Hearing no answer from Nick, he spared no mana as he swung his Mighty Strike with every strike he made against the lizardmen.
''Nadia, we need to wrap this up quickly! Nick could be seriously injured or worse. '' Richard yelled at Nadia while swinging his Curtain-kun like a hammer.
''Focus the one on the right hand side first, the one that threw the spear is currently unarmed and should not be a threat for now.'' Nadia instructed and intensified her assault on the slightly burnt lizardman.
''Roger that.''
With intense assault, the focused lizardman took a few critical hits.
After intense struggle, the lizardman finally was about to die. Finishing the job, Nadia skewered the lizardman from its chest to the ground.
Seeing that his ally had been skewered and was without a doubt dead, the lizardman's partner was demoralized and lost the courage to stand against its foe.
The duo intended to make quick work of the dead lizardman's partner while the spear thrower was still not engaged in melee.
Flanking the lizardman, Richard swung his Curtain-kun furiously with big motion swings and Nadia delivered precise and fast stabs to its ribs.
''Level up! This is a piece of cake!'' Nadia said.
''No time to celebrate yet. There is still one left.'' Richard grimly said.
Richard pulled his pistol out and shot a few times at the remaining lizardman, and Nadia sprinted to cut off its way of retreat.
Scoring a few solid hits in with his pistol, Richard switched the magazine in fluent motion which after he tucked his pistol away. Richard now approached the remaining lizardman with murder in his eyes.
The lone lizardman knew that it was severely outclassed after seeing its fellow tribe members fall in battle.
Seemingly hesitating to do something at first, a resolved look filled its hideous face after brief contemplation. Richard saw his foe's face grinning with insanity in its eyes and knew that something bad was about to happen.
''Nadia! It is trying to do something, be careful!''
''Roger that.''
Richard's thought process accelerated after seeing the maniacal grin on the foe. ''I better be sure about this. Inspect ''
Seeing the status of the lizardman he saw that there were no other abnormalities except one: Its mana and health was dropping down like a stone.
''Be careful! I think it has some sort of self destruction skill! His mp and hp are depleting rapidly and I feel extremely uncomfortable about all this!''
Richard halted his advance and observed intently what the lizardman was up to. Nadia was still hesitating after Richard's warning whether to continue approach or not.
Seconds later the lizardman took a small blade from its vest and stabbed itself in the throat. The stab wound started to bleed with unusually high blood flow and the moment the blood hit the ground it started to wriggle like it was alive.
''Get back, run!'' Richard yelled sensing that something was about to happen.
Retreating quickly, Nadia took a few quick peeks behind her. The blood still continued to flow from the lizardman at an abnormal rate and she could vaguely see that the blood was forming a symbol of sorts on the ground.
The lizardman dropped on its knees and made some weird noises, and bowed its head to the ground before it fell dead next to the red puddle.
Richard stopped to observe what the lizardman's sacrifice had caused.
''No explosion, that is good. I really do wonder what all that was about?''
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Further inspecting the slowly forming symbol, he noticed something strange happening: The blood was slowly rotating in a systematic manner and started to glow as if sucking light around it.
Hiding behind the nearby tree just in case, Richard saw that the sky had darkened slightly and the symbol started to burn in green flames.
Forming above the symbol, a translucent phantom of an eye with diameter of one meter.
Wondering what could that yellow greenish eye without pupil even do, Richard saw the flames from the symbol being sucked into the eye.
The floating eye gazed around itself with its vertical pupil and saw the corpses of lizardmen scattered in the surroundings. After spinning in its place it finally looked at the being that summoned it.
From behind the tree Richard was staring warily at the phantom image.
''??? What does Saurun's eye have to do with those lizard people? I swear we have not stolen a single ring of power, honest to god. Inspect''
Name: ??? ( Incomplete phantom avatar) Level 20 ( Weakened ) Hp 560/560 Mp: 400/400
Cold sweat poured from his back as he thought back to the hardship of killing Snowflake.
He knew that Snowflake should have been something like level 25 and it had almost killed everyone on the team, even when they emptied tons of bullets in it.
The thought that over 10 levels higher foe with presumably only magical abilities would not be easy foe even with their recent power ups.
Seeing that the eyeball had focused its gaze on Nadia, he immediately shouted an alarm to be careful.
''Level 20, assume mostly magical attacks! It knows where you are!''
Pulling his pistol from his waist, Richard started to shoot at it to distract and to find out whether or not physical attacks even worked on it. After all, in Richard's opinion it manifested from the blood and was even now slightly translucent.
The eyeball focused its gaze at Nadia and started to crackle with electricity.
''Take cover!''
Nadia saw that things might not be so easy this time when the eyeball's iris turned into purplish shade and her sense of danger was screaming at her.
Diving into the ground, she started to roll behind a tree as soon as she saw the crackling of the air around the eyeball.
Surely enough, as soon as she was partially behind the tree a bolt of lightning struck the place she was a second ago.
Feeling the threat for her life, she stayed hidden behind the tree.
Trying to figure out the aftermath of the strike and how powerful it was, she peeked her little head from behind the tree and saw a pit a few feet deep.
''Richard! Don't let it hit you! Each hit is fatal.''
Hearing Nadia's yell Richard could no longer entertain the idea of just rushing in and using his usual ''Bash em until xp'' strategy.
''Inspect''
Seeing that only 23 damage was inflicted by the pistol, he knew that kiting it was not a good option.
Richard tried to figure out how he should approach the eyeball with relative safety, when he suddenly heard rumbling sounds.
The area where the eyeball was now was bombarded by a constant stream of fire and Richard could see that the eye was now red with either anger or pain.
The eye was now filled with blood veins the thickness of a finger and everyone could see that the eye now had genuine rage in it.
''Cavalry has arrived, Nadia! Nick is still alive and kicking.'' Richard shouted in great joy and started to circle on the opposite side of Nick.
Nick was channeling his fire with great joy at the new enemy before it turned and located him.
''Are you guys fine? Sorry it took me so long.'' He said with a slightly guilty voice and only focused his gaze on the foe.
''Glad to see you, Nick! You are just in time, can you provide cover for us to get close?'' Nadia answered with great vigor.
Nadia and Richard did not get any answer from him but the flames intensified on the eyeball as if that was his response.
Richard started to charge forward with Nadia, completely flanking it.
Seeing that the eyeball started to charge its spell at Nick, the flames stopped for a while and Nick went into hiding at the very last moment.
Seeing the bolt of lightning hit the tree and shredding a large chunk off it with its might, Nadia shuddered.
''I am glad that I am not at the receiving end of that this time.'' She thought in her head and continued the charge forward.
Nadia and Nick reached the eyeball almost at the same time.
Richard swung his scythe with its blunt end as per usual and Nadia thrust her spear with all her might.
''Mighty Strike''
Just as the attacks from the team was 20 cm away from connecting, they encountered something different: Translucent energy protecting the eyeball.
''Shit it has barrier protecting itself.'' Nadia spat out and poured more attacks on the barrier, hoping that one or two hits would find their target.
''It has to break sooner or later, but can we dodge it at this distance?'' Richard muttered in a downcast manner.
Nick peeked his head from behind the tree and seeing that the eyeball was again about to switch targets, he started to pour out more flames to keep its attention.
The eyeball started to crackle again with electricity and decided to focus the melee attackers. It started turning itself towards Richard and fired a bolt of lightning at him. The bolt hit him narrowly in the waist, where he kept his pistol.
Feeling lightheaded he fell to the ground. Richard tried to get back on his feet, but his legs did not want to listen to what his head told them. Stumbling back to the ground he felt miserable and smelt burnt flesh.
It took him a few seconds of time to realize that the burnt flesh was his before pain came rolling in massive waves.