A despicable, gutless swine though he may be, a trained Kolari soldier he was still. Vanessa glared at Dave with sickness and regret in her eyes. She had seen Lina break from her defensive formation, and strike with the silent precision of a trainer hunter. There was no hesitation, no flaw in her attack..

But Dave, whose innate ability itself was to sense danger, could not be taken by surprise. He had responded perfectly, letting go of Vanessa and pushing himself to a safe distance while turning to see his attacker. For a brief moment, a fear gripped his heart that Nero had returned – that the freak had somehow figured everything out and had returned.

But when he turned, and saw that it was merely Lina who had struck, relief suddenly flooded his chest – followed by embarrassment, and anger.

“What the hell are you retards doing?” Dave roared. “Stand down and return to your position!”

His order, though, was not obeyed. In his absence, Nero had given the command to Bael. He had done that publicly, and was also one of the reasons why Dave targeted the brute first. He did not want anyone to be able to pass orders to the seven unpoisoned soldiers. What he did not know, however, was that in private, Nero had ordered the seven of them to treat Vanessa as the highest authority in his absence.

After all, technically speaking, their original mission had been to protect her.

Lina, the only one of the seven who had stepped out of her defensive formation, looked towards Dave, discomfort clear on her face. Yet instead of obeying him, she stepped in front of Vanessa.

“I am not retard,” she said, her voice lacking the same force with which she answered when given orders. Even so, her stance was made clear. She would not let Dave do as he wished. The problem was, she was alone.

The six others looked anxiously towards her, as if they wanted her to return and complete their formation. Or maybe they were worried about her. Yet they could not, or maybe they would not, break from the order Nero had given.

They maintained their defensive formation exactly where he had ordered them to keep it.

Vanessa, even in her disoriented state, realised the opportunity for what it was.

“I don’t need loverboy to save me,” she said, giving a mocking expression to Dave. “I can save myself – with some help.”

Lina, who was standing right in front of Vanessa, cast a shadow over her, and that’s the only thing Vanessa needed. Though her mind was muddled, her dizziness constant, and her aether control terrible, she had already gotten used to her state to some extent.

She immediately activated her ability, disappearing into the shadow as if she had never been there.

Of course, in truth her body was still there. She could not actually enter the shadows. But being out of sight would buy her valuable time – time to heal herself.

“Shit!” Dave cursed, and immediately rushed towards. But Lina, even in her condition, was one of the most elite soldiers of her generation. With a clear, identifiable threat rushing towards her, she did not need to think. She only needed to obey her instincts.

She struck forward with her spear, letting out a vicious battle cry as she did, immediately halting Dave’s charge. Dave grit his teeth and tried to overwhelm her at first. How hard could it be to overcome a retard?

As it turned out… it was very hard. Lina was not imaginative with her use of the spear. If anything, every move she made was the most basic of the basics – a simple thrust, a slash, a slam, whatever. Yet the utter perfection of her timing, the complete mastery of herself and her weapon made her into an impregnable wall.

She could not hurt Dave – his innate ability always gave him plenty of time to avoid any damage. But he could not get past her either.

“Shit!” Dave cursed again, and grit his teeth as he took a step back. The moment he stopped charging, Lina returned exactly to where she stood, right in front of where Vanessa had been.

Dave, unsure of how Vanessa’s ability truly worked, also looked down at the ground where she had been. Even if she had the means to remove the poison, it should not work so fast. She should still be in the same area.

“Don’t force my hand, Vanessa,” Dave warned, trying to reason with her now. “My preparations are a lot more thorough than you’ve seen just yet. Surrender and accept the slave mark. That way, you’ll at least live. Who knows, maybe you’ll even find a way to break free of the mark one day.

“But if you push things too far, then I’ll have no choice but to let you die here with the rest of these retards. So far, I’ve acted to keep you alive because you can be a valuable prisoner. But if it becomes too hard, then I don’t have to bring you back. Removing you from the playing field is also an option.”

Though he threatened her, Vanessa did not speak or respond. There was no sign on the ground of her having moved at all. He had no idea if she had just turned invisible, or if she had teleported somewhere and that uncertainty filled him with a growing sense of anxiety.

He thought for a moment more, and then made a decision. The mission was important, but his life was even more important. He would try to resolve things once, but if it didn’t work, he’d just take more drastic measures and leave them all to die.

Dave pulled out a card from his case and immediately activated it, summoning a swirl of brown, poisonous, corrosive gas. Without as much as a shred of hesitation, he channeled the gas towards Lina. Her spear would not protect her from this.

But the spear was never Lina’s only weapon to begin with. Lina activated her innate ability, and a dark purple cloud emerged from her body, corrupting the world all around it. It almost seemed like cursed energy – almost, but not quite. It still had that distinct presence that aether had.

The purple cloud clashed with the brown gas, and it was as if two vehicles had crashed into each other, merging into a mixed ball of purple and brown. But while the brown gas could only corrode or poison, the purple cloud was much more versatile.

It corrupted the grass on the ground, the air around it, the dust that passed through it, forming a small army of tiny, weak… curse imitations, all under the control of the purple cloud.

Dave’s pupils constricted as he saw the creepy scene, and though he wanted to run, his danger sense warned him that he needed to eliminate the purple cloud first. Fortunately for him, the purple cloud was not as difficult to overcome as it first seemed.

Dave quickly switched his card and used a pure elemental attack, sending a streak of lightning towards it, causing the cloud to weaken as if it had been dealt a critical blow.

A few more attacks and the cloud had vanished, but precious time had been wasted during the process. Dave, sensing a subtle threat beginning to brew, decided to give up on the mission right then and there. He’d just let them all die!

A viscous look flashed in his eyes, but before he could do anything, Vanessa revealed herself once more.

She had managed to crawl all the way to the other six soldiers, and was safely on her knees behind them. In her hand she was holding some card, and though Dave didn’t know what that card was exactly, he could guess that she had used it to remedy her poison somewhat.

He suddenly regretted not poisoning her as severely as the others, but according to the original plan he needed her conscious to interrogate her. It should not have been a problem. He just hadn’t expected Lina to suddenly act out.

Seeing as how Vanessa had returned to the formation, Lina also quickly retreated, finally falling into position.

“I’ll admit, you had a good plan Dave,” Vanessa said, meeting his eyes. “You just made one critical mistake. You should have never given me the chance to recover. Now, I’ll make you regret it.”

Vanessa did not reveal that if had truly moved to kill her, or harm her in some serious way, her contingency plans would have kicked in. That was a secret she did not want to reveal, just in case Dave still had more things planned.

After all, as someone coming from the most technologically advanced country in the world, how could she lack protection when entering foreign territory? It was just that, those last measures were better left unused, for they came with a huge price.

“Soldiers, you have new orders,” Vanessa suddenly said. “Attack Dave. Cripple his hands and legs, but if that’s too hard, just kill him.”

The seven soldiers, as if they had been eagerly awaiting those very words, burst forward from where they stood – their impatience not causing them to make a mistake in their stance as they attacked. Everything was, to the greatest extent, by the book.

“Shit!” Dave cursed again, and suddenly pulled back, activating his final contingencies. The situation had changed drastically, and if he held back even the slightest, he might not make it back alive.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep