The duo traveled the seemingly endless forest for over an hour, they were making good pace and had caught up to nearly every scout that had fled the encounter. It was likely that any other scout they’d missed wouldn’t get to the army in time. Both of them were realm two [Rogues] while the scouts were realm one at best.

  “Can you slow down?”

  Valee was breathing heavily, like she had been trying her best to keep up but had finally realized she couldn’t keep up the pace. Ryan just frowned.

  “It’s only been an hour, we can’t have that much of a physical gap.”

  She huffed, looking annoyed. “You have a damned Epic at the second realm. There’s already a noticeable difference when ninth realm adventurers get an Epic. You think it’d be any less at lower realms?”

  “Huh.”

  Ryan knew that, eighth realm adventurers with Epics would be a bit stronger and faster than those without, but it wasn’t an insurmountable difference. Though if it meant it was noticeable at that realm, and if it was even remotely near linear… Maybe he was operating at a higher speed than a normal realm two after all.

  “Heh, snowballing.”

  “How old are you?”

  He coughed.

  “It’s an inside joke okay?”

  They jogged at a slower pace for a few more minutes.

  “What was that back there with your Epic? Did you level it up mid combat?”

  “No–wait, maybe maybe not. I’m not explaining, none of your business.”

  “Well if we’re working together I should know about your abilities.”

  “Nice try.”

  They took another breather as they reapplied some of their remaining health potions on their wounds. The orc girl looked at him suspiciously.

  “You’re not built like an elf.”

  “I know, I went ham on the customization, didn’t you?”

  Valee was a half elf that had thrown away her original species to be an orc. Now was a rare choice for a woman. She had kept characteristics of her original face while adapting to some of the more wideset jaws that orcs had. Ryan didn’t judge, orcs could get significantly different class offerings that had unique skills of their own.

  She clearly had a build in mind with her bladed tonfa attachments.

  “No, I kept mine mostly the same as what was offered. This look works better anyway.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “None of your business.”

  Ryan didn’t push it. He was actually trying to figure out how he was supposed to act around her. On one hand he was supposed to be some sort of dastardly Artigan. On the other hand? He was kind of really happy he had someone to talk to that wasn’t himself.

  He was happy to throw away the ‘Artigan’ mystique until he saw her look at his way then glance away instinctively.

  Oh, his Epic was still working on her. Right.

  “Well, we should get going. Don’t want to miss out on all the action right?”

  “You’re planning on fighting?”

  “Of course, the Trial objective says to make them flee,” he didn’t miss how she was distinctly trying to look at the scenery around him, “I wonder what the result would be if we killed most of them instead.”

  A new completion objective was added to the list.

  Valee flinched as she read the notification herself.

  “You’re a lunatic.”

  Ryan grinned at her. “And don’t you forget it.”

  –

  The duo made it back to the demon encampment in record time. However, instead of great tents and patrolling guards, it was completely empty. Larger bits of timber were left, as if they had left in a hurry.

  “Looks like the [General] had evacuation orders,” Ryan muttered, “he was smarter than he looked.”

  It was a good move if you didn’t expect to come back alive, and you knew that humans were treacherous and would break a peace treaty first.

  “Not smart enough,” Valee whispered, “I hear fighting up ahead, looks like they didn’t evacuate in time.”

  “Poor demon army, they really can’t catch a break.”

  “Haven’t you been the one harassing them this entire time?”

  “Exactly my point.”

  Ryan broke into the abandoned camp and headed towards the fighting. He simply ran through the cleared area without a care in the world, entrusting to his [Dangersense]. Valee hesitated behind him, probably wondering if it was a smart decision to follow.

  “Make sure to watch out for my team!” She yelled at him.

  Valee hesitated one more time before she too decided to take a shortcut through the abandoned camp.

  –

  Ryan pushed his aura out. It encompassed his surroundings as everything else got quieter. Not in a [Rogue] stealthy way but more of everything else becoming muted other than him. It was a precursor skill to his Epic which meant that it naturally came with his Epic by itself.

  But there was a difference between having the actual skill itself versus having it in the Epic. It let him dial in his [Aura of Unrelenting Intimidation], at least, one aspect of it.

  When he started hearing sounds of fighting he activated his Epic in full.

  They all started to slow like a great weight was bearing down on them, slowly one by one the interspersed soldiers started to take notice and turn to his direction. A few even started running away.

  They were the sensible ones.

  Ryan flitted diagonally between the trees, he cared not that they aimed and fired. He felt his aura pushing him forward, granting him speed beyond what they could achieve.

  Someone threw a spear at him as he simply swayed to dodge.

  What horrible shots! What horrible slips! Actually, wild throws were probably more dangerous. Ryan focused instead of letting the momentum overtake him. He stepped behind a tree to take a breath.

  Then his [Dangersense] screamed. Ryan dove.

  The cover he was using shattered into splinters as a metallic spear smashed right through it.

  These were Warriors not Scouts. And these crappy trees were nothing like the trees in the Leafstalkers forest. He had to keep moving.

  “Fire!”

  Ryan ran diagonally backwards, keeping Avale’s shield at his torso. [Dangersense] was down because he was a dumbass. He blamed the stupid amount of power coursing through his body.

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  Then he did what he did best. He taunted the enemy.

  “Hey you idiots! Guess who killed your stupid fucking [Strategist]?”

  Doing a tactical retreat had probably hurt his momentum. He’d get it back using words instead.

  “Do you think we’ll believe you, you fiend?”

  Fiend? Ryan shrugged, he’d work with it.

  “Strategist Itrac was an idiot! He thought he could kill me with an ambush. Now I’m here to kill all of you.”

  He should have brought that Strategist’s head, Ryan shook his own head. Valee’s reaction would’ve been hilarious.

  “Men! He’s lying, he is only one elf. He probably escaped the encirclement!”

  “Then why do you all sound so scared?

  For a moment it was just Ryan’s voice cutting through the air. This was easy, he kept moving back and forth as the soldiers tried to cluster together in the forest. They were well trained, he couldn’t really find an opening like this.

  But it wasn’t like he was alone.

  –

  The demons had been caught by the human army as they had just started their retreat. There was far too little warning as a certain elf had devastated their scouting squads. The few remaining units were too afraid to venture far away from the encampment.

  The initial attack was quick and devastating. The first five minutes were a massacre. Once the humans were confident in their overall victory they had started to spread, encircling the demon forces. Using both superior mobility and readiness to make sure the demon army had no chance of breaking the encirclement.

  The demons had begun to lose hope.

  But that was when they heard it.

  Someone was attacking the humans from behind. They’d cause them to clump together and face away from the demonic army, easing the burden on whichever side they were up against. The thinly stretched human encirclement began a sort of despairing wave as a figure in silver hair, the monster that had hounded the demonic army, began haunting the human army instead.

  And the words he spoke, it reverberated throughout the forest.

  “Hahaha! Itrac is dead! Itrac is dead! What’s wrong? Why are you all afraid of a single elf?!”

  A spear was thrown back at the human army, picking off a soldier. Causing more soldiers to turn around and huddled together.

  Then the voice started breaking throughout the entire forest. All the clashing sounds of combat started dulling as an elf's voice penetrated through the throng.

  “I made a deal with General Grivkas and your King. We have slain the human Strategist, Grivkas sent me ahead, do not die before he gets here. Now, Fight.

  Fear turned into desperate hope as the demons rallied and smashed into the human line, many of which now had the same looks of despair that the demons had just had.

  The demons cared little about throwing away their lives, their General was coming! They had seen the darkest of pits, but now that a glimmer of light could be seen?

  Hope smashed into fear.

  The elf’s laughter rang loud.

  –

  “Holy dragonshit.” Felsley muttered in awe.

  Valee had managed to find her team before the battle had truly intensified. [Mages] were rare in the army and she just had to look for an idiot throwing [Firebolts] from the back. From there, she had just lied to the other soldiers that she had gotten orders to intercept the elf that was causing chaos.

  That had been earlier, before Artigan had started making the army break ranks. If it was now? There was no way they would have let their team go.

  Marickle stared at the carnage before them, none of them had seen a war like this before.

  “I… I don’t like this objective Val.”

  “We’re going for achievements, taking down both armies will net us the most.”

  Marickle had another thought.

  “This might be the best time to take him down, he’s obviously power drunk.”

  Valee lowered her voice. Speaking with pained urgency.

  “Listen to me. I saw him dismantle a [General] in a duel and get out of a death trap set up by a Strategist. Whatever is happening, treat it like a calculated act. I’m significantly slower than he is, we risk a team wipe on ”

  Felsley leaned towards Marickle’s side.

  “Can we really trust him not to kill us afterwards?”

  She swiped her tongue over a tusk, a nervous tick.

  “I think the odds are better this way. I prodded him a little during our trip back. I think he has his rules and won’t break them easily.”

  Felsley just shrugged, he started pre-casting orbs of [Firebolts], Marickle readied her crossbow and Valee focused on her [Enhanced Senses] skill. She pointed at a specific target, one of the bodyguards in enchanted armor.

  “Fire!”

  The first few [Firebolts] landed amongst the humans, the explosion causing confusion and chaos. Marickle was their expert shot, targeting leaders and the artillery warriors. Valee focused and listened to the orders being given by the human commanders. Her skill wasn’t working as well as it should have been, but it was good enough so that she could reposition when she focused.

  Over twenty minutes went by as they harassed the human army like this. They had never even gotten close to getting injured. Valee could hear any groups trying to ambush them and Felsley did have a decent mana pool for a [Mage] of his realm.

  “I feel like we’re the bad guys here. We’re adventurers not muder hobos,” Felsley complained.

  Valee tried to reassure her [Mage].

  “They’re trial folk, not real people.”

  “Sure as hell doesn’t feel like it when they’re fleeing and cursing at us like that. Path of slaughter people are psychos, man, it should be banned.”

  Despite his words, Felsley never stopped firing. Valee heard footsteps approaching them, as clear as day.

  “Incoming, Blacklister. Don’t do anything rash.”

  They all tensed, ready for conflict. Only a few seconds later they saw the silver haired elf zig zag up to them. He looked ragged with rips and tears all over his outfit. Blood was trickling down his side. Valee put up a hand in case any of her team had the bright idea that this was a potential opening.

  The elf grinned at them.

  “Hey can you guys ease up on the human line? Maybe fire at the demons now.”

  “It still looks like the human army has the advantage.” Valee said.

  “Yeah, but they’re about to break and retreat. I was just harassing them but not really killing many of them. Your team’s kinda causing too much damage.”

  Felsley choked.

  “ is causing too much damage?”

  The blacklister scratched at his head.

  “The objective isn’t to kill all of them ourselves, it’s to ensure most of both armies are dead. It’s going to be a mess if the human army scatters and we have to hunt them down.”

  The blacklist was right, the human army was waning between the desire to finish of the demons and wanting to end a bad situation. Valee agreed.

  “Sure. We’ll start firing on the demons.”

  Artigan nodded at the fighting.

  “Not too much, honestly [Mages] really are too good at mass casualties.”

  “Yeah we’re definitely the bad guys here.”

  “Shut up Felsley.” Valee ordered.

  –

  Ryan ran around with a visible limp as he tracked an arrow in flight. He used [Partial Acceleration] to jerk his arm up suddenly as it was hit with the projectile.

  It was on purpose.

  It still hurt like a… well an arrow to the arm, the scream of pain was very real as he heard the yells of triumph from the human line.

  “Fuck you Felsley, this is your fault.”

  Ryan winced as he pulled out the arrow and let it bleed. He was trying to keep up the human army’s morale and this was the best idea he’d come up with.

  “I bet you have a spare potion, Valee. Yeah, if you can hear this, I’m taking that potion from you.”

  He flexed his arm, trying to test its mobility. It was probably going to be useless for the rest of the day. That wasn’t good.

  For now he had to focus on staying out of range of the human army’s artillery warriors. There weren’t that many of those, relatively speaking, but for the few that did exist? They were like mobile ballistae units.

  Not great in such a dense forest though. Once he was far out of range, Ryan tried to take a breath and remembered his mental exercise.

  “I have a plan, it’s fine. Even if I leave now it’s more than likely half of both armies will die.”

  . Don’t get drunk off your own power. Think.

  The demons actually outnumbered the humans. The [Strategist] hadn’t actually managed to mobilize his entire army across the entire forest. It just looked like an overwhelming victory because they had surrounded about seventy percent of the demon army.

  By leaving a small gap for the demons it had given the demons a way out. It was on purpose, it let the demons believe they could make a fighting retreat instead of a last stand.

  Then when the Strategist had come back he would have shattered the demon army’s morale and took control against an army with no leader.

  “Fucking genius.”

  Even if Ryan hadn’t liked the guy, he had to admire the plan. It would have worked, it have worked.

  “In the end none of it matters if you don’t have power, huh?”

  It was an obvious answer. Ryan was just disappointed by the conclusion.

  –

  The neatly organized war slowly enveloped into a storm of gore and blood. There were no more neat human lines herding the demons, no more demons defending their positions. It was a mess of soldiers desperately trying to gut each other.

  Humans that hated the demons and the demons that were given hope.

  Valee’s team watched it all go to shit while trusting in their leader to navigate the chaotic battlefield. Pausing often to let Felsley recover his mana.

  Artigan flitted in and around the perimeter, mercilessly hounding the backs of the human army, sometimes retreating to give the humans hope but always being an unstable unknown threat that they could not back out from.

  Two hours went by like this, two hours until both armies looked at the other surviving soldiers. Out of what was perhaps a thousand and five hundred soldiers there were maybe three hundred left.

  More than a few decided to fight till the bitter end. Too many had died here for them to give up now.

  The remainder?

  They began to break and retreat en masse.

  “This is so going to fuck with our future Trials.” Felsley cried.

  “Not much we can do about it now.” Valee said.

  Their next Trial would undoubtedly involve war and death of some kind. Artigan’s Trial invasion had shaken theirs up like a storm. It was even likely that either of the Kings would come and meddle in theirs.

  “We can kill the blacklister,” Marickle said, “you said he had one potion left. He just got shot by the arrow, he has to be tired now.”

  “No, end of story. He got hit on purpose to boost the human army’s morale, I heard him say it.”

  “You keep making him out to be some sort of [Savant] monster Valee, that makes it worse. We should be putting him down now.”

  “We are not having this argument again. Treat him like one of those people you hear about in the Settler generation, people who aren’t evil but you stay clear of. Ambert, One-eyed Rick, Malking.”

  “None of those people hit dragonslayer,” Felsley commented.

  “And let’s hope this one doesn’t either.”

  –

  Ryan didn’t approach Valee’s party. He was fucking exhausted, fighting a [General] then an ambush by a [Strategist] then directing a war had taken everything out of him. After a certain point, he’d stopped chasing deserters and just used his aura to make them run into another enemy.

  He checked his quest screen and smiled.

  Then he checked his skill screen.

  “Snowballing.” Ryan muttered, then he giggled.

  At his peak he was probably the strongest second realm in the world. He’d seen how much of a physical gap there was already with Valee. There wasn’t anyone that could stop him in a leveled zone.

  Without artifacts and guns of course.

  And soon, he wouldn’t need to worry about most guns.

  He felt it, he was going to become unstoppable.

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