Rising Frustration

Continuation of Arial having a showdown versus the mysterious attacker:

Holding in my breath and withstanding the pain from my legs cramping… I was ready.

[LEAP ACTIVATED]

In ridiculous speed, I sprung towards the Skinwalker.

"BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs; his arm was going straight towards my chest, but then his face blanked out as shadows pierced him all over the body.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

I exchanged places with a nearby shadow—immediately glanced towards him.

Did it work? Stared in apprehension.

My eye flinched and instantly, I thought to myself, what am I doing?

[LEAP ACTIVATED]

Subsequently, I materialized two shadow blades—no time to wait for any results, I need to attack again before the possibility of him recovering even begins crossing the realm of outcomes.

I leaped upwards—the shadow exchange from earlier teleported me to the ground, so I had to fly up on top of the roof to have him in my view again.

As my eyes began having him enter my field of vision, he was already standing and moving his hand straight at my chest yet again—his eyes were wide and rather chilling; I was flying up at an immense speed, yet he was prepared and trying to stab me at the perfect timing of me entering his range.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED — STANDBY MODE]

Scary.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

Teleported to his shadow—his head instantly began turning—he already knew I'm behind him. I grinned maniacally—I won.

From both sides, my blades cut his neck—everything felt in slow motion.

Beheaded; his head flew up with shadow particles coming out in place of any blood.

"Now, surely you're not getting up, right?"

His head dropped on the roof and started rolling down. Slowly, both his body and head started burning up—most monsters don't undergo any process upon death, so this was a peculiar reaction towards it that had me fascinated.

Standing on the roof and glaring at his body, from the bottom I heard a faint voice—chills ran down my spine without a second passing by.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED — STANDBY MODE]

"Killing… me… mistake…"

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

I teleported to the head without embracing the waste of any time.

"...Kowareta… now… knows…"

"...about…"

[SHADOW DISMEMBERMENT ACTIVATED]

Pointed my finger at it. "Don't care," I quietly whispered—the head instantly went silent upon the shadow spikes cutting it all over.

Began looking up and considering my next moves.

[LEAP ACTIVATED]

Ignored the physical pain as if it's not even there. Shadow exchange takes too much MANA; I'd rather use a common spell for now, this whole fiasco is a bit too dangerous to waste unnecessary MANA—that creature was above the System's monster-difficulty scale.

Got on top of the roof; his body had burnt up completely by then.

[MANA AURA ACTIVATED]

Closed my eyes.

For roughly half a minute, I scavenged through dozens of MANAs trying to detect Ella—neither she nor Xter or Dantes were showing up; my frustration levels were rapidly rising.

Furthermore, I couldn't spot that creature earlier—if there's more of them out there, they're probably smart enough to conceal their presence.

[LEAP ACTIVATED]

Sprung across a massive section of the town yet again.

When we first got to this town, none of them were attacking us—what's the difference now? Why are they targeting us—or I guess, me?

Did the creature that attacked me create the teleportation incident? Knowing how strong it was, it's pretty much guaranteed that it can perform powerful spells as well.

"Kowareta…"

[MANA AURA ACTIVATED]

Come on…

Then while trying to focus on finding her, from behind I felt two presences walking up to me—skinwalkers yet again were trying to ambush me.

"I really have no time for you, fuckers," I voiced in overflowing levels of frustration.

[LEAP ACTIVATED]

Got behind both of them—both of their heads flew to the sky; used my raw hands to decapitate them this time—no time to be pulling out any blades.

They somehow managed to get on top of the building, though—the skinwalker range of being a threat really is all over the place, these creatures are dangerously uncanny.

Closed my eyes yet again and began focusing.

Then just two seconds later…

…my eyes opened wide...

...found her!!

Took a deep breath and turned towards the direction I detected her.

[LEAP ACTIVATED]

My legs were sore and I could barely feel them at this point; this situation was genuinely driving me over the edge. What I value the most in life is having peace mentally, so being put in an ordeal like this is the worst—I wish to quickly finish this without exerting myself further to any extent whatsoever.

[HEAL ACTIVATED]

In the matter of seconds, I got on top of the building she was in.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED — STANDBY MODE]

Detected her before even landing on the building—knew the exact shadow to exchange with to get to her the most efficiently.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

Got inside the exact room she was in.

Instantly, unwillingly, out of pure instinct, took an even bigger breath—my heart sank and I got to her in the speed of it appearing like a teleportation.

[SHADOW HEAL ACTIVATED]

"Come on, Ella…"

[MANA TRANSFER ACTIVATED]

"You're still breathing… you got this, right?"

[BLOOD EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

"Don't die on me…"

[COMA ACTIVATED]

My skin went pale and I got on my knee—I gave her a massive amount of my blood, and then induced a coma on her. This should prevent her state from worsening for now, but she still needs to be urgently treated by an actual, high-level healer or else she'll inevitably die.

"Ella…"

She had no limbs—arms and legs completely gone—a bloody mess barely breathing.

Poor girl.

[HEAL ACTIVATED]

[MENTAL CLARITY ACTIVATED]

Activated the two spells on myself.

Mental clarity caused the cogs in my brain to spin towards rather intrusive conclusions—I started considering things that I shouldn't put on the table of entertainment.

Frustration and anger tangibly were getting to me.

I put my hand on Ella.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

Got on the roof and immediately four more skinwalkers jumped up.

"Couldn't you idiots attack me earlier instead? What's with this timing?" I stated void of any emotions in the lines of mercy.

Yet again, took a massive, deep breath—frustration was rising.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

Decapitated the first one—his skin was tough, and as my hand was slicing through his neck, his mouth went into the motion of trying to bite me.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

Second one cut like butter—his head started spinning relentlessly in the air.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

Third one instantly jumped backwards—bewilderment was on its face—I leaped towards it and stabbed its heart, then had my hand move towards his neck while still inside of him. Manually took off his head with my hand.

[SHADOW EXCHANGE ACTIVATED]

"What are you trying to do, you filthy monkey," I coldly stated while he was next to Ella—he wasn't even trying to bite her, he straight up tried to kill her; the intelligence of these creatures seems to depend on their strength, so a strong one is likely to be a proper lifeform.

Instead of slicing his head off, I simply slapped it using my palm which led to his head coming right off and flying straight to a nearby building.

To think this dirty little demon would attempt to spite me by trying to *just* kill her instead of biting her.

Proceeded to spit on its burning-up body.

"Need to find those two as fast as possible…"

"This Town needs a squad of high-ranking Players to handle, not a bunch of children."

Wasted way too much MANA on them, though... can't let frustration get to me like that again.