The sound of bowstrings drawing wasn't particularly loud. Combined with the thunderous crash of the Pursuer's landing, it should have been drowned out entirely.
But enough tiny sounds gathered together, and people notice.
Tusk swept his gaze nervously across every direction, checking the nearby platforms too.
Nothing. Completely empty.
Strange. Where was that sound actually coming from?
An invisible dread settled over him.
Not far off, Fingri — currently facing down the Pursuer — swept his own eyes across the rooftop and clearly arrived at the same conclusion.
"Mr. Fingri, what's going—"
Before the question finished forming, the Pursuer erupted with black energy. A crimson glow flared through the slits of its visor, radiating pure killing intent. Combined with its giant frame and heavy plating, it read less like a monster and more like a purpose-built predator.
Was there even a person inside that armor?
The plating itself was a record of endless battle — countless sword and spear scars scored across every surface. Its greatshield and ultra greatsword bore matching wear. A basket of assorted weapons hung across its back.
At a glance, it was a machine built for exactly one function.
Strength Balance activated. The Pursuer's threat level was raised to C++ Rank.
"Oh-ho — this one's got some substance to it."
Fingri twirled his twin blades with the unhurried confidence of someone who liked a little theater before a fight started. Usually he opened with a flashy routine and a proper introduction.
The Pursuer had no interest whatsoever in that formality.
Its armored bulk lifted off the ground as though under permanent levitation, shield raised, and charged like an out-of-control truck. The legendary charging attack, in whatever form it took, always found a way into the fight.
Nobody in Bone Fang volunteered to meet that head-on. Getting hit would probably leave someone scattered across the rooftop in multiple discrete pieces.
The party scattered immediately, though even mid-retreat they maintained surprisingly clean discipline.
"Matilda, this one's yours."
The moment Fingri said it, he vanished.
With Fingri no longer standing between them, the charging Pursuer arrived directly in front of Matilda.
"Mhm."
She raised both arms. Her armor shifted — forearms thickening, widening. Support pillars extended down from her lower half and drove into the rooftop beneath her.
She intended to take the charge dead-on.
BOOM!
A deafening impact rang across the rooftop. The Pursuer's overwhelming force detonated against her guard, and in an instant she was driven backward dozens of meters, her feet carving deep trenches straight through the stone.
Her body trembled faintly. The armor hid her face, but surviving a truck-scale charge clearly wasn't effortless.
She threw a counter-punch immediately. The Pursuer floated backward and dodged it clean.
"Tch. That levitation keeps throwing off my read."
She reached to her spine, pulled a metal rod free, and it cycled through several forms before settling into a massive mace.
CLANG!
It met the Pursuer's ultra greatsword head-on, and the two of them traded blows in rapid, brutal succession.
The Pursuer's attacks were wide and explosive, every swing carrying overwhelming committed force. Matilda liked exactly that style. Neither dodging nor retreating, she just attacked and blocked, again and again and again.
"Incredible!"
"They're evenly matched!"
Bone Fang's members couldn't help the exclamations.
Aleya tilted her head slightly.
From where she stood, that assessment wasn't accurate at all. Matilda was clearly being outmatched by the Pursuer's raw strength.
What terrifying power. Aleya settled down nearby, arms wrapped around her knees, content to watch from a safe distance.
The others stared.
"You're… just going to watch?"
At that moment, Fingri reappeared.
Oddly, he didn't launch an ambush. Instead, he materialized more than ten meters behind the Pursuer — well outside his own blades' effective range.
The moment his eyes met Tusk's, a voice landed directly inside the man's head.
[Stop standing around like idiots. Get everyone to the platform and clear the invisible enemies.]
Invisible enemies?
That explained the crossbow sounds with no visible source. Since the order had come from Fingri directly, Tusk started moving the group immediately, reading the implicit second half of the instruction just as clearly.
First: actually eliminate the hidden threats.
Second: Fingri was about to show off, and they needed to clear the blast radius before it started.
As Bone Fang reached the stairs down to the platform, Fingri began his performance.
"Take this! And this!"
His voice carried real passion. His twin blades blurred into countless streaks of light — the kind of motion that looked like it should reduce insects to fine dust.
Except he wasn't actually moving.
At all.
Which meant, from the outside, the whole thing looked less like combat and more like a very committed aerobics routine.
A little ridiculous, honestly. Borderline comedic.
And yet the Pursuer clearly sensed something significant. It turned abruptly, ignoring Matilda entirely, and charged directly toward Fingri — reacting as though he, and not Matilda, represented the real threat.
Fingri's blades started glowing hotter and brighter. Sword energy scattered in every direction. He couldn't stop the sequence now.
Safely tucked behind cover, Tusk began narrating with barely contained excitement.
"Here it comes! Here it comes! Mr. Fingri's signature technique — the combat art that earned him the title 'Flash'!"
The others listened, rapt.
"Legend has it, back when he was a rookie, he took severe brain trauma protecting his party from some cult-grown horror. Ever since, whenever he fights seriously, his feet root to the spot. He can't control the direction of his own attacks properly."
"And once he starts — he can't stop."
"His original party cut him loose over it. He went through a long stretch of it, genuinely depressed."
"But he came back from it. Years of research after that, and he built a fighting style specifically engineered around his own limitation."
"His current signature —"
Gravity Slash.
"His strikes accelerate continuously until they generate an actual gravitational field, pulling the enemy toward him. The sword waves he releases don't dissipate — they stay suspended in place. When the enemy finally gets dragged into range, every stored strike releases at once, all together, in a single devastating burst."
"Wow—!"
One adventurer gasped.
"That's incredible!"
"So he's called Flash because his blades move fast enough to become pure light?"
"But if the enemy gets pulled toward him — couldn't they just hit him directly during the buildup?"
Tusk grinned.
"No. He's called Flash because—"
Watching the Pursuer close in, Fingri grinned to himself and pointed the hilt of his left-hand weapon squarely at the enemy.
Only on closer look did anyone realize the "hilt" wasn't a sword hilt at all.
Half a magic staff.
"Flash!"
"…"
"…Huh?"
So that's why he's called Flash.
The standard Flash spell released a burst of blinding light from a staff's tip — a solid, if unremarkable, support option.
Fingri's version, though —
"Wait," one adventurer said, genuinely confused. "Where's the actual flash?"
Tusk smiled with total confidence.
"This is his signature move."
"Because of the brain injury, both his combat arts and his spells frequently come out sideways from their intended effect. A lot of his magic has completely lost its original function."
"But in his hands — Flash becomes something else entirely."
He pointed at the charging Pursuer.
"It generates the light source directly on the enemy's own eyes. Doesn't matter if they close them. They're blind regardless."
"That's what lets him safely charge up Gravity Slash without getting interrupted."
Everyone smiled. Victory seemed all but locked in.
Even Fingri himself looked faintly disappointed.
Maybe I shouldn't have opened with Flash. Ending it this fast isn't much fun.
"Alright."
"Now that it's blinded, I could speed the slashes up and finish this in one motion — or hold back a bit. Kind of want this fight to run longer."
Then something registered as off.
The cheering behind him had gone completely silent.
He looked back and found Tusk pointing frantically at him, shouting something with visible panic.
What's wrong? Were they that impressed by the performance?
He turned back toward the Pursuer.
A massive greatshield was already resting against the bridge of his nose.
THUD!
The dazzling storm of sword light cut off instantly.
Fingri flew backward like a discarded rag doll, the impact dazing him briefly before he wrenched himself back into a functional posture mid-air.
As the Pursuer closed the distance again, he threw out another Flash on reflex, hoping to buy time.
SHLK!
The unmistakable sound of steel through flesh cut through the rooftop.
Fingri hit the ground hard — right next to Aleya.
His eyes went wide with disbelief.
"…That shouldn't have worked. Flash generates a continuous light source right on the target's eyes. Why didn't it land?"
The answer was simple.
The Pursuer wasn't human.
Calling it a living suit of armor wouldn't be inaccurate — and living suits of armor, as a category, don't tend to have eyeballs.
Which meant a blinding spell had precisely zero purchase.
A genuine, embarrassing intelligence-gathering failure, and he'd walked straight into it.
"Aleya…"
"Help…"
"My butt hurts…"
He looked utterly pathetic.
Aleya glanced over. Then pointed toward a dead tree some distance off.
"Captain."
"Your butt's over there."
His lower body had been cleanly separated and was currently hanging from a branch.
"…"
"…Actually…"
"It doesn't hurt anymore."
While Aleya calmly stitched him back together with straw thread, Matilda resumed her fight against the Pursuer. Watching her companion get carved in half only deepened her resolve.
Resolve, unfortunately, wasn't the same as strength.
Meanwhile, Tusk and the others could no longer afford to just spectate. They spread across the platform, hunting for the invisible attackers by every method they could think of.
Nothing turned up. No footprints. No silhouettes. No traces of any kind. As though the crossbow sounds they'd all clearly heard had been some collective auditory hallucination.
Where are they? Why haven't they attacked yet? What are they waiting for?
Right as the anxiety hit a peak —
A sharp cry rang out overhead. The giant eagle that had delivered the Pursuer.
The Pursuer smashed Matilda backward with a shield bash, seized the eagle's talons, and let the massive bird lift it into the sky.
"Is it—"
"Retreating?"
No.
It simply hovered, motionless, as though issuing an order.
The next instant, tiny flames blossomed across the sky. One after another.
Tusk stared, understanding arriving before he wanted it to.
Not floating fireballs.
Burning bolts.
"…Wait. Bolts mean crossbows."
He tracked where they hung suspended in the air, and his pupils contracted.
"They're not on the platform — they're floating! The enemies are invisible AND flying?!"
The realization had barely landed before —
Click.
The unmistakable sound of a crossbow drawing, directly behind his skull.
Pure reflex spun him around. A flaming bolt filled his vision, expanding fast.
Bang.
Cleansing Chapel materialized in front of his eyes.
Tusk respawned beside the bonfire.
He lowered his head, frustrated. Not only had he failed the task Fingri had given him, he'd died before locating a single hidden enemy.
Three people were already gathered at the bonfire, himself included. Which meant, by count, more of his companions were still up there. Still fighting.
"…Am I completely useless?"
A few teammates silently rested hands on his shoulder.
Tusk knew this wasn't the moment for self-pity. He had to get back. Immediately. Maybe — just maybe — with the three of them rejoining, there was still a real chance.
He bolted out of the Cleansing Chapel, already gathering momentum for a full sprint back up —
A simple, guileless voice drifted in from nearby.
"Hey!"
"Hello?"
"Is anyone out there?"
Tusk spun around, alarmed.
The voice was coming from the well outside the chapel.