Chapter 60 - Jose

"Depending on how long her flag was laid in that point, we might not have enough time to take it… Though I doubt it's been more than a minute…!" Jose thought to himself as he fought against Firan's overwhelming physical prowess. He skillfully weaved through her strikes and retaliates with slashes using Emilia. However, her scales are just too tough and he wasn't really able to deal much slashing damage against her.

"What do I do…?" Jose rack his brains while fighting, add to that that because of Firan's Giant blood, she can increase her size or a specific body part's size at will and back down, further complicating his approach to this battle.

"I can predict her movement, but it doesn't account for her resizing… This is hard…"

Even whilst he was stressed out, his face says otherwise as he continued hacking away.

Firan hopped back as she blew a massive fireball towards him. Its intense heat prompted Jose to raise his right palm and absorbed the fire. To be exact, he merely absorbed its thermal energy which significantly diminishes the fire, leading to it dispersing.

"What…!' Firan exclaimed internally.

He opened left his palm towards the opponent and as the circle on his left palm lit up, dozens of ball-sized rocks shot out at dangerous speeds.

"Shit!" Firan grew her arm to be larger and placed it in front of her to block the projectiles and released her scales into the air which she could shed and regrew at will.

To Jose who can see these microscopic scales, he was worried. "I must stop her from releasing so much more!"

He threw Emilia forward and dashed.

As if they've rehearsed it many times, Emilia once again transformed into a humanoid form and despite her lack of definitive martial arts technique, she clearly compensates for it with superior stats.

Not wanting to be tag-teamed once again with no chance at fighting back, Firan increased the size of her entire body, her previous 1.8 meters height suddenly shot up to be 7 meters in height.

Emilia curiously asked out loud as Firan was growing, "How is her clothes still intact?!"

To which the latter answered promptly with annoyance, "They're magical, of course! The dwarves enchant our clothes!" She stomped on the ground intending to crush them both but they managed to hop away, instead simply kicking up dust as it formed a crater.

"Tsk!" Emilia clicked her tongue as she landed with Jose. "How do we get past her defenses? My strikes can't do much against her scales…"

"I'm still figuring it out… I too don't know what to do… I've never fought much before…"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah…"

"But you're way too good at it…"

"Let's focus please."

"Oh…"

During their stand-off while running out of time, Firan took the initiative with a step forward. However, before they managed to continue once again, a subtle, yet powerful mana wave—that's produced whenever mana is being conjured-was felt in all directions. Its strength and size was very distinct, prompting the three of them to look in its direction as they froze in their places as if their legs turned into jelly. It terrified all of them that Firan even unconsciously stopped the shedding of her scales.

Firan broke out into cold sweat as she witnessed the spacial tears all around in the distance. She and Emilia could see the scenery that turned red but only Jose could see the full extent of the horrors via the diagonal line on his left eye, greatly enhancing his vision and seeing the sole individual standing amongst the sea of blood and dismembered body parts.

"What… happened there…?" Jose was getting nervous, "Wasn't that one of my allies?"

"Are the climbers there dead? How could that be? They're protected by the Moderator…" Emilia audibly whispered beside Jose.

While the three of them was frozen in fear, they've heard someone's dissatisfied voice. "Oh? What's taking so long?" Alchemie arrived while atop a gigantic humanoid golem's shoulder.

While it was visibly massive, it was still dwarfed by Firan's own size. His eyes surveyed the battlefield but was fixated on the point which bears the enemy's flag, never heeding much attention on the others present.

"I thought Samurai could handle it by himself... Guess I have to cut him some slack." From his Inventory, Alchimie pushed out a massive boulder which the golem he's on promptly picked up after it landed with a thud.

"Oh, wow… Three against one? This is unfair…" Firan smirked, despite her sentiment, her spirit of a warrior's was unwavering.

"My friend over there is dealing with more than all of our mights combined, yet he's doing fine. He's just getting stalled at this point, so we have to do our parts."

"Oh yeah? I'd like to see it for myself then!" Firan rushed forward, each of her step made the earth trembled yet Alchimie was calm.

The golem swung the boulder forward forcefully with its long arms as Firan neared them and as she blocked it, she felt its heavy impact knocking off her scales off her arms, managing to finally deal damage to her though not by a lot.

Firan grit her teeth as she blew a massive fireball towards Alchimie who's riding the golem yet the latter simply reshaped the Golem's head to be a spherical dome to protect him on its shoulder.

Taking the chance, Jose sneaked up on Firan whilst Emilia was in her sword form. Not wanting to waste the time that the former spends on regrowing her scales, he swung down towards her neck, hoping to try to damage it since Jose had reinforced Emilia's sharpness with his mana.

Firan quickly raised her hand to block it, making their effort unsuccessful as it bounced off. "Still not enough…?!" Jose exclaimed.

However, thanks to their distraction, several smaller golems managed to arrive and they began tackling her legs, striking it repeatedly to weaken her footing.

"Tsk!" She started flapping her wings and began taking off, however, the bigger golem grabbed her by the ankle and slammed her hard back to the ground.

Bam—!

The force was enough to knock the scales off of her back as she spat blood, which Jose notices. "A chance!"

However, despite the massive spot which he could exploit and attack, he was nervous due to the large amounts of scales currently in the air. They are scattered so it is unnoticeable for the others yet, but if they were clumped together, they could form a solid boulder.

"Careful around her scales! She could make them explode at any moment!"

Knowing they've already spent a few minutes being stalled by Firan, Jose dashed towards the point as soon as he touched the ground.

He summoned the flag in his hand and stabbed it in the soil, prompting the enemy's flag to disintegrate. "There…" He turned around to look at Firan but as soon as he did, a massive explosion took place followed by a massive shockwave which compresses and decompresses the area around the explosion.

Boom—!

"Mister!" He shouted as he beared the scalding heat and shockwave ripping through his organs. His clothes and skin began melting away and felt as if his organs were getting gripped tightly by an unseen hand. Despite this, he never once let go of Emilia and poured his strength onto his grip.

…

At the same time on the other side of the trial site.

Boom—!

Yuuki's eyes were taken away from battle and towards the rising pillar of flame from the distance. Even after killing DokuNeko, Tokyo Tokyo was still persistent alongside the remaining few Ashura members. Furthermore, Kiera, who's formerly set her username as Loli-sama69, had finally joined the fight.

"I thought I just need to be stalled by these two?" Yuuki asked as he swung his katana downwards which is then blocked by Kiera's large two-handed shield. She was wearing a full-plate armor and a helmet which covers the entirety of her head, only providing a small gap for vision. Since because their opponent was the legendary ranked 1st player, she couldn't be lax when it comes to defences.

"Well, someone's taking care of the point, you see…"

"You guys are gonna lose." Yuuki taunted.

"Really?!" Kiera smiled underneath her headgear as she pushed Yuuki away, throwing him off balance, giving Tokyo Tokyo the chance to shoot him by the shoulder.

Bang—!

"Shit… I'm running out of health!" Yuuki exclaimed as blood gushed out from his shoulder, further adding blood stain on his equipment.

Yuuki then used his fifth form.

Zzt—! Kiera was prepared to catch his speed and had already swapped her shield for a hammer but Yuuki simply blitz past her without attacking. He began escaping towards the source of the explosion as Kiera, Tokyo Tokyo, and the remaining players chased after him, throwing out projectiles as he did so.

"Those poisons really fucked up my health and stamina, shit!"

His previous max health which was already close to 3,000 was now driven to a few hundred all because of DokuNeko's poisons. Although the other high-tier players never really landed any direct hit on him, they do deal chip damage on him for some attacks that grazes him and the knockbacks he had to suffer, especially from Tokyo Tokyo, who managed to deal a number of shots on his vital areas and now Kiera who's a pain for him to deal with.

He continued his stride forward as he was basically already dragging himself at most due to having tanked his stamina at this point, and although it would recover soon enough, the endless barrage of projectiles are not giving him a break, add to that that he's constantly in motion, eating through his stamina as soon as he recovers them.