Saint snapped his fingers and he immediately started shaking.
His expression weakened and became that of pain, a grimace.
Then he screamed out, or tried to.
Leah was discharging light from the palms of her hands. To heal and keep Saint from suffering major injuries.
He shaked hard. Convulsions happened on every part of his body.
A very slow minute passed.
Saint soon stopped the screaming, and only continued shaking. Albeit less than before.
Klaren held his hand for some kind of psychological reinforcement.
A minute passed, then it was over.
The shaking stopped and Saint simply laid still, expression neutral and at peace.
"It's finished." Said Klaren.
"Let's go." He said. And he charged towards the camp from the forest of pillars with the rest of the guild while Leah and Saint remained where they were.
The 94th ranked player was completely disabled from combat now.
But his sacrifice disabled the aura of the enemy. Ensuring a clean victory.
***
"The slabs could be it." A man in full dark green armor said. The Captain of the Expedition had no helmet, showing off his slick backed brown hair and well kept beard. He had fierce eyes but a gentle voice.
He stood in front of his desk chair, looking at papers, sketches and some unusual items like statues and colored rocks.
Two people were in the tent with him.
A dark haired woman and a blonde man. Both clad in standard Supreme Knight armor that they chose to wear instead of their own unique one. Well, it is hard to get an armor superior to their current one.
"So we'll bring them to the crevices?" The woman asked.
"Yes, but we should inform Priam first and get his backup, just in case. We might get jumped instantly after. This is the main boss we're talking about."
"Alright, I'll-"
As the woman was saying this, they all felt something akin to a heart attack for a second.
"Kagh!" All three of them were shocked.
"Ugh...What? Boss monster?" The Captain said in panic.
BOOM!
Explosions and screams were heard outside.
The Captain went cold and imbued himself with aura. So did the others.
At least they tried to.
"What?!" The woman yelled.
"Impossible..." Said the Captain.
A moment of silence and shock took over the room.
The Captain broke it.
"We need to run. Now. They're all gone for. It's Salvation, has to be." The knight standing next to the woman said.
"How do they have this power...Let's go." Said the Captain.
The three of them left the tent and saw chaos in front of them.
Aura attacks, flashes of light, explosions amd abilities were being one sidedly used against the severely weakened expedition squad.
As the Captain got out with the others, a man stood five meters away.
Clad in purple armor, his face hidden by a helmet. Gloveless. His hands were bare.
From that last detail, the Captain deduced the man's identity.
"Klaren."
"Been a while... It'll be quick."
The three of them drew their weapons. The Captain merely took out a golden shield while the other two took out spears.
Klaren held no weapon. He had a far more terrifying weapon in his own hands.
His Ability.
A Legendary Ability.
"You two. RUN." The Captain said.
"But-"
"RUN!" The defenseless Captain said.
The two bolted away into the darkness, away from the chaos.
"They won't get far. Goodbye, Tom."
The Captain held his sword without any aura imbuement. His face cold with acceptance.
Screams, explosions and bright flashes were not even registered by the bearded man.
"Mom, Lana, I tried my best."
He said quietly.
Klaren bolted forward with his left hand extended at a sonic speed.
Tom barely managed to react and parry the attack.
His shield then turned to...stone.
He frowned as he sent a right hook at the attacking player towards his helmet.
A sword wasn't very useful in a PvP fight with full armor. And that was exactly the Captain's current weapon. Intended for monster fights.
Klaren ducked as he was parried, expecting such an attack and immediately spun around with his arms like a horizontal windmill.
All he had to do was touch the Captain. Once.
Of course, this ability was draining him.
But he had enough time.
The Captain leapt away right after the hook was sent, just in time to dodge the death spin.
Klaren ran towards the man and lightly jumped into the air all at sonic speed.
This time, the Captain simply dashed and dodged desperately, not even intending to strike.
He knew it was over. All he could do was stall for some extra seconds for his two comrades.
Klaren's aura infused body was simply too fast, too powerful. In a few seconds, the Captain was overwhelmed.
A swipe of his right hand that was dodged with a step back led into an irrational leaping left straight strike at the upper body that the Captain tried to evade sideways with head and torso movement.
Then Klaren simply rotated and met Tom with a right hand slap across the chest.
Tom was frozen in place. In a bended position.
His body and his armor...All turned to stone.
Klaren destroyed the stone form with his legs and dashed into the darkness of the pillar jungle where the other two ran away. Trusting his teammates to kill the rest of the guild members.
But then he was ambushed from left and right by two knights a moment after, at the outskirts of the camp's other side.
He sensed two presences explosively bolting at him, and he didn't even bother to dodge.
He ducked a hammer blow while touching another player who threw a punch with his gauntlets.
The punch didn't even land and the player was frozen in place.
Klaren was pushed with a shoulder blow and he went back a few steps.
Then, he bolted towards the poor player, who desperately swung his hammer at him, which Klaren didn't even have to dodge as he was much faster than the other player who had his aura disabled.
Mid swing, the knight was frozen in place.
"M-monster..."
A third knight said shakily. He clenched his two small axes with the full power of an Elevated player.
"It'll be painless." Said Klaren.
Then. He noticed something he subconsciously ignored.
The guild knight had actually imbued himself with aura.
"You can use aura?" Klaren asked.
The red knight was silent.
His face and expression hidden by a red helmet.
Orange aura enveloped his entire being and his axes.
'The ability isn't perfect...yet, maybe."
The player then threw one axe at Klaren, spun around at a supersonic speed and threw another.
Klaren evaded one with head movement, and parried the other with the sword he now drew from his sheath.
Then immediately after he was hit in the back of the head by the first thrown axe, at supersonic speed.
His head went forwards, and his whole upper body bended. The axe came back at the same speed it was thrown. The work of an Ability.
"Oof!" He wobbled, his head rattled and his vision dark for a second.
Which was enough for the opposing player to retrieve both his axes and throw them again.
He was hit again, this time he bended backwards as he took a few steps back, concussed.
The axes went back into the hands of the player, then Klaren did something.
As the third throw was being done, Klaren sent a massive, supersonic aura slash of white aura that would put Max's to complete, humiliating shame towards the guild knight.
The slash met the two axes, and slowed down their speed. It failed to block them fully.
Which was what Klaren wanted.
He caught one axe with his left hand, with his semi divine reflexes and parried the other away.
And dashed towards the knight.
"Shit!" Screamed the knight. He bolted away from Klaren's dash.
Klaren followed up with a throw of the axe as the knight retrieved the other one.
The player unfortunately, with pure reflexes, dodged the throw.
Klaren then caught him with his free left hand, crossing ten meters in a hundred miliseconds.
The knight turned to stone, bended and off balance.
"Rest well." Said Klaren, as he beheaded the knight with a roundhouse kick.
These players weren't exactly dead unless their stone form was destroyed or Klaren rejuvenated them. Maybe there was some rare item that could also do it.
Then, Klaren went down on one knee, his vision blurry.
"Are you alright sir?"
A knight in dark red armor approached Klaren as the latter drank a potion.
"I will be, just got concussed a bit. Two players fled, right in that direction."
Klaren pointed towards darkness where a jungle of strange pillars and monsters awaited.
"I'll get them, hide somewhere."
"No. Don't worry, I'll come with you." Said Klaren.
The mysterious knight nodded as he held his two maces, brimming with dark blue aura.
The players began their pursuit of the escaping knights.
Field boss monsters and above of an equal rank to Klaren and a small number of players were immune to this ability, including the top 100, but it was still catastrophic that a player such as Klaren owned it.
Limen's ability also didn't work against field boss monsters of Elevated and above rank to him, but it was a terrifying ability of the Divine rank. It partially worked on mini-bosses of similar rank.
The two knights split up intelligently, which made the chase a bit of a hassle.
Klaren had a smile on his face.
"I will save you and our little baby. No one will hurt us." He clenched the handle of his sword that hung by his hip, while thinking of his precious two people. Well, soon to be two.