章節 29: 2 Vs 1
*Thud!*
Brian was now lying on the ground with his eyes wide open but it wasn't because he was dead. At the last moment, Beta came up from behind him and hit him with his staff in order to get him out of the arrow's way as fast as possible.
"What are you lying around there for? Want to nap? Stand up and beat that guy with me!", Beta shouted at Brian to bring him back to his senses.
Brian looked at Beta, shocked, but then a warm feeling rose up inside him. His life was saved once again. To him, Beta was truly a guardian angel that protected him wherever he went. With Beta's arrival, he felt instant relief and was able to muster enough strength to fight on. He picked up his saber and stood up, placing himself next to Beta.
"How are we going to do it? He's pretty strong.", Brian asked while inspecting his opponent.
Croobie just watched them incredulously. "How did he manage to stay undetected from me? That kid is dangerous!"
"We will both attack him at the same time. Since you're already injured, you will take up the back line. He shouldn't be too hard to beat if we team up. Remember how we beat that one thing in the forest?", Beta said in a calm voice, unbefitting of a situation like this.
Brian instantly understood what he meant and nodded. Though their opponent now was a lot stronger compared to the beast, the chemistry between him and Beta when fighting was great, so as long as he follows along with his plan of attacking, it should be possible for the both of them to succeed. Suddenly, Croobie put his hands behind his back and strolled over. He was confident that he will win since the kids in front of him are still kids after all.
"Even if you team up, I can still beat you without breaking a sweat. You shouldn't have helped him, boy! But, as I am a magnanimous grown up, I am willing to let you go. You only have to give up all your money and his life. Not a bad deal, right?", Croobie said with a creepy smirk on his burnt face.
Beta responded quickly. He put on his usual warm smile and walked towards Croobie.
"Did he actually fall for it? Kids these days are just way too naive!", Croobie thought, almost letting out a chuckle. When Beta was only a few steps away, Croobie suddenly fired an arrow.
"When did he make that?!", Brian freaked out, too slow to react. But before he could do anything or even warn Beta, the arrow was already in front of him.
*Clunk!*
Something that neither Brian nor Croobie expected happened. Beta smashed the arrow with his staff.
"H-how?! You definitely didn't see me cast this arrow!", Croobie shouted.
"You're right about that. But who in their right mind would actually put their hands behind their backs in a battle if they didn't try to do something hidden?", Beta answered calmly.
Croobie was stupefied. Wasn't it just a kid? How could he know such scheming thoughts already?
Beta noticed that his opponent was currently distracted so he used that moment to attack him. But then again, Croobie has been a seasoned fighter for years. He was only surprised but he still managed to sense Beta's attack and blocked it. Before he could take a breath from the sudden attack, a saber already approached him at a high speed which gave him no choice but to block the incoming attack again. As an unlimited number of attacks followed, Croobie was forced to go on the defensive more and more.
"Do you think it will be that easy?!"
Croobie suddenly let out a scream and pushed them away. He then started to cover himself in earth elemental soulpower. It clung to his skin as it slowly compressed and hardened.
"What the hell is happening?", Brian said, his mouth agape.
"He's forming armor with his soulpower. I don't know how helpful it will be though, it seems to be very thin…", Beta answered.
Right after Beta said that, Croobie finished his armor and looked at them with a devilish smile.
"I will kill you!", he shouted while slowly moving towards them with murderous eyes.
"Brian, think of Leopold.", Beta said in a hushed voice.
At first, Brian was confused. Why should he think of Leopold in a moment like this after all? But then he remembered the method Beta had fought him with.
Brian nodded.
They both rushed at Croobie, aiming for his chest. The mace blocked Beta's staff, but Brian's saber connected. It slid along his chest, creating a noise as if he was scratching it on stone. The attack didn't penetrate his defenses at all as he only managed to push Croobie away.
"Hmm… Distract him for a bit. He's stronger for sure but he's also a bit slower now, so you should be able to deal with him."
Brian nodded and directly rushed up to Croobie without hesitation. He used his saber and tried to hack the same spot over and over again but he soon noticed that the spot he damaged slowly healed. The armor consisted of soulpower and not real earth after all, so it was only obvious that he could shift the quantity a bit as long as he has enough soulpower to keep it up.
Meanwhile, Beta was concentrating as he created an arrow. The quickest way to make the armor disappear would be to use a void arrow. Croobie's slowed movements literally begged for it. Slowly, the void arrow formed above his hand. This time, it was much bigger. It was at least three times the old one in size. As soon as it was ready, Beta fired the arrow. He aimed it precisely at the slightly damaged chest part. When Brian noticed something coming up from behind him, he acted instantly in tandem to the incoming attack. He knocked the mace away then ducked.
The arrow flew only two centimeters above his head and finally pierced Croobie's chest. Since he was only attacked by one person for a while, Croobie, of course, had expected them to be planning something. But whatever it was, he was sure his defense could handle it. This proved to be a fatal mistake though. When Beta's arrow hit him, his armor disappeared. But that wasn't all. His skin and part of his flesh disappeared as well. He now had a small hole on the surface of his body.
"I expected it to be weaker when attacking against soulpower, but it still surprises me how much of the effect got negated.", Beta said, a little disappointed about the outcome.
His first arrow was already able to achieve such an outcome but it still disappointed him that after he trained like crazy, the improved version didn't change much at all. Of course, if he attacked a tree or an apple with his new arrow again, the outcome would be very different.
If Croobie knew what Beta was thinking right now, he would probably curse him to death. Croobie was completely stunned by the arrow's power. None of the elements he knew of were able to deal such a huge amount of damage in an instant.
Thud!
Croobie looked down at his chest and saw a saber embedded into it. He fell on his knees, still shocked and couldn't get a grip at all. He looked up at Brian and Brian looked back at him.
"Where are they?! If we don't immediately help you, you will die.", Brian asked in a dominating tone.
"Will you let me live if I tell you?", asked Croobie with a defeated sigh.
Brian thought for a while, conflicted, but he eventually nodded thinking that his targets were those bastards that hurt his friends and not this guy in front of him. This made a small spark appear in Croobie's eyes. He knew that Brian had let his subordinates go before, so there was the possibility that he would do it again.
"They were in one of the houses you burned down, so they were already killed by you long ago."
Brian froze. He couldn't believe it. All this time he had been fighting an opponent who's much stronger just to get to know that his revenge was already fulfilled? His feelings were very mixed for his anger still hasn't abated. He wasn't able to see them suffering at all, nor even punish them slowly to make them feel the pain the children went through.
Croobie noticed Brian's predicament and his eyes suddenly flashed. He grabbed his mace and swung it towards Brian. But before he could reach halfway, a staff arrived in front of his face and seconds later, his brain was all over the place.
"You can't let your guard down for even a second.", Beta said in a serious tone.
Brian instantly pulled himself together and nodded, but still, he had his head down. Afterall they went through, they didn't gain anything. Beta, who knew what he was thinking, comforted him.
"We may not have gained anything materialistic but we've earned experience which can be of much more use."
"That's true... I learned how to create an arrow in this fight, so it's not too bad. And we also got to see another use for soulpower.", Brian said, feeling much better already.
"We should go now before anyone sees us in this mess.", Beta said and walked towards the slum entrance. In the middle, he halted his steps for a second to pick something up and then continued moving forward. Brian looked strangely at him when he saw what Beta had picked up and he let out a sad sigh.
"Brian!", all of the kids shouted in unison when they saw them approaching.
They hurriedly ran to him and embraced him together while crying. Gerald, who had lost his arm earlier, had now bandages around his stump which had a little blood dripping from them. He hugged Brian as well but clearly distanced his stump in order to not dirty Brian.
"Brian, I'll give you a list of herbs. Get them from our stash then come to the inn we stayed at before. Lars, you go buy some clean cloth and also come to the inn after that.", Beta said in one breath.
Everyone noticed the urgency in his voice and wondered why he suddenly wanted to go to the inn, but since they trust him and his judgment, they still followed his instructions. After Beta gave him some money, Lars rushed off to the market while Brian went back to the dorm and fetched the herbs on the list Beta had written beforehand.
Meanwhile, Beta and the others were inside the old, dirty room of the inn they used to stay at. When Gerald saw what Beta had in his hand, he wasn't sad at all, instead, he was even proud. He believed that what he had done was what had to be done. His face literally said, "It was worth it!" when he looked at his friends. Beta just smiled at his positive behavior.
Soon, Brian and Lars returned and brought Beta the things he had asked for. Beta then spread the clean cloth on the moldy bed and told Gerald to lie down on it as he gave him some herbs to swallow. Shortly after, Gerald fell asleep. To everyone's surprise, Beta then unfolded the bandages on his stump. He then cleaned up Gerald's arm and the area of the cut. What he had picked up earlier was obviously Gerald's arm. The cut wasn't a clean one. It looked like the weapon was not sharp enough, therefore, it looked like they ripped his arm off instead. When Brian saw it, he couldn't help but wince and feel the anger inside him churn.
"Those bastards!!!"
Beta only shook his head and concentrated on his task. He put the severed arm close and used his skill the Surgeon's Rule to connect it back to the stump. He didn't dare to use the death element due to its aggressive, life-devouring nature. Hence, he willed the void element to come out. He controlled it in a way that he wouldn't harm Gerald. It was similar to when the void elemental soulpower was inside his body without hurting him.
Beta used a strand of soulpower so small and thin that every vessel can be seen. Soon, the bone was put in place, followed by his tendon, sinews veins, flesh, and finally the skin. He used his soulpower with utmost care to sew everything together which exhausted his mind incredibly. He had never used soulpower to do this before and it was also the first time for him to use his void soulpower without damaging anything. He had always been dependent and used his family's incredible equipment but since that was impossible now, he made do with his new skill from the orb his father had planted in his soul's head. Seeing his well-done work, he was quite satisfied with his experiment, though he can't mention that to Brian or else he might start sulking, which he doesn't want to go through again.
"Phew… He should be fine in a few days at most. But still, be careful since the bone reattaches quite slowly compared to the rest.", Beta said while sitting down in a corner of the room, resting his mind with his eyes closed and head leaned on the wall.
Everyone stared at him, flabbergasted.
Reminder: Surgeon's Rule – It's an advanced technique which mainly involves using scalpels to get new body parts.
創作者的想法 
rottencorpse
rottencorpse The chapter is kinda late today, so as a compensation it's a long one.
Hey guys! If you didn't know yet, I recently opened up a patreon account. So, if you want to support this poor me, you can check it out here https://www.patreon.com/rottencorpse. Thanks for reading my novel. Tchoos
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