Chapter 231 - 230: Watch Your Own Life
Seizing the opportunity, one of the Skeleton People thrust its longsword forward.
Gray dodged with exquisite footwork, but in his haste, he failed to notice his surroundings.
Gray’s heel came down on the armored remains left behind by the previous Adventurer Squad.
And then...
His foot slipped. He lost his balance and fell flat on the ground.
A muffled grunt.
Another Skeleton Person seized the opening to bring its sword down, forcing Gray to roll away in a desperate scramble.
CLANG!
The Bone Blade struck where Gray had just been lying, sending stone fragments flying!
Gray knew that he wouldn’t be able to dodge the next blow, no matter what.
BOOM!!!
At that critical moment, the flash of lightning Gray had been praying for tore through the darkness once again!
Valles shattered the skull of one of the Skeleton People that was about to pursue Gray.
Its skeleton immediately clattered to the ground.
But before Gray could even catch his breath, a piercing pain shot through his body.
At the same time Valles had loosed his arrow, another Skeleton Person’s Bone Blade had stabbed into Gray’s thigh.
"Aaaargh!!!"
Gray let out a cry of pain, the muscles around his eyes twitching uncontrollably.
He gritted his teeth, swung his left arm, and slammed it into the Skeleton Person’s forehead, knocking its head aside.
Then, he swung the longsword in his right hand, hacking viciously at its neck!
KRAK!
This time, Gray found his mark.
The longsword cut into bone!
After a difficult, grinding sensation, the sharp edge finally passed through the vertebrae, shattering the Skeleton Person’s spine.
The Soul Fire still burned within the Skeleton Person’s eye sockets, but its head was already spinning through the air before crashing to the ground.
The headless body staggered back twice.
It didn’t clatter into a pile of bones, because its head was merely severed, not destroyed.
The headless body stretched out its hands and groped its way toward the head, wanting to reattach the two.
This gave Gray a chance to breathe.
He immediately pulled a Healing Potion from his clothes, bit the cork off, and then gulped the entire contents down.
For a simple scrape or flesh wound, Gray might have been able to tough it out.
But a wound that pierced clean through his thigh had to be dealt with immediately.
It was already severely hampering his mobility. Blood was still gushing out, and he was suffering from serious blood loss.
In a situation like this, surrounded by powerful enemies, moving slowly was a death sentence.
As soon as the Healing Potion went down his throat, it turned into a warm torrent that flowed toward the injured area.
Gray glanced down.
The gruesome wound on his thigh began to heal rapidly.
The torn flesh and ripped muscle were staunching, squirming, and knitting back together at an incredible speed!
Severed blood vessels reconnected, and the intense pain was replaced by a numb, itching sensation.
’As expected from something worth Five Gold Coins a bottle. This stuff is amazing.’
Gray struggled to his feet. The wound had only just begun to heal, and it was still painful to move.
But he couldn’t worry about that now.
Gray saw the headless Skeleton Person still groping its way forward and lunged at it.
He snatched the skull from the ground and flung it even farther away.
The body that had been searching for its head froze for a moment, then could only stumble off again toward where the head had landed.
"Hah... Go on, take your sweet time finding it..."
Gray muttered, then turned his head back and shouted.
"Valles, where are your arrows? What’s taking you so long...?"
But the words caught in his throat halfway through.
While Gray had been dealing with the previous Skeleton Person, three more had crept up on Valles and launched a surprise attack!
Now, even Valles could no longer attack with ease.
Luckily, his Perception was high enough that he detected the Skeleton People’s sneak attack in advance.
Valles swung his longbow and smashed it against a Skeleton Person’s jaw.
Then he smoothly slung his Longbow Moonlight onto his back, his right hand resting on the hilt of his curved saber.
SHIING! A brilliant silver light flashed as the curved saber left its sheath!
Valles drew his saber with explosive speed, swinging it in a full circle!
Although he was a Ranger and not very skilled with melee weapons, Valles was a Middle Level Professional, after all. He could still imbue his weapon with a bit of Fighting Qi to give it more destructive power!
"Hah!"
The curved saber slashed out, carrying a faint glint of electricity. He wasn’t aiming for a kill, only to injure his foes.
Compared to Gray’s unenhanced, savage hacks, the power of this strike was clearly on another level!
The blade cleanly severed the wrist bones of a Skeleton Person that was swinging its own blade at him.
Valles then sidestepped another Skeleton Person’s vertical chop and followed up with a kick that sent it tumbling.
His curved saber slashed again, meeting the charge of another Skeleton Person that had closed in!
Bone Blade met steel, and Valles shattered his opponent’s weapon in a head-on clash.
At the same time, he executed a perfect backbend, his body nearly parallel to the ground, to dodge the third Skeleton Person’s horizontal slash.
Pushing off the ground with both arms, Valles smoothly completed a back roll, creating distance between himself and the Skeleton People.
The entire sequence of movements was as smooth as flowing water.
After landing steadily, Valles already had his Longbow Moonlight in hand, having grabbed it during the roll.
His gaze was like an eagle’s—seasoned and fierce—as he drew the bowstring into a full moon!
Four shots in rapid succession!
He let loose a volley of arrows imbued with a small amount of Thunder Fighting Qi—WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH! They found their marks, shattering the knee joints of two Skeleton People.
After crippling their mobility, Valles unleashed a Thunder Arrow fully charged with Fighting Qi!
BANG!!!
A blinding flash of lightning!
The Skeleton Person he had kicked over earlier had just scrambled back to its feet when its head met the Thunder Arrow.
Its skull was blown to pieces in a massive explosion.
He had successfully taken down one Skeleton Person.
"Alright..."
Seeing Valles fighting the Skeleton People so intensely, Gray sighed. "I misjudged you."
After temporarily beating back the group of Skeleton People, Valles didn’t forget to pull out a Healing Potion.
He rolled it across the ground to Gray. "You’d better worry about your own hide."
Gray picked up the potion. The moment he turned his head, he was faced with several more Skeleton People holding Bone Blades, charging at him menacingly.
In the distance, the Skeleton Person whose head Gray had kicked away had found its skull.
It snatched it up and placed it back on its neck as if putting on a hat.
At the point of the break, chalky-white bone matter automatically grew, connecting the head to the body.
After a series of KR-CRACK sounds, like bones setting, the Soul Fire in its eye sockets seemed to burn even more fiercely as it stared at Gray.
"So damn persistent..." Cold sweat beaded on Gray’s forehead.
’Valles can’t afford to back me up anymore,’ Gray realized. ’From now on, I have to hold on by myself.’
Gray wiped the blood from his palm on his cloth tunic, took a deep breath, and tightened his grip on his sword hilt.
...
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH...
The sound of a heavy long halberd whistling through the air was endless.
In the main battle, the Bone Centaur’s long halberd was already moving so fast it left afterimages.