4 The Ruby Eye

A drop of tear came out of his left eye as he opened his eyes. He looked towards the sky and took a deep breath. It's a wound hard to heal. But his experience showed its effect. It needed just a moment to calm his mind. His eyes became sharp again, the shield was in the ready position.

The captain quickly scanned around. He was happy to see that Grim was also standing. He didn't put off his guard while moving towards Grim.

He felt something was wrong. Grim was not moving, rather poised like a silver fang whiptail slither, ready to strike at any moment.

The captain slowly inched towards Grim and lightly touche his shoulder. That triggered Grim. As soon as captain taped Grim, he gave a backhand stab to the captain's lower abdomen. But the Captain's title is not for show.

The captain shifted his body little and moved the shield slightly. The dagger could only make light scratching noise on the surface of the shield.

As the captain tried to catch Grim's hand he just vanished.

Grim was known for his speed and agility. Being a shield bearer captain had no way to compete with him in speed.

Captain used [shield charge].

The skill. It was something that helped human to gain a sudden influx of one ability at a price of other. Like [shield charge] could increase skill evoker's speed maintaining his strength in the price of agility and body control. Skill is something that human created to fight against those monstrous elementals and machines. Without this skill no matter how much humans evolve they couldn't hold a candle in front of the other predators of the continent.

The Devaryu Empire was the living proof of the effectiveness of the skills.

Though human evolution enabled them to wield strange power, three-fourths of them were still just enhanced human. And it's those skill which helped them to gain the foothold. Still only 1 out of 5 people could ever learn any skill.

[Shield charge] can be used in a straight line up to 20 meters.

Though Grim wasn't in front of him, the captain still used the skill. The Captain reached around 15 meters away in a flash, lightly tapped on the tree with his shield and turned around putting his back on the tree.

As the captain knew very well that he couldn't compete with Grim in speed, he used the skill to create distance between them and the tree was there to cover his blind side.

Putting his back to the tree he looked around to find Grim. But he couldn't understand why he was fighting with Grim? Can Grim be dreaming like him? Rather than dreaming it's more like he is hallucinating. If that is the case then he has to wake Grim up as soon as possible.

The captain closed his eyes for a moment and opened. It's his innate talent called 'Focus'. A state where his senses upgraded to another level.

As he 'focused' himself, he could vaguely find the position of Grim or could detect his movements. The Captain could only draw a cold breath. He didn't expect that Grim speed was at such a level. Nonetheless, he focused.

He just needed to give Grim one shot. Considering his strength it should be more than enough to wake him. He could sense that Grim was moving towards his back. He was trying to find an opening in the captain's defense.

He could feel the speed of Grim is also increasing with each move. The captain knew perfectly well Grim couldn't use this level of speed for long. Only if he could drag the speed that long then he could have won. Unfortunately for him, he was also reaching his limit. He couldn't keep his heightened state for long. So he has to take the chances.

He closed his eye again while trying to grasp the position of Grim.

Suddenly the Captain felt something and swing his right hand, holding the shield, towards his left which exposed his back.

Though hallucinating, Grim didn't miss such a chance. As soon as the captain moved Grim plunged his dagger. It's made a dang sound, as soon as Grim understood what just happened he thrust again.

But it was too late. Soon a blunt force hit his back. It broke his stance as he stumbled. Before he could move again, the captain used shield charge, which sent him flying. The captain soon jumped on fallen Grim and punched his face twice.

As he felt it was enough to wake Grim up, the captain moved from his chest and sat on the ground panting. He really was at his limit.

It's the effect of his armor and his shield. As a shield bearer, both of this items is his life. Both of the items were his life. So he upgraded them first. Both of them are living armor. They were enchanted by a living beast heart.

He didn't know whether it was an amiable beast heart or chaos beast heart. But it was certainly not a frontier beast one. Those still cost him a fortune.

What made them so valuable was, it can be wielded with the mind. And that was what enabled him to gain the edge over Grim.

He was out of option when fighting Grim, so he used himself as a bait. He intentionally opened his back to Grim while concentrating all the defense of the armour at his back.

He was sure that Grim's strength was nowhere close enough to penetrate his armor. That was what happened.

Whereas he swung his shield to another side of the tree. If he remembered correctly the heart of his shield is from a chaos best called Flail-tailed Armadillo. As he concentrated the middle ball part of his shield turned into flail, which is just a heavy ball attached to his shield with a chain.

It swung around the tree and hit Grim's right rib cage. And that gave him the chance to use shield charge.

He didn't want to give his own teammates such a blow, but he thought it's a lesson he has to give Grim, as a punishment for letting his guard down. Anyway, some broken ribs could easily recover with a sip of recovery portion. He just has to bear with the pain.

If it was any other mission he wouldn't have used such an extreme method, but in case of this, he had to take quick steps. As he always believe it's always the result which matters most, and he succeeded.

The captain suddenly remembered it's Mayumi who was affected first, he has to…

He suddenly felt something plunged into his body by his right rib cage. As he looked down he could see it's a dagger. Grim was holding him.

What he didn't notice before is Grim's eyes were shining like ruby.