In the exact moment that Rangka offered his faith to the God of Games, he felt that the world within his eyes changed.
First, something indescribable appeared to be added into the depths of his very soul—after all, a ‘System’ was immensely difficult to comprehend for the natives of a fantasy world. As such, after Xi Wei’s silly believers adapted to it, they would instruct the juniors by word or example, allowing later Players to use the System smoothly.
Then, Rankga could saw a lot more things than before, including the name of his opponent and HP bars.
HP bars notwithstanding, the former was much more obvious. Even a monkey would get the idea after fiddling around with it for a while, let alone a nonhuman whose intelligence was more or less the same as a human’s.
Still, after gaining that ability to see names, Rangka suddenly realized that it was not just Sutan the Ryhorn and his mount Grootslang shadowing him. To the rear, there were many more ‘Ryhorn Soldiers’ attempting to use the waist-height grass as cover, discreetly surrounding Rangka even as Sutan drew his attention.
Once the encirclement was complete, Sutan would probably quickly steer Grootslang away to pursue Laybit and the princess of the Curly-Horns, leaving the other Ryhorns to deal with Rangka.
Rangka therefore broke out in cold sweat.
The reason he had confidence in buying time was because his martial sorcery was special even though it was not especially powerful. As long as he had enough strength, he would have been able to run circles around his opponent, denying them a quick victory even if he could not beat them.
That, however, was limited to a one-on-one confrontation. It was another matter entirely if he was surrounded by a group of Ryhorns.
If he had not realized at the last possible moment and offered his faith to the God of Games and be acknowledged as a believer, he would have died senselessly and for nothing, since his intent to buy time at first failed as well.
That being said, things were still dire right now.
For one, he was definitely not a match for Sutan (for some reason, the champion of the Ryhorns had a ‘level 39, elite template’ next to his name) or his mount, Grootslang (level 36, elite template), let alone the other Ryhorns trying to surround him.
Just as Rangka was left hesitating, weird text suddenly appeared before him—though clearly illiterate (in human language), he somehow understood its meaning.
[Side Quest: Traitors Must Die]
[Though the Ryhorns are one of the stronger nonhuman tribes, not only did they not aid the oppressed of their kind in their moment of need, they sided with Swordtail Grayclaw instead, raising their blades against former allies. It is a betrayal against all nonhumans! Such a tribe that would insolently surrender for their own interest would ultimately lead all tribes to the abyss of decay!]
[Quest objectives: Slay as many Ryhorn soldiers as you can before you die or escape]
[Completion reward: 100X EXP for targets killed, each kill is rewarded with a blue-elite item ranging from level 1 to 15 at random (limited to Ryhorn sets)]
[Note: It is only by paying a bloody price that traitors would repent!]
While he had no idea why those words appeared, Rangka was more or less one of the more knowledgeable Long-Ears and quickly got a hunch—
‘Could this be the oracles human religions often mention? Wonderful, I think I’m slowly understanding everything!’
Don’t fight Sutan and attempt to surprise and kill the Ryhorns surrounding him. That was the oracle the God of Games had delivered unto him!
With that in his conviction, Rangka promptly evaded Sutan’s charge, sneered at him before promptly turning to run.
Sutan simply watched as he ran towards his fellow tribesmen’s encirclement without giving chase. He simply waited there, keen on witnessing Rangka’s despair once he realized the truth.
Yet, something he did not expect happened.
Just as Rangka was about to run into the other lurking Ryhorns, he reacted quicker than they did. Bursting out with an acceleration, he directly stabbed his twin daggers into the eyes of one of the Ryhorns!
Sutan would entirely have been able to evade that level of acceleration, but the hiding Ryhorn was only an average specimen (level 12) and simply couldn’t react in time, and was promptly stabbed in the eyes and blinded!
With the agony of having his eyes stabbed through added to the instincts of a blinded creature, the Ryhorn screamed even as he flailed wildly with his thick rusty saber.
Still, such imprecise attacks would never hurt Rangka. Instead, it obstructed the other Ryhorns who saw that their ambush had failed and came to help.
All of them were shouting to calm their blinded companion when Rangka moved ahead of them—aiming his blow on another Ryhorn who was almost cut down by his blinded comrade, losing his balance as he tried to escape!
In the next instant, another brand-new blind Ryhorn was born.
The other Rhyhorns were left in shock and rage, but they were shielding their eyes even as they cursed away at Rangka.
That distraction naturally greatly reduced their ability to attack, and even if they came to surround Rangka, he had a much easier time evading them now.
Still, when he saw that a furious Sutan was rushing to help as well, he knew that he could not create more blind Ryhorns.
There was a chance he would be able to escape if he fled now, but if he did so, Laybit and the others who had not offered their faith to the God of Games would be in danger.
His determination to protect the next generation kept him from running.
Hence, he agilely leapt atop the two blinded Ryhorns, who were calmer now despite their initial panic thanks to their tribesmen’s soothing. However, because they were not flailing their weapons wildly, Rangka was afforded an opening.
He turned on the mechanism of his two daggers and whirled it, and both daggers immediately became longer by an entire notch.
Then, moving as quickly as a lightning bolt, he stabbed the daggers into the Ryhorns’ eye socket again, although this time it was a full-power strike. The two daggers sunk inside the Ryhorns’ skulls, and as Rangka deliberately gave them a twist, their brains were churned into crushed tofu and they died instantly!
“Just you wait!” Rangka declared fearlessly, watching as Sutan turned from gray to red in his fury. “Someone would eventually avenge me!”
In the next split second, his head was shattered and he thus died after the words ‘critical hit’ appeared over his head, and his corpse vanished right in front of the glaring Ryhorns after another moment.