Chapter 334: Cut

"Nope." He stuck his tongue out.

Sofia was confused for a split second, and a magic circle already appeared right in front of her stomach. For her, who was focused on Kai's face, she almost missed this one and was too late to react.

The moment she realized it, she had been blown away by the Magic Circle that turned out to be his Sound Blast. It launched her toward the avalanche, and she somehow ended up crashing right before the avalanche.

Not wanting to get swallowed, she created an ice wall that would protect her from this avalanche.

"Bam!" A loud noise reverberated in everyone's ears as it hit Sofia's ice wall.

Suddenly, Kai appeared again right next to her as she instinctively raised her guard to avoid any sort of attacks from Kai.

The latter obviously knew this and ignored her instead. He then slashed the ice wall and paved his own path to go through the avalanche before using his Sound Blast to fly toward Evan.

"Evan, come here!" Kai smirked.

"!!!" Ayaka immediately flew to the sky to protect Evan while Michelle created a rope from shadow and attached it to Ayaka's hand as she got carried to the sky, heading straight toward Kai.

"Kh!" Sofia also rose back up and summoned her ice again.

Due to her advantageous position, Tasha already released two arrows to stop Kai in his tracks. Unfortunately, without the help of the others, she had no chance to hit him.

Kai created an Oscillation Shield to block the arrow as he made his way toward Evan without decreasing his speed.

"Wait, what?! No! It's not fair!" Evan shot a few times before turning around and running away from Kai. "Wait, Kai. Defeat the others first! Don't go by the book."

"Even without the book, it's normal to eliminate the weakest link first. Come here, Evan." Kai smirked as he got closer and closer toward Evan.

Michelle and Ayaka also arrived not far from him, but Kai should be able to hit Evan one or two times, depending on Sofia's ice magic.

"Spread!" Sofia gritted her teeth and created a giant ice wall that separated Kai and Evan.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to stop him.

Due to the distance between them, the power behind this ice wall had been significantly reduced, so Kai punched it, crushing the wall in one punch.

To everyone's surprise, Evan didn't use this chance to get a bit more distance. Instead, he turned around and shot a few times, believing that Kai would make such a move.

When she saw this, Tasha teleported to Evan's side and created another one to retreat.

However, Kai didn't let this chance go and snapped his finger. "Lullaby."

*Ding!*

The high-pitched voice burst everyone's ears. Even though Tasha had got the hang of it due to the continuous usage, it still slowed her activation speed down, giving Kai an opportunity to catch up.

"!!!" Seeing Kai had arrived right before him, Evan aimed his pistol with one hand while using his other hand to send a punch from another direction.

Tasha also aimed at his neck, so it was three attacks versus his two swords.

Kai only smiled and waved his left sword while creating one Oscillation Shield to block Evan's bullet and his punch. As for Tasha's arrow, he planned to stop it with his right hand.

Evan ended up retracting his hand to avoid it from being cut while his bullet got destroyed by Kai's shield. Meanwhile, Kai saw Tasha's arrow and cut it into two before using the same sword to strike Evan's hand that was holding a pistol.

But to his surprise, the one that cut his hand was the left hand instead. Just like his punch, the first swing was a fake. The real aim was to cut him with this kind of attack.

"Tch, I lose in terms of experiences." Evan clicked his tongue and caught his pistol before shooting Kai with his remaining hand. He didn't forget to apply his magic to stop the bleeding, allowing him to fight even longer.

This might be the perfect chance to kill Evan, but Kai suddenly spun his body around, using the practically untouched right sword to strike two shadows that appeared from behind.

Clank.

Michelle and Ayaka had caught up. Evan decided to make a distance and retreat with Tasha's teleportation.

Kai saw this as another opportunity. When he clashed his blade with Ayaka's spear, he realized that his Vibration Sword didn't do much damage, which baffled him. Luckily, he obliterated Michelle's Shadow Sword, or else he would start doubting the power of his own strongest attack.

"I have asked your teacher about the protector's skin material and upgraded my spear according to that spec. Although it was only a concept, this still couldn't be considered cheating, right?" Ayaka smiled.

"…" Kai only frowned and decided to use a different approach. He struck the handle of her spear instead of the blade, wondering if she had strengthened that part as well, but it turned out she had.

Michelle, on the other hand, realized that her Shadow Slash was the one losing against Kai's Vibration Sword. She then decided to use another plan to hold him back.

"Shadow Manipulation." She summoned her and Kai's shadows. Her shadow was to create another attack power while Kai's shadow was to stop his movement.

Unfortunately, Kai already saw this through. After confirming the emerging shadow behind him, he slashed it without even bothering to look.

"Tch!" She gritted her teeth and summoned a wall behind him instead, trying to make him change direction.

At the same time, Ayaka used her Fire Net to stop him from going to the left while Sofia summoned a huge ice roof. This way, Kai only had two choices. Beat Ayaka and Michelle first or went to the last direction where Tasha and Evan waited for him to release their shots.

"…" Kai glanced at the ice wall and realized it was constructed in a way it would be able to hold down in case he destroyed the foot of the ice wall instead. The construction looked like a table with four legs, so it was futile to destroy it.

As for Ayaka's Fire Net, it was the only one to have no opponents. Not only was the Fire Net extremely hot, but it was a strong net because it could even catch a ten tons beast.

This way, he needed to create an escape route to breakthrough Michelle's shadow wall, which was obviously the weakest.

It was at this time Michelle went inside Ayaka's shadow and boosted her strength.

"Hehe…" Ayaka smiled as she then started back and forth while thrusting her spear continuously with the speed of wildebeest.

With her current spear, Kai's Vibration Sword was useless for a period of time. This would be the perfect time to fight him one on one.

Ayaka engaged him with close quarter combat, not allowing him to escape until Sofia, Tasha, and Evan had regained their ground.

Kai gritted his teeth, knowing that their power was basically the same due to Ayaka's momentum in each blow.

Frustrated by her, he summoned a magic circle underneath her feet, ready to launch her to the sky. However, like when she was inside Kai's shadow, Michelle informed Ayaka that small detail, allowing her to step back before getting launched into the air.

"Oops!" Ayaka stuck her tongue out.

Kai didn't let her go and tried to strike from above before glancing at the right.

If he continued his swing, Tasha's arrow would hit it to the point it would blow him away.

"This is not going to work," Kai muttered inwardly as he used his other hand to attack her from the side. Since Tasha was going to take care of the one above her head, she poured all her strength to block the sword from the side.

Bang.

The clashing sound was so loud to the point it looked like there was an explosion.

She then pressed that sword down, albeit got overwhelmed by Kai right after. It wasn't a strange phenomenon since her strength was that of a normal human. In other words, that strength was useless unless she had momentum and Kai took advantage of this, ignoring Tasha's arrow.

The moment it hit her spear, it sent a shock to her body before Kai continued the swing, knowing that Tasha aimed at his sword instead of his life. There was no probability that she would hit him, so Kai prepared himself and acted at this very moment.

He tried to cut Ayaka's left hand, which would surely decrease her power exponentially.

Each blow was powerful to the point she barely protected herself from this swing.

Tasha's arrow finally came even though she didn't send anything earlier. The lightning arrows hit the sword again and again, surprising even Kai.

'Did she predict my movement?' Kai asked inwardly before using this chance to step forward, entering Ayaka's attack range.

He didn't plan to let Ayaka recover and used this chance to give big damage to her.

"I will take this one." Kai smiled and waved his sword toward Ayaka's left arm. This should decrease her strength by far if he succeeded.

Sofia, who had been waiting this whole time, finally created two magic circles, one on the ground and one on the air.

"Stop what you are doing!" Sofia summoned a big cage of ice that should be powerful enough to stop Kai's swing at least once.

The latter suddenly placed his other sword on top of the sword he wanted to use to cut Ayaka's arm to give a big boost in strength and ultimately cut it.

"What did you say?" Kai smirked.

"Slashing her arm is a capital crime. Execute." She activated the second magic circle as around two hundred ice needles surrounded him completely. With how limited the space to move in the cage, it would be hard for Kai to escape this.