blade to a high concentration, and give it concrete forms surrounding the weapons. By giving a flow to mana, the edges arround the blade can move at a high speed, making the weapon more deadly.

Right now, what Yuuko holding is a chainsaw, and she is currently chainsawing the skull of a giant monster. With a swing downward, the magical saw splits the upper skull into halves, ejecting blood and tissues all over Yuuko’s body.

Level up!

Rained in blood and meat, Yuuko does not pay any heed to either of them. She just coldly stares at the remaining monsters surrounding her. Her icy cold glare, along with the deep red armor covered with blood, makes all the snakes shudder in fear, temporarily forgetting that they are the ones in advantage here.

Another puff sound and Yuuko disappears again. She later appears on another snake’s head and stabs strongly in the skull. However, this time, she meets a greater difficulty. The snakeskin turns into metallic color and her sword meets a greater resistance while traveling through the thick skull. In the end, she manages to pierce through and the time takes much longer, 5 seconds.

Seeing another of its friend being done again, the snakes again become frenzy, forgetting all the fear they experienced. One snake swings its tail at the victim’s head, where Yuuko is standing. Unable to cleave the skull easily, she just pulls out the katana straightly and disappears again. She quickly appears on another snake’s head, but before she can stab the sword, another tail comes straight at her. The snakes figure out Yuuko’s strategy and adopt a plan to counter it. Each snake will look at the other’s head and get ready to swing the tail when there is a shadow appearing.

Describing is long, but from the time Yuuko killed the first snake to the next one, only 15 seconds. However, such a brief period is enough for the snakes to form a plan to counter and coordinate perfectly. It is a very hard feast for the humans, not mentioning wild monsters with only simple idea of cooperation. In other words, there is someone controlling these monsters, and that person is quick at assessing the situation and gives appropriate plan.

Even so, that only hinders Yuuko a little bit, only a little bit.

After several attempts of hitting each other’s head, Yuuko still mysteriously disappears and appears between them. Right now, several snakes have their heads smashed by their comrades and spin around in dizziness. It does not take long to realize that the whole area becomes a mess with the snakes tangling each other. In that midst of confusion, Yuuko successfully kills two more Earth Snakes with the chainsaw.

During that time, she realizes one thing. If a snake is standing still, that one is using the skill Harden, which explains why she met hard resistance when stabbing some snakes. Therefore, her targets are those moving around their tails to swing at her. Luring one to hit another then lure another one to hit the one that just hits. The end result is that one that does not use the Harden skill and gets hit in the head. There is no easier target than that.

Quick thinking but short sight, that’s Yuuko evaluation of the new strategy the snakes adopt. No doubt that the controller is confused now that more than 30 seconds have passed but there is no change in their behavior. Only about a minute has passed and 4 more snakes are killed that they change their tactics. They adopt a defensive form, using the body coiling around the head and harden them. Multiple chunks of metal now stand in the middle of the residential area in silence.

“I see. You don’t dare to attack recklessly now so you defend yourself now. Good trying, but it is too late. That harden skin cannot stop me anymore.” Yuuko opens her table and checks her status.

Yuuko Kurosawa

Race

Human (error cannot process)

Class

(error cannot process)

Level

19 (10)

Strength

564 (230)

Vitality

1030 (325)

Resistance

333 (190)

Agility

445(280)

Magic

??? (error cannot process)

Magic Resistance

230(110)

Skills

Language Comprehension, Archery (Lv 7), Enhanced Strength (Lv 6), Precision (Lv 8), Penetration (Lv 5), Sword Master (Lv 2), Close combat master (Lv 4), Assassination (Lv 5), Mana enchantment (Lv 7), Shadow magic (Lv 7)s

“Honestly, the change is so rapid that I do not feel that this is my body anymore. I have to be careful touching something or I will accidentally break it.” Yuuko does some sketches and exercises to get used to the new status of her body. Now that the monsters are standing still now, she can afford to have some free time to take a break. Furthermore, due to the rapid level up, her body starts reconstructing itself, and her left arm can start moving again.

Clutching hands rapidly to get a feel of her lost hand again, Yuuko proceeds to hold the katana with both hands. The firm feeling of holding the sword properly again gives Yuuko a great joy. She cannot help but want to test out her new full power.

Approaching the snake slowly, she holds the sword high and swings it down. A gale blows around her and the lump of mass in front of her is cleaved into two parts, then later falling into several segments of the Earth Snake.