Out of Cards

'Fifth kill…'

Leo put his sword back into the sheath filled with poison as stepped through the dangerous field. Every second or so, he would cautiously look at the three men.

Despite the supernatural strength of swords empowered by sword breath, the wielders of these swords were ultimately still humans, a fatal attack was enough to take their life.

However, as the ones holding such powers in their hand, injuring them was impossible if one didn't at least have equal power. For someone like Leo, killing them the normal way would be as tough as climbing Mount Everest in a few hours.

Fortunately for him, the users of sword breath still had a few weaknesses. One such weakness would be ranged weapons such as arrows or javelins that took away sword breath's advantage in close combat. However, unlike such weaknesses that would lose their advantage against sword breath as the user's rank increased, poison was still the most prominent weakness that sword breath users had.

'Even the protagonist almost died from poison…'

Nonetheless, the use of poison was still greatly restricted in the world of 'The Sword Master's Second Life'. It wasn't that a force imposed that restriction, but poison users themselves, the reason for that was very simple. In order to rely on poison to combat sword breath users, one had to be ready to lose his life in the process!

Unless poison that could kill almost instantly upon application was used, poisoning a sword breath user wouldn't guarantee your life. Even having a few more seconds in his life was enough for the sword breath user to take the enemy down with him.

Naturally, Leo knew all of this, which was why he was using a particular blend of poison that was as effective as instant death poison could get. In his situation, he was more than ready to die to his own poison rather than surrender his life to the Fanged Wolves.

Still, in order to survive as much as possible, other than his eyes, Leo as a whole was wrapped in makeshift leather armor. Only then was he bold enough to fill his sheaths in poison, running around a poison field and slashing with swords soaked in poison.

'They are coming.'

However, Leo didn't simply rely on poison. In fact, if there was a factor more vital to his plan other than poison, then it would be the element of surprise!

Having come here with the plan to crush a group of little kids, the Fanged Wolves' team wasn't prepared for anything, just a few simple steps managed to claim the lives of two of them.

The other deaths were quite similar, other than the two unlucky sacrifices, the rest of the men were killed as they were surprised by the tactics that were thrown at them out of nowhere. Unfortunately, that was only the case down to the one who had just died.

Leo's 'field guerilla' tactic was the last card he had to play in the 'confrontation' segment of his plan, he had no more surprises left, and the men were already exchanging looks whose meaning he could predict.

The only thing that he could rely on other than the remaining part of his 'field' was his limited sword skills…

"It seems like our little rat already realizes he is cornered seeing how restless he is getting. You already know what to do, right?"

The scar-faced leader quickly gestured to the last two men, regardless of how smart the two were, they understood that going in alone increased their chances of death. Even the one whose turn was last nodded as he didn't want to bet his life on the success of his colleague.

"Mhm."

The two men quickly marched through the open path, circling around the shack they tried to trace the safe spots that the boy had walked through.

After observing for a few minutes, the two nodded at each other again before sprinting into the field with coordinated movements.

As flexible as the body of a small kid was, it still couldn't beat the speed of the two grown adults, as per their expectations, the body suddenly stopped as if he hit the brakes.

"Heh, do you think we will fall for this trick again?"

Having held back on running with all their force, the pair stopped in safe spots in front of the boy who had drawn out his 'colorful' sword once again.

Expecting this course of action as well, they already drew out their swords once they stopped. However, unlike their predecessor, they didn't stop at that.

A sharp aura rose from their body as a faint halo spread out around their blades, they had gone all out and even used their breath in their fight against the 'helpless' boy.

"The poison on your blade is indeed scary, but how long do you think your sword would last under ours?"

While the pair wished they could just kill the kid to remove the threat of his nasty poison, they knew that their heads would roll if they disobeyed their new boss's order of capture just like their colleague that made an example for them. As such, they only planned to destroy the sword that threatened their lives instead.

Unlike their predecessor who had underestimated the boy's close combat ability, they wanted to deprive him of any means of resistance that could potentially cost them their lives.

Woosh!

"Uhk."

Despite being prepared when the boy slashed at them, the pair quickly took a few careful steps back as the boy's slash didn't go as expected, he had actually stopped the slash mid-way, only using the sword as a medium to splash poison at them!

"You wicked rat!"

Although the pair managed to successfully evade the slash of liquid, they were delayed long enough for the boy to dash away and restore some distance between them.

"Keuk."

"Uck."

"Ewk…"

The grunts of the pair kept sounding out as the boy kept applying his newly conjured 'hit and run' tactic, making the whole chase seem futile.

'Here!'

However, different from what they thought, Leo wasn't doing this out of desperation. Having reached his destination, he stopped even quicker than usual, risking falling into his own trap.

"Hold still!"

Experiencing a mental breakdown thanks to the dozens of close shaves with death, one of the two men couldn't hold back as he tried to directly grab hold of Leo.

'Not yet…'

Trying to seem as calm as possible, Leo felt the second pass like it was an hour, waiting for the correct timing.

'Now!'

Just as the man's hand was above Leo's shoulder, a familiar sound crept into the guy's ear, horror apparent on his face.

Click.

"Gyaak!"

Another scream rang out in the deadly field! However, before it completely faded, what seemed like a resonance of sounds could be heard.

"Gyakk!"