“Step aside, Treyer. He's mine!”
A female voice echoed in his ears, sounding as though its owner were a shadow concealed within pure darkness.
Treyer...
Lynn had heard this name before. It was the mortal moniker of one of the world's six benevolent deities, the God of War and Strength.
Since most of his believers were Fighters, he was also known as the God of Fighters.
As for who the female voice belonged to, Lynn had no idea.
But to speak to Treyer, the God of Fighters, in such a manner, she was undoubtedly a deity as well.
Am I being watched by deities?
Although Lynn had long known that deities truly existed in this world—after all, the Priests and Paladins really had to uphold their oaths once sworn—
the nobles of the Kingdom of Vallenia were so intimidated by these Paladins that they didn't even dare to keep slaves.
Yet, now that divine power was actually descending upon him, it still felt surreal,
especially when two deities were seemingly arguing over him.
Didn't the Church say that only devout believers could receive a deity's gaze?
A devout believer? Me?
They couldn't possibly have designs on my body, could they?
But Lynn immediately dismissed this worry.
Leaving aside the fact that the benevolent deities of this world truly represented justice and had left many holy miracles in the mortal realm,
even if they did have some ulterior motive, there was no reason to target a nobody like Lynn, who wasn't even an official class-holder yet.
So why exactly were these two clashing?
Competing for a believer?
A male and a female voice began arguing in his ears in a language he couldn't understand.
Lynn didn't know what the outcome of their discussion was.
In any case, the white light eventually receded somewhat resentfully, but a large portion of it still entered his body.
However, the white light flooding into his body did not contain any particularly strong divine will. It felt more like pure energy, accompanied by a faint, almost imperceptible trace of attention.
It was warm and very comfortable,
much more pleasant than the cold energy emanating from his short sword.
Just as this thought crossed Lynn's mind, a sharp pain shot through his waist, as if he had been stung by something.
The painful spot was exactly where the short sword's scabbard rested.
Petty goddess...
The thought arose instinctively, and immediately, the pain in his waist intensified.
Lynn quickly cleared his mind and stopped letting his thoughts wander.
Meanwhile, the other portion of the white light surged into the injured woman's body.
Although it was only a small fraction of the white light,
thanks to Lynn, the total amount of white light that had descended was far greater than it would have been originally. Even a small fraction was still more than the initial amount.
Seeing the woman surrounded by monsters, Lynn finally remembered his purpose.
Hunting monsters and activating a new bloodline.
Lynn stared intently at the tall Gnoll Stalker, his heart already filled with anticipation.
...
A deity's gaze was invisible to anyone other than the recipient.
Thus, only the female Fighter, Hilda, and Lynn knew that a deity's gaze had briefly focused on this place.
The others could only see the wounds on Hilda's body begin to heal at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Immediately afterward, she actually stood up again, and with a single strike of her sword, decapitated a Gnoll Thrall that had just pounced at her.
Everyone's spirits lifted,
but the powerful ranked monster was still watching like a hawk from the side, and the female Fighter's wounds were not yet fully healed. The situation remained critical.
But just then, the situation suddenly shifted once more—
About twenty meters behind the monsters, a cyan missile of light suddenly flared to life.
And this missile, as if endowed with a life of its own, twisted and turned, bypassing the ordinary gnolls and flying straight toward the only ranked monster on the field—the Gnoll Stalker.
Within a mere fraction of a second, the Magic Missile had closed within four to five meters of the stalker.
Only then did the Gnoll Stalker realize that a damnable spellcaster was launching a sneak attack.
The stalker instinctively activated its beastly bloodline, its speed instantly surging. It stomped its foot and leaped backward to the side, attempting to dodge the path of the light missile.
Yet, like a vengeful specter, the missile instantly veered and continued to hurtle toward it!
The stalker reacted incredibly fast. Seeing that it could no longer dodge, it immediately crossed its dual blades in front of its chest, intending to block the incoming spell.
To its surprise, just as the missile was about to collide with the blades, it suddenly made a sharp downward turn, bypassing the weapons entirely!
The missile struck the stalker from below.
The energy projectile slammed into its leather armor, sending sparks flying. In an instant, it tore a gash through the monster's leather armor and left a scorched wound beneath the stalker's torso.
The massive kinetic energy it carried actually launched the 170-pound stalker nearly a meter into the air!
Right on its heels was Lynn, who had activated the Rune 【Burst Step】 after casting his spell and had already teleported behind the stalker.
At this moment, the 【Burst Step】 Rune finally revealed its true power!
It wasn't just a tool for Mages to escape; it was an absolute godsend for Assassins, allowing Lynn to rapidly close the distance to his target.
Approaching within a mere 0.3 seconds, combined with the optical camouflage of Stealth and Mimicry—
even a ranked monster had absolutely no time to react!
A flash of his short sword, and it plunged straight into the highlighted red area on the stalker's back.
“Backstab!”
The “Sneak Attack” effect triggered.
Having barely survived the missile strike thanks to its leather armor's defense, the stalker hadn't even had time to recover its footing before its vision went dark, plunging it into a brief stun.
It regained consciousness about 0.15 seconds later.
And then, it watched helplessly as a short sword drove deep into its waist.
Fresh out of the stun, the stalker was utterly powerless to stop it.
“Kidney Strike!”
Lynn had discovered that if Kidney Strike and Backstab were used in succession, they seemed to inflict even greater damage on monsters.
After using Backstab, a surge of energy would condense on the weapon.
And as Kidney Strike was unleashed, this energy was injected alongside the short sword plunging into the gnoll's body, completely shredding the Gnoll Stalker's internal organs.
Thud—
When the Gnoll Stalker hit the ground, it had already become a warm corpse. Filthy blood mixed with bits of flesh spilled from its waist, warming the dirt.
“Slew one Gnoll Stalker. Gained Bloodline Points (Gnoll) x20 (Over-level kill multiplier: 200%).”
From the appearance of the magical light missile to the ranked monster crashing to the ground as a corpse, the entire process took less than 1.5 seconds.
Every living creature present, whether adventurer or monster, was utterly stunned by this sudden explosion of violence.
The ranked monster that had been snarling and brandishing its weapons just moments ago was now lying dead on the ground in the blink of an eye?
The adventurers stared blankly at this suddenly appearing Rogue who had comboed the Tier 1 monster to death, feeling as though they had just witnessed a flawless solo performance.
“It's a class-holder! We're saved!”
Rate on N.U.
