Ayame and Shadow stared at each other. None moved from their position.

Suddenly they moved at the same time towards each other. Shadow attacked her in two different directions. Ayame who easily predicted his attacks, stopped them with her daggers.

CLANG

CLANG

They again separated at the same time. After a few moments, they fought again. After a few rounds, no clear winner was decided as even if Shadow had a higher level in Dagger and Stealth Mastery than her, her Perception Mastery evened the odds.

They fought again and again, the forest was filled with clanging noises but no other noises were heard. Their Stealth Mastery was high enough to produce the least amount of noise.

It looked like they were overall equal in strength, but Ayame still had a few aces up her sleeve.

<Blade Dance>

She used a mortal Skill she learned before. She erratically attacked with both her daggers while moving around as if dancing to a silent tune. Each of her attacks was far stronger than before.

Shadow tried to parry her attacks but was slashed slightly by one of the attacks.

She didn’t give him a chance to recover and proceeded with another attack.

<Heavy Slash>

Shadow parried the attacks again but felt slight numbness in his hand.

They fought again for hundreds of rounds where Ayame occasionally used various Mortal Skills in between. Shadow had a rare serious face, his gang members ran to such a dangerous location just for a supposed reward of a Mortal Skill but the girl in front of him had so many Mortal Skills as if picked from the roadside.

Then Ayame did something unexpected to Shadow. She attacked with her daggers that Shadow blocked, but she kicked his right flank suddenly with a roundhouse kick.

She continued attacking with her blades and mixed Mortal Skills with it and occasionally mixed martial arts moves to it. Sometimes she kicked his shin, sometimes his shin or his understep.

The pressure on him suddenly increased. Shadow was getting one after another surprise from Ayame.

Her three Intermediate Masteries were already too much, but she had another Unarmed Combat Mastery at peak Beginner stage. He was sure that before long it would also break through to the Intermediate stage.

She was both amazed and envious of her talent. At such a young age, she would have four Intermediate stage masteries. For such a monstrous genius, even the Black Forest Kingdom royal family would like to recruit her. If they found out about her, they would either make sure that she would be bound to them permanently or destroy her so that she would never go against them.

Ayame continued her attacks. She got a good idea of her new strength. She found that her opponent’s skills were not much different from the spider boss's, but his defense was much worse. But that was to be expected as he focused on speed and then strength. Defense was his weak point like the twins. But because of practicing the Unarmed Combat Mastery, their strength and defense were still much stronger than him.

She decided to end the fight. She increased the intensity of her attacks. Then when he was overwhelmed by her attacks, she gave a swift roundhouse kick to his temple.

He lost his balance as he suffered a mild concussion. She didn’t lose that opportunity and inserted her dagger into his heart.

‘David made enemies with the wrong people.’

It was the thought he had when he felt the dagger being inserted into his heart.

“You won”, said Shadow. That was the first time he spoke in the fight and that became the last sentence of his life. He took his last breath and died.

—------------

When Ayame left with Shadow, Yumi also readied herself for a one vs five fight.

Shield took the front. Joseph, Trent, and Sword were slightly behind him. Ariana was at the back. They had years of experience and quickly got into a formation to fight Yumi.

Shield had Intermediate stage Shield Mastery with peak Beginner stage Sword Mastery, Sword and Joseph had Intermediate stage Sword Mastery, and Ariana like Yumi had Intermediate stage Archery Mastery.

She shot a few arrows but they were all stopped by Shield using his tower shield. Ariana also fired back at Yumi from a small gap but she dodged all the arrows easily.

Joseph and Trent took advantage of the time Ayame was busy hitting the arrows, they ran towards her and attacked her. Joseph slashed horizontally and Trent attacked her stomach with his spear.

She dodged both attacks with minimal movements. Their speed was nowhere close to either the spider boss or Shadow, so it was very easy for her to dodge their attacks.

They didn’t stop after missing once and continued their onslaught. Sword also joined with them to attack her. But even with three warriors attacking her simultaneously, she dodged each of their attacks, albeit with some strain.

Shield and Ariana were at the back. Shield could not attack as moving for a long time with the heavy tower shield was very hard for him. And Ariane didn’t get an opportunity to shoot arrows as there was no space with three warriors fighting in front to shoot at Yumi.

She dodged another thrust from Trent and stepped to the left. She used her bow to block Sword’s sword attack, then she kicked him heavily in the shin. Sword lost his balance for a bit, Yumi took advantage of that and ran towards Shield.

When he saw her running towards him, he readied himself with his tower shield in front and his sword in his right hand. While running she kept shooting arrows on his shield, who blocked all the arrows with his shield.

When she was less than two meters from him, she shot another arrow.

<Heavy Shot>

He blocked that arrow but staggered. Yumi took advantage of that and while running towards him, stepped on his shield and using it as a platform, jumped behind him.

Ariana was startled seeing that. She quickly shot arrows at Yumi who blocked each one with her bow and shot back even more arrows. Ariana's reflexes were not as strong as Yumi's. She was normally used to firing arrows from the back where she was protected from front row fighters.

She barely dodged or blocked a few arrows but was still hit by three arrows. One in her shoulder, the second in her chest, and the last pierced her brain.

That was Yumi’s plan from the beginning. She distracted everyone in the beginning and when they let down their guards, she took down the most troublesome opponent. After all, in every fight, it's best to kill the long-range opponents first.

“Shit, she killed Ariana”, cursed Trent. He, Joseph, and Sword quickly moved towards Shield.

<Barrage>

She used another skill skill and quickly shot tens of arrows at them. They dodged by hiding behind the tower shield but Joseph was a step late and took an arrow to the knee.

“Aah”, screamed Joseph as he knelt in pain. Yumi shot an arrow that pierced his brain and he died with a painful expression.

“Joseph!” screamed Trent.

<Heavy Shot>

<Heavy Shot>

<Heavy Shot>

Yumi didn’t give them any chance to settle and continuously shot arrows directly on the tower shield. Shield was staggered with each arrow. When he lost his balance enough that a small part of his head was visible over the shield, she shot an arrow at his head. Shield was struck by the arrow in the head and died.

Only Sword and Trent were left with no protection. Fear was written all over Trent’s face and even Sword had fear in his eyes.

“I am sorry, please let me go. We are not even enemies. You don’t have to kill me. It was them who forced me to come here. I never wanted to come. Please let me go and I will never cross paths with you again”, begged Trent. Of course, in his head, he was thinking viciously of a revenge plan. He was thinking of telling everyone in the city about the potion formulas so that the entire city would become her enemy.

Yumi just stood silent with an arrow knocked on the bow. Trent knew she would not let him go, so he snapped and ran towards her.

“I WILL KILL YOU, YOU F-”

He was interrupted midway, as he took an arrow to the head and dropped dead.

Sword just watched her without saying anything. He was waiting for Shadow to defeat Ayame so that he could save him.

Suddenly Ayame appeared and joined her. He was surprised to see her, and then he thought of a terrifying possibility.

“Shadow is dead?” He asked with hesitation. Ayame nodded in return.

“Ha, ha, hahaha”, laughed Sword like a madman.

“Peter, that fcking idiot. Why did you target them? Couldn’t you see the difference between you and them?”

“He used to create problems for the boss when he was alive. Even after his death, he is still creating problems.”

“Boss you made wrong enemies this time.”

Sword talked to himself as if a madman. He said the last sentence with a very painful voice.

He placed the sword blade near his throat and sliced it. He fell, gurgled, and died of blood loss. He took his life, he couldn’t handle the pressure. First, the godforsaken fog zone tightened his nerves then the fight against Yumi broke his already taut nerves.

The twins then moved towards Drake who was watching the fight from the beginning. He was not much worried about the twins as he had already checked the statuses of the enemies and other than that slightly stronger veteran. The rest were not a match for the twins.

He turned his attention back to the parchments in his hand. He checked them.

 

Potion Formula

Path: Mad Scientist

Sequence: 9, Poison Master

Rank: 1-3

 

Surprisingly, all of them were potion formulas and from the same path. Moreover, the ingredients for the Rank 1 potion were already available. Yes, those were the venom glands from the bosses from the fog zone along with Purple-Spotted Ivy leaves.

If he put those formulas on the auction, none of the players could afford to purchase it. Even the top guilds needed to collect money for a long time to purchase them.

But he had no interest in selling them. Occasionally selling some materials was enough to maintain the supply of fog coins. He checked the price at which the Corrupted Goblin Blood Essences were sold. He was surprised but understood the reason, so he put all the remaining stock of Corrupted Goblin Blood Essence in the auction.

He didn’t sell others as they might be used by him or his followers later, but he had no interest in goblin followers. If it was a sexy Goblina then he might change his mind, but till then no goblins.

When he was checking the potion formulas, the twins harvested the materials from the spider bosses.

 

Name: Red-Striped Black Widow Silk Sac

Sequence 9, Early-Stage

 

Name: Red-Striped Black Widow Venom Gland

Sequence 9, Early-Stage

 

Both the minor spider bosses contributed one silk sac and one venom gland each. The larger boss also contributed a venom gland, but Yumi’s incendiary arrows damaged its silk sac.

The twins were guilty of ruining his loot,

“Don’t worry about it. Be careful next time”, said Drake. He thought it was fun to keep them on their toes.

“Thank you, young master, for your grace. We will not make the same mistake next time”, promised the twins.

Then they all spent the next half hour collecting all the loot from their fallen enemies as well the the hordes of spiders they killed.

Then they started their return journey. They were not attacked many times, most probably because the monsters recognized them as the slayers of their leaders.

They collected the boss monster parts that they left behind and reached the location where they parked their car in an hour.

There they found rows of different vehicles. Among them was RV. It was known as one of the best vehicles to travel in the fog.

The RV belonged to David who purchased it from merchants from another territory at a high price. His subordinates borrowed it from him for the mission.

He directly declared it as his own. He would not give up the comfort and versatility of an RV for anything.

There were too many vehicles, so it was impossible to take them back just with four people. So, for the next half an hour, they transferred anything of value to the RV or the trailer attached to their car.

He decided to take the RV, his jeep, and a truck that was of good quality back to the territory.

Then he roughly sorted the things he got and took out three hundred fog coins and a small portion from the various materials including monster parts, like their venom, or some useful plants they collected on the way.

He turned towards Aria, smiled, and said, “It was a great adventure. I had fun with you. This is your share”, and passed the prepared fog coins and materials to her. They were much higher than what she worked for, but considering the danger of the adventure and how she stood with them without flinching, he thought she deserved that much.

“Drake that’s too much”, said Aria, refusing to take so much.

“Take it, you earned it”, said Drake and forcefully shoved the package in her hands.

Aria had seen so much wealth for the first time but she was not happy. She watched the twins. She knew that they didn’t have a share because they were followers and they were happy about it.

Actually, the twins had a share, just there was no percentage distribution. Drake usually rewarded them for their hard work in their mansion. Whenever they traveled without Drake, they usually kept the loot.

The twins also watched her and smiled, she thought that they were mocking her and that they belonged to Drake so they didn’t need their share, but she didn’t belong to him, so she got her share.

Of course, what she thought was correct, they were indeed mocking her. 

‘Can I also become his follower?’

‘If I become his follower, I could be free from them.’

‘Maybe if I ask him, he will also take my tribe members as his followers. Our beauty is not less than the twins, so we can serve him.’

‘Then even they could be free.’

‘And if I go on such adventures with Drake, I will become stronger, then Drake would not look down on me for weak strength. And I could compete with the twins.’

With such thoughts, Aria decided to ask Drake to become his follower.

“Drake, can you please take me as your follower too? I will serve you properly”, asked Aria in a hopeful tone.

Drake was watching her and had roughly guessed her thoughts.

He checked her loyalty, and it was the same as the first day he met her.

 

Name: Aria Wildfang

Loyalty: 70 (Reliable)

 

He knew the reason for her stagnant loyalty and knew if he accepted her offer, it would skyrocket.

“Aria, it was fun to go on adventures with you. I don’t mind going on even more adventures with you” said Drake with a smile.

Aria had an excited smile when she heard that. She waited to hear his approval with hopeful eyes.

“But if you want to follow me”, said Drake and paused.

Hearing that, Aria had a dreadful feeling.

After the pause, he continued, “You are not worthy”.