Martial Monk (Part 2)

The short sword on Pei Renli's person was of terrible quality. Not only was it covered in rust, its edge had almost completely lost its sharpness.

But it was metal, no matter how you looked at it. To have someone twist it apart with their bare hand as though kneading dough was a little too outrageous!

Of course, he knew he should run immediately. He also knew that, with his close-combat ability, he would have a hard time dealing with a monk tempered through countless battles. But he simply did not have the time.

As the iron fist closed in, Pei Renli swiftly drew a warped rune with his free left hand.

"Flash!"

The sudden burst of intense light made Anton reflexively close his eyes. It was a creature's instinct, and it could buy them a little time, but Flash was ultimately only the weakest of cantrips. They could not expect it to delay him for long, and that little time was clearly not enough for Pei Renli to flee or wait for Kaya and Koura's support.

"Pyrotechnics!"

Casting through the construction of a spell model was indeed much faster than rune magic. As Pei Renli turned to flee for his life, he saw a cotton ball glowing with faint firelight thrown in his direction. As it drew near, it rapidly billowed out vast clouds of smoke like a smoke bomb.

Eve's magical support had arrived at just the right moment. The instant his vision, obscured by the intense light, cleared up, Anton saw thick smoke all around him—and a figure retreating through it. Without a second thought, he threw a punch.

Pei Renli, too, felt a savage gust of wind bearing down from behind him, blowing away even some of the smoke from Pyrotechnics.

This was no time to care about appearances. Pei Renli recalled a life-saving move his teacher had taught him and immediately rolled across the ground.

The fierce wind and heavy iron fist skimmed past the corner of Pei Renli's cloak. Had his reaction been even slightly slower, the best outcome would have been high-level paralysis.

Naturally, Kaya and Koura had seen the Pyrotechnics as well. They did not foolishly charge into it, instead circling around from the side. They happened to spot Pei Renli rolling out of the smoke, and each grabbed one of his arms, hurriedly pulling him back. They ran a full ten meters before stopping.

Anton did not rush out of the smoke immediately. It was not because he had truly lost his sense of direction, but because he knew that the moment he emerged, he would likely be attacked at once.

After all, while inside the range of Pyrotechnics, he could not see Pei Renli and the other three, nor could they see him. Staying here and waiting for the smoke to disperse was instead the best choice.

Moreover, he was not at all worried about the inconvenience of obscured vision. If Kaya could locate enemies by sound, then a monk like Anton possessed the ability to fight blind.

The ability to continue fighting through sound, perception, smell, and every means other than one's eyes required long-term training to master. Although its perceptive range was not particularly large, it was extremely sensitive. Even with his eyes closed, he could deflect incoming arrows.

Thus, Anton, standing in the smoke, could clearly grasp every movement around him. In his view, those four adventurers ought to be using the smoke to flee as quickly as possible. If they truly did run, Anton had no intention of pursuing them.

After all, he had only accepted payment to come here, set a fire, and destroy the evidence. Whether his employer would be ruined because of it had nothing to do with him.

However, events did not unfold as he had expected. The surroundings had been quiet for less than five seconds, and before the smoke had fully dissipated, his keen senses immediately detected someone charging in from his front-left, a longsword thrusting toward his chest.

As mentioned before, even without sight, Anton's combat ability was not greatly affected. His arms moved with lightning speed. With a crisp smack, Anton, in a state of complete blindness, actually performed a perfect barehanded blade catch, clamping Kaya's sword edge tightly between his palms.

"You arrogant fools, do you think you still have a way out?"

Even though Bull's Strength had not yet worn off, Kaya found it difficult to pull the blade from Anton's palms. It was as though it had been embedded in stone, utterly unmoving no matter how hard she pulled.

Hearing Anton's roar, Kaya snapped back—a rare occurrence for her.

"The arrogant one is you!"

She abruptly released the hand gripping her longsword, her body spinning away like a top. In that instant, the heavy Force Ram manifested behind her, its blunt front end slamming squarely into the sword's hilt.

The name Force Ram made its characteristics abundantly clear: it possessed tremendous impact, capable of smashing open castle gates like a real battering ram!

All of that force struck the hilt, causing the steel sword to lunge forward like a fired cannonball. Anton, who had arrogantly caught the blade barehanded, had no time to evade. With a wet pfft, the sharp sword edge shot into his left chest, its tip nearly piercing through his body, while his massive frame was thrown backward by the impact of Force Ram.

"You people... you...!"

The injury to his lungs caused blood to flood his alveoli, drowning his furious roar in his own blood. He forced himself to rise, but after only a few steps, he slowly collapsed beneath everyone's watchful eyes.

The strength drained from his entire body as though leaking away. As Anton was about to drown in his own blood, his fading vision caught sight of Pei Renli letting out a sigh of relief at him...

Real combat was not won through hot blood alone. One had to fight while working out practical, effective tactics.

The teachers at the Adventurer School had said as much in the very first lesson on practical combat. But saying it was one thing; not many people could truly put the theory into practice.

Against relatively weak opponents, of course, one could simply charge in and crush them. There was no need for tactics. But this time, Anton was clearly stronger than all of Pei Renli's group combined, so they had no choice but to use other methods.

For example, his arrogance.

It had been a gamble. If Anton had not caught the longsword with both hands as Pei Renli had anticipated, Force Ram's finishing blow would not have worked. In that case, Koura, who had been waiting nearby to rush in at any time, would have needed to support them, and the battle would have remained as deadlocked as before, without any improvement.

So in terms of tactics, Pei Renli was still very inexperienced. He needed more real combat experience to grow.

The hastily devised plan had worked, and it truly made him breathe easier.

If they really could not beat him, then he could only find an opportunity to have Lavna secretly come out and lend a hand.

No one dared approach Anton immediately. They remained on guard for nearly a full minute before Kaya finally went over, confirmed that Anton was truly dead, and pulled out the steel sword stained red with blood.

Only then did they finally have time to take a proper look at their surroundings.

As mentioned before, the area they stood in was a man-made circular space, fairly large in size. Torches emitting blue light still hung on the surrounding walls.

Those were torches enchanted with Everlasting Flame. This spell allowed an object to emit cold blue light for a long time. The brightness was somewhat low, but with enough of them, there was still sufficient light to see by.

A large amount of fire oil had also been spread across the soil and rocks beneath their feet. There also seemed to be many blood-like stains that had blended into the earth. Stepping on them felt sticky and slimy.

On the walls to their left and right, they could see doors like those in the previous corridor, each with an opening above and below. There were not many of them, however—only four in total.

Behind Anton hung a dark-blue curtain large enough to cover the entire front wall. No one knew what else might be hidden behind it.

Since Anton had come to set a fire and clean up afterward, any traps, if there were any, had surely been disabled in advance. Within their field of view, they found no path leading deeper inside and saw no other dangers.

Still, to avoid any accidents, they did not split up too far. Instead, they explored the place in pairs while keeping a measured distance from one another.

At first, they had thought this was merely a human trafficking case. They figured that once they caught the thugs doing the dirty work, they could leave the rest to the guards. But now, it seemed things were far from that simple.

Anton was far stronger than all of them. If not for his arrogance and the fact that he had been set up, all four of them might well have been left here.

Anyone capable of ordering someone that powerful to come and clean up the mess could not possibly be a harmless sort.

And since it was called cleanup, that meant there had surely been things they could not take with them when they withdrew. Those things might pose trouble for Pei Renli's group, so setting everything ablaze had been the safest course.

Pei Renli and the others were searching the area precisely to find that evidence.

The most conspicuous thing, of course, was the wide dark-blue curtain behind Anton.

Not knowing what lay behind it, Koura fired an arrow at it from a distance. The arrowhead pierced the curtain with a sharp ding, as if it had struck something hard.

After waiting a moment to make sure they had not triggered any traps, they moved closer. Kaya, who was the strongest and still under the effects of her spell, grabbed one end of the curtain and yanked it down with all her might.

"Isn't this... kind of like a greenhouse?"

As the broad curtain drifted to the floor, Pei Renli could not help saying so. Koura beside him asked in confusion, "What's a greenhouse?"

"A building used to cultivate out-of-season crops, usually made of glass."

Eve provided an explanation at just the right moment. Apparently, this world had the concept of greenhouses too.

"Crops? These strange vines?"

"Not just vines."

Tossing the fallen curtain aside, Kaya pointed at the dark-green vines behind the glass wall.

"It looks like there are some flowers in there that haven't bloomed yet."

There were indeed, though they were not very conspicuous.

The flower buds growing on the vines and behind the leaves were yellowish green, as though they had not fully matured.

Koura and Kaya took a casual look. Neither recognized the plant, so they turned their attention to a door beside the greenhouse, wanting to see whether there were any survivors inside.

Eve, however, furrowed her brow and searched her memories carefully before saying to the peering Pei Renli, "These are Orange Paradise. Once the flowers mature, they turn an extremely vivid orange. Look deeper among the vines—there are still some mature flowers left behind."

Pei Renli moved closer and craned his neck to look inside. Sure enough, he saw what the mature flowers Eve had mentioned looked like.

They looked bottle-shaped, slightly swollen, and their color truly was as bright as an orange.

"This is an extremely dangerous plant. When it senses a living creature approaching, the mature flowers release vast amounts of pollen with powerful hallucinogenic effects. Creatures that fall into the illusion eventually die near Orange Paradise and become its nourishment."

At that, Pei Renli hurriedly backed away two steps. No wonder the thing had been sealed off behind a glass wall like a greenhouse—it really was dangerously deadly!