Messer was chased by one irregular crystal after another, each shimmering with a mysterious light.
The soul crystals kept sinking into Messer's body from all around him.
A few minutes later,
Messer stood amid the corpses and looked back at him.
"Okay, I've stopped. Now what?"
Ashimi's eyes bulged as he panted. Several years' worth of his loot had just gone up in smoke.
"You're dead, you hear me? I'm going to skin you and break every bone in your body, then eat you piece by piece."
As he spoke, the nearly three-meter-tall man took huge strides and charged toward Messer like a moving wall.
"Messer, I'll beat him up with ghosts." Perona's furious voice rang out. Messer's heart stirred. "Sure, Pepe. Pierce him with Anger Ghosts."
Messer didn't know why he wanted to do that. The other two types, the Negative Ghosts and Conqueror Ghosts, could have ended the fight in an instant.
But—
A small hand emerged from Messer's chest, and a white, translucent Anger Ghost with drooping eyes surged from its palm.
Since Messer wanted to do it this way, she would listen to him.
The ghost doll passed through Ashimi's chest. He felt the rage in his heart erupt like a volcano, and his eyes turned bloodshot.
He roared furiously and charged at Messer, swinging a massive cleaver with no technique whatsoever, yet with tremendous force.
BAM! BAM! BAM!!!
Messer dodged his swings with extraordinary agility. The nearly two-meter-long, heavy cleaver carved furrow after furrow into the deck.
The deck grew pitted and uneven as broken pieces of wood flew everywhere.
Though Messer kept dodging, his axe would occasionally clash with Ashimi's cleaver.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Sparks flew in every direction.
Notches began appearing along the edge of Ashimi's cleaver.
Messer watched him with