Divine Beast Ascension

Sarpo dashed over without hesitation and kept his sights on the assassin bosses. He had only killed his early-perennial opponent and not the low-perennial. But that didn’t matter. The assassin’s morale was at its breaking point. Leaving the low-perennial could’ve been a big risk if the assassin bosses hadn’t been the first to flee.

Choosing between which assassins to give an easier escape, the Thunder Jaguar didn’t even bother asking the question. He abandoned the low-perennial and rushed to stop the bosses.

“BOSS?!?”

That cry rang out from half of the assassins, mostly the weakest assassins. It forced all the assassins to instantly realize just how bad their situation truly was.

The still-standing low-perennials didn’t say a word to their retreating bosses, though. They simply acted in turn, retreating at once to the best of their abilities. And the early-perennials were only a moment or two behind them.

All the elder assassins, however, didn’t have that same option. The moment they attempted to flee, the shadow drake would pluck them off. When they all tried to move at once, shadow tendrils would slow whoever wasn’t the drake’s first target. And if the drake couldn’t reach them, that was only because either Fulkar, Trantor, or Freele was the one to deal the killing blow.

Frrring! Frrrip!

Those stalling Hurman were the first to die. The moment they shifted from defensive maneuvers to fleeing tactics, Hurman hacked them down. His sawing, frosted blade cut through one while his thrown sword coated with compacted earth essence ripped through the one that thought he had gotten lucky.

.....

Even then, Hurman wasted no time whatsoever. He ignored his thrown sword and retrieved a far weaker one while flanking the cornered assassin bosses as quickly as possible.

Everything was happening so fast! And the boss assassins knew their window for escape was slamming down on top of them.

They changed trajectories and raced toward the northeast. Despite both of them wanting the other to leave and draw attention elsewhere, neither Ranon nor Dallad was willing to break away on his own just yet.

Sarpo rushed them again. A single, thundering bolt of lightning rocketed out toward Ranon, pinpointing the jaguar’s full attention and power onto him. “No escaping into the shadows for you!”

Ranon almost bit his tongue in rage. Against the startlingly powerful attack, he was forced to retaliate. Parrying the lightning bolt with a lance of darkness, Ranon gave the encroaching jaguar a loathing leer.

Dallad, on the other hand, laughed as he sped off undeterred for the time being.

Lambier raced past Ranon without a second thought. Lambier’s target was Dallad. And since Dallad wouldn’t be able to use the dark night to easily hide, all that mattered was staying on his tail and catching up.

“Tranton! Get Dallad!” Hurman shouted his order while rushing the slowed Ranon.

Leader Tranton hurriedly stopped targeting the remaining early-perennials around him and raced to catch up to Lambier, propelling himself with dark essence at top speed.

At the same time, half a dozen more fireballs were thrown toward Ranon. But none of them even came close to hitting the boss assassin. Rather, those fireballs landed all around Ranon and the Thunder Jaguar, lighting the entire space up.

“Sorry, but we know a thing or two about assassins and dark essence!” Marsel mocked the noble assassin.

Despite only being a low-perennial, Sarpo shot another stalling lightning bolt. All the while, the jaguar shouted, “Surrender now and your suffering will be minimal!”

Ranon glared at the perennials daring to hold him back. Having his path to escape thwarted so quickly, it was beyond demeaning! Taking a single moment to unleash a full-power attack, Ranon launched a dozen dark lances at the pesky jaguar. “A weakling beast dares stop me–”

“Weakling?!” another voice roared. Hurdo used the ground like a drum and pounded it into submission. With his weak prey slaughtered and strong prey in the distance, Hurdo commanded the ground and raised towering stone walls to cut off the remaining escape routes Ranon had left. “You retreat yet call us weak?! I’ll bring back your head as a trophy and gift your core to a true assassin!”

The gorilla was the furthest of all pursuers from Ranon. Yet Hurdo had earned all of Ranon’s fury in a single roar.

But before the gorilla ran over to join the fight, Hurman’s voice rang out, “Hurdo! Go catch the other one! He’s all yours!”

Accepting both the order and the challenge, Hurdo smiled wide. “Then the hunt continues!”

Both mid-perennials suddenly accelerated toward their targets.

Hurman created frost everywhere in front of him. He skated with blades of ice on his feet and finally approached the cut-off Ranon. And just in time, since Sarpo had disregarded defending himself in order to hurl more lightning and keep the assassin in place.

Hurdo stormed off into the night with bloodlust in his eyes. Though he had to leave Ranon to Hurman, Hurdo was also glad to have his original opponent as his prey yet again.

The gorilla disregarded all trees and even some tiny hills as he plowed through the forest in a straight line. His essence armor was still active, boosting Hurdo’s already incredibly sturdy body to the point that running through a tree would leave it as a mess of trampled splinters and branches. Hurdo wasn’t as fast as Tranton or Lambier. But Hurdo trusted them both to hold down the escapee in the meantime.

Finally cornered, Ranon leered at all the perennials around him. There was the bleeding Jaguar now standing atop the stone walls. Marsel was off to one side with his flaming axe. And Hurman was slowly walking up to the shadow-clad assassin.

“Sorry, Marsel, but you didn’t finish the job fast enough. So I’ll make quick work of it,” Hurman calmly stated with his razor-sharp gaze bearing down on the assassin.

Nodding, Marsel sighed, “I know… It wasn’t part of the job anyway, so we’ll be happy enough to know we helped bring them down.”

“Then fight me, one on one!” Ranon declared, staring back at the swordsman. “You call this quick work? Forcing me against all three of you–”

“I don’t need them to kill you. They’re making sure you can’t run again,” Hurman replied. “If you can kill me, then I’ll guarantee that they let you flee, so long as you attack no one else in the process.”

Ranon squinted. “Why would you say such a ridiculous thing to an assassin?”

“Because you’re weak.”

Ranon’s controlled anger swelled again. “I see… So I’m that weak to you? Coming from the oldest-looking perennial I’ve ever met, that means a lot. You must have used all those years stuck in the mortal class to thicken your skin and deepen your wrinkles. A strange but semi-effective cultivation technique, I guess…”

Hurman didn’t waver or physically react in any way. He finished his walk and stood ten bromes from the assassin, saying, “It doesn’t matter how powerful either of us was a few years ago. What matters is how strong you and I are right now. And you’re too weak to even touch me.”

“To touch you? That’s… quite weak…” Ranon readied his essence armor and stopped focusing on Marsel and Sarpo for a moment. “I see. You’ve gotten stronger quite quickly, but you’ve yet to fully understand your realm. Then allow me to oblige in teaching you this lesson.”

“Thank you. In that case, I’ll take your life as tuition,” Hurman replied.

The powerful ice blade was suddenly stored away. Marsel and Sarpo were just as confused by Hurman’s action as Ranon was.

Holding up the single, regular sword with no affinity boosts, Hurman pointed the tip at Ranon. “Come. If you want to prove yourself a teacher, then I’ll do the same. It’s been too long since you’ve been on an actual battlefield instead of creeping up on people in their sleep. So I’ll make sure to teach you the difference between a warrior and an assassin. And why you’re neither.”

Twin rapiers appeared in Ranon’s hands, both amplifying his dark essence. A full set of light armor was donned, with intricate designs to mimic the scales and fangs of a black snake all over the armor. The helmet was just that, the head of a serpent protecting all but Ranon’s face.

Yet Hurman didn’t bother donning any armor at all. He was unfazed by Ranon’s display and was perfectly satisfied with his booze-stained open robe and thigh-high shorts.

That lack of reaction pushed Ranon further off the cliff of rage and frustration.

The shadow-clad assassin dashed forward with terrifying speed, boosted drastically by dark essence. His first rapier was thrust forward and his second was held at the ready, waiting to counter whatever Hurman planned to arrogantly do.

Motionless, Hurman stood there, unmoving. His sword serenely waited with complete calm.

Ranon retaliated by completing the thrust he had planned to be countered. At the same time, he began to slash with his second rapier since he was already so close and the gap between them was nigh inescapable.