Translator: HunterW
Editor: RED
==[Warrior’s Brave Spirit Level 2 has been activated.
For two hours, raise your ATT by 25%, CRIT chance by 2%, CRIT damage by 100%, movement speed by 10%, and ATT speed by 5%.
For two hours, Indomitable Spirit is in effect. (Indomitable Spirit: decrease all damage by 12%, increase DEF and MDEF by 10%.)
Fatigue does not rise while this skill is in effect.]==
I had a little more than two hours thanks to the item that increased skill effect. A 25% boost in my ATT should be enough to kill Angel for the eleventh time. I did want to play around with him for a little bit, though.
“Son of a bitch! Scattered Tentacles.” Another volley of tentacles flew my way, but they only served to hurt the Crootian army, not me.
“Gah!”
“Get out of the way!”
“Snap out of it, Angel!”
Angel’s tentacles struck more of the Crootian soldiers than struck me. The Crootian soldiers were having a hard enough time trying to kill my soldiers, and now that their own commander was killing them, they were quickly losing the will to fight. It was exactly what I wanted to happen.
“Die! Die, you son of a bitch!”
“No, I don’t want to. Why don’t you die? You’re the one comfortable with dying. You did it ten times already,” I taunted as I attacked him. I still did need to get rid of him in the end. As I fought him, I couldn’t help but smile. He still wasn’t that much stronger from the beginning.
—
The Empire’s soldiers were pummeling the Crootian soldiers with a relentless assault of skills and spells. They had been fighting without rest since the battle began and they were showing no signs of exhaustion. In fact, they were still in high spirits since the enemy soldiers were in disarray, all thanks to Lee Jiwon.
Lee Jiwon was fighting with the strength of a thousand, no, a hundred thousand men, which was cause for celebration time and time again. But then, something happened that managed to stun the entire army into silence. Zulova had suddenly appeared in the middle of battle. It was no doubt a good thing, but the Empire’s soldiers just didn’t know how to react.
“Where did he come from?”
“I have no idea. But do you think he’s here to help Commander Lee?”
“I think so, from the way he’s attacking the enemy now.”
“Damn! When did Commander Lee manage to get someone like the Slayer as a comrade? It must have been tough to convince him to fight in a battle as risky as this.”
“Leave it to Commander Lee. He’s always got something up his sleeve.”
“That’s true. Come on! We’re getting left behind!”
—
“Gah!”
==[You have obtained 0 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==
It took about twenty minutes to kill Angel for the eleventh time. I could have killed him ten minutes ago, but I kept him alive as long as possible on purpose. He was so blinded by anger and revenge that had already killed a good chunk of his own army. At this point, the rest of the Crootian soldiers looked like they were about to cry and run away.
As I waited for Angel to come back to life, I heard someone call out to me from behind. “Lee Jiwon!” It was Zulova the Slayer.
I turned my head slightly to look at him. He was swinging his Bobocica at the enemy soldiers as he made his way towards me. I smiled when he got close enough. “As I’m sure you know, sharing a decent hunting grounds is usually a sign of good faith. I just want you to know that’s how much I think of you, so if you decide to wash your hands clean of this later on, I won’t let it slide.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Whatever. Just be careful. I’m going to bring the rabid dog over to you now.”
“What?” Zulova asked incredulously, but I ignored him. Angel was back, redder than ever.
“Graaah! Die!” he roared as he charged at me with thick tentacles protruding from his hands.
I blocked his attacks with my spear and could tell right away that he was much stronger than he was before, but it still wasn’t enough to overpower me. “Oh, no! You’re so strong! I can’t fight you on my own!” I acted weak again because I knew I could get rid of him anytime I wanted to. It will take a little longer than before but that didn’t matter. I still had Altered Equality, Howl of the Wolf, and Judge’s Gavel that had just became ready to use. I decided to use him a bit more and clear up more of the enemy soldiers.
“Grahh! I’ll kill you! You rat bastard!”
“No, please! I can’t fight you anymore. You’re too strong.” As I ran from Angel, a volley of tentacles flew right at me. But instead of hitting me, they hit more of the Crootian soldiers around us. I could feel their despair clearly now.
—
“It’s impossible to command the soldiers properly now.”
“We’ve completely lost control.”
“I know. It was over once Angel played into that bastard’s hands.”
The deity officers of Croot watched helplessly as their soldiers were being decimated by a single person who seemed so laid back in the middle of a battle.
“He’s just playing with Angel.”
“He’s already killed Angel eleven times now… and he still doesn’t look that much worse for wear.”
“Doesn’t that mean he’s… as strong as Claudia or Adora?”
“…” They had to disagree. The enemy commander was a just a lowly deva, but they couldn’t just outright lie to themselves.
“Sound…sound the retreat,” said Faisal, the lieutenant deity of Claudia’s faction. “We can’t afford to fight any longer. We’ve lost too many soldiers already. We can’t lose the rest of them now.”
Croot still had more than two billion people on the Continent, but the majority of them were beginners. Many of them were under level 300, and had never fought in a large scale battle before. If they lost all of their elite soldiers here today, it would spell the end of Croot. The deity officers were no fools and realized this, but they just couldn’t believe that this was the reality.
“The enemy won’t let us retreat that easily. They’ll think something’s up if we retreat this early.”
“I know. That’s why we need to throw them a bone to distract them.”
“It has to be big enough if we want them off our ass.”
“That’s why I’ve brought the two of you here,” Faisal said to the other two lieutenant deities of Adora’s and Sklya’s factions. “We’re abandoning the soldiers closest to the frontlines and…” Faisal looked the other two deities in the eyes before continuing, “one of us will take their faction’s soldiers and fight on to the end.”
The other two deities looked at him in shock.
“We can’t all die here.”
“Hah. Good. I like it.”
“I’m in.”
The other two lieutenant deities agreed. They each had a one in three chance and to them, that was enough.
“If we don’t keep our word…”
“Then only Death awaits us.”
—
==[You have obtained 0 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==
That was his twelfth death. He had one more resurrection left.
“Howl of the Wolf.” I saved Judge’s Gavel and Altered Equality for now. “Hmm… he has two lives left…” I thought for a moment about how to deal with Angel from now on, and made my decision. I would use Angel as much as I could before I killed him again, and after he resurrected for the last time, I would use every single skill I could to kill him as quickly as possible. This battle had gone on long enough.
“Gah!”
“No!”
I didn’t stop killing the enemy soldiers while I waited for Angel to resurrect. During that time, I noticed some strange movements from the enemy. Some soldiers were pushing their way to the frontlines while others slowly moved to the rear. They were getting ready to retreat. Honestly, I would have done the same. By now, it was clear that the Crootian army had lost, and they had to save as many of their soldiers as they could.
-Did they decide who gets to live and who has to stay?-
They were willing to sacrifice a portion of their army so that the rest could escape with their lives. Those that remained would have to hold us off until their comrades made their escape.
-What should I do?-
If I and my army were strong enough to easily destroy the enemy’s army, I could give the order to give chase, but that wasn’t the case. I didn’t know how many soldiers they were willing to leave behind, but even if they left behind two hundred thousand soldiers, they would be enough to keep us at bay.
Just then, Angel finally resurrected. This time, I charged first. Now that I knew that the enemy was planning to escape, I had to kill as many of them as possible.
“You…”
“I know, I know. I’m a son of a bitch!” I shouted as I swung my spear. It was time now to kill him as quickly as possible.
“Die! Exploding Tentacles!”
“Ugh!” The tentacles right next to me exploded in my face and I couldn’t help, but grunt from the blow.
“Tentacle Barrage!” Tentacles rained down upon my head and shoulders and pummeled me. The force was strong enough that my knees buckled.
“Fine! Let’s find out who’s tougher!” It was hard to take another step forward from the rain of attacks, but I didn’t avoid them. I gathered all of my strength and attacked with a flurry of my own.
“Gah!” Angel was pushed back several steps from the force of my attacks, making me still the clear winner of the contest of strength. His body was quickly covered in deep wounds from my spear.
“You scumbag!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s what all of my victims called me.”
“Tentacle Prison!”
“Blink 2.”
—
Ten minutes later…
==[You have obtained 0 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==
I finally killed him for the thirteenth time. At that moment, I heard a loud cry.
“Soldiers of Claudia, retreat!”
“Soldiers of Adora, retreat!”
In a split second, hundreds of thousands of soldiers rushed past me, away from the battlefield. As much as I wanted to kill them as they ran, I still had my prey to finish off. I turned away from them and waited for Angel. Once he came back, I activated the skills I had been saving.
“Altered Equality.”
==[You have activated Altered Equality – Altered Equal Stats on your opponent.
Your opponent’s base Stat points, Stat points increased by skills and items and Stat points granted by specials will all be redistributed.
Calculating all Stat points…]==
==[Your opponent’s Stats have been redistributed.
The effects of Altered Equality will last for the next 24 hours and you must wait that time before using Altered Equality on someone else.
Stat points received for Kiran will be set to 0 as payment for using Altered Equality.]==
“Judge’s Gavel.” Once I was ready, I charged in first again. I stabbed Angel with my spear without hesitation.
“Gah!” The attack wasn’t enough to kill him right away, but he was flung back like a ragdoll from the force of the blow.
“Blink 1.” I quickly caught up with Angel’s flying body and stabbed him.
“Urgh!” Angel’s body was shaking.
“It was not a pleasure to meet you and I hope I don’t ever have to see you again!” I stabbed him once more.
==[You have gained a level.]==
==[You have gained a level.]==
==[You have gained a level.]==
==[You have gained a level.]==
==[You have gained a level.]==
I leveled up five times at once, and each level-up message was accompanied with three Bortega’s Blessing levels.
==[You have obtained 1,450,000,000 golden rings for defeating a powerful enemy.]==
I focused on the retreating enemy soldiers instead of the messages. There were at least three hundred thousand soldiers retreating and about the same left behind. I wondered for a moment if I should chase after them, but pushed it away. As important as it was to kill the enemy, the lives of my own soldiers took priority. I charged at the remaining enemy soldiers.
