Tricks

For bottom-tier adventurers like the Stinky Fish Rotten Shrimp squad, one could often judge a person's strength just by looking at them.

A man who looked thin and frail would, in most cases, not possess much actual combat power.

Likewise, if your opponent was a Barbarian whose entire body was packed with muscles as hard and massive as boulders, then they clearly possessed strength befitting their physique.

An adult Bear Goblin stood around seven feet tall—roughly 2.2 meters.

Combined with its hulking body, packed with powerful muscles and thick fat like a Brown Bear's, it looked from afar like a small mountain of flesh.

Compared to it, although Ga Gu possessed a faint Orc bloodline, he was only slightly taller and larger than an ordinary adult human.

Even after activating the bloodline within him and entering a combat state, he could barely reach the Bear Goblin's shoulder.

Standing together, the difference between them was practically that of an adult and a child.

Their actual combat abilities differed even more drastically.

Earlier, Xia Nan had been entirely focused on fighting the Goblins and had no time to spare for his surroundings.

Therefore, he had no idea what had happened on the other side of the battlefield during those twenty-odd seconds.

All he saw was the scene before him.

Compared to when they had been ambushed last night, Ga Gu was very clean. There was some mud and dust on him, but almost no blood.

He was also very quiet.

There were no Orcish slurs of unknown meaning, nor any deafening roars of rage.

Of course, this was not because the Half-Orc had suddenly learned human etiquette.

It was because, at that moment, he had lost the ability to speak.

Broken, pale bone fragments pierced through flesh and jutted out from his abdomen.

At the center of his chest was a deeply caved-in hole.

His eyes had rolled white, his mouth hung open unconsciously, and blood-streaked foam dripped from the corners of his lips.

Like a broken toy, Ga Gu was held upside down by the Bear Goblin, which gripped one of his ankles.

The dark Morningstar covered in iron spikes was poised in the cold air beside them.

For some reason, the sight suddenly reminded Xia Nan of an ancient night watchman striking a gong in the dead of night.

The next second, the Morningstar vanished from where it was, and the gong rang.

Splat—boom!

Along with the shriek of a hard object cutting through the air came a strange sound, like an egg cracking—hard shell and viscous fluid mingling together.

The Half-Orc's body swung like a pendulum.

A patch of red-and-white slime now coated the hammer's face, and Ga Gu lost the ability to make a sound in the most literal sense.

"Thud."

The headless corpse was casually tossed onto the ground. Blood surged out like a fountain, gradually forming a pool beneath it.

"Dieeeee!"

The instant Xia Nan witnessed the Half-Orc being completely smashed to pieces by the Bear Goblin, a hoarse, furious roar carrying a faint trace of hope rang out beside him.

Though Ga Gu had died miserably, he had ultimately completed his task of buying time.

The bowstring was drawn taut, and the bow bent so far it seemed on the verge of snapping.

Maji tightly pinched an iron arrow with a metallic gleam between his fingers, its faintly purple arrowhead aimed directly at the Bear Goblin's head.

[Precise Strike]

One of the prerequisites for becoming a Ranger.

It was also the only offensive combat skill Maji had mastered throughout his decades as an adventurer.

In higher-level battles, the primary effect of this move was naturally the precise targeting of an attack's point of impact.

But for a bottom-tier adventurer like Maji, even the "minor" increase in power it provided—minor in the eyes of high-level professionals—was enough to handle most situations.

Even against a Bear Goblin known as a "newbie killer," he held great expectations.

If this arrow could pass straight through its eye socket and enter its skull, it could kill the Bear Goblin outright;

if it struck its cranium, the force carried by the arrow would be enough to leave the Bear Goblin critically wounded and on the verge of death, allowing him to finish it off;

even in the worst-case scenario, if he missed, the nature of [Precise Strike] would ensure that it left a wound on the enemy.

At that point, the Metal Arrowhead he had spent a great many Gold Coins to custom-make, his trump card, would come into play.

The Horned Snake Venom smeared across the arrowhead's surface could rapidly paralyze the Bear Goblin's body in a short time, drastically reducing its speed and slowing its reactions.

Then, whether he chose to press the attack or turn and flee, the choice would be his.

A flurry of thoughts flashed through his mind.

Maji held his breath, aimed at the enemy's vital point, and gently released his pinched fingers.

Whoosh—

The sound of air splitting came from before him. The impact of the rebounding bowstring left his fingers and forearm numb and trembling.

The moment the arrow flew, decades of experience in the wilderness told him:

"This shot is a sure thing."

Under extreme pressure, the Hunter performed at his very best, nearly every movement executed with perfect form.

A few strands of white hair at his temples swayed gently in the breeze stirred by the arrow's flight.

Maji was utterly confident. He could almost hear the dull sound of the arrowhead piercing through the eye socket and boring into the skull, hear the Bear Goblin's agonized scream cut abruptly short.

But then, the appearance of a brown-red glow shattered all his fantasies like waking from a dream.

As though it had sensed the fatal blow about to strike the Bear Goblin, a translucent red-glowing barrier appeared out of nowhere in the air before it.

Its substance was neither light nor gas. It seemed to be some kind of free-floating energy temporarily condensed into an unstable Brown-Red Force Field.

The iron arrow, carrying all the Hunter's strength, merely grazed it before being deflected by the brown-red energy.

Its force did not diminish, but the target of its arrowhead shifted from the Bear Goblin's head to the wall behind it.

Whoosh—bang!

The metal arrow shaft easily pierced through the mud-and-stone wall inside the Cave, leaving behind only the violently trembling fletching and the Hunter's pale, despairing face.

"How... how is that possible!?" Maji's bloodless lips trembled, his body shaking in panic. "My arrow..."

Facing the Hunter Maji, who had already revealed his final trump card, the Bear Goblin spoke for the first time since appearing before them.

"Your little tricks. Magic."

Its gravelly, rough voice echoed faintly through the Cave. Its halting Common Tongue made it impossible to understand what it meant.

But at this moment, what the Bear Goblin had said no longer mattered.

Because in the next second, its savage shadow, brimming with the aura of death, had already arrived before Maji and engulfed him.