Bell walked ahead. Haruhime followed behind.
A considerable distance separated them, yet... Bell's steps seemed to tear through space itself.
One step, the distance halved. Another, and it was negligible.
His fist rotated from a blind spot, straight for Phryne.
Clunk.
The wheel above him turned.
His punch's trajectory shifted. His fingers tensed imperceptibly. His torque multiplied.
BOOOOM!
Phryne's counter landed with tons of force just as his fist drove into her slabs of fat.
He adjusted his footing a fraction of a second before impact, channeling half of her force through his legs and into ground, but the shock still ran through him, his bones rattling from the collision.
Phryne didn't move from her original position. Her charred body hadn't shifted a single inch.
Yet...
A cough tore from her throat. Blood and chunks of internal organs spilled from her lips.
His punch hadn't damaged her outwardly. Instead, just before impact, the wheel had tuned his strike—bypassing her defense and layers of fat entirely to target her organs directly.
Bell didn't get a single instant to breathe. The waiting amazons surrounding him pounced from all sides.
A dagger of flames was already gripped in his hand. Another weapon blazed into existence in his free hand.
A sword, composed entirely of flame.
He bent forward into a stance, the handles of his flaming sword and dagger nearly touching.
A blade swung at him from the left, a mace tore in from behind, a spear screamed from the right.
His dagger swung left. His sword cut right. His left leg lifted and kicked backward, his limb sheathing itself in a blade of searing flame.
Clunk.
Time dilated as the wheel above him spun once again.
His dagger adjusted slightly. His sword tilted imperceptibly. His leg fine-tuned itself.
A flaming sword severed metal. A flaming dagger split a spear in half. A flaming leg blade tore across a mace.
Bell did not stop. He transferred his momentum into a continuous assault.
Burn. Sever. Tear.
Any amazon who came too close paid the price.
Meanwhile...
Three amazons reached Haruhime, her eyes trembling at the sight of three opponents at once.
However... just as two amazons closed in on her, the third still trailing behind, a circle of flames blazed to life behind them... letting two pass and burning the third to a crisp.
Clang.
An amazon swung her axe at Haruhime, which she barely blocked by pure chance.
She had indeed blocked the attack with her dagger, but she had also left herself wide open on her flank.
Another amazon didn't hesitate to exploit the opening, swinging her halberd at the wide-eyed Haruhime.
She closed her eyes in fear, bracing for pain.
BOOOM!
A sonic boom tore through their surroundings as Bell launched himself upward from amidst the horde of amazons surrounding him.
He flicked his hand mid-air without looking back. His flaming dagger tore through the air, colliding with that amazon's halberd and shifting its trajectory, straight into the axe locked against Haruhime's dagger.
Clang.
Haruhime was shoved back from the impact, her legs wobbling and her tail standing on end.
Bell had turned a life-threatening blow into a minor push with a slight motion.
Haruhime didn't even get a glance at him before he plunged back into the amazons beneath. His hand wrapped around his leg mid-fall, knee pointed downward, flames igniting over his knee guard from the friction.
"Attack him together!!"
Phryne roared from among them.
Weapons were hurled at him from below, trying to pierce him mid-fall.
His abyssal black eyes remained indifferent even as hundreds of weapons screamed toward him.
Whroooom.
That sound was followed by eight flaming petals blooming into existence beneath his knee, interlocking to form an eight-petaled shield of flame.
Every weapon collided and melted against that shield. None could touch Bell.
Gravity continued to pull him down as...
BOOOOOOM!
He collided brutally with every living being beneath him. The impact alone was cataclysmic, seriously injuring most Berbera's nearby.
An enormous, jiggling hand tore through the aftermath, grabbing onto his face and dragging him across the floor, his back fracturing and scraping against stone.
Golden pathways to victory had shown him a way to dodge perfectly.
But why bother?
In the end, he was... inevitable.
Clunk.
The wheel spun.
Bell's legs pivoted up mid-drag, kicking Phryne's massive stomach with full force.
"Gaaah!"
Another mouthful of blood spurted from her lips as she threw him away, clutching her stomach with a twisted expression.
Bell backflipped mid-motion, ignoring his sheared back—which was already healing—and stood in front of Phryne.
He took one last look at that trash, then turned his back to her, walking away with absolute disregard.
Why would he focus on someone whose very breath depended on his whims?
A drop of sweat rolled down Phryne's face as she screamed after him in rage.
"WH—"
Her words were cut short when she looked down at the sweat accumulating around her body. It was far more than normal.
Only when she focused closely did her eyes widen in shock and bone-deep terror.
Strings. Countless strings, invisible to the naked eye, comprised of flame, surrounded her from all sides—ready to tear her apart if she so much as twitched.
But...
When!?
How!?
Even her toad-like brain went into overdrive under the threat of death.
What kind of monster was this hooded guy!?
He had set these strings up the moment he landed here.
Every action from that point on had been anticipated, choreographed, and executed with absolute precision.
A Level 5 adventurer like her hadn't even felt anything amiss before she was already on the verge of death.
An incomparably cold chill erupted from the crown of her head, freezing her solid.
What was this man—no, this... thing?
What kind of abomination had they provoked?
Meanwhile... Ishtar saw Phryne frozen like a statue and shrieked with ignorant irritation.
"What are you doing, Phryne!? Freezing mid-fight? I'll cut off your 'toy' imports if you don't take it seriously this instant."
Phryne didn't respond—or rather, couldn't respond—terrified that a single extra word might send her directly to the afterlife.
"Tsk. It seems I'll have to deal with this myself." Ishtar clicked her tongue and began walking toward Bell with coquettish grace.
She tried to peer beneath his hood and unleashed her [Charm] at full force.
"Handsome... look into my eyes. Aren't I the most beautiful woman in the world?" Her voice was seductive and inviting.
Bell looked at her and responded without emotion.
"Why don't you look into mine, instead?"
"Oh... You're such a flir—" Ishtar's words died in her throat when she gazed inside his hood.
There was nothing beneath it. Only an unending darkness, with countless blood-red eyes peering right back at her.
Her breath caught. Every word she'd been about to say was swallowed whole. She couldn't even stand without her legs shaking...
She blinked amid her dread—and he was gone.
That was the moment she felt it.
Someone had their back pressed flat against hers. Ishtar looked sideways and found that same hood resting on her shoulder, those countless blood-red eyes staring back at her.
Ishtar's instinct as a goddess screamed at her.
This thing... could kill me.
She didn't even notice when she wet herself from sheer horror.
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Author's Thoughts]
Remember how he beheaded Tammuz? That was a breadcrumb I deliberately left behind for this development.
So... did it feel logical or more like an ass-pull?
...
Note: For any people who might have forgotten, Haruhime is still a virgin, she was deceived by Ishtar into thinking that she was tainted when in actuality, whenever a man tried to get close to her, she would directly faint.