Chapter 207: Three Opponent

Clang—!

Inside one of the corridors where traces of the previous battles could be seen, two people wielding weapons fought against each other.

They had been going at it for a minute, with the man belonging to the Black Shepherds being overwhelmed by the kid, who continued hammering him down with his sword, showing improvements in his crude yet brutal swordsmanship.

This kid was none other than Cillian.

Whoosh!

Both of them were showing their skills, with two dead bodies that belonged to the Shepherds lying in the same corridor.

[Mimicry Success]

[Shadow Hand[Two]: [1:30]]

Cillian ignored the successful screen, finally having copied an ability from his enemy after fighting two Black Shepherds alone beforehand.

Cillian avoided the shadow hand wielding the sword that aimed toward his head before using the walls to propel himself toward his enemy, gaining an instant boost.

Using the right moment to conjure his wind spell, Gale, he caught the Black Shepherd off guard.

“Shit—!”

Slash—!

The Black Shepherd, who had been able to defend himself from Cillian’s previous onslaught, found his arm cut cleanly after failing to defend against his attack.

“Are you really a kid—!”

[Sleight of Hand]

Before the Black Shepherd could even continue speaking, he found his throat pierced by Cillian’s sword.

The Black Shepherd held his throat as he tried to stop the bleeding before ultimately falling down, unable to save himself from the attack.

“Pheww…”

Cillian immediately removed his sword as he started to run away from the site, afraid that the Black Shepherds who might’ve heard the fight would come right away if he continued staying there.

“Hahh…”

Cillian let out an exhausted breath.

‘Looks like I’ll have to use my reserved mimicked abilities next.’

Throughout the three fights that he had just gone through after almost an hour of searching around, including the previous fight, Cillian had merely used his Sleight of Hand, Faceless’ reserved voices, and Fireball to fight his opponents.

In the first fight, he was lucky.

Cillian was able to lure out the Black Shepherd hiding in a cabinet using his Nearby Flag Presence, which he didn’t stop using for even a second. He used one of Faceless’ reserved voices, which had become too many to even count or remember.

But he wasn’t able to kill his opponent quickly. That’s why the first, second, and third fights were connected.

After finishing the first one, he quickly met his second opponent. After killing the second opponent, Cillian quickly fought the third opponent who came to him.

Cillian didn’t need to wait for their Fragmented Pieces to drop. Well, only the last two showed Ruiner abilities. The first one wasn’t able to show anything at all to Cillian, but it didn’t matter.

He did his best in those three fights that he needed to end quickly.

‘I was trying to reserve as many skills as possible so that I could use them in the right situations, but it seemed that I couldn’t do that. There’s no room for compromise with these psychopaths.’

Cillian continued walking around and was planning to look through the window when a figure carrying a sword entered through the window beside the one he was planning to look out of.

“!”

[Death Flag x1]

It wasn’t exactly a Black Shepherd, but a summon that resembled an old, rusty knight.

Cillian immediately dashed away from the window and activated his Mimicry. With a stone manifesting in his hand, he immediately threw it toward the rushing knight.

[Buddy [Two]: [Hop: [1:30]]]

“Hop!”

Whoosh—!

[Death Flag x2]

Just before he could worry about the summoned knight that had appeared out of nowhere, Cillian glanced toward the part of his mouth where a ‘cross’ made out of durable cloth had manifested.

“Mmph!”

Cillian found himself unable to speak as he glanced behind and saw a Black Shepherd rushing toward him with twin blades in his hands.

Swoosh—!

One of the blades was thrown toward him.

‘Mimicry!’

[Mimicry Activated]

[Mimicry Failed]

Thankfully, the cross from his mouth hadn’t affected anything serious. Its only purpose was to keep his mouth silent, as if it were a counter to his Mimicry, which he was supposed to speak out loud. It was something that Cillian had developed specifically for this moment.

[Mimicry Failed]

Cillian did a light spin and deflected the approaching blade aimed at his heart.

[Death Flag x3]

‘Another one?!’

Putting his attention toward the incoming Shepherd while ignoring the other one approaching, Cillian engaged in a fight.

One step, two steps.

Cillian finessed the motion of his dominant arm carrying his sword while creating a Fireball with his other hand using a single hand seal.

“Fireball.”

A circle manifested, shooting out a Fireball toward the Shepherds as they exchanged blows.

Because of how quickly Cillian processed the situation, it made a direct hit on the Shepherd’s shoulder, causing him to let out a groan.

“Fireball!”

The Shepherd, who felt inferior watching Cillian display his skills as if it were nothing, saw the Fireball flashing before him.

That was until a shield came up in front of the Black Shepherd, wielding the twin blades from earlier, protecting his face from being directly hit by Cillian’s Fireball.

Then, the shield charged ahead.

Thud—!

‘Damn you!’

Cillian continued backing away as the Black Shepherd, using the shield, continued ramming ahead, leaving Cillian with no choice but to brace himself and move away from him.

Swoosh—!

As if that wasn’t enough, the Shepherd that he had failed to hit for the second time started assisting the Shepherd using the shield

Cillian was forced to put himself in a defensive stance as he had to avoid being squashed by the shield-using Shepherd, who looked like he wasn’t using any ability, while deflecting the attacks from the other Shepherd using the blade.

The Shepherd had already picked up the other blade he had thrown earlier.

‘Where is it?!’

However, amidst the pressing situation that Cillian was forced to take action in, he kept his head cool, even though anyone else would’ve already made some stupid mistake that would cause them to die.

When the fight was at its peak, the thinking of each person narrowed down.

It was easy to lose sight of what was in front of them and forget about the lurking dangers coming from the shadows.

Yet Cillian was different.

[Buddy: Hop was forced to stop]

‘Where are you, you bastard?!’

Cillian was looking for another person as he kept scanning his surroundings—the one who had summoned the knight and destroyed his Buddy just now.

[Mental load increased by 1%]

Cillian knew he was being watched.

The knight wouldn’t have been summoned to where it was if the summoner had been unaware of his location.

Cillian trusted his gut, and… his trust in himself paid off when he noticed something enter the area where the influence of his Nearby Flag Presence was coming from.

[Death Flag x4]

Cillian gazed below and saw a fast-approaching Death Flag beneath the floor he was using as a way to move around.

Boom—!

Another Black Shepherd, standing on the shoulder of her old knight, appeared. The old knight had its hand raised as it carried a sword.

The third opponent finally showed itself.