William's body groggily got up from the ground, lightly dusting himself off, only to have the dirt sink deeper into his clothes, before quickly examining his surroundings.
[Attribute: Reader, assists in surveying the area.]
The current layout of the battlefield was as such. The path they were on was surrounded by two walls of titanic trees on both sides, leaving a straight shot in the center, marked by a paved dirt path that was once made for civilians to enjoy a stroll through the woods.
Closely in front of him and presently making its way towards him was the massive boar fiend. Further in the distance, William could see Xiao Wei and the Giant duking it out ferociously. Given the layout, it would prove challenging to reach Xiao Wei if he didn't first take care of the boar, so that's what he chose to do.
As the Boar fiend once more stepped up to the plate, swinging his axe with animalistic strength, William used his feline agility granted to him by his title:
[Title Name: Ferocious Feline]
[You are agile as a cat, and as ferocious as a lion. You also beckon respect and admiration from all kinds of Feline creatures.]
To roll to his left, successfully avoiding the axe swing. He then began his retaliation as he slid across the earth under him.
[Core Ability: Writing has been activated.]
[Three Minutes.]
As the flow of time slowed to a halt, William's right hand wrote with blazing speed, intricately carving out the fate of his opponent into word after word of elegant calligraphy.
The key here was conserving his already small amount of Ingenuity. He couldn't afford to write lengthy expositions on the Boar's movements and actions that went against its motives, so he had to get creative. Thankfully, he managed to come up with something useful quickly.
[Seeing that William had dodged his attack, the Boar fiend decided to switch to using his hands to try to rip him apart.]
[Writing has concluded.]
The Boar slammed his battleaxe into the ground behind him, lodging it deep and making it fixed in the way of the path towards the other two's battle, essentially turning it into a barrier. Afterwards, he leapt towards William with his now much lighter body.
William acted hastily, summoning a blazing bow and arrow of light and fire using his Light and Fire Manipulation skill and aiming it straight at the incoming boar fiend, whose eyes widened at the sight of it. He then pulled the bow back and released it, sending the blazing arrow straight into the boar's upper chest, which immediately penetrated through it and caused it to begin melting slowly, dissolving into an inky, black tar-like substance. The body of the boar fiend was pulled backwards slightly by the force of the arrow, though due to his high body mass, it at most only felt like a short tug.
Moving forward, the boar fiend began to heal his wounds once more, only this time, the effects of his healing were less prominent, only stagnating his slow dissolution even further. Then, six shadow spears lifted from the boar's own shadow with a raising of his hands, barreling at William at speeds so fast the air whistled in their wake.
Simultaneously, the boar charged towards William, forcing him to focus on multiple targets at once.
Readying his bident, he blocked the first two spears that came after him, then he dodged the third by side-stepping. As the fourth came along, so did the boar fiend, so William chose to leap backwards with feline agility, though he thought that would be enough to dodge it. The arrow suddenly curved and shot towards him once more, forcing him to whack it mid-air with his bident, shattering it.
He saw in his peripheral vision while this was happening that the boar fiend made odd hand gestures, which allowed him to link two and two together that he could control the direction of an arrow.
What alarmed him next was that the boar didn't stop making these hand signs, so William quickly spun around to see that the third arrow's trajectory had also been turned around. It was an apple's distance away from his face when he turned around, barely giving him enough time to react and grab it using his free left hand with his enhanced agility, before crushing it as well.
However, during this time, the Boar fiend had used the distraction to close the gap between the two of them to seize William's head and began to clench his fist onto it, putting immense strain on his cranium.
Feeling lightheaded, William immediately fought to get free, choosing to stab towards the place where he thought the Boar's arm was, using his bident.
It pierced through flesh and bone, directly into the boar fiend's soul. The boar fiend roared out in agony, as if its very being had been harmed on a deep level. The soul's connection to the body's arm was short-circuited, causing it to fall weaker, limiting the amount of strength the boar fiend could use through it.
With the boar fiend momentarily stunned in pain, William used his left arm to take the boar's hand off of his head before going in for the finishing attack, stabbing towards the boar's head.
The sound of steel sinking into soft flesh told William everything he needed to know.
As the corpse of the boar plopped onto the ground, the same strange circular array that sucked the "wisp" out of the corpse appeared.
With the obstacle out of the way, William could see the path ahead, only that there was something strange in the way, not an obstacle really, as they seemed to be dead; a weird man wrapped in a black cloak lay limply on the ground.
William's thoughts began to race. 'Where did this come from…Hold on…was it the lizard? That's the only other living being that was here…but they were sucked away through that magic circle-looking thing…Oh wait, I've seen this kind of trope before, a possession ritual? Wait, that means…' His gaze turned to the corpse of the boar fiend who he had just slain, which he noticed seemed to be losing its animal characteristics by the second.
'I guess that confirms it. This is strange, for the longest of times, this world has been a purely man-versus-man onslaught, bringing out the worst in people. Why are there demons here…moreover, the Author's Note said something about…an Underworld?'
Suddenly, a loud meowing sound rang out in distress, causing William's brief thinking time to be cut short, as he immediately started bolting towards Xiao Wei's location.
At his top running speed, he made it there in under ten seconds. To his dismay, he saw a heavily injured Xiao Wei still relentlessly fighting against the giant. He immediately sprang into action, running in between Xiao Wei and the Giant and pointing his bident straight at their face.
"We don't tolerate animal abuse around these parts, so how about you pick on someone…well, not exactly your own size, but you get what I mean, right?" He awkwardly exclaimed while staring straight into the giant's "eyes".
The giant let out a deep growling noise. Then, they swung their gigantic claymore at William without a moment of hesitation.
Though before the hit could land, William had already made his move.
As the blade was a mere hair's width away from crashing into his skull and likely giving him severe head trauma, a spark of light appeared in front of the giant's head, before combusting into a sphere of blazing hot golden fire that started to incinerate the giant's skull, causing him to lose focus on his attack for a couple of seconds.
Sun Summoning
[Sun Summoning: A one-use ability, will expend all of the Ingenuity you have, to summon an artificial sun, able to turn night into day. And dispel darkness and degeneration. The full capabilities of the sun will only show itself once it is summoned.]
The Giant shrieked in pain, and he cursed in his devilish tongue, which was automatically translated for William.
"The…Sun…It…burns!"
William nodded beamingly. "Good. That's how you know it worked!"
A new notification appeared momentarily after the sun was summoned.
[??? watches with interest.] The earlier notification had suddenly cleared up, as if it had been illuminated.
[A member of the Greek Pantheon watches with keen eyes.]
Amidst the giant's screams, William was rather annoyed with this result. 'What a big help you are…' He pointed at the miniature sun in the sky; thanks to his one title (One who faced the Sun), blindness wasn't much of an issue, but his eyes adjusting to the light temporarily made the rest of the world look like the abyss, so he hurriedly looked away.
([Title: One Who Faced The Sun, has been granted!]
[Description: A cowardly reader attempted to trick the Sun God by acting like a depressed onion cutting itself. And by the grace of the Sun God, he lived somehow.]
[Title Ability(s):]
[Light resistance: You have resistance against light and cannot be blinded by it easily. ]
[Heat resistance: You withstood the gaze of the Sun itself; you are now able to withstand intense heat without damage.] Just so you know.)
His gripes would have to wait, as this was a good opportunity for action. While the giant was distracted, the two of them could run away, with a solid chance of success.
'Well, it's not like I don't want to run away right now, it's just that, I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶I̶'̶d̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶g̶u̶i̶l̶t̶y̶ I think I'm too far in to turn back now.' He reasoned to himself, before shoving his bident straight into the abdomen of the blind, melting giant.
Krssshk!
The soul-piercing bident shot straight through, causing the giant even more tremendous agony. It clenched its own head, trying to hold it all together at all costs as it progressively liquified.
Then, it disappeared. It seemed that the usage of such a powerful ability had its drawbacks.
Suddenly, nearby shadows surged and wrapped around the giant's head, serving as a bandage of sorts to keep it alive. It almost looked as if it had adorned a knight's helmet.
It gripped its claymore tightly, spun it around, and drove it deep into the ground, sending a seismic shock towards William and Xiao Wei, knocking them up into the air. To which, the blind giant used its ability to sense shadows to locate its target, before dashing at lightning speeds underneath them and slamming its claymore straight into them with all their might.
The sound of flesh tearing could almost be heard as William looked solemnly at Xiao Wei's body being torn apart right before his eyes, mid-air, too slow to stop it, and powerless to do so.
[Attribute: Monster helps keep calm.]
William here was capable of cold logic even in stressful times, so he did the only thing he could think of to prolong her lifespan somehow.
[Record: Moonbeast has been retracted.]
Quickly, Xiao Wei began to fade away, as if being erased by an eraser. Soon, it was as if she was never there in the first place. When this happened, dark clouds began to swarm the skies, blotting out any semblance of the moon or any light in this ruthless night. It was almost like Xiao Wei had taken the beauty of the moon with her, wherever she was now.
Although one of his allies was gravely injured, the Monster attribute kept William focused and pushed aside his feelings for another time, as it had done before, and before, and before.
The giant stared at William, although he could no longer see the giant's eyes, the visor of the giant's helmet seemed dark and impenetrable, even more so than the lightless night surrounding it.
It was strange; the giant didn't appear to have this type of power a few moments ago, when Xiao Wei was able to contend on near equal footing with it. But William had an idea.
"The Flow State." He muttered quietly.
The highest form of concentration, where complex and difficult actions feel as easy as breathing to one.
William was by no means an idiot, well, at least not that much of an idiot, so he began to back away, realizing that this fight was far beyond his league now that he was completely out of Ingenuity.
The giant seemed confused, which William took as the inability to sense his shadow now that the night was truly upon them, masking his traces.
He hastily retreated, attempting to be as quiet as possible when doing so. Now that he had no Ingenuity left, and his shadow was covered, it was truly the best time to run.
Once he was around a hundred meters away from the giant, he heard something, and it seemed like the giant did aswell, as it started looking around with a dignified glare. It's a claymore ready to be used at the drop of a hat.
Utilizing the passive ability of Seek, he was able to see decently clearly through the night, and so he observed what was going on with the giant from afar, while hiding behind a tree, of course.
Whoosh!
A pitch-black arrow shot towards the giant out of the forest to its left, while a sharp wind flew by its face, attempting to cut into it. At first, William thought:
'The Law guys? They're here too?' However, he was wrong in this case, as an oh-so-familiar voice rang out, which simultaneously caused him to facepalm himself.
The voice, of a shopkeeper.
"Boss! You haven't given me my monthly paycheck!"
'Wait, I'm supposed to be paying her?' He immediately thought back instead of worrying about the situation at hand.