Two Minutes Prior
Monica had been studying the scene from the semi-open door with Ted in tow. She had counted at the very least fifteen Cultists and the Elder there. Even with the level she had gained since her last engagement with Sandoval, there was no way that, in these conditions, she would be able to take care of many people at once.
She was going to die not long after setting foot into the room.
But, while she tried to strategize a solution, Elder Sandoval had gotten up, his patience clearly having run out, and had declared that they sacrifice the children now. That had made Monica’s heart, previously calm and steady, jump in her throat. Still, she decided to wait to see if an opportunity would present itself to her: she wouldn’t bull-rush this and get everyone there killed.
However, when she saw the tall, burly man raise a gauntlet to strike the teenage girl, something took over. It wasn’t just the fighting instincts that her body seemed to be possessed with.
No, it was something else entirely.
A reminiscence of a different kind lit a powder keg in her veins.
She swung the door open before she even realized what she was doing. In doing so, she heard a notification go off in her head.
*Ding!*
Secondary Effect Activated!
You fulfill the requirements for Fury of the Phoenix!
You gain +39 to all Attributes but Vitality.
Vitality -39
* * *
The Present
[Cultist - Level 22]
Monica felt the need to retch and fall to the ground dead.
But she knew that if she did, both kids wouldn’t live to see another day. Even if she returned later to haunt Sandoval, there would be no coming back for the two children.
So, she fought even as her vision blackened from exhaustion. This was the byproduct of her Vitality currently standing at a negative value, with her stamina draining at a staggering rate.
Monica swung for Elder Sandoval with her Steel Talons, but the man skillfully kept her at bay by using his sword to deflect her attacks.
The cunning old man also didn’t engage in a frontal fight, feeling the increased Attributes behind her swings, but controlled the space between them, using the sword to keep Monica at bay.
If she had gone for the kill the moment Fury of the Phoenix had activated, then Monica might have been able to cleanly dispose of Elder Sandoval.
The Skill granted all her Attributes aside Vitality thirty-nine points, making her ridiculously more powerful than before. But what the description of the Skill hadn’t mentioned was that there was how terrible it would be to fight with a negative Vitality.
I made a mistake, Monica thought with clenched teeth. I should have put all my points in Vitality.
* * *
Ted had gone from one of the worst days of his life to arguably being on the other end of a miracle when a super hot naked woman had saved him from having to kill a kid and being forced to live as a Cultist.
However, he had now reverted to arguably the most dangerous day of his entire life as the other Novice who had been supposed to become an Apprentice alongside him, Amalric, wielded a mace and was trying to bash his skull in.
“You foolish peon!” Amalric cackled evilly, slamming away Ted’s spear as he charged with his mace. “You chose to take the sides of a heretic!”
Ted dodged to the side multiple times, falling to the ground and rolling away from Amalric as the Novice kept trying to kill him.
To Amalric’s surprise, Ted could wield a spear quite well, deflecting the mace and keeping the distance.
“Dude, I’m not a heretic,” Ted complained, narrowly dodging another fatal attack. “It was either a bunch of weird cannibal dudes or a hot naked chick. How is that even a choice?”
“Silence, heretic! Prepare for retribution! Your sins shall be punished!”
Amalric, having grown confident since Ted had yet to attack even once, raised the mace with both hands above his head, ready to go for an attack that would break Ted’s guard and splatter his brain on the ground.
What Amalric had failed to consider, however, was that Ted not only seemed weirdly proficient with a spear, but he had a lot of experience with getting into fights at the taverns because he had tried hitting on someone else’s girlfriend: and that someone else usually was much bigger and stronger than him. Which is why he had engineered a sure-fire attack to give him time to run away.
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So, instead of stabbing with the spear, something that Amalric would have definitely expected, Ted reversed the grab, taking the pointed end first, and swung it like a broom, making the hard wood collide with the softer parts of his enemy.
Soon, the mighty Novice collapsed on the ground, wheezing and putting both his hands on his nether region, his eyes filled with painful tears.
“You—” Amalric tried cursing him, but before Ted could even realize what was happening, the teen girl that they had just saved jumped over the man and stabbed him right in his eye.
The Novice screamed bloody murder, but the girl simply twisted the blade and put a second hand on the pommel of the dagger, putting all her weight on top of it until Amalric was dead.
Ted looked terrified as the girl rose and cleaned the blade on a piece of dirty cloth she got out of her pocket as if she hadn’t just killed a man just like that.
“That was—wow, damn,” Ted said, looking at Dotty, noticing that she had taken the dagger from an Apprentice Cultist and then slit his throat while he must not have been paying attention to her.
But the girl didn’t even flinch at her kill, turning to look at the main event, the woman, Monica, fighting against Elder Sandoval.
* * *
Monica used the Steel Talons to parry one of the man’s stabs, trying to release a burst of Obsidian Flame on his arm. But the cunning old man had seen through her attempts and kept a dutiful distance from her.
I’m almost tapped out, Monica realized, instinctively feeling how much Mana was left in her veins. There’s no way I can keep this up.
“How did you survive?” Sandoval asked, taking a step back as Monica swung and stumbled forward, her body starting to become unresponsive.
Fury of the Phoenix had almost drained her completely, and she could feel the claws of death slowly puncturing their way through to her heart.
“You must have bad aim,” Monica panted, briefly looking over her shoulder and exhaling in relief when she saw that the girl had killed Amalric. She had been waiting for the Novice Cultist to die before she could implement her plan.
Then, remembering a funny detail, she asked one last question before attacking for the sole purpose of catching the old man by surprise, “did you know, Elder Sandoval that the ritual worked? You wanted the Avatar of the Goddess of Flames, but guess what? You got the Avatar of the Twin Phoenix.”
“What in the snuffed embers—”
Monica saw the tiniest hesitation as her eyes caught Sandoval’s forearms relaxing for a split-second.
He can’t decapitate me from that stance, she thought as she sprinted forward.
Sandoval, caught on his backfoot, still aimed the sword right at her chest so that if she kept her assault, she would impale herself over it. What the Cultist had failed to consider, however, was that death wasn’t among the things Monica feared. No, she had carefully calculated this move, knowing that his opponent hadn’t fully realized she couldn’t die. Not permanently, at least.
And so, with the blade entering her chest and getting out of her back, tearing diagonally through her diaphragm, a lung, and destroying several ribs, Monica finally managed to grab Sandoval’s face, looking at the terror in his wizened eyes with a bloody smile.
She tried uttering a cool line as she channeled the Obsidian Flame, but all that came out was a blubbering mess of blood she spat on Sandoval’s face.
“Let go of me! Why would you kill us both?!”
Only you, Monica thought with a grin as the Obsidian Flame erupted one last time from her hands and burned Sandoval’s neck, destroying skin, flesh, and cartilage.
Then, after hearing the notification of Sandoval’s death, Monica finally released her grip and let the charred body fall to the ground, her vision slowly fading.
However, her body, moving like a puppet with cut strings, barrelled drunkenly toward the rest of the Cultists.
She briefly used the Golden Flame to keep herself alive long enough to finish the job.
Since Fury of the Phoenix was still running, albeit on fumes, her control over the Obsidian Flames was greatly enhanced. She used the Obsidian Flame like a flamethrower, torching every Apprentice Cultist to death before finally crumbling down.
The last thing she saw was the very young boy running to her side and grabbing her hand, screaming words she could no longer hear.
Before dying again, she felt a sharp stab in her chest. And no, it wasn’t the sword she still had in there. It was something deeper, something primal that bothered her very soul. She looked for a moment into the boy’s eyes, and something in the back of her mind took over, pushing through the mess of her collapsed lung, the lacerated diaphragm, and the sea of pain to give her the strength to utter two more words before darkness embraced her.
“I’m back,” she whispered to the crying boy, without even knowing what that meant.
The last thing she heard was a bunch of notifications ringing in her ears.
*Ding*
You have slain [Cultist – Level 25]
You receive extra experience and skill proficiency for killing a creature ten levels above you.
You receive extra experience and skill proficiency for killing a creature with higher sentience.
*Ding*
Offensive Skill – Obsidian Flame reaches Level 6
*Ding*
Offensive Skill – Obsidian Flame reaches Level 7
*Ding*
Constitution Skill – Phoenix Feathers reaches Level 4
*Ding*
Constitution Skill – Phoenix Feathers reaches Level 5
*Ding*
Class – Phoenix Healer (Rare, Enhanced) reaches Level 5
+5 VIT, +5 END, +5 STR, +5 DEX, +5 WIS, +5 SPI, +5 INT, +5 CHA and 6 Free Attributes
*Ding*
Class – Phoenix Healer (Rare, Enhanced) reaches Level 6
+5 VIT, +5 END, +5 STR, +5 DEX, +5 WIS, +5 SPI, +5 INT, +5 CHA and 6 Free Attributes
*Ding*
Auto-loot is on.
You obtain:
Apprentice Cultist Robe x15
Apprentice Cultist Boots x15
Cultist Robe x1
Cultist Boots x1
Gold Coins x5
Minor Healing Potion x10
Minor Mana potion x5
Restorative Potion x1
*Ding*
A Fortunate Encounter!
You receive a Loot Chest (Common)!
*Ding*
Thanks to your good deeds, the Loot Chest is upgraded.
*Ding*
Loot Chest (Common) upgraded to Loot Chest (Uncommon)