Chapter 354 353. Confrontation (2).



Katline continued to fire arrows from a distance, without using much of her skills, as Seo Hana, Katharine, and Jiwoo rushed and closed in on the hostile entities. While Violet, Seol So-Young, and Charlie stayed back, as Violet buffed them, Seol So-Young and Charlie protected her and Katline from any harm that could potentially ambush and damage them, both mentally or physically.

These hostile entities were none other than the experimented beings, prototypes, who were armoured up to the teeth, as they fired ki bullets with guns at the sight of an enemy or their energy fluctuation. They had additional limbs attached to them, unlike human's, and were unnaturally strong like beasts of the apocalypse, and their moments seemed to be instinctive. There were 7 of them standing out with an hatch behind them, through which they expected more to come out, and there was also a possibility that the hatch led to an underground facility, a laboratory of sorts.

It didn't take long for them to understand that their assumptions and suspicious were true, but that realisation didn't help them even a bit.

Bobby, the tank, of the group took the lead as he rushed towards the enemies with Samuel, Garrick, Bert, and Richard behind him. Garrick had a rapier in his hand, Bert had a staff, Richard had a sword and shield, while Samuel held a battle axe in each hand.

They gazed at the near perfect coordination between the Gifted, whose supports, attacks, and defences that were at a strangely perfect harmony, Samuel felt envious. The main attack team had closed in on the enemies, the support team stood in the back with a long-range damage dealer and a few rear damage dealers, acting as both attack and defence, which was the similar case with the main attack team, where the damage dealers were also defending.

'They are placing their trusts in each other to protect themselves, and have a significant distance between them which would easily allow them to use skills while also being able to provide support if needed.....' Samuel assessed and realised that if not for the Gifted not caring about the rankings, then the world rankings would have been different, and at the same time, they weren't the only group that didn't care about the rankings.

Seo Hana flapped her wings and flew up, she glared down at the prototypes and flexed her shoulders strongly, opening her wings wide, through which fist sized balls of fire shot out at the prototypes. Who continued to attack, without even flinching at the fireballs.

'Fire is useless against them.....' Hana pondered as her fireballs exploded upon impact with the prototypes, except for them being pushed back from the explosive power, they had no reaction whatsoever.

She was searching for a weakness, a weakness that they could use to kill those prototypes, who seemed absurdly strong even though they were using nothing except for ki bullets.

Katharine clenched her broadsword hung on her shoulders, kicked off of the ground, she took a deep breath with her sword behind her back and swung it down at the enemies, with a loud roar.

BOOM-!

The ground caved at the tip of her sword, as Jiwoo, who was following behind her quite closely, zoomed out of her shadow and swung his sword at the enemies, which garnered him "tings" upon impact with the necks and limbs of the prototypes in front of him.

"Their skins are strong! Metal like!" Jiwoo roared, reporting his finds and jumped back, avoiding the blow directed at him.

WHOOOM-!

Series of winds swirling strongly, sounded, as the Gifted began to use ki to fight against their enemies. If they had fought against the prototypes with ki from the beginning, and the prototypes died, then they wouldn't have found a "proper" weakness, which they could use even in their exhausted state.

So now that they understood that their enemies were robot-like, they began to use ki. Light blue coloured ki was the most natural and basic ki, which hadn't reached the level of adding intent, garnered around Jiwoo, Katharine, Violet, Seol So-Young, Katline, and Charlie, while bright orange hue glimmered around Hana, whose ki was on a different level compared to those of her group.

The five from the Black Rain Order also had light blue hue surrounding them, at they neared the halfway mark, behind the Gifted.

And for a strange reason, realisation dawned upon Samuel and, 'Anubis's Undead Dungeon.....' He thought inwardly, he didn't know why he abruptly remembered that, but he realised that the dungeon hadn't been cleared yet, meaning there existed a possibility of a dungeon break occurring.

But,

"Make haste!" Samuel commanded, because he felt like if they didn't speed up and join the fight, the fight would reach a conclusion before they even include themselves in the so-called fight.

Seo Hana alone was more than enough to clear up the mess made by the Honour-bound Federation and the Abominations, but real reason they were here was because Samuel had promised to prove himself and his group, to be people worthy of forming alliances.

STOMP-!

With a strong stomp, Samuel shot forward, towards the prototypes who were disgusting to look at, and now, the battle axes in his hands glimmered bright blue, before he slashed at the prototypes!

TANG-!

BING-!

CRACK-!

"Argh!!" Due to the abrupt halt of his swing, his axe held hand bled profusely, due to the crack of his thumb bone. Samuel could even be considered lucky because he had swung only one axe, if he had swung both of them, then without a doubt, both of his hands would have broken.

"Heh!" A faint, ridiculing scoff sounded behind him, when he glanced behind, the sight he gazed at left him dumbfounded. Behind him was Hana, who had a mocking smile plastered on her leisure looking face.

"Too weak!" A mumble were the last words he heard as Hana's body flitted around and across the trees as her fire slowly began to spread at an fifty meter radius around the prototypes, yet they felt a strange warmth envelope him instead of burning hot, heat.

'Too weak!' Those words lingered on his mind for a long time. And a domain, an incomplete domain to be precise, began to be itched into the surroundings, and with a violent tremble swept past the vicinity, warmth dyed flames began to move in strange patterns before they soared up, and

FHOOOMMMM-!

With a loud enough sounds of flame fluttering, the flames that rose up, fell down in an instant and

BOOM-!

With a subtle boom, the warmth dyed flames engulfed everybody in the 50 meter radius, after confirming that they were the only ones inside, an incomplete domain was initiated.

"Ever-burning Sun!" Hana commanded and the sky-like, far away, crimson ceiling covered everything their sights could meet, with burning footing beneath their feet. They gazed down and found themselves on a globe, the sky-like crimson ceiling they thought was space that had dyed crimson accordingly to the domain initiator's will.

Of course, except for the caster herself, none really knew that what they were witnessing currently was nothing but a poor imitation of a domain, an illusion in more simple terms. As along as those trapped in it weren't stronger than her, they wouldn't be able to differentiate between a real domain and her illusion space.

She had learned what a domain is from a certain black-haired woman, whom she had gotten closer with, and according to her, 'a domain was bringing out the world we have imagined it to be, in the depths of our consciousness, and if brought out into reality, everything we, the caster, will's will become the reality in itself. But things like that is only possible in a domain which does not affect the real reality in anyway.'

She, Seo Hana, hadn't even realised what she imagined the world to be, so she consciously imagined and formed the so-called domain, which was a domain only in name. The closest and the strongest source of her attributed power was the sun, hence, she chose the sun as a significant part of her domain.

So according to her imagination, the current "domain" was supposed to be a sun in a crimson space, it wasn't that creative, but not that shabby either.

And if she determined enough and put in enough effort, one day a literal sun could become a part of her domain, one day.

A day which wasn't today.

And,

Fire isn't their weakness.

"But.... everything either burns or melts under fierce enough fire!" Hana roared and her roar turned into her will, and her phoenix trait busted out and oozed extremely hot flames, that burned everything in its way. Of course, with the exception of those she didn't wish to harm.

Yet,

"Ack...." Pained groans sounded.

It was difficult.

A lot more difficult than she thought it would be!

She was having hard time pouring out her will into the oozing flames, which were beginning to hurt those she deemed allies!

And, when she was trying to control the fire,

[Let it burn!] A hypnotic voice sounded in her consciousness, and her gaze dulled as she involuntarily began to comply with the received command.

Dancing to the tone of the hypnotic voice.

[The more hotter the better!]

'The more hotter the better.....'

The voice sounding in her consciousness began to become hers own.

And, her flames began to burn unrestrained.

Burning everything in its path, which were dyed in screams of her allies.

BOOM-!

BOOM-!

...

.....

Ki bullets fired by the prototypes continued to burst, which were aimed at the flowing flames, and like flowing water, it soon reached the prototypes and even made way into the hatch.

No groans, nor screams sounded from the prototypes, yet those, who were Hana's allies were shrieking in agony.

A single, lonely, tear rolled off Hana's eye and vaporised.

"Exterminate threat." A apathetic voice sounded in Hana's ear, jolting her awake, but the next thing she could see in front of her was a scaled fist, that struck her face before she could dodge it.

BAM-!