‘Ah…shit… is this the end for us…’ Arlem’s mind shattered in sorrow.
They were spent. In just a few minutes of their exchange with the monster, his physical limit had been tested multiple times.
And this had caused an unnatural fatigue for him. He couldn’t be more ashamed of himself, even though.
After all, he called himself the strongest in terms of brute force amongst the party leaders.
And he couldn’t stand the assault of this villainous creature.
One could even say he was carried by Ryan all through. ‘Cause the guy was undoubtedly strong.
Thinking about it made Arlem rife with anger.
‘I can’t go down like this… no, I can’t.’
His brows furrowed, eyes slowly drifting up to apprehend the form of the creature standing before it.
‘Even if it’s the last thing I do… even if I have to use all my talent abilities and expend myself, I should see this to the end. And I still have that too…’
Arlem’s face contorted with determination, a wild glow was subtly being illuminated in his blue eyes.
And as seconds passed, they soon carried a dangerous spark in them.
From behind, Ryan turned a pale face to him, watching how Arlem was struggling to stand before the monster.
There was nothing he, on the other hand, could do. He had expended himself more than he should.
‘I can’t move…’
Both physically…
‘…any more than this will cause my flaw to activate.’
And talent-wise.
Talents were not all perfect; they worked in synchronization with the soul core. It is theorized that a talent cannot be 100% synchronized with the soul core.
If it was possible, there would be no need for attributes.
In a way, it could also be said that attributes exist to regulate whatever little percent of imperfection that is left in the soul core.
However, it did not mean that this little imperfection is completely dealt with.
While the scope and potency of this ‘regulation’ is dependent on the rank of the attributes itself, should the drifter over-exert themselves, the attributes could become a totally useless regulator.
This is the part where ‘flaw’ kicks in.
Because the talent has been used to a point where its synchronization with the soul core is disturbed, it begins to seize synchronization.
In that moment of seizure, a bad effect of different kinds (all in line with one’s talent) is released.
They are rendered incapable of using their talent until time passes, and the talent slowly and automatically resumes its synchronization process with the soul core.
This bad effect is what Ryan is trying to avoid.
While they had just fought Dark Terror for a couple of minutes, it had been an intense couple of minutes.
The monster had stretched them far wider than they’ve ever been stretched in the past couple of months.
‘If you don’t move… we are going to die.’
The voice in his head said to him. Was it justifiable? That because of the fear of his flaw kicking in, he should give up and watch him or his comrade die?
A frown slowly furrowed on Ryan’s blank face.
He was not going to have it.
He had to fight till the end…
‘I have to fight till the end…’
However, before both of them could fully rise to their feet, the terror in front of them released its weapon.
All four of them slowly dissipated into thin air.
The monster glared at them menacingly for a couple of seconds, a horrible grin seemed to flash across its face before it turned and walked away… just like that.
That was how these two managed to survive an encounter by Dark Terror.
They were spared… by the command Northern had given the devil when he summoned it.
“Go out of here…be seen by people, but do not harm anyone…well, if they try to hurt you, fight back but do not kill. Your main objective is to leave this place and eradicate all the monsters. Every single monster in this entire surrounding area.”
In the first place, the devil was never going to kill them.
But it’s not like they knew about this fact.
What they just saw was that a monster that was more than capable of killing them made a choice and chose to let them live.
They had never seen such a thing happen.
And now, the testimonies of those dudes made sense.
They claimed that they met an extremely powerful monster and yet they were still alive.
The party leaders didn’t believe them, of course. Because their testimonies made no sense.
Even a fiend-rank monster, when it strikes, strikes to kill. Under no circumstances would it spare its prey.
Not to speak of a monster that was as powerful as they claimed.
Even though one of them was missing, there were no traces of blood or anything indicating that he was dead.
It was another impossible thought that a monster would kidnap a human… alive.
So they were all conflicted as to what to believe. Then Braham made a discovery…
At least that was what he claimed.
His discovery was that this person who had gone missing could use illusions.
That discovery changed everything, and since it was Braham—
even though there were doubts—everyone believed.
“We were wrong…”
Arlem could now see how mistaken they were.
“Those guys were right. What in the world did we just face?” He questioned himself.
Ryan was on his knees, pearls of sweat rolling down all over his face. At the very least, he was glad his flaw didn’t kick in.
But things just got more dangerous.
“We have to report this to Lady Raven.”
A monster capable of making such ‘humanly’ decisions… a monster that didn’t fight to kill.
Ryan looked at Arlem with a pallid expression, his voice trembled as he opened his mouth.
“Did you see that grin before it left?”
The remembrance of what he had seen caused a dark frown to strain Arlem’s thick brows.
He clicked his tongue.
“Tsk, you are right… we need to report this… we should signal for our parties to return to the stronghold.”
Arlem managed to fully stand on his feet, his armor disintegrated into sparks of light as he did, revealing his brown ripped body and tight pants.
Then he raised a cone-like object and wiggled it in the air. Something shot out of it and exploded into red dust in the sky.
Arlem threw the cone away and gave Ryan a smug grin.
“Looks like I’ll be giving you a piggyback ride today…”
“…ah, shit.”