Chapter 146 The Final Bow

As Tino's barrage approached its climax, three monsters eyed him like a scrap of meat. Aurum who tanked his blows, Lars waiting for Tino to expose a weak point, and Geo who drew in a crazy amount of Mana into his bone sword.

Inwardly the giant man started to grow tense. 'What the fuck is this, why am I trembling? I am more than twice their level! The ones that should be running scared are them!' The moment Tino's [Brawlers Barrage] ended, his opponents launched skill after skill against him.

The first to move was Lars, he leaped into the air and impaled both his Spirit-covered long swords into Tino's eyes. At 1500 STR, even blows to the face rarely make it to the brain. Or more like the brain itself increases in durability it is almost as hard as the person's skull.

This allowed System users to endure blows to the head and shrug them off like nothing. At 2000 STR The Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or the water in the brain, becomes thicker like ballistic gel. Further reinforcing the brain's defenses.

The people that saw the attack gasped in horror. Yet the San-Baka were only starting. As Tino was in the stupor window he could not even move and had to wait for the skill lock to lift. Even while knowing such he used his abilities out of frustration due to his opponent's zombie-like resilience.

This naturally stemmed from his arrogance believing level 30s couldn't harm him, which would be true for most cases. Unfortunately, he forgot to take into account the man behind the three he was fighting. And that would cost him his life.

With both swords stabbed into Tino's eyes, Lars jumped into the air and descended into a downward kick with his foot wrapped in Spirit. "You will haunt me no longer Tino. [Scorpion Sting]!" The black-haired San-Baka didn't kick Tino's head or his armor. He put his entire weight into kicking his swords.

[Scorpion Sting] is a skill Lars gained at fun camp, it allowed one to generate a wave of energy the "Sting", and force it through a medium the "Scorpion Tail". Naturally, he used his swords as the medium and for added effect ensured, both were in a vulnerable weak point. The Spirit bomb traveled along the bone sword and detonated inside the bodyguard's skull.

An explosion of flesh occurred when the caliber explosive detonated. Blood and bits of flesh came out of Tino's ears, nose, and mouth. And game him an epic concussion equivalent to 500 hangovers.

Luckily for Tino, his Aura protected his Insides shielding him from most of the damage but that didn't mean he felt no pain. 'Fuck, that hurt. Just wait, you pieces of trash. When the Stupor window ends I will murder your asses!'

While he did survive the Aura in Tino's body mostly dissipated. With his defenses reduced by one he still endured. Yet, immediately after the explosion ended Geno executed his move. "[Rafflesia's Kiss]!"

A wave of green energy left Geo's bone sword and the intense sword beam slammed behind Tino's shoulder, its might while appearing extremely imposing, couldn't even damage the armor. However, while his armor did not break, it could not block it. The energy soon penetrated his defenses. A mana wave traveled along Tino's body. He then got messages from the system which caused him to panic.

- Alert: You have been infected with [Rafflesia's Kiss] depending on the Mana used all stat will be siphoned from the target to the host. Mana detected 500 MP. -

- Alert: 1200 STR, 330 AGI, and 150 INT have been stolen for 30 seconds. -

"Thanks for beating the shit out of me before Tino, know that the Renacida never forgets what they owe."

Tino who saw the messages grew horrified. 'What? Stat siphoning? Aren't monsters the only ones who have such a thing? How did they get them? What about stat degeneration?! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS?!'

It was a known fact in Valorious that monsters had system skills. They were more powerful and unique in application than learned passives or secondaries. Many tried to learn these skills by repeatedly skirmishing with the monsters or eating the flesh cooked.

Both approaches failed, however, one day someone learned them by consuming the meat of a still-alive monster. This gave everyone hope to further gain new lifelines by trying the barbaric approach. However, they soon found that if a person eats monster meat regularly.

Their stats start to degrade due to the biological incompatibility of monster calibers and humans. This prevented most from even trying. Why learn a skill that would risk you losing your hard-earned stats?

With no one to answer Tino's question, he felt his body significantly weaken as a third of his STR, AGI, and INT got stolen by Geo. [Rafflesia's Kiss], a skill Geo learned after he forced himself to eat through the flesh of more than ten of Rafflesia Emperors.

These 10-meter plant-like monsters were like slow-moving coffins that used tentacles to pull prey into their mouths. They were super-sized versions of Earth's parasitic Corpse flower. Of the three San-Baka only Geo ate the plant meat as Aurum and Lars hated the monster to the bone.

While his mouth did smell like corpses for a day, the skill he finally got after eating 14 of them made it all worth it. The ability to forcefully take a third of a person's stats for Mana is a game-breaking op ability no matter how one looked at it.

Tino at this point, started to fear for his life. Inwardly he made plans to get the HP Potion he had immediately after the stupor window ended. Yet the final member of his attackers arrived only two seconds after Geo finished speaking.

Aurum charged in front of him and then smashed his greatsword into the bodyguard's abdomen. Unlike the usual, the son of Standar held his weapon like a baseball bat and swung his weapon like an Olympic batter. Leveraging his thighs, hips, glutes, calves, triceps, and finally, his biceps. The force behind the swing multiplied in power. "[Hammer Spin]!"

*BOOOM!*

The sound akin to a tank firing echoed in the hall. The force behind the blow was so powerful it sent aftershocks into Tino's insides, yet it didn't stop there! Aurum's stance forced his entire balance to lean on one side along with the bone greatsword, thus after the swing left Tino's body favored the other side.

Similar to a pendulum it allowed the blond greatsword user to spin like a hurricane to repeat his strike by using centrifugal force.

*BOOOM!*

*BOOOM!*

*BOOOM!*

*BOOOM!*

*BOOOM!*

Like a top Aurum spun and repeated the same strike slamming his sword in the exact same place. Tino felt his ribs shatter by the second blow from the aftershocks. At the sixth strike, even his armor fell apart unable to endure. For the last spin, Aurum engulfed his entire body in Aura to the point his steps cracked the very ground.

"Know that It is I who sent you to hell Tino Malosi. The coward who ran away from you only three months ago! This is for my family and me who suffered at your hands. [ANNIHILATE]!"

*BOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

With Tino's Aura striped by Larua, and his stat's reduced by Geo, only his armor kept him safe, and when even that failed his situation grew precarious. The last impact from the greatsword consumed the full 20 stacks of [Mark of Annihilation].

In other words, its power got increased by 20 times. Together with the increased damage from the [Familiarity Index] and the realities from [Heart's Dogma], Aurum, Lars and Geo fought this entire battle all for this one strike.