Balud didn't like [Raging Bear] much.
It was the same reason he tried not to show his Nordic barbarian roots.
The [Raging Bear] was too barbaric.
That's because it turned the user into a bloodthirsty berserker.
The more wounds you take, the more ferocious and stronger you become.
Your attack speed, damage, movement speed, and damage reduction would increase in proportion to the blood you shed and the health you lost.
It wasn't just that, either.
The [Raging Bear] was all about the overall trait, but when you got down to the specific skills, there was a lot of variety.
Your health wouldn't drop below a certain percentage for a certain amount of time.
If you keep attacking without stopping, you get a bonus to your damage.You could also use spilled blood to create a shield proportional to your lost health.
This was a man's skill: he didn't dodge or block his opponent's attacks, but only responded with attacks.
Balud couldn't help but hate it.
“Die!”
The enhanced human unleashed an electric charge from his hand. Upon closer inspection, the palm that gathered the charge had turned to metal.
The veins running through his body glowed with plasma currents.
The bolt struck Balud's slowly approaching body again.
Balud's body shook, but it didn't stop him.
In fact, the blood glow in his eyes grew darker and stronger than before.
“The reason I don't like it is because it makes my head feel weird.”
His face contorted in irritation, in contrast to his usually calm voice and demure demeanor.
“My vision turns red, and the sounds around me become muffled, with every cell screaming at me to kill the enemy in front of me instead.”
“Don't come!”
“My head is ringing. My head.”
“Don't come!”
Just then, another enhanced human stepped forward.
It was a man with short hair, and when he stretched out his arm, it stretched like rubber and stabbed Balud in the abdomen.
Still, Balud didn't stop. His expression didn't even change, as if he didn't feel the pain.
“That's why I didn't want to use it, but you guys made me do it.”
“You, you crazy monster.......”
“So take responsibility.”
Balud grabbed the hand that had stabbed him in the abdomen and yanked.
The enhanced human tried to hold on, but he could not withstand Balud's berserk strength.
He was yanked away and sent flying toward Balud.
Balud lifted his axe and slammed it down on the flying enhanced man's neck.
The head wasn't decapitated, but the body of the enhancer, unable to withstand the force of the axe, fell to the ground.
Balud swung his axe at another one.
Over and over again.
-Pow! Pow! Pow!
The dead enhanced man's body convulsed with each thrust of the axe.
Red blood splashed all over Balud's body. Without bothering to wipe the blood from his cheeks, Balud stared at the enhancer who had fired the first shot.
“Freak, freak......!”
It wasn't the kind of yell an enhanced human would make.
But watching the fist-sized hole in its abdomen regenerate in real time would make anyone want to shout it.
As the wound regenerated, the blood stopped flowing and new flesh filled it.
It was the result of one of the Talent's effects, increased healing.
Balud gripped his axe. The axe, which should have been imbued with a frosty aura, was now imbued with red energy.
-Poof!
Balud disappeared from view and the enhanced humans looked around for him.
He was about to spin around and fire another blow when he felt a movement behind him.
-clang.
One of his arms was sliced off by the axe faster.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! My arm!”
“Good, try crying a little louder to drown out this ringing in my head.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Balud's mouth. It was eerie to see it on his bloodied face.
The augmented man, who had been crying out in pain rather than terror, clamped his mouth shut.
“If you don't cry anymore, I can't help it.”
Balud raised his axe, then dropped it as if he'd changed his mind.
“What the hell.......”
-Boom!
Instead, he smashed the enhanced man's face in with a tightly curled fist.
-Punch, punch, punch.
Only when he had disintegrated the head beyond recognition and seen the blood did the rising mania subside.
Balud wiped the hot, fishy blood from his cheek with his hand, then gave up and shook his head.
“Ha.”
He'd gotten rid of the three, but there were still six more enhanced humans left and Osian was fighting the six of them at once.
He wasn't worried, though. For, while the enhanced humans were not weak, Osian was far stronger than them.
‘As much as I hate to admit it.’
Looking at Osian now, with his sword encrusted with starlight, performing his swordplay with precision, there was no way he could lose.
“Kaaaah!”
The enhanced human's bulk increased. His muscles bulged and hair sprouted on his body.
Osian clicked his tongue as he watched.
‘All enhanced humans have their own characteristics.’
An enhanced human is a being whose biological evolution has been artificially altered through genetic modification.
Similarly, there were mutants, but there were differences.
Mutants are congenital and limited to one ability.
Enhanced humans, on the other hand, are acquired, with each enhanced human possessing multiple abilities and traits.
They could manifest the beast factor, possess superior physical strength and regenerative powers, and even use mutant-like superpowers.
“Stop!”
One of the enhanced humans shouted just as Osian was about to swing his starlight sword.
The voice pierced through the air and wrapped itself around Osian's body.
It was a kind of mental attack that interfered with the opponent's mind but Osian shrugged it off.
The sword light flashed, and the hulking head of the enhanced human was swallowed by the starlight.
-Puhhhhh!
The ground suddenly rose up, and the tree trunks lunged at him like anemones.
It was almost at the same time that starlight appeared on Osian's shoulders.
Nebula Silk.
The cloaked Osian whirled around as a tree trunk snapped open, spilling a light green fluid.
The fluid was acidic, but even the acid failed to harm Osian's Nebula Silk.
“Get back!”
One of the enhanced humans shouted at Osian.
With a shout, a sound wave shot out of its mouth, and just as it was about to strike Osian, he disappeared in a flash of white light.
“Gone?”
His head spun around to look at his surroundings, but it couldn't go any further, and he slumped to the ground.
The female augmented human beside him, who had been sending out mental waves, widened her eyes at the sight.
Just as she was about to attempt another mind interference on Osian, Osian’s leg kicked the enhanced female in the knee.
Her body collapsed with a crack and a breaking leg as the Starlight sword that fell on top of her pierced her heart.
But she was an enhanced human after all. She didn't die immediately from the stab wound.
Just as he was about to raise the starlight to burn her heart, the enhanced human who was shooting out mental waves raised his arms and grabbed Osian's ankles.
Without even a smirk, Ossian swung his starlight sword and severed the arm.
Before it could close in on him, Osian spun around and swung his sword.
The intense white light blasted the enhanced human's head off, and it collapsed as it ran past Osian, unable to overcome its inertia.
“Kwak! Uh, how.......”
The enhanced man's eyes widened as he realized that even his life-threatening strike had been useless.
He couldn't understand how a human could possess such power but Osian had no intention of answering that question.
Just as it was about to breathe its last, the head of the enhanced human that had been shooting out mental waves dropped to the side.
Ossian sheathed his sword and deactivated Nebula Silk with a sigh of relief.
His gaze turned to Aaron and his teammates.
Their numbers were paltry, as if they had been counting on the Enhanced Humans in the first place.
There were only five, including Aaron.
They froze, overwhelmed by Osian's power, unable to even think of running away.
“Yeah. You guys stayed.”
Osian slowly stepped in front of Aaron.
A shiver ran down Aaron's spine. Having seen what Osian had just done, he didn't dare look him in the eye.
“Help me!”
Aaron fell flat on his face.
“I'll give you everything I have if you let me live, and if you go back outside, I'll even use my connections in the Archaeological League to reward you, so please!”
The way he cried out in a sobbing voice was almost pitiful.
The teammates behind him did the same.
“Please?”
“Yes, yes!”
“You just tried to kill me, and now you're begging for your life because you're at a disadvantage?”
“Well, that's what the enhanced humans did, they didn't listen to me because they weren't under my control......!”
“For such a thing, when they were trying to kill us, you were standing behind them, laughing like it was funny.”
Osian remembered the look on their faces.
All right when they were trying to kill others, but ugly when they were about to die?
“You're not honorable at all.”
“That, that’s why……Get out of here, you fucking bastard!”
Crouching down, Aaron threw the capsule at Ossian.
Even if he had hired an escort, as an explorer he had the means to save his own life.
Triggered at point-blank range, the capsule fired a powerful electric current in a radial arc before Osian could react.
Balud's eyes widened in surprise at the sight.
That was far more powerful magic than the blasts he'd been subjected to by the enhanced humans, at least 3-star lightning magic.
If he gets hit by that at close range, even Osian won't be safe but where the current swept past, Ossian was still standing.
If you look closely, you'll see that he's not completely unharmed, his clothes burned and his skin scarred but for a three-star magic strike, that's not too bad.
“Uh, how.......”
Aaron muttered in disbelief.
How could a person be hit by magic at close range and not die?
Aaron rolled his eyes. Before he could say anything else, Osian's sword cut out his tongue.
Aaron clamped his hands over his mouth, blood running down both of his hands.
“Open your filthy mouth no more. You'll rot my ears.”
“Ugh! Ugh!”
Aaron muttered and looked at Illua.
His eyes were pleading, begging her to spare him.
Illua looked at him, then turned away.
“Looks like our employer is thinking the same thing.”
“Ugh!”
Aaron stretched out his arm to restrain Osian, but it was no use.
His sword cut Aaron's vital points with precision and speed.
The same goes for Aaron's teammates who were trying to escape.
They were Aaron's companions, after all, and they were up to no good.
There was no need for mercy.
When he was done, Balud walked over to Osian and asked.
“You, are you all right?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just now, weren't you struck by the magic stored in the capsule?”
“I did.”
“That's why I asked if you were okay.”
I was hit, of course, but I was fine.
To be honest, Osian was surprised.
‘I'm so strong.’
He knew he wasn't in a normal body, in that he was physically strong and had great endurance but to be hit by magic and not die.
'Of course, I'd be in danger if I got hit a few times.’
Just knowing that he could take a hit or two with his body was a great gain.
“If you've got that much power, why have you been avoiding it all this time?”
With a body that strong, it seemed like he could be a bit reckless but Osian had always fought by parrying or dodging attacks with his sword.
Occasionally, he'd parry an attack with his Nebula Silk, but that was limited to broad attacks that were hard to dodge.
Balud didn't understand that. If he was so strong, why?
“It's strange not to dodge when I can.”
“You seemed a little too obsessed with dodging for that.”
“No matter how strong I am, it hurts to be hit by an attack like that.”
This time he was caught off guard because he hadn't expected Aaron, who was acting cowardly to launch an attack.
If I had, I wouldn't have been hit.
Come to think of it, he was right.
No one likes to be sick and Osian was no different.
His body was clearly that of a strong knight, but there were still traces of the 21st century commoner in his mind.
“I don't like being sick.”
“.......”
“.......”