Keep your head cool

"!!!"

"!!!"

The conversation between Doyen and Norn had to wait as both turned to the side in perfect sync and froze up.

Away in the distance, two silhouettes were standing over the body of the dead monstrous archer.

More accurately, one was standing, the other one was kneeling by the corpse, weiling in despair.

"If I die and you survive, it will be better for all of you to not know my actual name. Haste."

"...!"

Norn clearly changed his mind about coming clean and instead reapplied the buff on himself, making Doyen stare at him in disbelief.

"You see it too, right? Both of them are at a higher level than the archer, and it would be wishful thinking to believe that he was the only one with freakish powers. Get the hell away from here."

"If you are who I think you are, then… you know what? Fine."

The platinum-haired man scoffed, taking out a couple of arrows from the quiver and placing the first one on the bowstring while gripping onto the others to which the green-haired woman shook her head.

"I can't give you any head start. You must try to excape now while they don't pay attention. Sorry."

Norn said apologetically, steadying his aim, already full focused on his target so he didn't even notice that Doyen wasn't waiting for any additional parting words and was already ordering her subordinates to leave everything behind and scatter.

"..."

Waiting anymore would be a waste of the element of surprise, and Norn wasn't a wasteful person - he bit his teeth and steeled himself…

Six arrows were shot in succession at such ridiculous speed that all of them were in the air at the same time, even before reaching the halfway point.

They weren't targeting the same target. Four were shot at the person standing, taking into account their ducking and dodging, and the two were aimed at the mourning individual.

*ting* *ting* *ting* *ting* *ting* *ting*

"...!"

And all were struck down by the one standing person who took out a sword and parried every single one of the enchanted projectiles…!

They turned their head and maybe said something to their comrade kneeling over a corpse.

Whether they got an answer or not, it didn't seem to matter as the next moment, the swordsman kicked off the ground and charged at Norn with a speed equal to or even exceeding that of arrows they knocked away.

"Shit! One-handed single-edged Bone sword!"

Norn cursed, reaching to the quiver for the two last arrows and aiming them at the one opponent kneeling by the corpse before tossing the bow away and retrieving something more appropriate for the close range…

*ting* *ting*

In a showcase of excellent swordsmanship, the approaching opponent knocked both arrows aimed at their comrade out of the air without as much as sparing them a glance and winded up their sword for an upward strike.

At the same moment that Norn could say that the enemy was a grim-faced middle-aged man with steel-gray hair tied up in a short ponytail, he could also tell that the light gathering around the edge of the blade he wielded was a sign of a ranged skill activating.

It was either Advanced level Shockwave skill or, worse, Master-level Aura Strike…

*SQUELCH*

…and with the steel-gray-haired swordsman's sword arm beginning to swell to the point of his skin bursting apart and spouting blood, it wasn't difficult to assume that what was about to be displayed was on the level of the caravan-eradicating shot of the already dead archer.

"!!!"

To make matters even worse, the one kneeling by the corpse stood up, taking something blue from within their clothes and putting it up high above their head.

*WHOO-BLUB*

The blue item shone with a cold light, and the sky above the stouty woman turned into water.

Let's clarify one thing about that sentence.

It wasn't just some water bubble or a massive cube.

The SKY above her turned into water.

If the swordsman's attack wouldn't kill the platinum-haired man, the watery grave follow-up would do the job.

It was o…

*STAB*

…ver…?

"Hhgh…!"

The stouty woman coughed up a mouthful of blood.

But unlike her teammates, what was happening to her wasn't caused by going over the limits of her physical body.

"...?"

As she turned her head to the right, she saw an eerie black blade with the tip slick with her blood.

"...hhgh…"

As she turned her head to the left and lowered it a little, coughing more blood, she saw more of the blade protruding straight from the jet-black shadow that crept its way toward her all the way from deep within the forest.

Of course, the blade wasn't just nicking her, the stouty woman has been skewered from the side, with her left hand, waist, torso and right shoulder pierced through.

She couldn't even lower the hand she was holding a blue orb over her head with.

*SPLASH*

"!!!"

All the water that the orb created cascaded down, and the created wave smashed against the back of the swordsman, sweeping him off his feet and ending up ramming into Norn, who was too slow to attempt to escape.

The impact of the outpour was rather devastating. Tens of hundreds of trees and other vegetation were brutally uprooted, creating a new, city-sized clearing in the forest.

As for the black sword and the woman skewered by it?

The sword was still there, but the woman's body wasn't - first pushed through the blade and sliced open and then crushed into a bloody pulp by the water pressure - a pulp that then got washed away by the current.

Suddenly, the enormous sword moved…!

It emerged from the ground, revealing the crossguard and the handle gripped by a gigantic hand clad in oxidized black armor.

The hand was followed by an equally gigantic forearm, elbow, arm, shoulder, and then…

"Glacier Head…?"

"No Head, only the Core…"

"Not Head, but still must have get it…!"

Three half-rotten frost-covered human-sized heads, looking disproportionally tiny on the massive shoulders, all speaking in turn as if having a conversation…!

Well, one male human head, one female half-elf head, and one male wolf beastman head, to be specific, all steaming from and crammed into a stumpy neck oozing with greenish-black blood or some other viscous liquid.

The abomination then emerged from the shadow completely.

Three rotting heads on the armor-clad torso of a giant fused into the back of the body of a truly humongous horse that originally must have been headless too.

Originally, was the key phrase because, at the moment, the almost completely rotten head of a Shadow Stalking Ripper Panther was showing its teeth in a skinless grin.

The abominable creature shaped like a horse-mounted-knight, equipped with a jet-black sword and a carriage-sized shield, was taller than the surrounding trees that survived the onslaught of water.

"The core was used…"

"The human used it…"

"We killed the human, must find the core…"

The heads spoke again, although their jaws flapping wasn't quite matching the words that were coming out and seemed more similar to movements of puppets moved by unskilled puppeteers during their first show.

"Must find…"

"Love… I love you…"

"I love you… More…"

The rotting head of the beastman spoke up but got interrupted by the sudden confession and reciprocation between the rotting half-elf head and the rotting human head.

"Core… Have to find the core…"

"Core…"

"Glacier Core…"

The beastman's head scoffed and declared, which seemed to work as the other two groaned in agreement.

"Where is it…?"

"Human dropped it…"

"Not here… other humans might have taken it…"

"..."

The three heads looked around while mumbling to each other, and even the almost completely rotten head of the Shadow Stalking Ripper Panther began to move in search of the blue orb.

"I'm scared...! Scared...! The tree is in danger...!"

"Shh... everything is okay..."

"The core...!"

The half-elf head rattled in sudden panic, and the human head reassured it while the beastman head growled at both of them.

"There were other humans…"

"Humans, not here…?"

"They are hiding…? They ran away…? Took the core...?"

*plop*

The heads focused back on their original goal and expressed their belief while the lower jaw of the Shadow Stalking Ripper Panther head fell off as the skin, muscles, and tendons holding it attached to the rest of the head dissolved in their own juices.