Chapter 12 – Battle

Seeing the two “little insects” attempting to flee, the ogre roared furiously and charged after them with massive strides.

Soon, Punk and Kane lured the ogre to a spot about two hundred meters away from the little donkey. The man-eating ogre never even considered the option of “giving up on Punk and Kane to go after the donkey.”

As the ogre charged forward, raising a large club stained with the blood of some unknown creature, its scar-covered face twisted into a menacing grin. Drool dripped from its blackened, yellowed fangs.

“Damn, that thing’s perverted expression is just too damn disgusting!”

Kane cursed under his breath and channeled his Battle Aura into his lance. Moving at sports-car-like speeds, he circled the ogre clockwise, deftly avoiding its club while closing in. Vast amounts of light-attribute Battle Aura gathered at the tip of the lance, making the entire weapon gleam as if forged from pure gold. As a combat specialist, Kane’s true strength shone in close-quarters combat.

Meanwhile, under the effects of Minor Haste, Punk circled the ogre counterclockwise at a speed no less impressive than Kane’s, all while maintaining as much distance as possible. For a spellcaster, ranged combat was the safest way to maximize damage output.

The dim-witted ogre, confused by the two opponents moving in opposite directions—one closing in, the other keeping its distance—struggled to decide on a target. “Should I eat this cheese tart that’s practically served itself to me first, or keep chasing that maple syrup cake darting around in the distance?”

Caught in a moment of indecision, the ogre halted its Charge, frozen by its own “choice paralysis.”

“Hah!!!”

Seizing the opportunity, Kane gathered Battle Aura beneath his feet. With a fierce shout, he unleashed his Combat Skill—Charge. The air cracked with a violent sonic boom as Kane shot toward the ogre like a bullet. A shockwave erupted around him, flattening wild grass within a two-meter radius and leaving a one-meter-wide crater where he had stood, dirt and debris flying everywhere. His pupils glowed gold with Battle Aura as his lance, wreathed in a conical blast of light, thrust straight for the ogre’s heart.

The ogre never expected the smaller foe to launch an attack. The strike, almost a beam of golden light, came faster than it could react. Still, its survival instincts kicked in, and it twisted sideways, narrowly avoiding a fatal blow to the heart.

Kane’s lance tore a bowl-sized gash in its flank, and blood gushed out, drenching Kane’s armor in crimson.

Enraged by the pain, the ogre howled wildly and swiped at Kane with its claws. But Kane, realizing the ogre wasn’t down yet, pushed off its blood-soaked hide, yanked his lance free, and leaped back. In that split second, the ogre’s claws grazed Kane’s chest plate, leaving only a searing scratch from its blackened middle fingernail on the silver armor before the attack fell short.The severe injury did not intimidate the ogre; instead, the blood fully ignited its ferocity. As it raised its howl by another octave, it swung its club fiercely toward Kane. Though the wound on its abdomen was severe enough to reveal writhing internal organs, the torn arteries had already stopped bleeding—the muscles around the ogre’s abdominal injury had tightly constricted the blood vessels. Excessive blood loss simply did not exist in an ogre’s dictionary!

Just as the ogre brought its club down with immense force, Punk’s spell arrived.

Apprentice Rank Conjuration Spell—Lesser Daze. As a curse-type spell, its effect was instantaneous and ignored distance. The only way to evade it was to predict the mage’s casting and avoid it accordingly, but such a “sophisticated” skill was clearly beyond the ogre’s pitiful intellect.

Ethereal energy transformed into a chaotic burst of mental force, violently assailing the ogre’s mind. The enraged ogre was utterly unprepared for a psychic attack. Struck by the spell, it staggered as if drunk, disoriented and unable to tell directions, its massive club swinging harmlessly over Kane’s head.

“Perfect opportunity!” Kane thought with inward delight. He activated his Combat Skill—Charge once more, this time channeling more Battle Aura to boost his speed, aiming for a single, lethal strike.

“Roar~~” Still dazed, the ogre failed to evade the fatal thrust. Its heart was completely shattered by the Lance, fragments mixing with blood and spraying out through the exit wound in its back, drenching a large patch of the Prairie in gore and flesh.

Despite the mortal blow, the ogre showed no sign of weakness. With a roar blending despair and fury, every muscle on its body swelled as if inflated, enlarging its frame significantly. Its skin turned crimson, crisscrossed with bulging veins like earthworms, and its eyes became bloodshot. The dazed state was almost instantly dispelled!

It didn’t bother with another roar, merely exhaling a scorching breath before swinging its club at Kane with nearly triple the speed.

“Holy crap, that’s insane! An ogre can go berserk?!”

Kane, who had just used the same tactic to leap into the air, cursed loudly while raising his Shield in front of him, trying to shelter his body behind it as much as possible. With a massive infusion of Battle Aura flooding into the Shield, its radiance rivaled that of the sun, Mila, in the sky.

This time, dodging an attack three times faster was impossible for Kane. Gathering his Battle Aura to withstand the blow was his only option, stranded mid-air with no leverage.

The airflow carried by the club seemed to flow along its grooves as it struck Kane’s Shield with blurring speed.

Instantly, the dazzling golden light on Kane’s Shield dimmed. A visible shockwave erupted from the impact point between the club and the Shield. In the distance, Punk heard a dull thud, like a giant pile driver slamming into granite, echoing across the entire Prairie. Kane was sent flying with a whoosh, hurtling nearly a hundred meters at twice the speed of his Charge. He skipped across the ground like a stone on water, bouncing three times before finally coming to a stop in a large impact crater.

The ogre paid no further attention to the flung Kane, leaping toward Punk with each step leaving a deep impression in the earth.If you ask a hunter when beasts are at their most powerful, the answer is always—when they are cornered.

An ogre struck through the heart is undoubtedly doomed. Its astonishing vitality now is entirely the result of a desperate frenzy. The moment this frenzy ends will be the moment of its death, so the ogre now has only one goal—to take its enemy down with it!

But Punk had already prepared his magic. This was the most lethal Apprentice Rank Conjuration spell he currently mastered—the Minor Harm Spell. Of course, being a curse-type spell, Punk had no desire to test the durability of his Minor Mage Armor against the frenzied ogre’s Club from close range.

Punk glanced at the hovering gray mist-like sphere in his hand. Blade-like energies, radiating an intimidating aura, continuously formed and dissipated within it. Merely looking at those energies gave the illusion that one’s eyes might be cut!

Calmly, Punk watched the ogre, whose entire body was emitting waves of heat. With a slight extension of his hand, the gray sphere vanished in an instant…

(End of Chapter)