Before The Battle

Sia kept advancing deeper within the horde while slashing Corrupted left and right. Nothing that got near her path was spared from the quick death.

With each kill, her power was increasing at a slow but steady rate. Every strike made the next one become faster, stronger, and deadlier.

Of course, this didn't mean that her stamina and essences weren't getting drained away from their tanks.

Although her pool was larger than most of her peers, it was gradually losing bits and pieces of itself.

And despite killing so many abominations, the horde was still coming in without any sign of slowing down.

It was as if the monsters beyond the wall were endless.

At some point, Sia was going to lose all her stamina — an inevitable outcome if this kept prolonging.

Sia pushed down a goblin-like monster on the ground, and smashed its head with her shoes.

For a second, she thought she saw something moving under the goblin's skin.

'We can sense the leader's aura...but it's quite strong. It may take a while to kill it.' She stared at the distance from where the leader's aura was emanating from.

The horde's leader had considerable strength, which would prove to be a troublesome opponent for her to fight against one on one.

Not to mention that it might try to call other Corrupted to assist it in the battle.

[If he was here then maybe...] Sia said as her voice slowly trailed off, thinking about the figure who was also fighting out there.

[What? Miss me already? Can't say that I'm not touched by the sentiment.] A familiar male voice sounded out from behind her which made her body freeze for a second.

Before she managed to turn her head around, two large arms wrapped themselves around her small body and one slightly burned hand cupped her cheek.

The action made her unable to look at the man behind and could only focus her gaze forward.

Sia however, could still sense the condition of the man while staying in his warm embrace.

[Y-you...] She spoke with a shaking voice as she felt her heart in her mouth.

[I'm fine.]

[B-but...]

[It's fine. I'm still right here aren't I?] Achilles said in a low voice while shoving his face on the side of her snow-white neck, sucking in a deep breath.

[What matters is that we need to end this.] He said slowly as multiple Corrupted started approaching them.

The silvery-white hair elf nodded in understanding, but then she asked in a worried and caring tone:

[...Are you sure you're ok though? If you're too exhausted then we ca-]

[I can't let you do all the hardwork now, can't I?] Achilles answered with a warm feeling overwhelming his heart.

[...What happened to you?] Sia asked worriedly after a bit of hesitation.

His memory traced back to the fight between the three Corrupted while still enjoying Sia's sweet lily fragrance, uncaring about the impending horde of monsters.

Deep in his mind, Achilles had already declared the little succubus as his, so he had no qualms about doing such intimate action with Sia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Achilles stared at the three Corrupted while slowly advancing forward. Each step of his reverberated across the space loudly and sent shivers down the three abominations' spines.

Even though Corrupted were dumber than a pig, they were still capable of sensing fear and danger.

And right now their instincts were begging for them to run away!

But it seemed that these beasts refused to believe that they would lose against a tiny human, especially when two of them were higher in rank and they outnumbered him.

""""GARGGGGHHH!!!"""

The monsters roared madly as they began forming multiple small-scale essences bombs in their mouth, creating a fluctuation in their essences.

Achilles immediately began running in a circle around them as the bombs started firing in his direction.

Although the firepower was incomparable to prior, the fire rate increased significantly which meant that — All it would take was just a round of bullets before Achilles turns into bacon.

'Argh! My body still burns a lot!' His face winced up as the pain in his body intensified.

However, he gritted his teeth and continued running circles around them without letting out a pained cry.

He had suffered wounds much worse than this. Compared to all those pain and heartbreaks he had accumulated throughout his short but long life, the current level of injuries did not worth for him to yield at all!

As Achilles kept circling around these morons while gradually closing his distance, the Corrupted stopped firing bombs and changed their attack pattern.

Two of them charged up at him while the other stayed behind, which made him raise an eyebrow in puzzlement:

'A tactic? No...more like two of them have lost patience. The last one seems to be a little wiser...'

'Is the last one a mutated amongst its kind?'

A few Corrupted who were more special than their kind may encounter a mutation — A phenomenon that would lead to them acquiring particular characteristics that their species never possessed before.

It might be increased senses, strength, intelligence, et cetera...Anything one could imagine.

This event could possibly happen to Divine as well albeit slightly rarer. An instance of this was the little elf — Sia herself who gained the elf and succubus' characteristics.

Achilles watched as the two creatures approached him, but he didn't particularly care about them much. There was something else bugging his mind:

'Why did this thing suddenly appears to get smarter? Did it just mutate right then?'

Whatever it was, he needed to prioritize killing it first! Otherwise, the consequences may be dire.