Chapter 332
Not so easy (4)
IAM had only just begun to properly aim toward his designated creature when he started firing, shots leaving the barrel while his eyes never fully left Natsuki's movements. His focus was split—something that would have been impossible for him not long ago. Between his already exhausting schedule, he had been visiting the shooting range relentlessly. The repetition and the countless hours spent correcting minute errors had paid off. His aim had improved to the point where he could now afford to divide his attention without losing control.
It wouldn't be long before he could properly introduce mana bullets into his arsenal. When that happened, the increase in destructive potential would be undeniable—explosive, even. The risk of backlash still existed, lingering in the back of his mind, but IAM felt confident. Confident enough to believe that when the time came, it wouldn't hinder him.
Shot after shot rang out, bullets striking his target with undeniable ferocity. Power followed each pull of the trigger, carried by precision and intent. Yet something felt off. He watched closely, expecting a cluster of holes...
Instead, the bullets bounced off.
Metallic sparks burst into the air on impact, sharp flashes against the creature's body as if he were firing at reinforced plating rather than flesh. The only effect his shots had was forcing it to stagger back a few steps.
This… was going to be a problem.
Their bodies were far tougher than he had anticipated—dense, resilient, built to endure even bullets! If bullets weren't working, then the situation was already sliding toward something dangerous. Retreat crept into his thoughts as a option. A line he might have to cross sooner than expected.
Just as he was about to voice his concerns to Natsuki, to reassess before things escalated further—
He saw it.
An incredible scene unfolded before him, stealing the words straight from his mouth.
He watched her run up the gaunt arm of the creature with pace, but that wasn't what was catching his attention—what was, were her eyes. They were an almost ancient colour of indigo. But… wasn't it earlier that they flashed with gold instead?
IAM studied them more closely, just in case his eyes were playing with him. The area of colour was limited as usual, the indigo shade near the middle of her iris, while the surrounding brown remained completely unchanged.
He watched as she actually used the creature to leap towards the tree behind it, and flung her sword towards it. With a wet sqelch from the tree, the creature fell to its knees, screeching in pain.
IAM's mind moved quickly as he understood, which was when he noticed the mark on the lower shin of the creature—similar to what was left on the tree as a result of her sword piercing through it alongside the creature from earlier. This only reaffirmed his thoughts.
He watched as she relentlessly struck the inside of this tree, each blow driving deeper, tearing through wood and flesh alike, until—with a brilliant slash that split through the trunk in a single decisive arc, sending splinters flying and cutting clean through whatever was anchoring the creature—the creature fell as it died a pitiful death.
… Damn.
Without even sparing the disappearing corpse a glance, she shouted in IAM's direction,
"You saw that, right!? You know what to do!"
Of course he did!
This was when he adjusted his aim to where he had seen that creature emerge from and let it rip. Unlike before, from his bullets baleful screeches of pain erupted from the creature before it too collapsed on itself.
This seemed to be the ability of these deadline creatures— in exchange for an incredibly strong and resilient body, they would have an extremely glaring weakness that made it both incredibly hard and easy to kill.
The creature seemed to be stuck in two minds… should it attempt to attack IAM, who was hurting it, or retreat back into its tree? It seemed to have never planned for such an unexpected situation, as due to the faster rate of impacts from him using KASSARA, it too was swiftly killed.
… IAM didn't bask in the glory of killing a high tier spawnling creature while being a normal human and moved on to the next.
Just like this, there were no unexpected surprises, as the creatures couldn't react fast enough, with IAM actually killing more than Natsuki—with four kills while she had two. However, anyone with a brain could see that she had the higher contribution to the battle between the two of them.
Silence reigned as these two had just taken down six high novices in spectacular fashion.
It wasn't supposed to be so easy… no, seriously… it's not so easy to take down these creatures in the fashion they had just done.
They had just made it look easy.
The normal route would have been IAM probably noticing the mark on that one creature before he drew the lines and came up with this theory of the trees being their weakness—but that was thrown out the window.
Paragraphs of writing this situation had gone to waste with this one move from Natsuki.
IAM watched as the girl that made this all possible got closer before stopping ten meters away from him. She didn't even mention what they had just done, as if she truly believed what she said at the start of this fight—that those creatures were just fatuous.
Foolishly pointless.
"I need some rest… I just expended quite a bit of my mana, so I need to recover it before we begin moving."
It seemed that using that path method had its own restrictions, as she made the ballsy move of sitting against a tree not too far away from the others that spat out deadline creatures.
IAM didn't bother asking how she did that, as he was sure she would either ignore him or refuse to tell him. After all, ascenders' methods were best kept secrets and should not be given out with ease unless one wished for an untimely death.
Knowing this, he simply sat down not too far away from her, keeping the distance that she seemed to like keeping.
During this time… his eyes never left her.