As soon as I drank the sap, my wildly beating heart calmed and a bit of sharp pain passed through my mind.
It was difficult, but I thought straight and clear.
A pure white hue started coming out of my body and enveloped it entirely.
The Mana in the surroundings started gathering around me and my Mana increased many times.
It wasn’t a normal increase, and I was sure of that.
I felt as if I have reached the next level of the Mana nucleus.
But I knew this was just a temporary feeling.
Fighting them would be a bit easy with this sap.
With that, the fight started.
The red-eyed ninja had more strength than the other two, the blue-eyed had faster skill use, so maybe it had more M.P. than the others, and the yellow-eyed one had super speed.
Its attacks carried a bit of low power but had excellent precision.
Surrounded by large trees, we showered the open area with mental clinging and light explosions.
Backed off by a tree, I jumped on a tree branch and then on another tree by its side.
I wanted to go away but, showing my back to these assassins with perfect coordination would be as good as suicide.
Sensing disturbances on my left side, I bend my body to the side to dodge.
The red ninja groaned in anger and melted back into shadow.
Just then, I knew they would aim for the next attack at my back.
[Quickstep]
Appearing on the other tree, stretching my bowstring, a transparent arrow of water materialized after a moment.
It wasn’t that quick and the yellow ninja had already slashed at my previous position.
(Light water)
An arrow of condensed water with the light element Mana mixed with it.
This wasn’t something like <Holy water> as it was an extraordinarily precious thing in this world.
I wanted to aim for the yellow one but lost this chance.
The yellow-eyed ninja vanished into the shadows faster than I expected.
Now, it would be the blue eyes turn.
As they followed previously, the blue eyes ninja should appear from upwards and do a thrust.
But things weren’t that easy.
My calm heart beat faster and my back felt cold.
[Quickstep]!
-Slash.
I appeared on the other side of the trees, but my protective clothes were torn, and a deep cut appeared on my ant armor.
Though my back was alright…
“Fuck…”
It cut my arm by the tip of its long sword of shadow.
The cut was deep, and blood flowed out like a fountain from just that.
Biting my lips in pain, I downed an intermediate healing potion I was saving for a long time.
The pain started going down and the wound started healing slowly.
But the chibi ninjas were more ferocious than I thought.
Even before my wound closed, all three of them jumped toward me.
It was a combined attack and most probably a unique skill.
As I looked at them, their shark-like teeth and mouth appeared on their mask-like a mouth.
That long tongue and those eyes were… dangerous.
But, I was calm.
My previous spell was canceled because of the sudden attack, but not this time.
Stretching the bowstring with my injured hand, enduring the hellish pain by biting my lips, gathered all the light element particles could and…
[Quickstep]
Sliding back like a back step, I released the long spear of light.
This was the same thing I used against the ghost, but it was in its proper form this time.
The three ninjas were falling with their swords thrusting down.
They changed their eyes from hungry, happy, and greedy to serious and confident.
Without stopping the attack, they continued falling towards the spear of light with the dark long swords.
A red hue appeared as they joined their tips of swords, and the spear of light collided with them.
-Boooooom!
The collision was fierce enough to attract the attention of nearby things.
I didn’t know what will happen so…
[“Celes!”]
I knew she would know what we should do now that we had a gap in their attacks.
With a small yellow light, I changed and turned into something different.
The light vanished and three ninjas reappeared in the white smoke.
There was a small crater where they landed, and their eyes were bloodshot.
A cloud of white smoke was coming out of them after using a [Combo-skill].
They were more powerful skills, as we used them with more than one skill or more than one person.
The output increased, and so did the burden on the bodies of the user.
The ninjas looked around with their eyes still bloodshot.
But… there was no one.
The prey they tried to hunt all this time wasn’t there.
An injured child vanished into thin air, and they failed to sense it?
It was strange but; they looked around a bit more.
But then, their eyes fall on an unknown figure walking towards them from the other side.
Same size and structure.
Red eyes and somewhat injured hand. It walked towards them with the same large mouth and long tongue wiping its lips like a mask-mouth.
The three of them looked confused, as well as on high alert.
The blue and yellow-eyed ninja walked a step back from the red-eyed one and looked between the new arrival and the one before them.
They can’t sense the difference even though the red one with them was there the entire time.
They both were giving off the same feeling and the one that walked toward them was even more realistic somehow.
-Skhhhh!
The red-eyed chibi ninja shouted, looking towards the both of them as I walked even closer.
[ “See Celes, your skill is amazing~!” ]
[[ Thanks master~! ]]
She replied cheerfully as I finished preparing (Light water) arrows behind me.
It was difficult to gather light Mana particles without using my bow but, the chibi ninjas before me were giving me all the time I needed.
The argument between the three ninjas about who the hell was real was entertaining to watch.
But, just after a minute-long argument, they turned their head in my direction and ‘asked’ something like: “Who are you?” .
I didn’t know if these intelligent, humanoid beasts understood me but, saying something was necessary before sending them away, right?
“Well, RIP, I guess?”
With that, I extended my arm, which most likely looked like a long sword to them.
Their confused expression turned grim as three blue arrows of light suddenly shot toward them.
And… even before they could go back to shadows, the arrows of light-water pierced their heads.
-Thud.
Their bodies fell to the ground, lifeless.
The enemy was dead, and the fight was over.
They made the wrong decision to let me close this distance, and it led them to their deaths.
“Celes…”
Once again, a small white light flashed and I fall on my back.
This was the longest, most tiring fight I have had in this hell, and ironically… a chibi ninja injured me.
“Haaa…”
The bodies of these chibi ninjas didn’t disappear like a ghost but stayed like that.
This showed they were living beasts of flesh and blood and not the ferocious shadow creatures.
It was new to see creatures like them, but many groups trained them to use as weapons.
It was fun, and… my first night in this hell was about to end.