Battle

The ogre saw the two "little bugs" making a move to "run away," so it let out a roar and charged after them with great strides.

Punk and Kane quickly led the ogre to around two hundred meters away from the little donkey. The man-eating ogre never even considered the option of giving up on Punk and the others to go bother the donkey.

The ogre rushed over with its huge wooden club, still stained with the blood of some unknown animal, raised high. A savage grin had already spread across its scarred face, and drool dripped from its blackish-yellow fangs.

"Damn, that evil look on this thing's face is so fucking disgusting!"

After cursing once, Kane channeled his Battle Qi into his lance. He circled the ogre clockwise at a speed comparable to a race car, dodging its massive club while closing in.

A great amount of Light Battle Qi gathered at the tip of his lance. The flickering golden radiance made the entire weapon look as though it had been cast from pure gold. As a warrior, Kane could only unleash his full strength in close combat.

Meanwhile, bolstered by Lesser Haste, Punk circled the ogre counterclockwise at a speed no slower than Kane's, while staying as far away from it as possible. As a spellcaster, range was the best guarantee for safe damage output.

The stupid ogre was temporarily unable to decide whom to attack because the two were maneuvering in opposite directions, one near and one far—should it first eat the cheese tart that had delivered itself to its doorstep for a snack, or keep chasing that maple cake darting around in the distance?

Unable to choose, the ogre stopped its charge in a bout of "indecision."

"Hah!"

Kane seized the opportunity. Battle Qi gathered beneath his feet, and with a thunderous shout, he launched his combat technique—Charge. A violent sonic boom burst through the air as Kane shot toward the ogre like a bullet. A ring of shockwaves flattened the grass within two meters of where he had stood, while a one-meter-wide crater formed beneath his feet and clumps of dirt sprayed everywhere. Even his pupils had been dyed gold by the Battle Qi. His lance, condensed with Light Battle Qi and trailing a conical blast of air, stabbed fiercely toward the ogre's heart.

The ogre had never expected the little human before it to launch an attack. The strike, which had nearly turned into a streak of golden light, far exceeded its reaction speed. Still, its instinct for danger forced it to twist aside, sparing its heart from being pierced.

Kane's lance tore a bowl-sized wound into the ogre's side. Blood gushed out in torrents, dyeing Kane's armor bright red.

Driven mad by pain, the ogre howled wildly and swiped its claws at Kane. But the moment Kane saw that the ogre had not fallen, he kicked hard against its crimson skin, yanked out his lance, and rapidly retreated. In that split second, the ogre's claws nearly brushed Kane's breastplate. In the end, only its black middle fingernail left a scorching scratch across the silver armor.

The serious injury did not frighten the ogre. Instead, the blood completely ignited its ferocity. It raised its howl by another octave as it viciously smashed its club down at Kane. Though the wound in its abdomen was severe enough to reveal its writhing organs, the torn arteries had already stopped bleeding. The muscles around the wound tightly sealed the blood vessels. Excessive blood loss simply did not exist in an ogre's dictionary!

Just as the ogre raised its club high to bring it down, Punk's spell arrived.

Apprentice Level conjuration spell—Lesser Stun. As a curse-type spell, its effect ignored distance and struck instantly. The only way to evade it was to predict the mage's casting and avoid it beforehand, but such an "advanced" skill was clearly beyond the ogre's pitiful brain.

Aether Energy transformed into a mass of chaotic mental force and slammed violently into the ogre's mind. The enraged ogre was obviously completely defenseless against a mental attack. Struck by the spell, it swayed like a drunk, unable to tell east from west, and its huge club swept harmlessly past Kane's head.

Good opportunity! Kane rejoiced inwardly. He used the combat technique—Charge—again, this time pouring in even more Battle Qi to increase his speed, determined to kill it in a single blow.

"Roar!" Still stunned, the ogre failed to avoid the fatal thrust. Its heart was completely shattered by Kane's lance, and a mass of heart fragments mixed with blood burst out through the hole in its back, nearly soaking a large patch of grass in flesh and gore.

Yet the ogre, despite suffering a fatal blow, showed no sign of weakness. With a roar filled with despair and fury, every muscle in its body swelled as though inflated. Its body grew much larger, earthworm-like veins bulged across its crimson skin, and its eyeballs became covered in bloodshot veins. The stunned state was almost instantly dispelled!

It did not roar again. After exhaling a heavy breath of scorching air, it swung its club at Kane at nearly three times its previous speed.

"Holy shit, that's absurd! This ogre can berserk too?!"

Having just used the same trick to leap into the air, Kane cursed loudly while raising his shield before himself and hiding as much of his body behind it as possible. As vast amounts of Battle Qi poured frantically into the shield, its brightness was no less dazzling than Mira, the sun in the sky.

This time, it was impossible for Kane to dodge an attack that had become three times faster. Gathering Battle Qi to block it head-on was his only choice while suspended in midair with nowhere to brace himself.

The airflow carried by the club seemed to flow along its grain as it smashed down on Kane's shield at a speed fast enough to leave afterimages.

The blinding golden light on Kane's shield immediately dimmed. A visible shockwave erupted from the point where the club struck the shield. From afar, Punk heard only a dull boom, like a giant pile driver slamming into granite, reverberate across the entire grassland. Kane, meanwhile, was sent flying nearly a hundred meters with a howl, at twice the speed of his Charge. He bounced off the ground three times like a skipping stone before finally coming to a stop in a crater blasted out by the impact.

The ogre no longer paid attention to the Kane it had sent flying. It charged toward Punk, each step leaving behind a crater!

If someone asked when a beast was at its strongest, a hunter's answer would certainly be—when it was cornered.

The ogre's wounded heart meant that it was undoubtedly doomed. Its unbelievable vitality was entirely the result of desperately berserking. The moment the berserk state ended would be the moment it died, so the ogre now had only one goal—to take its enemies down with it!

But Punk's magic was already prepared. This was the most destructive Apprentice Level conjuration spell Punk currently knew—Lesser Damage. Of course, it was a curse-type spell. Standing far away, Punk had no desire to test the strength of his Minor Mage Armor against the berserk ogre's club.

Punk looked at the gray, mist-like sphere floating in his hand. Blade-like energies that radiated a chilling aura continuously formed and vanished within it. Simply looking at those energies gave one the illusion that they would cut one's eyes!

Punk calmly watched the ogre, whose entire body radiated waves of heat. With a gentle reach of his hand, the gray sphere instantly vanished...

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