At the top of the valley, the Lizard King was locked in battle with Gwen.
"Hah!" Gwen grunted as she used the force from the Lizard King’s tail swipe to create distance between them.
Although blood was rolling down her face and her armor was torn, she hadn’t sustained any serious injury.
The Lizard King on the other hand had seen much better days.
There were slash marks covering its body from head to toe.
None of the wounds were serious individually but due to the sheer amount of them it left the Lizard King weakened.
Despite its wounds, the Lizard King still lounged at Gwen.
As the Lizard King charged, Gwen rushed forward.
Slashing its claw horizontally, the Lizard King tried to shred Gwen apart.
Right before the claw hit her however, Gwen took a step back, allowing the claw to barely scratch her armor causing it to fly off before slashing at the Lizard King’s neck.
Another cut was added to the Lizard King’s body as more blood flowed out.
Despite the pain however, the Lizard King didn’t stop for a moment as it tried to hit Gwen with its other hand.
Gwen felt her legs buckle under the immense pressure as she used her sword to block the Lizard King’s blow.
Seeing this, the Lizard King tried to grab Gwen but she quickly dodged back, avoiding the Lizard King’s giant palm.
The Lizard King released a deafening roar as it prepared to rush at Gwen once more but before it could move even a step forward, a spear came flying at it.
The spear stabbed into an open wound on the Lizard King’s back causing it to scream out in pain.
Turning around, it saw Lake who had climbed up onto the valley. He was covered in blood and had a few spears stuck into the ground around him.
Seeing the spears, the Lizard King seemed to have realized something as its bloodshot eyes turned even redder as it jumped at Lake in a mad daze.
As Lake saw this, he grabbed a spear before chucking it at the Lizard King who was dashing towards him.
Immediately after, he grabbed the other two spears before barely jumping out of the way of the Lizard King’s landing.
Dust was kicked up as the Lizard King swiftly swung its tail, hitting the air borne Lake, sending him flying.
Lake crashed into the wall, leaving a giant crater in the cliff’s face and cracks as long as the Lizard King itself.
"Lake!" Gwen shouted out seeing Lake get hit but quickly saw him crawl out of the cracked wall.
"Don’t worry about me. How much mana do you have left."
Seeing that Lake was mostly okay, Gwen breathed a small sigh of relief before replying, "About forty percent."
Hearing this, Lake was slightly surprised.
Everyone else, including Lake, had already exhausted most of their mana, so to hear that she still had so much remaining left him a little surprised.
"She didn’t get the name One Hit Kill for nothing. That mana efficiency is insane."
As Lake landed back on the ground, the Lizard King was already rushing towards him.
Its eyes filled with rage and hatred. Just now, when it was near the ledge where Lake had climbed up from, it took the chance to look down into the valley.
When it saw the corpses covering the ground and puddles of blood, it felt its heart break.
Jumping out of the way, Lake narrowly avoided the Lizard King’s charge as he took the chance to stab another spear into its body.
A clear sword mark appeared on its side.
"Did you forget about me?"
Gwen controlled her sword before slashing out again, leaving a cross cut on the Lizard King’s body.
"RARR!" The Lizard King screamed in pain but it still relentlessly attacked Lake.
Swing after swing, tail swipe after tail swipe, bite after bite, the Lizard King came onto Lake with everything it had.
"I’ll keep its attention! You focus on actually killing it!" Lake shouted out as he continued to dodge the Lizard King’s relentless attacks.
He seemed to have truly angered the Lizard King as no matter how much Gwen attacked it, it no longer paid any attention to her. Right now, all the Lizard King wanted to do was rip apart the man that had slaughtered its tribe.
As the battle progressed, the environment around them was getting destroyed as each of the Lizard King’s attacks smashed and shattered the stone walls and floors, causing several chunks of stone to break off and fall into the valley.
Lake was giving it his all to barely dodge most of the Lizard King’s attack. Every now and then he would find himself unable to dodge and would have to rely on his strong physique to endure the hit.
The difference in agility between the two was simply too high and without Lake’s sixth sense’s ability to predict danger and his stealth skill that made it hard for the Lizard King to keep track of him, he would have long been crushed under the Lizard King’s endless attacks.
Meanwhile, Gwen didn’t stop swinging her blade, leaving countless slash marks on the Lizard King’s body.
Her fitness index wasn’t enough for her to use the blade to seriously injure the Lizard King with one attack so she kept leaving countless small wounds behind.
Fortunately, she had more room to maneuver now thanks to Lake keeping the Lizard King distracted. She was able to attack previous cuts she had made, cutting deeper into the Lizard King’s flesh, increasing the severity of the wounds.
While they were in the middle of the fight, Hana had climbed up and tried to use her arrows to provide assistance, but unfortunately she wasn’t able to penetrate the Lizard King’s thick scales.
The best she could do was aim her arrows at the wounds on the Lizard King and tried to pierce into it. Thankfully, the Lizard King’s body was full of slash marks thanks to Gwen so aiming at them wasn’t much of a problem.
As the battle progressed, the Lizard King had already realized that it was dying. However, it cared little about this. Its tribe had already perished and it was the only survivor left alive.
From the Lizard King’s perspective, there was no point continuing after this. Instead, it planned to get revenge on the bastards that had destroyed its family.
As the Lizard King got closer to death, its attacks became more and more ferocious until Lake was having a hard time dodging even a single attack.
It eventually came to a point where he was constantly stacking up injuries while trying to avoid getting hit in a vital spot.
However, every time Lake felt himself getting weaker, he would use the little bit of mana in his body to cast a heal spell on some of the more major wounds on his body, barely keeping him in the fight.
This went on for a while and before Lake knew it, his body was covered in countless small wounds and cuts.
Gwen’s sword landed down firmly onto the Lizard King’s back wound for the nth time.
Looking closely, Gwen could see a glimpse of a red fleshy organ beating constantly.
Knowing that she had broken through to the Lizard King’s heart, she wasted no time before stabbing her sword straight through the Lizard King’s heart!
The Lizard King’s heart was pierced by Gwen’s sword, causing its pupils to momentarily contract as it stopped its attacks on Lake.
Its heart wanted to beat but the Lizard King could feel the cold steel of the blade lodged in its chambers, preventing it from contracting as a suffocating feeling filled its chest.
Gwen pulled her blade from the Lizard King’s back, letting its massive body collapse to the floor.
As its life faded from it, the Lizard King was still filled with unwillingness. Until the end, it still didn’t get revenge for its tribe.
"Huff... Huff..." Lake breathed heavily as he stretched out his hand to grab the Lizard King’s fate.
The fate was still holding on by a thread to Lizard King’s head, but the moment Lake’s hands grabbed onto it, the last strand snapped, signaling the demise of the Lizard King.
[Detected that the Host has come in contact with a Chieftain’s fate. Beginning the absorption process...]
[Absorption complete.]
After seeing the RP points he gained, Lake was finally relieved as he fell flat on his back.
His injuries weren’t life threatening but it left him extremely tired.
As he lay down to rest, opened the system interface to check his RP Points.
[RP Points = 10840.111]
Seeing that his points had crossed ten thousand, Lake felt that all the injuries he had sustained till now were completely worth it.
While Lake was looking at the system interface, Gwen and Hana had already walked over to him.
"That was extremely reckless, you know." Gwen spoke in a cold tone.
"Haha, I knew what I could handle. I promised I didn’t do it without thinking it through." Lake replied casually.
"Were all these injuries a part of your thought process too, first year?" Hana asked sarcastically as she took out a first aid kit.
"Mhm, at least half of them were."
Hearing this, Hana was stunned while Gwen felt slightly frustrated.
In the end, Gwen couldn’t help but sigh.
"It seems that I accepted quite a reckless junior into my team..."