“Dali, Gordy, take care of the other four,” commanded Esperanza under her breath. She had not grown complacent over her success of having taken down most of the invaders in the village, as the strongest ones were still before her. Also, these five were not caught unprepared without their weapons in hand like the rest, which made for a lot of difference.

In retrospect, it was a good thing that the [Champion] looked like he wished to fight her personally, which left his four cronies to Dali and Gordy. While either of her dogs could make short work of surprised opponents a whole tier above them – much like herself – the tables might not be so easy to turn against skilled, prepared, and armed opponents that outnumbered them two to one.

Not like Esperanza had much choice, though, so she could only hope for the best at the moment.

She had adapted a more humanoid guise for herself at the moment, keeping her arms in the form of long-fingered claws with toothy maws opening on the center of her palms. She kept one of her legs as a bladed limb that swung to and fro behind her torso like a deadly tail, while her other leg took on a serpentine shape which allowed her to move every which way with great impunity and speed.

Two of her eyes as well as one maw were positioned at her “head” and gave her face a more human-like look, though the multitude of other eyes and maws all over her figure betrayed that impression immediately. She must have looked like some abomination from hell itself, but her opponent had not flinched even the slightest bit as he locked eyes with her and gave what looked like a respectful nod.

He allowed his arrows to do the talking for him right after that nod, though.

Esperanza couldn’t even begrudge her opponent for his excellent aim. The [Champion] had taken an arrow from the quiver hanging from his waist, nocked it onto the string of his bow, drew the bow to its full draw length, and loosed the arrow all in one smooth motion that had barely taken longer than the blink of an eye to complete. She couldn’t even react until the arrow had already pierced through her body.

The arrow went right through her right eye, the shot forceful enough that the projectile even came halfway out from the back of her head. It was an excellent shot, especially given the speed it was performed at, and would have been fatal to most things, as the eye usually allows for a channel straight to the brain for most creatures.

Esperanza was not one such “creature”, however.

While she did not have even the slightest inkling how her body’s biology even functioned, or for that matter, whether it made any sense at all, she knew that her amorphous form was extremely resilient to damage, and that she had only ever “died” when she took damage to the point that her body’s monstrous constitution couldn’t sustain her life any further.

That, and the helpful fact that there was no such thing as a “vital” organ to her body. No convenient, glaring weak point that flashed red for some heroic wannabe to prod in order to defeat her. No, the only real way to “kill” Esperanza – as she learned painfully from experience – was to damage her body so much until it couldn’t keep up with its innate recovery, usually by way of tearing her apart into many small pieces.

The only reason she had died so easily back at the temple was because she was still level 1 at that time, really.

That had not been the case for months, now.

All that the arrow really did was to snap her head back from the force, along with a now all too familiar sting of pain. The arrow did achieve some effect, though, in that it had effectively destroyed the eye it pierced and prevented Esperanza from seeing through it. Not that it mattered that much when she had dozens more all over her form anyway.

When her opponent saw her slither closer at alarming speed, his face mostly remained stoic, though the corners of his lips started to curl upwards into a slight grin. Unperturbed by either the ineffectiveness of his first shot or of Esperanza’s inhuman method of locomotion, he repeated the previous practiced motions, and loosed more arrows towards her with absurd speed.

He managed to fire four more arrows towards her in the time it took her to slither her way into melee range, and despite her efforts at evasion, he landed every single one of his shots unerringly. Three of the arrows went through another three of Esperanza’s eyes, while another pierced through one of her maws, directly through its center.

Even when she closed the distance, he had not panicked in the least. Instead, the [Champion] calmly unsheathed the large machete – more like a large, thick saber than a machete given its length, really – from his waist and met both her claws and bladed limb calmly, using the bow he still held in his other hand to swat her strikes aside with practiced ease as well.

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One of Esperanza’s claws ran through and snapped the bow’s string, which caused it to straighten into more of a concavely curved stick, but if that bothered her opponent, he showed not a single sign of it on his nearly expressionless face. In fact, he used the bow even more deftly to turn her strikes aside, while he placed his own carefully measured strikes with the machete in his other hand.

It had not taken more than a few clashes before Esperanza realized that she was the one at a disadvantage in that duel. Despite her higher level, her opponent was clearly a warrior-type that focused heavily on his Body over the Mind and Soul. Since her own stat focus was heavier on the Soul, she was naturally at a disadvantage against him in a physical duel like this.

Calling her dogs to help was not an option, as the two of them were tangled in a vicious fight of their own against the remaining four invaders, though a glimpse behind her with one of her intact eyes allowed Esperanza to see another option. She split off two fingers from her right “hand” and reformed them into a three-fingered fist before she pulled her knife back towards her, wielding it with that new limb.

Increasing the amount of limbs she could threaten her opponent with from four to five – she had used her serpentine appendage to try to sweep his legs a couple times, though her attempts only earned her a couple of wounds from his retaliation – helped throw her opponent off balance for a while, but it had not taken long before he regained control over the fight. His superior skill and experience gave him the upper hand over her more instinctual fighting method, and soon she was pressed hard once more by her opponent.

It was only then that Esperanza belatedly realized that since her opponent was clearly focused on his Body, then his defenses on both the Mind and Soul aspects should be much worse. She immediately tried to conjure a [Soul Bolt] to strike him with, but her opponent seemed to have sensed the danger and immediately struck ferociously, breaking her concentration and causing her attempt to fail.

Of course, that wasn’t enough for Esperanza to give up on the attempt. She tried to regather her focus to conjure another [Soul Bolt] into existence right away. Yet it was almost as if her opponent had a sixth sense for danger, as another sharp and vicious strike from his machete scored through her flesh and broke her concentration right away, even though he had to take a slight cut from her claws at the same time.

He clearly could tell that she was preparing something that would be more dangerous to him than the injury he would have taken in his attempt to break her concentration, and made the choice without any hesitation. Clearly a very experienced warrior, rather fitting for a “heroic spirit” supposedly summoned from the past. He clearly had a lifetime of experience over her, and it showed.

Under her opponent’s vicious strikes and his willingness to at times take a minor injury in order to land a more severe one on her, Esperanza was quickly pushed on the backfoot. Despite her possessing [Respawn], she was worried about the children that might still be hiding in the village, and above all, the survivors who were not that far away.

If she were to perish, many things could happen in the ten minutes it would take for her to return. For her opponent to find and slaughter the survivors she saved in such a short amount of time was an unlikely probability, sure, but it was still a probability she refused to entertain regardless, no matter how remote the actual odds might have been.

That left her no choice but to win the fight she was entangled in somehow, despite all her disadvantages.

One quick glance from one of her remaining eyes – her opponent had damaged nearly a dozen of her eyes to the point of uselessness, correctly inferring that her defenses would naturally be weaker on those spots – told her that Dali and Gordita were still locked in a bloody struggle against the remaining four warriors.

While one of the warriors was limping and bleeding pretty badly from several places where the flesh had been gouged off his body, both of her dogs were also injured, blood tainting their once-pristine fur coats. Two of the still-healthy warriors seemed to have a skill that allowed them to envelop their long spear in some sort of aura that in turn allowed them to injure Gordy even in her mist-like form, which was part of how they managed to keep the fight so evenly. Another of the warriors repeatedly blocked Dali’s attacks with a large and sturdy shield.

During the continued struggle against her opponent, Esperanza finally managed to form a [Soul Bolt], albeit a light one charged with only one soul instead of the three that was her current limit. Yet when she fired it, it was as if her opponent could see the intangible projectile coming as he deftly twisted his torso in an exaggerated manner to avoid it.

Clearly her attempts weren’t working out. Esperanza needed a way to keep her opponent immobilized, if only briefly, to have any chance of winning. He had deftly avoided every single one of her attacks that was even remotely threatening so far, almost in an instinctive manner, while allowing for blows that were nothing more than minor flesh wounds to land without even blinking an eye.

It was only when she was pushed so far that Esperanza finally recalled that she had one more option she had yet to try so far. It was not exactly a skill, but the side effect of one of her skills, a side effect that she had forcefully suppressed because of its drawbacks for months by now. The insanity-inducing side effect from [Far Down the Deep End].

Esperanza had kept that side effect suppressed using her [Aura Control] because of its tendency to drive her prey running madly during her days of hunting deep within the forest. Then when she ran into the villagers from Navef, she naturally kept it firmly suppressed at all times, not wishing to take chances on their well-being.

Now, however, there were no living villagers in eyesight, only the invaders, her dogs, and herself.

Even as her opponent pressed on with his offense once more, Esperanza manipulated her [Aura Control]. She stopped suppressing [Far Down the Deep End] and instead did the opposite, as she used her control over her aura to amplify the effect it generated over her surroundings. The results were immediately visible.

Her opponent the [Champion]’s face visibly scrunched up in pain and discomfort for the first time in their battle, and his movements halted for that brief moment. From where her pets were fighting, Esperanza heard more screams of pain and agony, and the sound of someone yelling out all sorts of gibberish that not even her skill could translate. Esperanza ignored all those, as she focused on conjuring a [Soul Bolt] that was as strong as she could create and launched it at her stunned opponent using the opening.

She just hoped that if there were still children hiding in the village, none of them happened to be looking at the fight.