CHAPTER 66: 66. GET THE DAMN SWORD!

The number of beasts was finally dwindling. Not only because Shin and the girls were crushing through them like flies, but because Bob, the so-called Beastmaster, was faltering. His mana hemorrhaged with every second. His face was now more pale, sunken, twitching with nerves as some of his beasts slipped from his control and collapsed into twitching heaps, dying.

Shin scoffed under his breath, slicing down a rat the size of a pitbull.

Such a damn useful skill....wasted on an empty-brained mutt!!

This bastard was gifted a rare-class ability... and he’s too fucking stupid to use it properly.

Every creature he summoned screamed potential—some spit venom hot enough to melt flesh, others had claws like meat hooks. The rats could tear through bone if they swarmed. But they didn’t. They just scattered, charged out of sync, and attacked without purpose.

Whoever’s pulling the strings is a damned idiot.

It was obvious the person had no proper control, and no plan. Just brute force. The beasts were nothing more than blunt instruments driven by raw rage.

If the person had any brains, they’d have summoned five beast—ten at most—and used them effectively. And not believe in numbers over strategy like some army commander from the past, back there before cars were eve invented.

Unbeknownst to him, Bob, hidden had his face twisted while saliva ran from his lips as he forced another creature into the fray. His linked vision with the creatures was blurring. All he could think about was burying Shin under a mountain of twitching, screeching monsters.

He didn’t care if they were falling apart.

He didn’t care if his brain felt like it was tearing in half.

All he wanted... was to see Shin choke in his own blood.

Meanwhile, his two teammates hadn’t lost their minds. At least not yet.

Sam was focused, watching through the carnage from a distance, calculating. And Britt though visibly furious had a deadly kind of restraint in her movements. Her pistols were already drawn.

She slithered closer behind chaos: through writhing centipedes the size of cattle, over rotting mounds of twitching meat and shattered exoskeletons. The stench was overwhelming. Pus, feces, sulfur, and copper. But she didn’t flinch.

She knew by now that attacking Shin was a waste of bullets, so she zeroed in on the girls.

Sylvia was already struggling. Fighting one-handed with an axe, her stamina was starting to fail. But Lilian still stood firm, deflecting attacks, but the exhaustion showed in the lag between her attacks.

Britt licked her lips.

BAM. BAM.

Two thunderclaps rang out. The beasts parted like curtains, their spines snapping as Bob forced them to clear her line of fire.

One bullet smashed into Lilian’s gauntlet harmless.

The second found home on the dwarf girl.

The bullet hit Sylvia just below the shoulder.

"AAAARRGH!!!" she shrieked, collapsing to her knees, her axe falling with a hollow thud. Her arm erupted in a shower of glowing pixels mixed with globs of exposed nerve and white code-stripped bone. The air filled with that metallic, electronic sizzle of an NPC on the brink of deletion.

Shin turned. His eyes widened.

"Oh fuck—"

He didn’t hesitate. He drove his sword through the throat of a charging beast, then turned to Sylvia and slapped a hand to her chest, a golden light surging from his palm.

Spirit Healing. MAX power!.

The dissolvation halted, then reversed as Sylvia’s arm regenerated... barely.

But he paid for it.

A spider-like beast with metallic and jagged legs like broken scissors scuttled up behind him and drove its front limb through Shin’s back.

The sound of the impact was sickening: meat tearing, bone cracking.

Shin howled. Blood burst from his lips, thick and black-red, spattering Sylvia’s face.

Britt cursed under her breath, annoyed that the dwarf NPC she just shot was alive. She raised her pistols again and fired wildly.

Some of her bullets pinged uselessly off a shimmering barrier: Shin’s master-servant shield, but Lilian and Sylvia had no such protection.

Lilian narrowed her eyes, tracking Britt’s hands with uncanny speed. Her gauntlets intercepted bullet after bullet with mechanical precision.

That was the strength of an NPC: absurdly fast calculations. Now that they were outside the safezone where system protocols prevented them from harming humans, Lilian was no longer just support—she was a machine of war.

Britt growled in frustration, unloading until she ran out of bullets.

"Tch... Fine. You’re good now, dwarfgirl," Lilian snarled, sliding between beasts to reach Shin. "Tend to the master."

She charged forward, fast and furious toward Britt, her eyes blazing with the intent to kill.

Meanwhile, Shin dropped to one knee, gripping the spider leg stabbed through him. He clenched his jaw, healing himself, even as his blood pooled below. Every breath hurt. He coughed violently, splattering red across his fingers.

Then—

"Slip."

Britt’s voice was barely a whisper.

Lilian’s feet went out from under her like she’d stepped on ice. She hit the ground hard. Furious, she tried to get up—

And slipped again.

And again.

Each time, she fell harder, growling in frustration. She was caught: trapped in Britt’s unique skill.

On the other end of the field, Sylvia had picked herself up. She retrieved her axe, just in time to cleave through a lunging rat. Just as she tried to kill the creature stabbing through her master, something struck her from behind.

KRZZAAAT!!

A bolt of lightning arced through her body. Her limbs seized. She didn’t even scream. Her axe fell first, then her knees, then her entire body, collapsing in a heap of twitching pixels.

"God damn it..." Shin growled, coughing more blood. Sylvia was now down. She was a damn useful servant to die! The spider limb still jutted from his spine, pumping venom into him. His MP bar was collapsing. Healing was the only thing keeping him from being paralyzed or dead.

Across the field, Bob began laughing.

High. Shaky. Somewhere between joy and madness.

He dismissed his remaining beasts with a wave of his hand—nothing left to gain from them.

He staggered forward, grinning like a lunatic, his teeth bloodstained.

"Yes... yes... YESSS!! We’ve got the little freak!!" He said, moving toward the others.

Sam stood several meters from Shin. He wasn’t taking chances. One slip, and Shin could hijack his system for all he knew.

Britt stood a few meters away, arms folded beneath her chest, lips curled in disgust as she watched Lilian pathetically crawl through dirt and blood, slipping again and again like a broken doll trying to stand. But she couldn’t charge and kill her. Not really. Even if Lilian couldn’t stand up properly, without bullets in her gun, Britt knew damn well she couldn’t charge at her or those heavy metal gauntlets on her hands will connect to her gut. So, she stayed at a safer distance, and grumbled at her comrades to kill Shin.

"You two finish the job. Make it quick and brutal."

Sam hesitated, eyes narrowing.

"But... I only use lightning. You want me to fry the fucker? I’ll roast that damned creature holding him down too."

"Don’t call my baby a ’creature’, you black swine!" Bob snarled, limping toward him.

Sam’s brow twitched. "Kinda racist, bro."

"WHO CARES?! It’s not the time for Black Lives Matter, just kill the damn brat! Not with lightning—use his fucking sword!"

The blade lay beside Shin, inches from his twitching fingers.

Sam took a hesitant step forward. "Nah, screw that. What if he does hack me?!"

"Don’t be a coward!" Bob snapped. "If he does, I’ll rush in and finish him off myself!"

"Oh, sure. Why don’t you take the sword, and I finish him off?" Sam shot back.

Britt scoffed. "Idiots."

She marched forward, her boots crunching over dead insects. "You’re arguing over a sword? You both got no balls."

Grumbling, she reached for it.

And that... was her mistake.

Shin’s bloodied lips curled into a grin.

She’d just walked into range.

All along, she was out of his skill’s range for him to turn her into a good puppet.

But now.....

"Obey...."

TBC