“Bastard!”
Tero stared at Li Xiuman, who had incinerated Jellyfish without a second thought. Disregarding his still-unhealed injuries, he raised his longsword and charged forward.
Making full use of his resources, Li Xiuman hurled Jellyfish's charred corpse at the charging Tero. At the same time, he kicked Rhino's heavy armor, sliding backward.
“Monkey!”
Tero dodged the thrown corpse and barked out.
Monkey drew the spare dagger from his waist, his body lighting up with a crimson glow.
“Extreme Speed!”
Leaving an afterimage in the air, he thrust the dagger mercilessly toward Li Xiuman's head.
Li Xiuman raised his left arm to deflect the thrust and waved his wand.
He casually conjured a Fireball, holding it in his hand before smashing it right into Monkey.
Monkey swiftly dodged, using the momentum to deliver a spinning kick toward Li Xiuman's chest.
“Fire Shield!”
The flames burning around him condensed over his chest, forming a thick Fire Shield that blocked the spin kick.
Monkey hastily tried to pull his leg back, but it was already too late.
Li Xiuman grabbed Monkey's leg, pinning it under his armpit, and swept his flaming right foot toward Monkey's other leg.
Losing his balance, Monkey tumbled toward the ground.
“Ground Spike!”
Li Xiuman rapidly cast his spell. An earthy-yellow magic circle unfurled on the ground, and a sharp stone spike thrust upward.
Just like that, Monkey fell directly onto the Ground Spike, which impaled him straight through the chest. He coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood.
Seizing the opportunity, Li Xiuman stomped hard on Monkey's head with explosive force.
Monkey's head burst open under his foot, sending fragments of skull, brain matter, and blood splattering all over the floor.
[Ding! Killed Swordsman lv19, Experience +500]
Only the Heavy Warrior Rhino and Tero remained.
“Heavy Armor Charge!”
With bloodshot eyes, Rhino started sprinting.
The ground shook with every step he took as he barreled toward Li Xiuman.
With a flick of his foot, Li Xiuman kicked Monkey's corpse toward Rhino.
To his surprise, Rhino didn't hesitate this time, smashing straight through Monkey's corpse. His armor, now stained with blood and mangled flesh, charged toward Li Xiuman without slowing down in the slightest.
Tero also turned into a streak of light, skimming along the ground as he slashed from the flank.
“Die!”
Furious roars erupted from both sides simultaneously.
Li Xiuman pulled the sword from his chest and hurled it at the Heavy Warrior without even aiming.
He then waved his wand, causing swirling flames to wrap around his body.
“Tier 1 Magic, Sea of Fire!”
Slamming his wand into the ground, a surging sea of fire rose up, rippling outward in all directions with Li Xiuman at the center.
“Mobile Heavy Armor!”
Golden light flared around Rhino once more as he plunged headfirst into the sea of fire.
Tero, on the other hand, slashed his sword to tear through the curtain of flames, seizing the initiative as he aimed a strike at Li Xiuman's neck.
Li Xiuman raised his wand to parry the slash, but his body stumbled as Rhino slammed into him with brute force, sending him flying.
Taking that collision head-on, even with Li Xiuman's high Constitution, a crackling sound echoed from his bones.
Some of his bones had probably fractured slightly.
Tero rushed forward in hot pursuit. Before Li Xiuman could recover, he thrust his sword again and again.
Li Xiuman waved the Stone Shield on his left arm, blocking the strikes continuously.
But as the sword strikes grew faster and more frequent, the Stone Shield finally reached its limit and shattered into a shower of debris.
The longsword pierced through the crumbling shield, its cold gleam stabbing directly at Li Xiuman's neck.
Li Xiuman brought his wand across, parrying the thrust in the nick of time, though a deep scratch was still carved into his spine.
His head had almost flown right off!
A Tier 2 classholder was simply too powerful.
“Limit Break!”
Tero activated a skill once more.
A crimson glow erupted around him. His muscles bulged as if to tear through his skin, his eyes bulged, turning blood-red, and blue veins popped out in relief across his body.
An even faster slash whipped out as his body spun.
Even before the blade reached him, the sharp sword qi made Li Xiuman's bones itch.
The left arm Li Xiuman used to defend was severed in a single stroke, flying into the air.
Too fast!
Li Xiuman used his wand as a sword, slashing at the incoming blade.
Following a tooth-gritting screech of friction, the bedrock beneath Li Xiuman's feet crumbled into dust under the immense force.
Seeing that Tero was about to slash again—
Li Xiuman violently unleashed all the flames on his body, throwing them entirely toward Tero.
The blast of flames right in his face made Tero stagger, adding a few more burn wounds to his body.
Li Xiuman immediately opened up some distance. With a wave of his hand, he threw one Fireball after another.
Tero lowered his stance slightly and swung his sword, weaving an afterimage of sword light.
The Fireballs were sliced in half one by one by the sword light, dispersing into dancing sparks.
As Tero slashed the final Fireball, he left an afterimage where he stood while his real body thrust toward Li Xiuman alongside the sword light.
Li Xiuman gripped his wand tightly, channeling the burning flames around him to coil around it loop after loop.
Next, a whirlwind infused the flames. The entire wand hovered in the air, spinning rapidly under the violent embrace of wind and fire.
“Hah!”
With a thunderous shout, the wand was hurled forward with monumental force. The compressed air shrieked with a sonic boom like the cry of a giant bird.
Staring at the oncoming wand, Tero roared and gripped his hilt with both hands.
“Heavy Slash!”
His blade swept down diagonally, carrying massive force as he clashed with the wand.
The wand spun at extreme speeds. The intense heat of the flames curled Tero's eyebrows and hair strand by strand.
They collided violently.
Tero's shoes could no longer withstand the force, bursting apart like butterflies before burning into charred tatters.
His bare feet sank deep into the bedrock, his toenails splitting apart one by one as blood seeped out.
In sheer agony, Tero's eyes nearly popped from their sockets, and blood trickled from where he ground his teeth.
Unleashing the massive power latent within his body, his blade severed the flames, sending the wand flying to lodge itself deep into a distant stone wall.
He panted heavily, blood staining his hilt and the ground, the web of his hand torn so deeply that bone was faintly visible.
But Li Xiuman was not about to give him any breathing room. Charging forward, his bone sword—wrapped in swirling winds—slashed down toward Tero.
Tero hastily parried with his sword, retreating toward Rhino.
But the soul fire in Li Xiuman's eyes suddenly flared. He let the downward slash miss intentionally, pulling the bone sword back, spinning his body mid-air, and executing another slash.
Unleashing the force of two swings in a single blow.
The bone sword struck heavily against the chip on Tero's blade, causing the crack to spread further.
“Not good!”
The moment Tero realized things had gone south, Li Xiuman seized the opportunity.
Executing a sword technique, his blade blurred into afterimages. He swung countless times in a heartbeat, blow after blow raining down upon the chip like a torrential storm.
Each strike was faster and heavier than the last.
Finally, after an untold number of strikes, a sharp crack rang out, and the sword—unable to withstand any more—was split in two by the bone sword.
Tero retreated, but Rhino had already arrived.
Li Xiuman hastily stepped forward to close the distance.
“Ground Spike!”
A sharp spike rose from the ground, forcing Tero to counter with his broken sword, shattering the troublesome Ground Spike in his path.
But from the shattered pieces of the spike, a severed arm was revealed.
It was precisely the left arm that Li Xiuman had lost earlier, devoid of any flesh.
The severed arm suddenly morphed into a bone spike, thrusting savagely toward Tero's throat.
Tero tried to deflect it with his broken sword, but the blade was simply too short to block the bone spike in time.
The bone spike plunged deep into Tero's neck.
[Ding! Killed Swordsman lv23, Experience +1000]
Stepping on Tero's corpse, Li Xiuman pulled out the bone spike and looked toward Rhino.
Tossing back his cloak to reveal his grotesque, terrifying skull, he reattached the bone spike to his severed arm bone.
There was no longer any need to hide his identity.
With a squelch of writhing bone, they fused back together.
“What... What kind of monster are you?!”
“A skeleton.”
With a polite reply, he charged at Rhino once more, his bone sword drawing a beautiful crescent arc in the air as it slashed down.
Rate on N.U.
