Swahili swerved left and right, her body partially turning into fire as she moved. A curving blade swung like an extension of her arm, following its original motion. She had aimed right for my neck, but was easily blocked with a twist of my wrist, which brought my two-handed sword in her path without much effort.

Now that my strength stat had improved, I could do a lot more with a lot less, which meant that even the heavy tier 4 greatsword danced like a feather in the wind. Swahili’s sword bounced back with a clang, but she seemed undeterred, drawing a dagger from her back and lunging at me with it. Simultaneously, her underlings turned into smoke and reappeared at my side, preparing to strike. I grit my teeth and manifest my onyx chains as fast as I could, but wouldn’t be able to guard my back in time…

Thankfully, Emeri chose just that moment to intervene herself, stabbing one of the guards in the small of their back with her spear. A furious grunt followed, and she pulled her spear back out of their body, making the poor woman double over from the pain.

Swahili barely flinched at the death of one of her people, though hate flashed through her eyes. Hate that was directed at me. After all, though Emeri had been the one to do the deed, in Swahili’s eyes, I was the one responsible.

By this point, my chains had encircled me and protected me from every angle, allowing me to go on a counter-offense. I wanted to pull Emeri into my chain-made cocoon, but she was going on a rampage instead, so berserk she wasn’t even processing my words.

I sighed sadly, not able to foresee what kind of effect all this death would have on Emeri afterward, though I was touched she got so angry on my behalf. I would have to end this soon, before my companion lost herself entirely…

I turned to Swahili, who was breathing heavily from the exertion. While I had taken a second to observe the situation, she hadn’t let up for even a moment. Her flaming blade was stopped by my chains repeatedly, though. Now, she was out of energy…

Barely tier 4, yet already willing to start a fight like this… how foolish.

I grunted, sending the pointed ends of my chain whirling like whips at Swahili. She blocked all three heavy attacks, but staggered. In the interest of time, I abandoned my chains and apparated right behind her, intending to behead her in one stroke.

Before my blade managed to bite her flesh, an illusory arm made of fire sprouted from her back, torching her armor to cinders. It twisted at an unnatural angle, just barely blocking my blow, though Swahili still tumbled to the ground from the weight of the strike.

Anticipating a counterattack after such a display, I sent a single sword arc after her and set up my chains again afterward. Swahili’s instincts took over and she quickly rolled to the side, just barely dodging the vertical sword arc that came flying her way, carving through the dry earth below it as it flew.

She gasped and moaned in pain as she stood up, even though I hadn’t wounded her yet. Did that new arm hurt her?

I wasn’t given the time to consider that thought, because a few of the guards had seen fit to help their leader, rather than continue to distract Emeri. Swahili, emboldened by her comrades, jumped at me with renewed vigour. She tried to shift her sword and her flames past my chains, but I was moving them too quickly for her attacks to take hold.

At each end, I split my chains a few times, as if they were a hydra, before launching them at the guards that were assisting Swahili. Unlike their captain, these underlings couldn’t handle the weight of the blows my chains brought to bear. Their guards were broken, which left them open to a killing blow.

This only enraged the flaming woman further, and three more flaming arms, each wielding a copy of her curved blade, sprouted from her back, making for a total of six arms. As the amount of arms increased, so did the heat of her flames. When she flew into a rage and started attacking my chains like a mad woman, I was actually starting to feel the heat this time.

Of course, I, too, had been planning. The quickest and easiest way to kill her now would be by using my [Sword laser] skill. This ability would draw all of my overloaded mana, including the chains that I was feeding that very same mana, into a single attack. The only issue was that it would take a moment to charge, during which I would be vulnerable.

In search of help, I looked over at Emeri. Unfortunately, she was still fighting like a raging bull, which made her not very receptive to my plea. The sheer numbers advantage the guards had was slowly dwindling, but not fast enough. Emeri would run out of mana before she managed to take them all down. Unlike me at the moment, she didn’t have a perfectly equal mana intake/mana-output.

That left me with one fewer option. Another possibility was to use my essence manifestation. That one would blind my opponents and empower me slightly, and could be used in conjunction with my chains. Most likely Swahili would just back up, however, and the mana output that that skill required made me physically ill when I thought about it. All it would do was give me some space.

That being said, however… perhaps a little space was all I needed to enact plan A…

I grunted. All the guards that had come over here were dead by now, and only Swahili remained. I stopped hesitating and manifested my [Blackened essence]. On cue, a perfectly circular, matte black dome spread out around me, enveloping Swahili before she could escape. I quickly moved around to disorient her while she was blinded. The moment I saw her retreat from the dome, I started to charge up my sword laser.

This next part of the plan would take some finesse…

I pointed my sword in her general direction and started to charge. Normally, this skill just sucked everything up at once, and only then began charging. This time, I had something slightly different in mind.

First, I fed the skill the required pure mana from my core, which would envelop and guide the overloaded mana into the right form and shape later. The mana coursed from my core, through my veins, all the way to the tip of my sword, where it created a hollow orb.

Next, I fed the skill the as-of-yet unused overloaded mana, that had been floating around me in the form of black tufts of smoke, waiting to be used. I pushed it back into my body, before directing it into the hollow orb bit by bit, careful not to destabilize this deconstructed version of the original skill.

My chains were next. They were sucked into the orb entirely, without first going back into my body. For a moment, I felt the mana In the orb rampage. It looked like it could lose control at any moment and blow up… but it didn’t. Instead, it settled back down. Now, there was only one step left.

Swahili, who had retreated but a few seconds ago, was starting to realise something was up. I would have to improvise. I started to whirl the unfinished orb of mana around. As it spun, it would become harder and harder to push the rest of my mana into it, but the skill allowed for no wastage. ALL of my mana had to go in there, or it would refuse to proc.

All of it came down to a split-second of control. I collapsed my essence manifestation and allowed the mana to crumble, before hurriedly pushing it into the orb that was already halfway done charging. Now that the dome fell away, Swahili had a perfect view of what I was planning and quickly figured out that if she let me finish charging my skill, it would be all over.

With deadly focus, she charged at me, all six arms swinging their weapons as quickly as they could.

I grinned. It was already too late, I knew. By waiting until just the right moment, I had made the correct gamble. When Swahili was just one meter in front of me and her swords came down, my [Sword Laser] skill activated. A cone of raw power erupted in her direction, piercing through her torso and leaving a gaping wound the size of two heads across. Her eyes dilated and she lost her strength, collapsing. For good measure, I left a curse mark with my sword, which slowly started to corrode her corpse. I didn’t trust that she wouldn’t have any life-saving skills, despite their rarity. My curse mark was certain death, unless I lifted it myself.

I scoffed but quickly shot back into action. Emeri was still fighting, though her opponents were starting to give up now that their leader was gone.

I created some new chains and went on a full offense, not even bothering to keep some of them for defense. I whipped them around, slamming them into our opponents one by one. We couldn’t afford to spare any of them, in case they spread information about my affinity and fighting style. It didn’t take long before they were all dead, their still-bleeding corpses left to the beasts of the savanna.

Only when the last one stopped moving did Emeri regain her senses. More accurately, she passed out instantly the moment the adrenaline left her body. I picked her up in a princess carry and ran to the nearest cave, where I set up her tent and let her rest. Helios knew she needed it, after that debacle. I only hoped she wouldn’t wake up feeling guilty. From the way she shivered in her sleep, things weren’t looking optimistic on that end.