“Later. Now we have the battle to win, 20K Merps to gain, and some scores… hehe!”
Eren laughed cheerfully as he clapped his hands. Steve had never seen Eren so joyful before. Somehow he felt that the joy had nothing to do with the possibility of 20K Merps they might gain.
“For the second and final time: 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… 0! Commence the battle.”
The crows started clapping as the counter hit zero. Both teams started with their frontline fighters.
Eren bolted to the opposing team’s mage without looking at his back. The mage was going to cast spells using the grimoire he was holding in his hand. This school of spells made use of the words, abstract designs, and runes written on a grimoire’s page using the ink imbued in one’s magic.
It would take a long time for things to go correctly in writing a spell’s intended effect down in a grimoire. But once done, it would allow for a quick and effortless spell casting without worrying too much about the mana circuits within one’s body.
There was only one drawback in this school of spells. All the spells were dependent on the grimoire. If one can take the thing away or destroy it from a distance, then the mage of this school would be like a lump of meat on the chopping block.
Eren had seen the opponent’s mage checking their waist and confirming the existence of the book before the start of the match. He had figured out that the guy was going to use a grimoire.
The butcher already knew the weakness that comes with using the grimoire for spell casting. So he already had plans to tackle him first and foremost.
But the enemy team wouldn’t let him have an easy way of dealing with their mage. Its tank raised an earth wall of 10m in one go and secured its mage behind it.
Marla’s advice was ringing in Eren’s head.
‘It’s the close combatant’s job to tear down the enemy defences and attack them head-on.’
He didn’t stop his advance as a result even after seeing a long stretched wall getting raised out of nowhere. Retreating means losing the advance that they had gained. And going around the wall would mean falling into a trap. Because he knew by now the team was ready to tackle him if he approached them from either side of the wall.
‘What about upwards then?’
Eren activated Blitz Steps and stepped fiercely on the vertically stretched wall. He tweaked his movement spell a little to grant a penetration power to his steps and climb the wall. The feet created a straight line of footholds in his path. It slowed down his speed but allowed him to continue his assault in the same direction.
The butcher climbed the wall effortlessly. But it seems that the enemy team member had studied him. They had drawn the possibility of him climbing over the wall to meet them.
So the tank dispelled the spell just at the right moment as Eren climbed it up and changed it into a giant fist manifestation spell.
The surface right beneath Eren’s feet turned into a giant palm before it closed in on him quickly. Everybody saw Eren getting squeezed and trapped inside that fist.
The enemy team was about to celebrate and Eren’s team was about to panic. The match hadn’t even lasted a few seconds and the White Raven Crew had its first casualty.
Nobody had accepted this. The plan was to allow Renita to cover Eren’s path with her long-range spells from behind him. But the guy just rushed to the mage without coordinating with the ranger at all.
“Hehehe! That guy…”
The mage was about to speak when he felt that someone was standing beside him. When he looked at the visage, he was utterly surprised before feeling someone had just twisted his guts by landing a brutal punch on his abdomen.
The mage was going to cast a defence spell but found out that his grimoire was nowhere to be found. It was already taken away from him.
The punch on the abdomen was so strong that it didn’t trigger the gag reflex. Instead, it made him lose his footing and curl up like a freshly caught prawn.
Eren smashed the mage’s head with his feet to make him completely lose consciousness.
‘One down!’
The butcher said to himself and smiled. He was having fun bullying these kids. His BTP was superior to all of them in these two teams. Of course, he’d have an easier time dealing with them individually.
And even with so many advantages stacked together, Eren didn’t like to take risks. There would be no enemy coming back from their slumber after he had taken care of them. If it was a real battle, the butcher would have killed this defenceless mage then and there, only leaving his side after making sure he was gone for good.
He kept the grimoire in his storage. Even if the team has a healer now and they heal him after some time, this mage would practically be useless without his book.
Eren was in enemy territory. The team’s dual berserkers had already gone ahead to engage with his team’s members. That left two more members for Eren to take care of.
He was going to approach the closest person to him and get rid of him. But a round of wind bullets approached the girl standing blankly looking at Eren’s visage.
The butcher looked behind and found that it was Renita. She had followed till here at last. He nodded at her before approaching the enemy tank. He had given the feeble character for Renita to take care of.
The ranger didn’t like to pick on the butcher’s leftover meal. But the team’s benefits came first. So she approached the enemy girl with dual mana guns in her hands.
The enemy girl snapped out of her reverie after she heard the swooshing of bullets going right past her ears. Her class was that of a ninja. She opened a scroll at her disposal and tore it and immediately she was covered in tough, shining snake scales.
The bullets hit her but they couldn’t do much damage. She readied herself for the battle with the enemy team’s approaching ranger. But the butcher wouldn’t know anything about this ninja vs ranger battle. Because he had stopped paying attention to it.
His next target was the enemy’s tank.
‘We face the enemy head-on.’
Marla’s voice was still guiding Eren’s actions.
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AN: Please note that there will be a one-chapter/day release for the next few days as I’ll be travelling for some days. Although I can write while I travel, I don’t want to do that with VEH. Otherwise, that would send invitations to a bunch of errors.