"Are you all right?" Scholar emerged from the smoke and dust.
His Deflection Field had diverted all the debris thrown up by the explosion, but the scorching heat had still injured him, burning one corner of the book in his hand.
The bald mercenary's final self-destruction had not been a built-in function of the exoskeleton.
This kind of close-fitting military exoskeleton had to minimize its overall size while accounting for ammunition capacity. It was already impressive if it could fit an Optical Camouflage module; there was no room left for a dedicated self-destruction device.
But that guy's Thermobaric Round had been far more powerful than expected.
Three Silver Rank powerhouses had still suffered one death and two injuries despite being on guard... Thinking of how the knights, the strongest members of the team, had lost their ability to fight, Scholar suddenly realized that among those remaining, no one seemed capable of resisting him.
He did not need to resort to any underhanded tricks like switching things behind the scenes to bring this piece of Apep's flesh back to the academy.
Then, whether it was the professors who had never given him so much as a glance, or the classmates who threw parties every day but never invited him, they would all see him in a new light.
Most importantly, he could apply for funding, lead a project, and study this piece of flesh.
If he could decipher divine arts from it...
Excited, Scholar raised the book with its scorched corner and summoned a violent gust of wind that dispersed the surrounding smoke and dust.
He saw a woman whose face had been severely burned over more than half of it kneeling before an unconscious knight, raising a purple-black Ritual Dagger. Before she could stab it down, the wind he had summoned knocked her to the ground.
The blood-covered dwarf lay in a small crater at the center of the blast, trying to dismantle something from the shattered exoskeleton.
The Dragonkin, somehow completely unharmed, stood beneath a tree fifty meters away, his right hand resting on the hilt of his blade. He did not move at all, like a lizard basking on a rock.
Scholar ignored the two demi-humans, pointed a finger at the woman, and shouted:
"Stop!"
The woman was pinned down by the gale and could not rise. She was badly injured, and only slowly crawled back up after the wind dissipated.
She did not retrieve the Ritual Dagger lying nearby. Instead, she looked up at Scholar, a sly smile on her severely burned face, and purred in a cloying voice, "Don't rush, sweetheart. You're next."
As she spoke, she stuck out her tongue, revealing intricate inscriptions on its tip.
From more than twenty meters away, Scholar could only see that there was something on the woman's tongue. He thought the ugly woman was about to bring up old business again, but in the next moment, his entire body went numb, and he instantly lost control of it.
A purple-black spider crawled out of his lower abdomen.
The spider was the size of a fist, with eight jointed legs as long as index fingers. They pierced through his lower abdomen and embedded themselves in nodes within his body, controlling his motor nerves and magical source, turning him into a puppet on strings.
Scholar's pupils abruptly contracted. He immediately recalled his romantic encounter in the tent two nights ago and realized that he had walked into a trap.
Only after controlling Scholar did the woman pick up the dagger from the ground. Without any hesitation, she moved swiftly, silently reciting a prayer as she stabbed toward the knight's throat.
"Ghk... ghk..." The unconscious knight instinctively covered his throat with his only remaining arm, but it was utterly useless.
Like a sponge drained of all moisture, he rapidly shriveled up. A vast amount of life force turned into blood-colored mist and flowed through the dagger into the woman's body.
"Ah~~~" The woman moaned, savoring the pleasure brought by the sacrifice.
The burned skin on her face visibly recovered at a rapid pace. Before long, the scabs fell away, revealing tender new skin beneath.
And Scholar could only watch everything in despair.
He watched the woman recover from her severe injuries after sacrificing the first knight, then immediately sacrifice the second unconscious knight, gaining some sort of power from an unknown evil god.
Though he held no hope, Scholar still glanced at the two surviving guides from the corner of his eye while the woman performed the sacrifice.
The dwarf had already removed the exoskeleton's core. With a flick of his wrist, he put it into his Pocket Dimension, then began dismantling the Optical Camouflage module from the exoskeleton.
The Dragonkin remained motionless, like a perfectly lifelike wax statue.
What the hell was wrong with these two?!
Even if they had used that time to steal the evil god's flesh, it would have been better!
If that cultist woman got her hands on the evil god's flesh, who knew what she might do!
After the second knight became a desiccated corpse, the woman rose from the ground and walked lightly to Scholar's side.
Scholar had no time to worry about anyone else.
The woman held the Ritual Dagger in one hand while her other hand traced Scholar's handsome face with long fingers. Leaning close to his ear, she whispered seductively, "How should I deal with you, my little sweetie?"
Even dressed in heavy work clothes, she could not conceal her exquisite curves.
Scholar found that he could speak again. Just as he was about to beg the woman for mercy, he suddenly heard a rhythmic drumming sound.
"Tap... tap-tap... tap-tap... tap-tap-tap-tap!!!"
Faint hoofbeats came from afar. In the next moment, they seemed to suddenly draw closer, and then, in the instant after that—
They arrived abruptly!
He saw a charging centaur instantly appear behind the woman, swinging a long-handled saber as it charged forward at full speed!
Fortunately, the woman reacted quickly and immediately threw herself to the side.
The charging centaur had no time to change direction and could only rush toward Scholar.
Under the spider's control, Scholar could not even close his eyes before death!
He could only watch helplessly as the centaur raised its saber and slashed down, striking the woman's back ten meters away.
Huh?
Scholar smelled urine, but his brain had already overloaded and could not process such complex olfactory information.
He had clearly seen the centaur charge at him, raise its blade, and slash down.
Yet before the blade passed through his head, it suddenly flashed behind the woman, leaving a bloody gash across her back!
After landing one blow, the centaur teleported some distance away, retaining the speed from its charge. It raised its saber and charged at the woman again.
Taking a solid hit instead awakened the woman's ferocity.
Eight sharp spider legs extended from her body, propping her up from the ground as she countercharged the centaur.
The spider legs glimmered with black-violet light. The curses contained within them made even Scholar, who was well versed in such arts, shudder with dread.
This teleporting centaur was merely a Silver Rank monster.
But the curses on those spider legs were gifts bestowed after an Evil God Sacrifice!
As long as it was grazed by one of the spider legs, the battle would end immediately!
The two inhuman monsters crashed together. The centaur, nearly three meters tall, had no possibility of avoiding the spider legs against the woman's suicidal countercharge!
The spider legs successfully pierced the centaur, but the woman's heart sank to the depths.
As though she had collided with a ghost, the centaur passed straight through her body. The two had not made contact at all.
In the next moment, the centaur teleported behind the woman again. Using the lossless change of direction provided by teleportation while retaining its charging speed, it slashed a second time at the woman's back as she lost her balance from the missed attack.
A head filled with astonishment flew out from between eight spider legs harder than steel and rolled across the ground.
Yet the woman's death did not restore Scholar's freedom. He could only continue watching in despair as the Headless Centaur Phantom, its momentum undiminished, used teleportation once more to retain its speed and charge toward the next target awaiting slaughter.
The Dragonkin.