Chapter 17: Betrayal
"You won't be able to beat me if you just cut off my hand."
"You guys should aim for my neck like that white-haired kid."
The Hand Demon taunted Charlotte and Osas who were still struggling.
"This shit is endless, this Demon's regeneration is too fast, no matter how many times his hand is cut, his hand will grow immediately."
Osas continued to swing his ax cutting the hands that kept coming at him, sweat dripping down his forehead, evidently he was getting tired.
Charlotte wasn't any better, her breath was starting to pant, but she kept swinging her sword.
As for Rio, he was constantly attacking the Hand Demon's neck, but the hand protecting the Hand Demon's neck was too hard.
"Tch..."
Rio tilted his head to the left dodging the Hand Demon's attack, but his cheek was scratched by a fingernail.
Using <Reduced Earth>, Rio kept a distance of 20 meters from the Hand Demon.
"Hahhhh… Hahhhh… Hahhhh…"
Wiping away the blood on his cheeks, Rio also felt his chest constrict because his vitality was so low.
"I have to defeat him in one hit."
As he was about to attack, <Danger Detection> gave him a warning from the ground. Without hesitation, Rio jumped to the right.
*BOOM*
From the ground, four green veined hands shot out from where Rio was standing earlier. If he was hit by that attack, the lightest injury would have been several broken ribs.
"I'll end this!"
"Total Concentration Breathing."
Rio took a deep breath drawing oxygen into his body.
Streams of white lightning seemed to appear around his body, with a sharp look in his eyes, Rio drew his sword.
"Thunder Breathing, Ichi no kata: Hekireki Issen (First Form: Thunderclap and Flash)."
*JEDER*
The sound of thunder echoed in the forest that could be heard within a radius of 100 meters.
Rio sped up fast without being able to be seen with the naked eye.
But Hand Demon responded quickly, he withdrew all his hands that were attacking Charlotte and Osas. Then he focused all his hands on Rio.
But in the blink of an eye, those dozens of hands were very neatly chopped off.
(Very fast, but no problem... My neck is so hard he won't be able to cut it)
(After he fails, I will crush his head)
Hand Demon thought confidently at the hardness of his neck.
"Die, O nameless demon..."
*Puchi*
In less than 3 seconds, Rio arrived before the Hand Demon, he swung the Nichirin Sword horizontally and cut the Hand Demon's head like a hot knife cutting butter.
"Eh...?"
Hand Demon muttered in disbelief seeing his body standing headless at this time.
"Oooo… Shin did it!" Osas shouted happily watching the Hand Demon being defeated.
"White lightning… That's very different from Zenitsu…" Charlotte muttered to herself.
"Damn Damn Damn… My body started to crumble and disappear…"
"I can't stop it anymore."
Before long the Hand Demon became black ash and completely disappeared.
"Cough Cough..."
Rio covered his mouth as he coughed, his hands had black blood spots from the cough he just coughed.
"Is that so… This is a side effect of using Thunder Breath with a weak body…"
"Yo Shin! That one was great earlier, you could decapitate that Demon in one hit, why didn't you do that from the start."
Osas came to Rio with a smile on his face.
"Your Breathing Force is so powerful, why not give it to me."
A few meters away from Rio, the friendly smile on Osas' face instantly became a cruel smile.
Taking advantage of Rio's weak state, Osas slashed his ax at Rio.
"It's been neglected to dodge."
Rio wanted to dodge, but his body was in pain right now and it was difficult for him to respond to Osas' sneak attack.
Just as the ax was about to split Rio's head, the figure of a blonde girl with peerless beauty appeared in front of Rio and parried the ax.
*Clanks*
Charlotte changed the direction of the ax's attack so it slipped to the side.
"Charlotte, why are you blocking me!"
"I should be the one asking, why do you want to kill Shin?"
Gripping her sword tightly to keep it from falling, Charlotte felt her hands go numb from the attack just now.
"You ask why? Of course I want his Skill!"
Since Rio is in a weakened state and Charlotte is no match for him, Osas is in no hurry to finish off these people
"His skills?" Charlotte raised her eyebrows, she didn't understand what the other party meant.
"It means that when a player kills another player, the player can take the skills of the killed player… I was right, right…?" Rio said weakly like he could fall at any moment.
But in fact he was circulating Total Concentration Breathing to the maximum to temporarily recover his body condition, which was why he bothered to chat to buy time.
"As I thought, you're also Player Shin… No, Shin must be the fake name you're using."
Osas was a little surprised that Rio could guess his destination just from a few words.
"Is that really Osas?" Charlotte asked raising her guard.
"Of course it's true, when a player kills another player, the body of the killed player will appear a blood-red vortex, and one can randomly acquire items or skills when one puts one's hand into the vortex."
"For example I got the Stone Breathing Skill when I poisoned a naive player acutely met a week ago."
"Ha Ha Ha Ha… I still remember the look of despair on that Player's face when I poisoned him… It's so funny every time I think about it… Ha Ha Ha Ha…"
Different from Osas' friendly expression before, he now had the expression of a psychopath flaunting his crimes.
"Ichi no kata: Hekireki Issen (First Form: Thunderclap and Flash)."
Before Charlotte and Osas could react, Rio launched a sneak attack on Osas who was still laughing madly.
*Puchi*
With a laugh still on his face, Osas' head separated from his body.
Osas' head rolled on the ground, when he realized what had happened, his mouth was wide open to say something, but not a single word came out of his mouth.
Seeing his headless body spitting out warm blood from the tip of his severed neck.
Osas' eyes were wide open even after he died, he regretted why he spoke too much nonsense instead of killing Rio right away before recovering.
Rio's hair and Haori that were previously as white as snow were now stained with blood that spurted fiercely from Osas' neck.
With blood on his face, Rio now looked so scary, he resembled a serial killer like in a movie.
"Oh, is this the red vortex? It turns out that Osas wasn't lying."
If it was ordinary people seeing Rio's current appearance, their legs would tremble in fear and they would run away. But Charlotte didn't care at all, instead she was more interested in the red vortex that appeared above Osas' corpse.
"Well Shin, try putting your hand in this vortex and see if you can come up with something good."
Charlotte turned to look at Rio without any fear at all.
"Okay, I'll try." Rio said flatly as usual.
There was no fluctuation in his heart from killing a human for the first time.
Because [Apathy] negated all sorts of emotions, Rio didn't feel any guilt about killing humans, he didn't even care that his body was drenched in the other party's blood.
Shaking the Nichirin Sword on the ground, the bloodstains attached to the sword instantly splashed onto the ground.
Then Rio walked closer to Osas corpse, he squatted beside Charlotte and spoke a little softly.
"Thanks for the previous Charlotte."
"Eh?!"
Charlotte looked at Rio like she was staring at a stranger, this was the first time this icy cold man spoke softly to her like this.
"You're welcome." Charlotte replied with a dazzling smile.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Takamiya_Shin
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