Afuara lifted his body from the ground and looked at Chrysos with an intense glare in his eyes.
"You aren't a normal alchemist aren't you? Who sent you here?" Afuara was already suspicious why an alchemist just so happened to kill the jaguar, but he assumed that the jaguar was killed using a trap or something. But now that Chrysos was able to defeat him to the point where he couldn't even use Divinium made him believe that Chrysos is no ordinary alchemist.
Chrysos shrugged. "Would you believe me if I said that I only accepted a quest from the adventurer's guild?"
"Bull$#/+! The jaguar is a Provectis ranked creature and you say that you had the confidence to face it yourself?! Tell the truth! You knew that we were going to be here, that's why you appeared!"
Chrysos turned off the Divinium cloak and didn't bother answering. He walked towards the corrupted one's camp to grab Angelfeather. Afuara wasn't surprised that Chrysos was actually a heroic one. It only confirmed the theories in his heart.
Seeing that Chrysos turned around, Afuara stood up and charged forward with his arms covering his face.
Chrysos turned around and caught Afuara's right arm with his left arm and used his right arm to send a front jab towards Afuara's face.
Afuara's body bent back because of the punch, and Chrysos took this opportunity and used his right leg to sweep Afuara's legs, making him fall over as Chrysos tightened his grip on Afuara's left arm.
Since Chrysos was still grabbing his arm, he stepped on Afuara's chest and pulled on his arm, making him growl in pain.
Afuara, not willing to give up, grabbed Chrysos' leg to try and break free. Chrysos stomped his right leg as it's being grabbed and got out of Afuara's grip.
After his leg was free, Chrysos used his left leg and kicked Afuara's face, knocking him unconscious.
Chrysos saw Afuara faint, so he tossed his arm away and grabbed his sword.
The Triumioxiline was already dissipating so the seven corrupted ones were starting to regain control over their bodies.
Chrysos didn't let this happen and made them drink Divinium plundering potions. Of course, this includes Afuara. He then tied them up together for good measure.
He sat down and breathed out turbid air. "Ah… that was a good fight.." He turned his head and saw the corrupted ones suddenly figuring out that they were tied up.
One corrupted one glared at Chrysos and shouted, "Hey! Let me go here! You don't know who you're dealing with!"
Another one shouted at him as well.
"If I get out of this I'll skin you alive!"
Chrysos was irritated by their screaming, so he walked over to the one who shouted the most and used Angelfeather to cut his palm.
Shwick!
"Ahh!" The corrupted one's palm bled out.
Chrysos ignored his whining and scooped out a small portion of Umioxiline-C and splashed it on his palm. The Umioxiline-C mixture quickly entered his bloodstream, essentially paralyzing him for about a day. If it was directly swallowed, there's a risk of permanent nerve damage and a guaranteed 2 week paralysis effect.
The other corrupted ones swallowed their words after seeing one of them fall limp after being drenched by the Umioxiline-C mixture.
Chrysos didn't hesitate and went to another corrupted one.
The corrupted one panicked and squirmed around as he tried to talk some sense with Chrysos. "Wait, wait, wait! You don't have to- Agh!"
Chrysos slit his palm and poured boiling Umioxiline-C into his palms.
The others resisted, but without the ability to use Divinium or move efficiently, they were all subdued one by one.
Now lastly, it was Filisak's turn.
He looked at Chrysos without any fear in his eyes. He didn't shout, he didn't resist, he just sat there and watched silently.
Chrysos looked into his eyes as if he was trying to think of something.
"..."
After a long and suffocating silence, Chrysos decided not to poison him. But he did grab a weightlessness potion.
He grabbed a syringe and poured the weightlessness potion inside before injecting it into Filisak's body. Filisak showed no expression of being in pain and barely reacted to the needle.
Chrysos injected the potion into the other corrupted ones as well. After all that was done, he grabbed the jaguar's corpse and walked away from them.
Filisak saw what direction Chrysos left from and couldn't help but wonder what he was doing.
It wasn't long after he saw Chrysos again, but the jaguar was nowhere to be seen. This confused him a lot.
But then again, he didn't plan on questioning Chrysos to begin with.
..
Chrysos spoke through the telepathic connection and said, "Meiros, how is it on your side? Anything suspicious?"
Because of the distance, Meiros' voice was slightly distorted. "I investigated the area like you told me to. I found nobody else besides the eight of them."
"Good. You can return now. I'm assuming you can track me through the telepathic connection, am I right?" Chrysos used one arm to carry the eight corrupted ones on his shoulder.
"Yes, I can sense the general direction." Meiros confirmed Chrysos' thoughts.
"I'll wait for you then." Chrysos looked around and saw that besides the camp, everything was terribly ravaged. He sighed and looted the area while Meiros was going back.
…
Three minutes later…
Meiros hopped out from the trees and carried himself using telekinesis.
Chrysos saw this and was surprised. "You can fly using telepathy now?"
Meiros smiled and said, "I can do this by using my Divinium to use the ground as a base to carry me up. So if I go any higher, I need to expend more Divinium."
Chrysos praised his ingenuity. "So it works like an arm made of psychic energy?"
Meiros nodded. "It's far from truly flying, but it's a start." Meiros floated down and scanned the area with the eyeball one last time.
"You adapted quite fast with that thing." Chrysos saw how Meiros was using the eyeball without any trouble which made him unable to dislike Meiros' mental state.
"Master, I'm a psychic." Meiros laughed and removed the eyeball from his head.
However, this laughter stopped when he saw seven glowing swamp fireflies in his peripheral vision.
0.01 seconds, "What the? Glowing swamp fireflies? What are they doing here?"
0.02 seconds, "Hold on, they usually live in mounds together with other fireflies, but they aren't colonial insects."
0.04 seconds, "For them to fly away in this direction with so many of them, something must've destroyed their mound."
0.08 seconds, "As for the number of fireflies, the damage to the mound is substantial. Meaning, there's something heavy enough to destroy them to make them fly over here."
After 0.1 seconds, Meiros reacted quickly and put on the eyeball in his forehead and used the Farsight spell to look back where the fireflies came from.
And what he saw sent a cold chill down his spine..
"Master! Five assassins at top speed are approaching!" Meiros saw five heat signatures and with the speed that they're moving at, he deduced that they might be assassins because of their natural cloaking ability.
Chrysos reacted quickly and tossed him a bottle containing a weightlessness potion. "Get on my shoulder, I'm going to run with my top speed." Chrysos immediately drank three Divinium recovery potions.
Because of the sudden large dose of Divinium recovery potions, it parched his throat a little bit.
Meiros got on Chrysos' shoulder and the moment that he did, Chrysos activated "Swiftness" and "Steel Rage" to run as fast as he could.
Zoom!
Chrysos' first step created a small shockwave as he took off.
..
Heraen, an Iretoir ranked assassin noticed Chrysos' movements and said, "It seems that he has noticed us."
"Hmph, keep chasing. I'm sure that we can chase a mere alchemist." Another assassin named Eflor replied.
…
Meiros used the eyeball once more and saw that the distance between them was slowly shrinking.
"Master, we can't go on like this! They're going to catch up in around fifty seconds!" Meiros panicked.
Chrysos calmly replied. "Remember your Hundred Thorns Of Alpetine?"
Meiros realized what Chrysos was trying to say and gave it a shot.
Literally.
Meiros used the heat vision eyeball and coordinated with his normal eyes to track the assassins. He looked at the assassin in the far right and activated the spell.
Fwoom…
A large magic circle appeared behind Meiros that manifested large thorns next to him. Meiros shot out a few thorns towards the assassin.
..
Lediun noticed Meiros shoot the thorns at him which surprised him quite a bit. He was currently cloaked and he's supposed to be invisible, so how did Meiros see him?
He didn't have time to think about nonsense things so he used the wide but short blades in his hands and blocked the thorns.
Meiros saw that it was ineffective so he turned back to Chrysos. "Master, it's not working at all!"
Chrysos thought for a bit and said, "Accept my swiftness Divinium for this to work." He then directed his Divinium to Meiros which slowly shrouded his entire body.
Meiros let the energy flow through him and noticed that it was going to his magic circle. Meiros tried shooting once again and noticed that the thorns were much quicker this time.
With this newfound confidence, Meiros smiled and aimed more thorns towards Lediun.
Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! …
Lediun noticed that the thorns were much quicker this time. He blocked most of it, but there were some that managed to pierce his body. This made him hiss in pain.
Chrysos drank more Divinium recovery potions which restored his Divinium close to full, but this made his throat bleed out from drinking too much Divinium recovery potions.
"*cough*" Chrysos coughed out some blood.
He injected the energy from "Steel Rage" towards Meiros' magic circle and then, the thorns became faster and stronger than ever before!
Pew!
Lediun was caught unprepared and then the thorn pierced through his arm.
"Gah!" Lediun slowed down and went behind the formation.
Nayrin noticed that Lediun went behind the formation after being attacked. This made her a bit more cautious towards Meiros.
Nayrin looked at their leader Terniz and said, "That kid is a bit troublesome.."
Terniz nodded and said, "Scatter apart to avoid getting hit."
Eflor and Heraen nodded.
Instead of running in a straight line, they began running left and right to avoid Meiros's thorns. This decreased their speed considerably, but Meiros only sneered after seeing this.
Meiros looked at Heraen running left and right. He calculated the perfect timing to strike and then…
Pew!
Heraen saw a flash of light and then suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his right leg.
Thwack!
"AH!" Heraen screamed in pain which made him trip over after losing control of his leg while running so fast. He crashed towards a tree and was essentially knocked out.
The other assassins were alarmed.
But before they could react, Meiros shot another target. It was directed towards Lediun which made him curse silently and decided to dodge the attack.
The thorn went past him which led a wash of relief flow through his mind. He continued chasing only to find out that five more thorns were swiftly approaching his way!
He couldn't move right because he would hit a thorn along the way, and he also couldn't move left because of the same reason. The enemy timed the surroundings well so that he would be trapped from both sides!
Gods! What a monster!
Lediun tried to block the thorns with his blades, but he couldn't block every thorn which led to two thorns hitting his knee and his left lung.
"No!" Lediun was assaulted with the agonizing sensation in his body which led him to trip over and hit his head on a tree stump.
Crash!
Seeing two members fall from their squad, the three of them hesitated to keep chasing.
Terniz saw their hesitant looks and said, "Don't stop.. I have a plan."
…
Meiros saw that one of them was slowly moving towards the right to get out of his line of sight. Probably to ambush them once they let their guard down.
Meiros took the opportunity to shoot rapidly this time.
Pew! Pew! Pew! …
Like a machine gun, Eflor found himself surrounded by thorns. Thankfully, he expected this so he stopped running immediately which led to the thorns missing him completely.
Although he was far behind, he didn't get hit at all which is a good thing.
But as soon as he tried running, he felt three sharp sensations that nailed his foot to the ground. With Meiros' quick reaction speed, how could he even match that?
..
Meiros rejoiced and looked at the other assassins only to see that there was only one of them chasing.
Meiros looked everywhere to track where the other assassin was to no avail.
When he thought that the other assassin faded, he saw a leaf fall down from the trees.
He looked up and saw that Terniz was so close to them!
Terniz knew that he was discovered, so he immediately leapt down and brought his sword to cut Meiros' head off.
Meiros didn't form a thorn fast enough, so he couldn't defend. He thought that this would've been the end for him when Chrysos suddenly stopped and dropped the eight corrupted ones off his shoulder and parried Terniz' sword with Angelfeather!
Terniz was surprised, but he didn't allow this to affect him. He tried to counterattack, but Chrysos was already one step ahead of him.
Chrysos stabbed a syringe full of Umioxiline-C in Terniz' palm, picked up the eight corrupted ones and continued running away.
Although the assassins have faster running speed than him, Chrysos' movement speed far outmatched them.
Terniz gritted his teeth in pain as he saw Chrysos run away.
Nayrin slowed down and looked at Terniz. "Terniz, are you alright?"
Terniz looked at his palm and saw that the veins turned purple. He laughed mockingly, "To think that I've been poisoned.." He started to feel his limbs numb which made him feel even more helpless.
Nayrin clenched her fists and was about to give chase when Terniz held her hand.
"Don't chase after them. It's for your own good."
Nayrin slumped down and said, "But what about you? What's going to happen to you?" Nayrin held Terniz close to her as she closed her eyes.
Terniz felt the trickling of water running down his face which made him smile. "Why are you crying? As corrupted ones, we have already accepted that we are walking upon the path of no return. You're a strong woman, you can't stop just because of a small setback."
Terniz closed his eyes as he lost all feeling from all of his limbs.
Nayrin looked at Terniz' peaceful expression and she couldn't help but sigh.
"Dammit…"
…
…
"Did we lose them?" Chrysos asked Meiros as he ran.
Meiros scanned the area behind them and said, "Yes, at least I think so.."
"That's good enough.." Chrysos sighed in relief and continued running. "Also Meiros, nice job back there."
Meiros chuckled. "I'm just doing what I'm told to do. It's nothing really.."
"You know.. After seeing your abilities right now, I might have a gift for you that I will be working on." Chrysos revealed a sly smile.
"Really?!" Meiros' eyes glowed.
"Of cour- *cough*" Chrysos massaged his sore throat.
"Maybe we should deal with that first.." Meiros replied awkwardly.
Chrysos agreed with a nod.