Then, Ned...
"Die!" Three blades, folder ed between his fingers, arced a silvery Crescent Moon through the air. Bannai sneered and struck decisively, but whether it was unintentional or deliberate, his movements, though vicious, were not too fast—at least, far slower than when he fought Karon previously.
In Ned's mind, those past fragments immediately ceased. A faint bitter smile touched his lips, and he suddenly felt a little annoyed. It seemed that death indeed granted some extra time before its arrival, but it would never exceed a length sufficient for one to die in peace.
"Forget it, I'm already tired anyway, so be it..."
No longer dwelling on anything, the man who had farmed, done odd jobs, served as a mercenary, and for the past few years had been a Marshall Autonomous Army squad leader until now, spread his arms, ready to embrace death.
But the shy Lady Death did not immediately favor him...
A soft sound came from his side. Realizing he was still breathing, Ned opened his eyes, just in time to see Krab's dirty, large face grinning foolishly at him.
The dark-skinned Orc was half-crouching in front of Ned, his right hand behind his back. The short-handled battle-axe he had just replaced two days prior had three shallow scratches on it, having blocked the half-moon silver blade that could have sliced through Ned's neck and ripped open his chest.
"Captain." Krab smacked his lips. "Doesn't this mean you owe me one?"
"You!" Ned's eyes were slightly red, but his face was livid. He angrily roared, "Get out! This has nothing to do with you now!"
Krab remained silent, while Bannai, on the other hand, was incredibly pleased. He lightly stomped his foot, and a sharp blade suddenly sprang from the front of his left leather boot. Without a word, he delivered a side-kick directly at Ned's temple, his movements still appearing somewhat unhurried...
The outcome was as expected!
A dark-blue figure descended from nowhere, colliding leg-to-leg with Bannai, and while using the momentum to retreat, pulled Ned behind him.
"Salazar!" Ned gritted his teeth, looking at the Lizardmen Monk in front of him, who was half a head taller than an average Elf. His voice trembled slightly. "Why did you also..."
Salazar, his back to Ned, did not turn around. He merely watched Bannai, who was laughing in the distance, with vigilance. He raised his hand, extended a thumb towards Ned, pointed it at him, then at himself, and then extended an index finger.
It was a simple gesture. Ned, who often enjoyed teaching his squad members mercenary gestures to show off, naturally understood its meaning...
"You owe me one~"
Today, however, Salazar was the one showing off!
"Well done, little Lizardmen!" Bannai chuckled, casually flicking the silver blades between his fingers towards the three people in front. "Try this one~"
However, these three arcs of light had barely flown half a meter before they were directly knocked away by three arrows that abruptly appeared from another direction. Yinna, half-crouching on the ground in the distance, still held her bow in the drawn position. She winked at Ned and the others. "You can't hog all the glory! Captain, you owe me one too. How about you take me on a date later?"
"Haha!" Krab burst out laughing. "She said it, she said it! Yinna, you finally said it!"
Salazar, however, looked at the big guy next to him with some surprise. "You also knew she had a crush on the Captain?"
"Tsk tsk, though I'm a bit slow, I'm not stupid!" Krab teasingly glanced at Ned behind him, then shifted his gaze to Bannai, and declared in a deep voice, "I might not understand reason, and my mind might not be flexible, but... who likes whom in the squad, who's a hypocrite, and who's good to me—I still know those things!"
"You shut up!"
"Who are you calling a hypocrite?!"
Yinna and Salazar shouted simultaneously.
"Bastards!" Ned fiercely pushed at his two companions blocking him, but his injuries prevented him from exerting force. He could only angrily scold the unmoving Orc and Lizardmen, "I order you to leave immediately!"
Bannai did not continue his attack; he merely stood there with his arms crossed, watching the show.
And the two, who were usually obedient no matter how much of a nuisance they were, had no intention of obeying their Captain's orders this time...
Salazar completely ignored him.
Krab, however, pouted and mumbled back, "Ned, boss, you're a traitor now, so you definitely can't be Captain anymore. So it should be fine if I don't follow orders, right?"
"Yinna!" Ned shook his head, gritting his teeth as he called out to the Elf girl in the distance, who was drawing arrows with her backhand. "You quickly persuade..."
"Don't dream." Yinna shrugged, but then turned to Shuang Ye and Mo Tan, who had been silent, and smiled, "You two new recruits, who joined less than two days ago, hurry and leave~ Consider it a favor to us, and preserve the Fenrir's roster."
She knew, of course, that Fenrir's roster definitely couldn't be preserved. One must know that betrayal and desertion were absolute taboos at any time, and what's more, Ned, who was confirmed as a spy, was the Captain. Yinna said this only to give Mo Tan and Shuang Ye an excuse to leave voluntarily without feeling guilty.
As for herself...
"From your human perspective," Yinna smiled slightly, "I've lived for almost three lifetimes, so even if I die here, it's not a loss~"
Although from an Elf's perspective, she was only just coming of age...
But Yinna did not dwell on those thoughts.
Mo Tan said nothing, merely operating his brain at full capacity, trying to find a way for everyone to escape unscathed.
And Shuang Ye...
"Okay!" She actually nodded immediately, put her hands behind her back, and smiled at Bannai, "I should be able to leave, right? Like this Elf said, I'm just a new recruit. I only joined Fenrir Squad a few days ago. You shouldn't stop me, right?"
Bannai raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised, but finally smiled. "Alright, if you want to distance yourself from them, that's perfectly fine. Go wait at the temporary outpost."
Mo Tan was slightly startled, then looked at Shuang Ye with some disbelief...
"Is she really thinking that? If I were her... No, if I were in a chaotic neutral state..."
"Uh, sorry, I'm a bit disoriented." Shuang Ye scratched her hair, pointing south. "Is the temporary outpost over there?"
Bannai rolled his eyes.
"No, no, she should..."
"No~" Shuang Ye shook her head, quite troubled, then pointed in the direction behind Bannai. "Then it's this way?"
The latter impatiently shook his head, "Are you an idiot? The camp is at..."
Boom!!!
Red light burst forth!
Two massive crimson five-pointed stars simultaneously appeared in front of Shuang Ye and behind Bannai. With a blinding flash, a surge of crimson light erupted almost directly behind Bannai, a pillar of light shooting straight into the sky, instantly engulfing him completely!
"They're just a bunch of AIs..." Shuang Ye glared fiercely at Yinna and the others, muttering, "And they want to order this young lady around! Humph!"
In her hand, which had just pointed at Ned, a small red scroll was slowly dissipating into wisps of ash.
"Magic Scroll: Crimson Five-Star Overlapping Great Red Lotus"
"Category: One-time consumable"
"Quality: Excellent (?)"
"Requirements/Restrictions: Must have Mage profession, Intelligence 15, sufficiently wild imagination"
"Usage: Consumes 200 mana to activate the scroll, simultaneously creating an elemental magic circle in front of oneself and in a designated direction within sight. The caster must activate the nine mana cores of the overlapping magic circle with mana, after which the corresponding primary spell will erupt in a flash of fire element, dealing a large amount of fire damage to all units within a linear range."
"Note: This scroll was hidden in a secluded corner. The seal on it does not seem to be a conventional fire spell, but rather a magic derived from arranging elements in a very unconventional order. It cannot be explained by knowledge or experimentation, nor can it be copied or duplicated by any means. The signature at the bottom of the scroll is: MDZZ. The archmage who first discovered it evidently could not understand this never-before-seen script, and thus, without seeing the usage instructions, discarded it as a prank by some apprentice."
"What are you looking at!" Shuang Ye, seeing everyone staring at her in horror, couldn't help but exclaim, her face slightly red, "Run quickly! That attack of mine might not have killed him! And there's only one such scroll!!"
As mentioned before, Shuang Ye had obtained some magic scrolls from the Dieyan City Mage Guild. Most of these were given to her by her cheap mentor, but one of them was found by Shuang Ye herself in a corner—the 【Crimson Five-Star Overlapping Great Red Lotus】 magic scroll. Unlike NPCs, as a player, Shuang Ye could see the item description, so she unceremoniously kept it.
She never expected to actually use it this time...
However, this scroll, which claimed to cause 'a large amount' of fire damage, might not directly kill Bannai, as his strength was completely beyond what the group could currently handle. So, even if she successfully ambushed him, Shuang Ye still wasn't confident. She felt that Bannai was very likely to survive, and might not even be too seriously injured!
Unfortunately... she guessed correctly!
Just as everyone was preparing to turn and flee back to Fire Claw Territory under Shuang Ye's instruction, Bannai's figure reappeared in the six people's line of sight.
"Very good, very good." Bannai, who appeared completely unharmed, lightly clapped his hands and smiled at the six people, "Very touching, very good. Now I have ample reason to kill all of you."
In fact, he had intended to do so from the beginning. If Bannai had seriously wanted to kill Ned, then Krab, who had intervened, would absolutely not have been able to stop him, and the same went for Salazar and Yinna.
His three attacks, each using less than one-tenth of his strength and deliberately slowed down, were only meant to lure the others into action, all to create the current situation...
But Bannai misjudged one thing!
Shuang Ye!
He might have anticipated that the girl wasn't truly planning to stay out of it, but he never expected that the recent attack would be so terrifying; the spell activated by that scroll almost took his life!!
Yes, he almost went cold... well, almost got charred. Although he looked completely unharmed, only Bannai himself knew what he had just lost...
Of course, it wasn't something worthless like dignity. In fact, he had shattered a very important magical item, one that he had prepared for emergencies during his fight with Karon!
Let's take a look at the magical item Bannai just shattered from another perspective~
"Living Shadow Amulet"
"Category: One-time consumable"
"Quality: Epic"
"Requirements/Restrictions: None"
"Passive Effect: Generates a shadow with all vital signs, blocking one attack that would kill you, rendering it ineffective."
"Note: This dark purple amulet has a leaf symbol of unknown meaning."
Anyone could tell from the simple and clear description above just how useful this item was. It could basically be summarized in two words—'death immunity'!
For players, this kind of item was practically a second life, and for NPCs, its preciousness only increased, as they didn't have the concept of character reset and revival.
Speaking of which, if Cordova had had such an item back then...
Well, it probably would have been used up before he even warmed up to it.
In short, this item, with its heaven-defying effect, was actually directly used up by the power of that magic scroll just now. This shows that the item description was definitely problematic; something that could instantly kill Bannai could not have been merely 'a large amount of fire damage'.
In fact, it could indeed be said that...
The description of the 【Crimson Five-Star Overlapping Great Red Lotus】 magic scroll was not wrong; it just had some effects that weren't written down.
For example—100% critical hit effect, applies 'Elemental Dissolution' status to the target hit, ignores any defensive attributes and skills of the opponent, extremely high chance to trigger 'Combustion' effect, extremely high chance to trigger 'Fission' effect, etc...
So, it was not unreasonable for Bannai's life-saving amulet to shatter. Without that item, even seven or eight of him piled together might have been instantly killed.
As long as this thing hit solidly, even a giant dragon could potentially be cooked to nine-tenths doneness...
Ultimately, this was never meant to exist in this world.
Shuang Ye using it at this moment might also be fate...
But Bannai didn't know what he had just faced, because he felt nothing when the shadow took the damage for him. So, this somewhat abnormal Ace Assassin was very angry now...
"Don't worry~" he said coldly, "I won't let you escape too soon..."
No time!
Ned knew that whatever he said now would be too late, so he immediately roared at everyone, "Go!"
With that, he charged out first. He knew that if he didn't run, the others wouldn't leave either...
Then...
A spray of warm blood drenched him.
Ned stiffly turned his head...
In the terrified gaze of everyone, Krab, who had just tried to turn and block Bannai, was slowly collapsing to the ground. At least a dozen fatal wounds had simultaneously appeared on his sturdy body. Blood gushed from him like a waterfall, staining the sky, the ground, and everyone...
"Oh~ I take back what I said earlier. It's good to get rid of one first~~"
Chapter 58: The End