Chapter 978: Another Off-Worlder Hunter
For some reason, the four of them turned hostile again after Bob called him an Off-Worlder.
I raised my hands in a placating gesture, "Wait! What do you mean by we're one of them? Isn't this just another misunderstanding?"
The longswordsman did not respond to me and simply went ahead to swing his sword at me.
Fine… You want to be like that… Then don't blame me…
I didn't need to do anything against that attack because Katsuki immediately appeared in front of me and blocked the blow with her daggers, parrying the sword away from me.
"Mistress," She greeted me, though she never pulled her attention away from the group in front of her.
The longswordsman seemed surprised by her presence before his brows furrowed in anger.
"So you already expected something like this? I should have known…" He growled, leaping back with his party to create some distance between us
What the heck is this guy even talking about?
"Wait… I really think you might be mistaken here? Who do you think we are?" I asked.
"Is that not obvious? You two are Off-Worlders aren't you?"
Well… Since it looks like he knows…
I nodded, "And you are one as well right? Why are you attacking us?"
"The fact that you are an Off-Worlder is enough of a reason for us to attack you. If you know what's good for you, just stop resisting and die."
"What? Ok, first of all, you're hunting down Off-Worlders? Second of all… You really think that we would just stop resisting and let you kill us just like that?"
He pulled his longsword behind him, "No. But it would ease your suffering at least."
I've already seen him do that move before so I already know what's coming before he did it.
That's why I wasn't going to let him complete that movement.
"Close your eyes!" I warned, raising my hand up in the air.
Katsuki immediately obeyed without question but Bob was a little late in listening to me.
The good thing was that the four on the other side were more surprised by my outburst and failed to register what I said so they weren't able to react in time when I used my spell.
[Light Flash].
An intense blast of light materialised above my hand and lit up the area around me, blinding the people who had not reacted to my warning in time.
Unfortunately, that also included Bob and the five people affected let out screams of pain from being blinded.
I decided to ignore Bob for now and moved to deal with the longswordsman first.
I struck him on the wrist, forcing him to let go of his sword and allowing me to snatch it from him.
Just as I thought about knocking him out, I saw a fist heading towards me and I had to raise my hand to block it but Katsuki moved in front of me to do it instead.
The other Inugami girl seemed surprised that Katsuki managed to block her fist and tried to kick her in the abdomen which Katsuki also managed to block with her palm.
"Slow and weak…" Katsuki muttered before shoving the girl back.
Ok, I'm pretty sure that Katsuki saw some sort of rivalry with that girl but I'm just going to pretend like I didn't notice.
Unfortunately, because of that distraction, the longswordsman Off-Worlder managed to recover from his temporary blindness to try and grab his sword from me before I could knock him out.
I had to kick him away before he managed to grab the sword from me and I leapt back while still holding his sword.
At this point, I was just trying to get him to stop attacking us so that I could understand why he was attacking us first in case this was a complete misunderstanding once again.
Which was why I wasn't really fighting back at the moment.
"Can we just stop for a moment?" I asked.
The four of them stood in front of me, all of them still showing clear hostility towards me.
"There's nothing to stop for, you either die here or we die, that's it," The longsword guy growled.
That was when I realised a possible explanation for that.
"Don't tell me… You took Srii's offer didn't you?"
The fact that he clamped his mouth shut basically told me all that I needed to know.
I narrowed my eyes at him, "I will just warn you… You can still walk away from this. You can, in fact, just stop doing this and all you get would be the point penalty. Are you absolutely sure that you want to go through with this?"
The guy said nothing but it was still clear that he wasn't backing down.
I'm not sure if he thinks he can beat me or because the things he got from this was too good to pass up.
Fine then… Have it your way…
I tossed his sword to stab into the ground in front of him, causing him to look at it before staring back at me in confusion.
I nodded, "Go on… Pick it up. I'll fight you fairly. It's a four V four."
Bob seemed to have some reservations about being one of the four alongside his golem but I guess he realised he doesn't exactly have a choice since this guy was going to kill him as well for being an Off-Worlder.
That longsword guy ran towards me and pulled his sword out from the ground in the process, prompting the rest of his party to follow behind him.
I wonder why his party was also going along with this but decided it didn't matter.
Right as he was about to reach me, he pulled back his sword again and used the Valour Skill that I had stopped him from using the first time.
"[Draw Strike: Wind Tempest]!"
His sword rematerialised in front of him right as a gale started to rush towards us.
I pulled out my own swords and pulled them behind me, buffing myself with [Strength] and making my Shadow Guards layer a few [Body Current] buffs on my arms as well.
As the wind formed itself into a tornado to start crashing towards us, I slashed out both of my swords with all my strength.
There was no Valour Skill involved in my action, just pure dumb strength where I slashed my sword to create a blast of air directed at the tornado itself.
The gale I created smashed into his tornado which resulted in an explosion in the centre, blowing both my attack and his tornado away and creating a crater in the centre of the blast zone.
I had to shield myself as the shockwave reached me which caused Bob to be sent flying back, though I didn't need to worry about him because his golem managed to catch him before he rolled too far away.
On the other side, the Mahun girl slammed her tower shield on the ground once more and braced herself against it while her party hid behind her to defend themselves against the shockwave.
As for me, I just face tanked it by digging my heels into the ground while Katsuki had disappeared from where she had been to avoid the shockwave.
The moment the winds died down, I rushed towards the group with my swords held at my sides, only to see a blur leaping out from behind the shield to rush towards me.
I completely ignored it and continued rushing towards the shield the Mahun girl was holding and, just as I expected, Katsuki intercepted the attack from the other Inugami girl.
The other Inugami was practically seething at how effortless Katsuki was making it look in intercepting her attacks.
My maid then shoved her back before planting a kick in her abdomen, sending their group's rogue flying in another direction before she leapt towards her to force her away.
The Mahun girl started charging towards me with her shield still raised but this time I trusted someone else to deal with her.
As she was about to reach me, she looked up right as a shadow covered the area and gaped when she saw the huge fist of the golem hovering above her.
She redirected her shield to point it upwards right before the fist slammed down on her, forcing her to drop on a knee.
I ran past her without slowing down and the Trasif tried to stop me by firing an arrow in my direction.
Unfortunately for her, Bob had enough time to summon another monster which happened to take the form of a bird that literally snatched the arrow out of the air to redirect it away from me.
The longsword guy let out a roar and ran past his Trasif to charge towards me, his sword raised in preparation to strike.
I slashed my swords upwards and our blades connected, creating another shockwave that blew the both of us skidding away.
Damn… This guy is really seriously trying to kill me… I should get a little serious then…