Chapter 9: Terrible

Maji seemed to have lost the ability to resist.

It was not because he was disheartened and only sought a quick death. While despair filled his heart, having been an adventurer for so many years, his psychological resilience was not that poor.

At this moment, the hunter was trapped in a stiff, immobile state where his body refused to budge.

[Precise Shot] was a class-specific skill for the Ranger. It not only helped a professional accurately lock onto an enemy’s vital spots amidst a complicated battlefield situation, but it could also faintly enhance the damage of an arrow to a certain extent.

As a combat skill, it naturally did not consume mana, but it required a certain level of physical conditioning to sustain it.

Normally, given a professional’s physical traits, this kind of stamina consumption was exceptionally easy, completely far from being a burden.

However, for an ordinary person like Maji who had not yet obtained a class level and lacked the foundational class bonuses, the side effect of using [Precise Shot] was a bit too severe—

After each use of the combat skill, he had to endure a state of extreme weakness lasting nearly 15 seconds.

Maji in this state, let alone fighting, would need someone to support him just to walk.

Therefore, under the vast majority of circumstances, [Precise Shot] was a trump card he would only unveil at the very end.

Now, facing a monster like a bugbear that far exceeded their squad’s capacity to handle, the hunter had chosen to cooperate with his teammate right from the beginning, unleashing his most powerful move to seize the initiative in the battle.

This was completely fine.

Yet now, under the influence of an unknown power, the arrow had missed its mark, and the plan failed. Having lost his best opportunity, the scales of victory naturally tilted toward the enemy, as a matter of course.

Snort—

The bugbear “Henk” exhaled a blast of white smoke from his flared nostrils.

“Ruined Henk’s lucky day,” he muttered, his yellowish-brown, turbid eyes reflecting the immobile, frail body of the human before him. “Little bug, must compensate.”

A few months ago, his lackeys had abducted a woman from somewhere unknown.

Henk was very hungry, and he especially liked this food called “humans”—thin-skinned and tender, tasting much better than the wild boars and spotted rabbits in the forest.

But having just become independent from his tribe, he still firmly remembered the teachings of the tribal priest, who was said to have already lived for two hundred years.

“Females must be kept to breed; only after breeding can they be eaten.”

Thus, he had been guarding the nest all this time, not even knowing how much drool he had spilled.

Until today, when that woman finally finished breeding.

Yet before he could even taste a single bite, he ran into these few little bugs before him.

“You must be punished, Henk wants to…”

The bloody stench permeating the air flooded into his nasal cavities. The wonderful taste caused him to lick his dry lips.

As if realizing something, a sudden look of pleasant surprise emerged on Henk’s originally somewhat irritated face.

With his mind working along these lines, the bugbear “Henk” had already raised the morningstar in his hand high into the air.

The muscles of his arm, which was as thick as an ordinary person’s thigh, swelled and pulsed, and the spikes densely covering the face of the hammer emitted a dark, cold gleam under the reflection of the campfire.

He swung the iron hammer down at the little bug before him.

And right at this moment,

Buzz—

Within the dimly lit cave, a sharp, silver-white flash of light suddenly flickered across.

[Whirlwind Slash]

A piercing, fierce wind stung his skin, and Henk only felt a wave of icy chill travel from the side of his neck.

An instinctive reaction caused him to subconsciously lunge his body sideways.

The movement of his hands could not help but falter for a moment, and the morningstar originally aimed at Maji’s vital spot also shifted its position, striking against the other party’s right lower leg instead.

“Ah!!!”

The frail human leg bone was instantly smashed to pieces by the metallic face of the hammer. Together with the knee, the entire right leg was heavily distorted and deformed.

Maji howled in agony, his pale face covered in cold sweat.

Only right now, no one on the field paid any more attention to him.

Xia Nan’s eyes were fixed dead upon the burly figure ahead, feeling a slight hint of regret in his heart.

As an ordinary person who had never even killed a chicken before yesterday, he felt he had already pushed himself to the absolute limit.

Within 0.5 seconds of witnessing Gagu’s head being crushed by the bugbear, the following was the series of thoughts that had flashed through his mind:

Realizing that the opponent’s strength was not something he could confront frontally, while simultaneously recognizing the unrealistic nature of fleeing due to the explosive power the opponent displayed, and making the decision to launch a stealth attack from the shadows while the enemy had not yet discovered the situation on his end.

Xia Nan had even been particularly patient and precisely grasped the brief timing when the bugbear swung his hammer with force.

Except, he had not expected that this kind of monster from a fantasy world would actually be capable of generating a secondary force.

While swinging the iron hammer, he could simultaneously control his body to evade his attack.

“This is bad…”

Xia Nan murmured.

The good news was that he had managed to cut the opponent after all, knowing that this non-human entity was ultimately made of flesh and blood, and possessed a health bar!

Moreover, his strike just now had not triggered the energy shield the bugbear had displayed previously, which meant it should have entered a cooldown state of sorts, or perhaps melee combat simply did not trigger it at all.

As for the bad news…

First of all, having unleashed a third [Whirlwind Slash] within a short period of time, his body had already reached its limit.

Merely gripping the hilt of the sword, he could feel the muscles of his forearm trembling, as if a slight application of force would cause a cramp.

Secondly, although his strike just now had hit a vital area, because of the bugbear’s evasion, the opponent’s injury was lessened by a great deal.

This not only failed to effectively weaken the bugbear’s combat power but instead exposed his figure directly within the opponent’s line of sight, while simultaneously drawing its hatred.

Roar—

A furious bear-like roar erupted abruptly, low and ferocious, as if an invisible wave of sound swept through the air.

Suffering a hidden strike from a “little bug” that left a bloody gash sliced open across his neck, Henk instantly plunged into a violent rage.

Staring at the robust figure rushing toward him like a meat tank ahead, Xia Nan had no time to formulate any kind of tactics.

Driven purely by his survival instinct, he fiercely threw himself to the side, then rolled across the ground in a thoroughly ungraceful manner.

Boom!!!

The pitch-black morningstar grazed past his head and smashed heavily down, causing spiderweb-like cracks to surface upon the ground.

The fierce wind, wrapped with flying dirt, stung his cheeks until they ached.

Perhaps because he had already died once in his previous life, or perhaps because the surge of adrenaline within his body caused him to ignore those negative emotions, at this moment, facing an opponent before him that could not be matched by strength, Xia Nan did not give rise to a single shred of fear.

He rose swiftly.

The longsword in his hand was already swinging toward the opponent’s neck once more.

(End of Chapter)