Earlier,
As Ciel watched Devon take down his first five targets with his black arrows, with turbulent eyes, a cold voice rang out behind her.
"What's going on here?"
Shocked like the time Mystic had sneaked behind without her noticing, Ciel almost acted the same way.
"Calm down, it's just me."
However, before she could make a sudden move, William grabbed her wrist while saying those words.
"C-Captain!?" She exclaimed, both relieved and annoyed by his delay.
However, seeing Valtus on William's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her pupils trembled slightly in fear.
"Is he... going to..."
"Don't worry, he only received minor injuries—a few broken bones and ribs and affected by a deadly poison, but nothing serious." William casually said these words as if it wasn't enough to put a person's life in danger.
But before Ciel could speak, he continued.
"I've already given him an antidote for the poison. So his life is no longer in danger."
It was only after hearing these words that Ciel felt a little reassured as she sighed.
"...Oh, I see, thank you."
"There's no need, I'm only doing my duty as your superior."
After this answer filled with indifference, William looks in the direction of Devon and Mystic and frowns.
"What's the point? Why are you letting your juniors take care of such a dangerous task instead of you?"
"..."
Faced with her silence due to her inability to answer, William sighs in disappointment and focuses on the battle.
'It's strange, this is the first time I've seen such a beast. It looks like a Nightwalker, but its appearance and the energy it gives off are different from anything I've seen in the past.
More importantly, why does it have a black aura around its body? Was this little girl able to tame a demon-rank beast!?' He couldn't help but wonder as he saw the dark aura over Devon's body.
To his knowledge, only the most dangerous beasts have this color of aura around them. Monsters that even he will not be able to defeat alone.
However, the pressure he felt towards Devon was so weak that he strongly doubted the credibility of his assumptions.
Not to mention a beast of such rank, he was sure that Devon's aura was not as powerful as those of the emperor rank.
At this precise moment, Mystic caught his attention by landing in front of Devon heavily.
The strength of the latter confused him even more compared to the one he felt towards Devon a second ago.
'Interesting, one has an energy that doesn't match his power, and the other has a strength that far exceeds her level; who are these two?' At this simple curiosity, his intention to go rescue Mystic lost ground to his curiosity.
As for Mystic, due to the situation, she didn't notice the presence of the person she was waiting for the most.
--
Right now,
After manifesting his sword, Devon charged towards the five beasts, three of which were king rank and two of which were emperor rank.
His suicidal actions could not go unnoticed by the two spectators still present behind him.
-GRRRRUKH!
Just before he closed the distance between them, he saw one of the wild boars open its mouth and spit dense flames towards him.
'A wild boar that spits flames, this weird world will never surprise me.' He sneered at the ridiculousness of the situation.
However, unlike last time, he did not waste his energy protecting himself with a shield but moved aside to get out of the attack area.
Since it was a single wild boar, the attack area of its flames was not as large as last time.
However, when he popped up on the right, he saw that the other boar, in the same direction, had already started to charge towards him with a prodigious speed.
But despite this, he did not panic. His eyes and his body could perfectly handle the monstrous speed of his enemy.
Before the latter could even take him by storm, Devon suddenly accelerated and appeared out of nowhere half a meter from the boar with the tip of his blade cutting through the air towards its chest!
Giving in to his instincts, the boar set his entire body ablaze with its flames like a protective shield upon seeing Devon's imminent and deadly attack.
Yet, Devon didn't let his only chance to reduce their numbers slip away so easily.
However, he was startled in dread at the sudden boiling heat from his prey's flame.
'Damn it! I thought I was immune to pain; is it because it's a magical attack?' He gritted his teeth in pain as he growled the words in his mind.
Despite the heat emanating from his prey's body making him feel like he was melting, he persisted and plunged half of his blade into the chest!
-KREEEUKK!!!
The boar curled up in pain while trying to tear Devon's head off with its bestial teeth.
Seeing this, Devon became more fierce and twisted his sword in his torso.
However, just as the boar's muscles began to soften, the snake's scaly tail strongly whipped him and sent him flying into the air with the boar before being crushed ten meters away!
-B000M!
'Damn it!' he cursed as he crawled out from under the boar's carcass.
With this hit, he was able to confirm his hypothesis regarding his pain sensitivity.
The attack from earlier, although more powerful than the boar's, did not cause anything resembling pain in him.
As he stood up, the first thing he did was check the condition of his body.
Seeing that other than his cape and pants made of energy, nothing else had been damaged, he sighed in relief.
'Luckily I had strengthened my magic clothes with my skill, this attack would have cost me more than a few limbs if I hadn't done it at the start.'
But this relief was short-lived before he was surprised by a wave of black flame roaring at him.
-!!
Urgently, he leaped into the air to avoid the blaze.
However, the vicious two-headed snake, which only attacks when it is sure to hit its prey, returned to the charge a second time.
To avoid being hit by the black flames of the boar boss, it spits a cloud of black smoke towards Devon.
Being in the air, had no alternative to counter this attack.
Even though his skill allows him to imitate the semblance of wings, flying with them is another story for him.
The flying experiment he had previously conducted failed.
However, just when he thought he was done, he realized that the poison cloud the snake had just spat out did not affect him.
Even though magical attacks are his weak spot, the fact that he doesn't breathe and doesn't have any internal organs got him out of trouble.
As long as it wasn't venom that could melt solid matter, his bones weren't weak enough to succumb to an attack that primarily targeted internal organs through respiration.
However, he took advantage of this asset to gain the upper hand in the battle.
Being in the thick cloud of poison, no other beast dared to approach him. And since he had already seen the position of each creature before when he jumped in the air, he put his next move to work.
As soon as he landed and understood his resistance against this cloud of poison, he hid there, and materialized three thick spears each measuring four meters!
With his absolute control, he shoots them all at once towards the three remaining boars!
-Swoosh!!!
The smoke was split in three as his three black spears flew like lightning spears toward their targets.
-KHRRGH!!
Even if he couldn't see the result clearly, the screams of agony he heard nearby didn't leave him indifferent.
Therefore, instead of going straight out of the smoke cloud to check the fruits of his assaults, he preferred to keep his distance by jumping on one of the few trees still standing behind him.
By gaining this altitude and looking at the scene from above, he realized that one of the three of his targets was still standing, the emperor-rank boar.
'Tsk, I knew it wasn't going to be this easy.'
Despite his complaints, he couldn't help but ask himself a crucial question.
'Why am I not leveling up even after killing so many high-rank foes?' He thought to himself as he glanced at his stats before his enemies found him.
[Xps: 99%.] - [EP: 393.]
Reading these lines, he felt relieved. 'I only need to take down one more to level up.' He thought to himself before looking ahead.
Even though the last remaining Boar hadn't died instantly, he hadn't entirely managed to avoid Devon's attack.
His right shoulder was still bleeding, despite Devon's arrow lying on the ground.
After a moment of analysis, Devon concluded that the boar had gotten rid of his arrow by tearing it out of his shoulder with his mouth.
Although the boar was able to act quickly, his wound continued to corrode visibly.
Devon knew that it was only a matter of time before the boar succumbed to this mortal wound.
So far, he hasn't seen any of his prey get rid of the deadly effects of his magical attacks.
Because the scariest thing about this skill is not its adaptability to different situations, but the corrosion that comes after due to the nature of its energy.
His gaze finally switches to the snake as he sees the boar struggling to stand up straight.
'That bastard is the most cunning of all. But now that he's the only one left, I'll just have to hurt him, then death will--!!
His eyes widen in shock as he sees something unexpected happen before his eyes.
Seeing the boar weak and on the verge of death, the two-headed snake which seems to realize the danger, began to crawl at full speed towards a particular place.
Seeing its trajectory and realizing that Mystic was on the path, a feeling of confusion mixed with anxiety overwhelmed Devon's mind.
'WTF?! That fucking cunning reptile!' He cussed before jumping down from the tree at full speed to stop the snake from reaching his master.
'Fuck! He's too fast and closer! I won't catch him in time!'
Perhaps due to the phenomenal amount of energy he used during this battle, the shield that protected Mystic vanished without his knowledge, leaving her defenseless.
Knowing that he won't make it in time, he materializes twenty black arrows around him at record speed and shoots them all at the snake!
At the same time, he also sees another arrow flying on top of a random nearby tree towards the snake!
The speed of this iron arrow was so fast that Devon could only see its mirage.
The good news was to see the arrow target the snake instead of Mystic.
In a thousandth of a second, the arrow pierced a hole in the two heads of the snake and continued its frantic flight before disappearing into the depths of the forest.
-!
Between his astonishment and his gratitude, Devon slowed down in his race, even forgetting to stop his arrows.
Fortunately, Mystic was lying on the ground, otherwise, she would be the one who would receive this rain of arrows that passed right above her.
Before the second had even fully passed, he saw another arrow finish off the boar that was half dead.
-!?
'Damn, he finished off my prey that was just supposed to help me level up.'