*SWISH*
*CLANG!*
Leo’s blades moved into motion before the lizards fully lunged, the twin daggers slashing toward the first one’s neck with lethal precision.
He aimed to cleave deep, but the moment his blade’s edge made contact with the beast’s skin, sparks began to fly.
The lizard skin was too thick for his blade to penetrate.
It had a rock hard texture and was dense beyond expectation, as although his blade bit into it, the edge failed to go all the way through.
*SCREECH—*
The beast screeched and reared back, its body staggering, as it turned its focus to Leo.
’Shit… it’s a tough skinned bastard.’ Leo thought, as without hesitating, he spun and adjusted his grip, both hands now on the hilt of a single dagger, as his body moved with violent grace.
He sidestepped the creature’s snapping jaws, dragged his body’s momentum past him, and then twisted around—
*SLICE!*
This time, with both arms behind the force of the strike, his blade found purchase. It carved into the lizard’s lower jaw and continued along the throat, severing its windpipe and flooding the air with blackish ooze.
*CLACK!*
The beast spasmed once before collapsing at his feet.
But before Leo could even recover his stance, and focus on the other beasts.
*THUD*
*CRACK*
*SPLAT!*
The other two lizards had already been dealt with.
Bob stood near Karl’s shaking frame, each of his meaty hands clenched around a reptilian skull— as blood, brain matter, and broken scales dripped down his manly forearms.
Beneath his foot, lay the limp corpses of both monsters, as apparently, he had slammed them into each other so hard that their skulls had burst like overripe fruit.
*Silence*
For a brief moment, no one moved.
Even Leo found himself pausing, his chest rising slowly as his eyes widened at the sheer brutality of what he’d just witnessed.
Raiden, Cipher, Patricia— they all had their weapons drawn, mana brimming at their fingertips… and yet none of them had made a single move.
Because there was no fight left to join.
Bob had ended it.
Then, casually, as if smashing two mutated monsters with his bare hands was no different than tossing out the trash, Bob flicked one of the skulls off his fingers and muttered under his breath.
"…I hate reptiles."
Karl, meanwhile, let out a choked scream and stumbled backward, tripping over his own bag as his eyes darted from one mangled body to the next.
"I—I—I almost died—" he sobbed, hysterical, only to get smacked on the back of the head a heartbeat later by the same bloodied palm.
*THWACK!*
"Shut up," Bob said.
"Stop cryin’ like a little bitch or I’ll crush your skull the same way." He warned, as Karl immediately bit down on his own voice, too terrified to speak further, as he nodded frantically in fear.
Bob turned then, his gaze landing on Leo.
He tilted his head slightly, chewing a bit harder on the toothpick hanging from the corner of his lips.
"You moved faster than me…?" he muttered, not accusing, not impressed, just puzzled.
Like he couldn’t quite wrap his head around how someone had managed to beat him to the first kill.
Leo didn’t reply. He just nodded once in acknowledgment, his breath finally steadying as he wiped the blood from his blade.
The others slowly lowered their weapons, eyes flicking from the corpses to Leo… and then back to Bob.
Because in that moment, it became clear to everyone— that amongst them all, those two were the undisputed top dogs in this team.
Leo frowned internally as the tension began to settle, his gaze slowly dropping back to the mess near Bob’s feet.
It was almost hard for him to believe that they were the same monsters he had just struggled to kill, as while he needed timing, leverage, both arms, and a perfect strike to take one down, Bob had simply grabbed them by their skulls and crushed them together— without mana, without technique, and without hesitation.
’He snapped their heads like twigs…’ Leo thought, eyes narrowing slightly. ’And here I had to try twice to carve through the skin.’
His mind flashed back to the old rumor, of how Bob had supposedly wiped out an entire enemy fortress using nothing but a kitchen fork.
And although back then, Leo had dismissed it as an exaggerated war tale, he could almost believe it now after seeing that guy in action.
’Fucking monster.’
He thought worriedly, as he realized that perhaps killing Bob might prove to be the most challenging part of this mission in the end.
*Sigh*
With a final glance toward the mangled bodies, Leo sheathed his blade and turned back toward the antenna post.
"Let’s finish building the shelter fast, I don’t think it’s wise to hang around dead bodies for too long, as only lord knows what the scent of their blood and marrow will attract in this cursed world—" Leo said sharply, as the team didn’t argue.
Patricia immediately bent down to retrieve the last shielding panel, Cipher reset the protective rune matrix around the antenna, and Raiden silently stepped in to refasten the final corner brackets.
Karl, still pale and shaking, picked up a toolkit without being told— because after that display, he wasn’t about to be the weakest link again.
No one spoke for a while.
Only the soft clinks of metal, the hiss of tightening mana bolts, and the distant, unnerving stillness of the Time-Stilled World lingered in the air as in the next ten minutes the team managed to build the signalling antenna and activated the protective mana shielding around it, that would keep it safe from stray mindless beast attacks.
"Alright then, time to make our way towards the Forest Of Death, it’s about 140 kilometers away, westward.
So if we start jogging now, we should cover the whole distance in about a day or so.
If anyone wants to take a leak or have a snack, now’s the time, because our next break will be after we cover at least 70 kilometers ...." Raiden said, as all eyes turned toward Karl, who lowered his gaze in shame, the dark stain on his trousers betraying everything his trembling hands now tried to hide as he covered his face in mortified silence.