Chapter 89 : : A Mutant

Tanya tightened her grip on the sword as she stared into Kale's eyes, earlier she was able to strike before Kale, it wasn't luck or quick thinking.

It was the lack of information that led to her actions.

If a hunter is asked to hunt a boar and a tiger from the same forest, the time they would take to prepare for the hunt of a tiger would be considerably more than the time taken for the boar.

The more powerful the target is, the more preparation and planning is needed.

At first, both Kale and Tanya had almost no information on each other, but the incident when Tanya used her Gift, threw her one step backwards.

Because of that, Kale became more careful, on other hand, Tanya had the same mindset for him as before. Normally, a sneak attack on a target who has more information on the attacker would be dangerous but fortunately for Tanya, her timing carried a stroke of a fluke.

Else, it was hard to say if she could even put a scratch on him with her current battle experience, Tanya did have experience from her past life, but unlike Kale, she wasn't a big shot in a martial world.

The adventurers and assassins surrounding Kale had a different look on their faces, even Ajin and Ryenne were stunned.

Kale was staring at Tanya with a faint smirk on his lips but he was giving quick commands to others, using their surprise delay to his advantage {Listen you little shrimps, we are in the worst situation according to the plan. You make one mistake and we can all die here.

Now, listen carefully, 60 seconds, it is the average time the old man would take to strike or complete the negotiation with Ajin and take us down. In these 60 seconds, our only hope of survival is getting that girl. Ajin will likely get into a hesitative argument with the assassin group leader, for now, Fynn and Ela, you two will attack Ryenne without holding back anything, remember they too are probably hiding their strength so use whatever means possible to end the battle quickly.

Xaxa and Zalie you cover me from these hindering idiots as much as you can, as long as I get the girl in 60 seconds we can reverse the situation, act now and take them by surprise,}

The moment he finished speaking, Xaxa swung her iron club in anger at the person nearest to her "Dieeee!!"

It was hard to tell if her anger was directed at the man or Kale but the power behind the strike was enough to deal damage beyond the armour and broke the man's ribs.

Her shout made everyone jolt and return to reality. Only Ajin, the puppets and Kale's team weren't stunned by the situation.

Elza didn't look towards Xaxa, she took long strides and threw her long sword at Ryenne.

Ryenne was slow to react as her physique wasn't that of a Martial Artist but even Mages have their own way, her robe glowed in white light and a half-transparent mana shield covered her body.

The sword thrown at her got deflected to the side, Ryenne was about to take a breath when she saw Elza's eyes, hands and legs going through a shocking change. Elza raised her claw and slashed at the shield, followed by Fynn who finally took out his two blades, he used the left sword to slash at a Tier 2 adventurer near him while left to strike at the mana shield protecting Ryenne.

The shield protected Ryenne from the attack, however, she was still thrown behind due to the force behind the combined attack of both of them, the shield didn't break but still got thinned, the advantages of the shield was that it could withstand a sustainable amount of damage, can be activated instantly, and the disadvantage of the shield was that Ryenne could not use any spell from the inside.

At the same time on the other side, Kale raised his hand towards Tanya and attacked.

'Stone Shot + Stone Blast'

A conical spear tip like stone formed in midair and was shot at her.

Tanya reacted, Kale wasn't at Ethereal mastery level in any of the two spells so she still got time to react, but instead of dodging she placed her free hand on the blade of her sword.

The stone was shot at her, just when it was close enough Kale made it explode.

..Boomm...

The stone got split into several sharp pieces targeting everyone around in close range.

By this time, everyone got into motion, trying to find the right opportunity to attack.

Kale only wanted to injure her not kill, for such a case, making the stone blast was a better choice, it was also meant to probe her.

When the stone exploded, it also produced a dust cloud blocking the vising around for a few seconds, Kale's ear slightly twitched 'No sound of scream but metal clashing? Did she deflect all fragment? Hmm, no, how can someone who doesn't even possess Sword Intent or even solid sword skills do that, if she had them, she wouldn't be idiotic enough to not use them during her sneak attack, would she?'

While thinking, Kale took a step back and twisted his body to the right, an arrow was passing through the place he was standing, he reached out his hand and struck it from the side.

'Snake King Killing Series: Tail Swipe'

It looked like Kale just casually slapped the arrow from the back of his fingers coated in Battle Qi, but then, the arrow changed its direction slightly, heading toward another approaching person wielding a sabre, without losing its momentum.

The man noticed the incoming arrow, his eyes got wide in shock, but it was too late for him to retreat.

...Swoosh...

The arrow struck his thigh, his balance broke, and because he was running towards Kale, he was now falling in front of him.

Before his hands could touch the ground, the man saw a black thread floating in the air, he only felt a little itch around his neck during his last breath.

The man released his sabre as he fell to the ground clutching his neck. The pressured blood coming out of the wound died his hands red.

Kale flickered his fingers, an almost unnoticeable thread coming out of his sleeve became visible due to the tiny blood drops around its other free end.

'Arcane Thread Controlling Art'

"What is that??" The man wielding the bow shouted, it was the one who shot the arrow earlier.

Kale didn't even bother to look at him, his focus was on the dust cloud settling down and the silhouette that dashed out at him.

Kale frowned, he saw Tanya running at him, what surprised him was her left arm and shoulder, the fleshy arm was now carrying metallic texture, it looked like it was made of metal. She wielded her sword in her right hand while the left hand had now turned into metal. A moment was all it took for him to guess the reason behind him 'A mutant?'

"Die!!" Tanya shouted as she slashed at him with the sword.

Kale had no change in his expression, he spun the bone knife in his hand raising it to meet the sword, seeing him using a dagger made Tanya more confident, at the same time Kale jolted his hand and two knives slid between his fingers of his injured hand "Little girl, let me show you, what the word skill means,"

Slip!

The knife touched the edge of the sword blade but there was no sound, under Kale's control, it slid down along the edge. Tanya wanted to use force to break it but the situation didn't allow her to, while sliding the knife Kale took a step and got closer. Tanya was decisive, she released the sword and punched with her metallic hand, Kale looked at the incoming punch, instead of dodging, he kicked her right ankle resulting in her punching the air.

At the same time, Kale executed ‹Falling Meteor Blade: Third Fall›, he instantly made several slashes at once, coupled with Knife Intent, all slashes were clean, smooth and at the same time untraceable, the people watching felt like it was an artist showing his art.

Tanya knew it was bad the second she missed, that's why she was already leaping back, but the time it took for her to do so was enough for Kale to slash several times then kick her metallic shoulder, throwing her off balance.

Kale did a round kick to throw her off balance, followed by a turn, he threw the two knives at left without looking.

'Wind Chasing Knives - Second Style - Untraceable Wind'

Because of the way of throwing, both the knife started spinning at a very high speed once they were thrown, resulting in wind slicing sound as they made their way towards their target.

The two knives, closing into each other, headed towards the man wielding a spear standing near the left of the archer who shot the arrow earlier. The spearman was the leader of the main adventurer group, he was there in the name of protecting the archer but in truth, he didn't want to go earlier to fight and was waiting until the targets were exhausted enough.

Due to his strength being high enough among Tier 2, and his status as the strongest team leader among them, no one argued with his choice.

"Damn, why me?" The spearman saw the knives heading towards him and reacted. He raised the spear, Battle Qi gushed out his body and covered it, the man skillfully spun the spear in his hands, ready to block the knives.

The people around him were taken by surprise, still, the ones who knew him were confident in him stopping the sneak attack because although he was just Tier 2, he was an experienced middle-aged man who had lived a long life.

The spearman too thought the same, but just when the two knives were close enough, due to their angle, the right knife clashed into the left one, instantly changing its trajectory by a large angle, and due to the knives spinning at high speed, once they clashed the first knife got a boost as it shot toward the archer.

...Pu Chi...

Before the archer could react, the blade of the knife got stuck in the area between his neck and shoulder.

"Ahhhhhhh"

Blood spurted out as the archer screamed in pain.

"Shit," The spearman got out of his shock and approached the archer, he quickly pulled out the blade that dug in his neck and tried to stop the bleeding with his hand.

The spearman showed hesitation for a second then took out a Tier 2 Health Potion from his pocket and forcibly emptied it in the archer's mouth.

Adventurers with the Martial Archer subclass were not that common in such a place, that's why the spearman was willing to use a precious potion to save him.

The wound was lethal not because it was deep but it was on the neck, still, the potion showed its effect and the wound started to heal at visible speed, the spearman was about to relax but then he noticed that the archer wasn't screaming or even moving, although the life presence was there, the archer looked like he was paralyzed.

"Poison?" The spearman realised as he turned to look at Kale with eyes filled with anger "This little..."

The spearman stopped midway through the sentence, he then looked at the tank and hunter of his team, he took a deep breath, and tightened his grip on the spear, he then stood up and shouted "This is different from what was promised, they are not only strong, they are killing us without hesitation,"

Everyone had the same thought, they were just hesitating to say, once they saw him speaking, they also chimed in.

"I agree, we are dying like cannon fodders," The hunter of the team followed his suit.

"You are right, even if we get the loot of Boss Room, once divided, it doesn't worth the price, we are paying for it," A mage standing at the backside said.

"Yes it doesn't worth us dyi- " Another man was saying but one of the people near him, stabbed his heart with a dagger from behind.

"What- puff," The man opened his mouth to speak but spurted out blood, he fell to the ground staring at the man who stabbed him and died.

The man who killed him took out his dagger and coldly looked at the people around, he was one of the assassins hiding in the group "We are in this together now, if you leave now, then our leader will be more than willing to later chase you down and kill,"

His words made the people who were thinking of retreating halt their thoughts, no one of them wanted to make an enemy of Tier 4, especially when he was leading the group that included two Tier 3.