Lili deflected an arrow that was heading straight towards Tesilim, then dodged a bolt of crimson magic that exploded behind her. She was heading straight for the archer and the devil girl standing beside her. The archer would be the easiest one to take out, which would let her focus on the caster. She was leaving the bull for Tesilim to handle, and Drex was heading to find the gnome.

  Dodging an arrow empowered technique, Lili arrived before the archer and felt the girl’s enhancement spike as she jumped back. In response, Lili threw a dagger at the elf and heard the yelp of pain as it pierced her armor without issue. With that, the archer was done for, Lili having coated the weapon with a fairly weak C Rank poison that would easily eat away at the D Ranker. The poison took hold relatively fast, and Lili only felt one more arrow wheeze by her before turning to engage the hellion girl.

  It wasn’t hard for Drex to pick up the gnome's smell, but it did get harder to track it; no doubt the sneaky rogue was using magic to help him sneak about. Even so, Drex enhanced his body, boosting all his abilities and helping him track the gnome's stink with his enhanced sense of smell. Apparently, there were ways to focus the effect on only his senses and not just his body in general, something he needed to work on.

  Drex found the gnome trying to make his way towards his dad, the rogue heard him coming just in time to see him mid-jump, his maw open, green smoke starting to emanate from within.

  "By light and air, cleanse and renew;

  Purify all, through and through."

  Tesilim finished his cleansing spell and quickly felt the magic take effect. He had put a decent amount of mana into the spell to make sure it was quick, and it was. Looking over at Lili, he saw an arrow miss her by a few inches before the archer dropped to a knee. Lili was now engaging the red-skinned woman who had jumped back, putting some distance between her and Lili.

  As Tesilim was looking to send a few water slashes at the hellion girl, he saw the bull-man rush out of the bushes. One of his horns was broken, and he had Lili’s foot imprint on his chest, but he was still running straight for him. Smiling, Tesilim decided to play with the bull-man and ignited his nifty boots.

  Rose had maneuvered her fight so the bald man's back was to Alyx, and she saw when the goblins were grasped by the roots, the gnome moving to engage the swordsman Jasmine had trapped. She had also checked on the fight with Lili, Tesilim, and Drex, but they were handling themselves just fine. So, seeing that things were now balanced, Rose smiled at the warhammer user. The muscle head clearly took it as a taunt—which it was—and doubled his efforts, increasing his enhancement. In response, Rose did the same, but only enough to keep her safe. Then, she finally began using her sword and footwork skills instead of just acting like a gate against a hammering ram.

  Jasmine figured the death or entrapment of the goblins had set the man off, and he had unleashed a barrage of slashes at her to no avail. She had mostly dodged the attacks but had also countered them with her own beams or blades of power and had easily made her way to him.

  She lunged forward, the tip of her staff moving straight for his head. He pushed her mostly metal staff to the right with a smack of his blade, but it wasn’t done gently or skillfully. In turn, Jasmine used the momentum from getting her staff pushed away and brought it back around and behind her, using the same momentum to twirl to the left and around the sword thrust the man had done after parrying her staff.

  Jasmine used the opening he made with his thrust to then dodge his attack and bring her staff around once more to smack the guy with all the gathered force. The attack was done too swiftly and caught the man right in the chest as he turned around to face her. The force sent him stumbling back, and Jasmine heard the crack of bones.

  Alyx stood behind the man, waiting for him to run around. The other sword twin had just gotten out of Jasmine’s binding, but his enhancement had been active the entire time, and he no doubt heard Alyx coming. It wasn’t long before the gnome was staring at the swordsman, and even less time for the man to charge forward, his body exploding with energy as he obviously pushed his enhancement further.

  It wasn’t too often that Alyx got into melee combat with other humanoids. He had been trained for it and was happy he could warm up his skills when situations like these arose. The problem was that it was just that, a nice warm-up, because the guy in front of him wasn’t worth much else. The gnome saw the sword coming from a mile away, and even if the guy's enhancement was currently at a higher point, it didn’t matter; he simply stepped to the side, quickly smacking the human fighter. The smack was done at the right time in the right spot to make the over-extended swordman tumble forward.

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  That was another problem with these idiots. They figured that since he looked like a caster, he would suck at melee, and thus they would underestimate him. Another problem was that his mind for research would turn to studying the movements of his opponents. It wasn’t long before patterns appeared, and he began to dismantle his attackers.

  In fact, as he dodged another few blows and quickly retaliated with the butt of his staff, Alyx was thinking that maybe fighting this idiot wasn’t worth it. Instead, he should really look to challenge Lili with her experience or Tesilim with his dumb teleports. The white-haired elf was good because her rank and experience made her an actual challenge, and Tesilim’s teleport was very difficult to counter.

  Drex landed and was annoyed to find no gnome between his claws. The smoke from his blast was dissipating, and the whole area smelled of gnome, which made it hard to track the rogue. His problem was solved when a dagger stabbed into his underbelly. The wound hurt, but it also told him where the gnome was, and Drex unleashed a burst of flames in the general direction. Annoyingly, there was no scream of pain, and instead, he set some bushes aflame.

  Standing there, Drex waited for the rogue to strike again. He now had a better idea of the gnome's tactics and had another nicely powered flame breath at the ready. Sure enough, a few seconds later, Drex felt another stab on the opposite side of where he was looking. Except, now he was ready for it and quickly turned his head in that direction, unleashing his flames in as wide an area as he could. That time, the flames caught the gnome, his invisibility breaking mid-jump as his hair and clothes partially caught on fire.

  Having a target, Drex quickly pounced and began tearing into the screaming gnome.

  Lili ran at the hell girl, who shot more crimson missiles in her direction. As always, Lili dodged most of them with her speed and agility. Those she didn’t dodge, she smacked to the side with her daggers, which were covered with flowing darkness. The black-haired hellion tried to jump back once again when Lili was halfway to her, but Lili threw her dark dagger, stopping the motion and making the woman dodge to the side. The movement bought Lili enough time, and the next thing the hellion saw was Lili’s foot coming straight for her head, a blow she wouldn’t survive.

  Tesilim was bored. Teleporting was really unfair, especially against muscle-headed enemies who didn’t have any way to counter. Arelion had weapon skills and a decent array of techniques to keep him in check. Alyx probably had an ungodly number of spells that could somehow stop him. Lili just out-skilled and out-ranked him. Rose and Jasmine were the only two who would struggle, but he wasn’t sure for how long. Especially Jasmine, who could just pull something with her Innate Magic.

  Meanwhile, the bull dude only swung his axe fast and hard, his rage growing with every swing. A swing that was definitely dipping into Low C Rank power, almost chopping trees in half. The problem was that Tesilim could see each swing coming from a mile away and teleport out of the way. From there, he ignited his boots and smacked the bull a couple of times, singeing his fur and doing small amounts of damage. He would also throw a few water slashes here and there when he needed to keep the bull distracted for an extra second or two. However, mainly, Tesilim was just stabbing the guy to death. He had what appeared to be a weak regenerative power, but Tesilim guessed it was a technique or Body Enhancement of sorts, though Innate Magic could also be to blame. Either way, the regeneration wasn’t much, and it was only a matter of time before the bull man fell to the ground.

  It didn’t take long for Jasmine and Rose to bring down their enemies. They simply out-skilled them both, and they were on the ground before long. The two ladies hadn’t killed their targets just yet and had kept them alive since there wasn’t a point in killing them. In fact, they had checked the two goblins and had found them alive, barely. Having felt bad for the two goblins, the two had stabilized them before watching Alyx grow incredibly bored with his own fight.

  The gnome had at one point decided he had had enough and, after dodging an attack, had boosted his enhancement while lightning sparked around his staff. Then, the gnome proceeded to absolutely demolish his target.

  After that, they found Lili, who was watching Tesilim play around with the beastkin. They all felt bad for the axe-wielding bull and knew the frustration of fighting someone who could teleport as easily as breathing. While they waited for Tesilim’s fight to be over, Rose and Jasmine looked for the rest of the enemy, hoping to keep them alive, but found the archer dead with black veins all over. The hellion’s head twisted the wrong way, and finally, Drex gnawing on a gnome's head, a sight that made both of them blench a bit.

  Eventually, the bull-man simply fell to the ground, his body bleeding from multiple places and singed in many others.

  After the fight, they discussed what to do and decided to place all the living adventurers relatively close together. They might wake up before a beast got to them, or they might not. As for the dead, well, Rose blessed them, making sure they wouldn’t come back as undead, and they also got left, though a bit further away from the living.

  The final thing they did before leaving their ambushers was to search them for any goods. This was mainly Tesilim since he said he was broke and needed gold. Sadly for him, the thieves were just as broke, which was probably why they tried to steal from them in the first place.