Nubwort’s troops performed another war cry and even though the Demon Rats were ‘zombified’ by Cinderclaw’s artefact, they were not entirely immune to the crippling screams of the orcs.
Though this only gave the orcs a few seconds to close the distance between them, it was all that was needed for the orcs to have utter victory against them. And as mentioned, the war cry even boosted Jin’s spirits up, making him feel stronger. The feelings cannot be quantified but the System had already noticed a sharp increase in Jin’s Maqi as he too went forth to Cinderclaw.
Yet Cinderclaw was still astute enough to block the incoming attack with his axe, causing the surroundings to receive the aftereffects of the impact. The ground sunk from the attack and Jin continued with his second attack, now changing his Bam and Boo into two shorter swords, hoping to use agility to his advantage.
At the same time, he also activated his System Rider belt, calling forth Assassin Savant to enter. This way, Jin has the speed and skills to overpower the Demon Rat Axe General. As Assassin Savant entered to become the persona of his System Rider, the armour turned thinner as if to allow better mobility but did not compromise on the strength of its defence. The living armour that Jin had was still working as intended.
However, Jin did not know that his first blow against Cinderclaw was the first time the Axe General received such a death threatening attack. If Zeru or Kraft was around, they would have lamented at the missed opportunity the enemy had bestowed Jin. The dungeon supplier’s lack of experience had forced him to miss such an opportunity to kill the enemy in one shot since Cinderclaw was stunned for a few seconds.
But unbeknownst to experienced fighters, Jin unknowingly did the right thing as well. In the time he switched into an assassin, he had already aimed several vital points stabbing them thoroughly and swiftly based on the knowledge of Demon Rats’ Anatomy after the System had reviewed hundreds of corpses and killing blows.
It wasn’t until the fifth blow that Cinderclaw managed to recover himself from the stun and stopped Jin with his bare hands from giving him the sixth stab. At that point Jin used his Maqi to command a gust of Green Panda Wind Energy and Red Panda Fire Energy, causing a vortex of tornado against him, allowing the System Rider to have some distance against Cinderclaw.
“That guy… does he know my secret?!” Cinderclaw thought to himself as he used his axe to forcefully remove the flaming vortex and took several deep breaths to recover. “Five lives had been lost and I was only left with three in a short period of time? This warrior cannot be underestimated.” No matter how strong his artefact amplification skill was, there was an artefact called the ‘Cat with Eight Lives’ that does not scale with his amplification skill.
Once considered an artefact that should be discarded upon using eight times to save one’s life, Cinderclaw found that the number of attempts on the Cat with Eight Lives could be regenerated with lifestream energy.
The only problem was that it required an extremely high amount of lifestream energy making the conversion of energy not worth it to regain back one attempt. His innate talent of amplification also did not reduce the amount of lifestream energy needed, forcing it to be one of the valuable artefacts that he possessed.
Still never in his life thought that Cinderclaw would need to rely on such an artefact until his fateful encounter with this human in a slim metallic suit. But yet he rejoiced at the fact that Jin did not know the secondary effect of the artefact. It prevents his enemies from aiming at the same spot once again and even if they do break the enchanted area and Jin manages to stab through it, no death would occur to Cinderclaw again.
Yet one could say Jin was lucky enough to have started his assault on the vital spots from the bottom up.
Two stabs through his both thighs, causing massive blood loss,
One stab at his abdomen and slashed it outwards, forcing his organs to be expelled.
Two stabs below the armpits in an attempt to disable his hands.
While it might not seem like vital spots to a human, there were major arteries based on the Demon Rat’s anatomy. (Although it also seems that Jin wanted to have a fanciful kill and did not aim for the heart or neck.)
And of course, with Cinderclaw still standing, the Assassin Savant was shocked, wondering if he had some sort of death immunity artefact. “Well, if he dies so easily, he is not worth being the leader of all Demon Rats, right?” Jin said as he clashed his two shortswords together to make a sic-ing sound before rushing towards Cinderclaw once again.
This time Cinderclaw had already estimated the powers of his opponents and summoned out an undead demon rat troll variant in front of him as a barrier while he recovered his stamina for a little while longer after consecutively using five uses from the Cat with Eight Lives.
“Now this is possibly the only opponent that I could find worthy.” Nubwort swung his spear a little to create some momentum before throwing it towards the Undead Rat Troll. The force of the spear throw caused it to knock sideways, allowing Jin to move forward without obstacles in the way. Simultaneously, the Black Disaster jumped towards the Undead Rat Troll to slice his head off.
“Tsk. Irritating humans.” Cinderclaw said to himself as he slammed the ground hard and prepared to handle the charge from the assassin who seemed to be putting a lot of magic on his two weapons, hoping to have one clean kill.
“Remember, he might some sort of death immunity. I suggest not to hit the very same spots.” Assassin Savant said with some anxiety and yet Jin was calming him down.
“Don’t worry. If he does not die. We will try and try again.”
