"We're almost there!" Sol yelled to motivate his squad.
It wasn't a lie either, the cave was within sight. A few more meters of climbing and a final sprint were all that stood in their way of reaching their goal.
"That orc is running after us again!" Rex pointed out as he saw Kirgar launch one final volley before leaving the snow hwacha behind.
Aron chuckled. "Heh, he finally realized he couldn't hurt us with his weak arrows."
Duncan rolled his eyes as he held his massive shield above his head.
"Says the one hiding under my shield."
"I'm not hiding! I'm, uhh… conserving my energy!"
"Sure…"
Duncan said sarcastically as he blocked tens of ice arrows.
Aron's antics lightened the mood as they prepared to dodge the final volley of ice arrows. Thinking it was the same as the previous volleys, they used the same methods as before.
It worked for the most part until one inconspicuous arrow headed toward Nataly and Lapis. Like usual, she would use her overwhelming agility to perfectly dodge the arrows and treated the next one the same. She sidestepped around it, anticipating its trajectory as it neared.
The ice arrow landed next to her, but unlike the other arrows that soon disappeared after collision, this one remained. It glowed ominously as it began to emanate a freezing energy. The snow under it quickly began turning into ice and expanded outward.
Everyone felt its energy; even Duncan and Aron, who were the furthest away, could feel it emitting freezing energy.
"That's not a normal arrow! Get away from it!"
Immediately after Sol's warning, the ice arrow cracked and burst into countless deadly shards of ice packed full of power in all directions.
Duncan used his shield along with multiple defense skills to cover for himself and Aron, while Sol used [Overpower] and [Ground Shrink] to grab Rex, who was the closest to him, and got away as far as possible. Lapis and Nataly were not as lucky, being the two closest to the special ice arrow and the ones with the least time to react.
Lapis used all her movement skills simultaneously but quickly realized no matter how fast she went, they wouldn't be able to avoid the ice shrapnel. But she also realized that it didn't mean they both had to get hit by it.
Without hesitation, she tossed Nataly away toward the cave, brandished her spear, and swung at her using [Pole Slam]. The shaft of the spear smashed into Nataly and knocked her as far away from the ice arrow's shrapnel.
"Gah!" Nataly yelled in pain as she was flung and landed near the entrance of the cave. Though Lapis did her best to hold back to not kill Nataly with her strike, it still left her critically wounded when she landed near the cave.
The next moment, Lapis' back was riddled with ice shards, each containing incredibly deadly ice energy. Her armor was torn open as blood scattered everywhere.
"Lapis!" Sol yelled as he ran to her. The entire area was littered with ice shards, and their crushing sounds could be heard as he sprinted to her while still under the effects of [Overpower].
He looked at her wounds and couldn't help but grimace at how bad they were. Her entire back was shredded open, and ice shards dug into her back, causing her body to turn blue from the cold energy.
Rex quickly appeared by his side and had a similarly ugly expression from seeing her injuries. Though it was bad, he had to warn him of the incoming threat.
"We have to move! That orc is coming here fast!"
Sol glanced and saw Kirgar in the distance, riding on a wave of snow, heading toward them frighteningly quick. He would arrive in under a minute if nothing was done about it.
"Grab Lapis and Nataly, take them to the cave! Give them as many healing potions as you need to and get Nataly to check on Lapis when she recovers!"
Rex nodded and lifted Lapis while Duncan and Aron moved to grab Nataly.
"What about you?" Rex asked before he left.
Sol watched Kirgar get closer with each passing second and spoke with a heavy tone.
"I'll… try to slow him down."
Sol knew he had to buy some time for them so they could treat Lapis and Nataly.
The others wanted to stay and help but knew there was little they could do here. They grabbed the injured women and took them inside the cave. Once they were gone, seven hands, each glowing in a different color, appeared around him and began to rotate around the orange hand. As the surrounding hands wove their energy into the orange hand, Sol calculated his chances.
'I have never used [Overpower] alongside [Polychromatism]. With level four [Overpower], my intelligence nearly triples, so it should be much stronger than last time I tested full spectrum. Even though I used it before to save Rex, I still have a little under a minute left. Hope it's enough to push him back.'
Just as he finished his thought, the hands blurred, which was a visual indicator that the full spectrum attack was ready. Without hesitation, he gave the command and a large beam of pure white blasted out toward the orc.
As Kirgar was riding the wave of snow, he saw the incoming beam and immediately felt a sense of danger. Instinctively, he controlled the snow to swerve to the side and dodged the beam that blasted straight into the mountain.
'This! Was one of them secretly an A-Ranker?! No, that's impossible.'
He didn't see the reason in holding back till now, so he realized it was more likely that one of them was using their trump cards.
For a moment, he thought the attack was over until he heard rumblings from inside the mountain. His instincts screamed for him to move again. When he did, a beam blasted out of the mountain before splitting into countless smaller beams and curving back toward him.
Seeing the countless beams targeting him from multiple angles, a huge battle loving smile rose on his face. Adrenaline coursed through his body as he roared.
"I love it when they fight back!"