-Fierce Struggle!-

While Kenshin was busy with the zombie minion, Maria got herself busy with the guardian itself. Her AoE skill takes some time to activate, but it was not the case for her melee type magic skill. She was of a higher level than Kenshin. Although her physical attribute was lower than Kenshin, her magic attribute was very high.

After summoning the minion, the Guardian seemed to have entered a weak period. It was a little sluggish in its movement; the threatening aura from it had diminished a little. Maria used her skill as a faint red glow enveloped her palms. With her speed, she required a few seconds to reach the Guardian. After reaching there, she extended her hands towards the monster.

Thinking that it was an attack, the monster lifted the shield to block. The shield was not big; it was only one-third of its height. When it lifted the shield, its body from the waist and below was exposed. Maria took advantage of those and tapped the zombie’s belly a few times before backing away.

She triggered another explosion, shaving another 400 HP of the monster. The Guardian had very high agility compared to her, but its intelligence fell short in front of Maria. It was sent flying after suffering an explosion from Maria. But it was not enough, the monster was still standing and left with more than 60% of its HP.

Maria also looked paler. She had constantly been using magic, so she was a little out of breath. She retreated a few steps while taking a deep breath. Then she threw a glance towards Kenshin and saw him fighting fiercely with the minion. He was like a fierce whirlwind that slew everything in his path.

‘Kenshin, this is getting harder. Please come here as soon as possible’ she thought with a frown. It was getting very hard for her to handle alone. Fortunately, Kenshin finished the minion very quickly and came to her side.

“Maria, are you okay?” he asked with worry.

“Just a little tired, but overall okay” she answered him while feeling a little better at his show of concern towards her.

She didn’t know why, but every time Kenshin gives her attention, she would feel very happy. Even someone as experienced as her, who had some life experience couldn’t perfectly identify these feelings. Realizing that her thoughts were going haywire, she forced herself to remain calm and concentrate on the situation.

The monster was already recovered from its shock and was now coming towards them.

Seeing Maria tired, Kenshin hesitated as he pondered about giving her the potion or not. There was no concept of potion as of yet. The closest is the invention of energy tablets that replenish some amount of power after consumption. Leaving aside, if it was possible or not, he was afraid of her inquisitive question.

After some time he decided against it; although he trusted her as a comrade, still something better not mentioned right now.

“You take a little rest while I keep this thing busy,” Kenshin told after looking at her meaningfully. Understanding his intention, she nodded and backed away a few steps and squatted down. With a hand on the ground, she stared intently at the monster. It was a position where she could easily react to sudden danger. She repeatedly clenched and unclenched her hands as sweat covered her dainty brows.

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“Kenshin, be careful!” she reminded him one last time before keeping her silence. Nodding in affirmation, Kenshin concentrated fully on the zombie guardian. Kenshin noticed that this zombie guardian was a little weird. Unless they go extremely close, it doesn’t initiate an attack. Kenshin chucked it to the fact that it had some intelligence and hence can perceive danger.

Both the monster and Kenshin stared at each other, neither moving a step. It’s as if they were waiting for something. Suddenly Kenshin moved, using his AGI to the max, he vanished from his spot and appeared beside the monster as if he teleported. Unschything his sword, he aimed a slash to its right shoulder. The reason for that being, the monster was holding the shield in its left hand. Since it would take some time to move the shield to block him, Kenshin wants to use that time to inflict serious damage to the zombie.

In the end, his gamble succeeded.

‘-200’

Kenshin’s sword landed on the right shoulder of the guardian, inflicting a huge amount of damage to it. With the added damage of all the previous fights, the total HP of the guardian had reduced by more than 600. Now it was only left with less than 300 HP.

“Kraara!!” the guardian shouted in rage, as it was a zombie, it couldn’t feel any pain. This was the biggest weakness of specter type monsters. Since they were not leaving in the first place, they were immune to physical pain. The only thing that could hurt them was purification type magic.

Suddenly its body trembled and its eyes rolled around; then its stomach bloated to impossible proportions. It lowered its shield and sword before crouching on the ground facing towards Kenshin.

“It's trying to use a skill! Kenshin, get away from there” Maria shouted as she held the loudly beeping radiation watch.

Even before Maria’s shout, Kenshin knew it was using a skill. He was already on the verge of running as far as possible. Looking at its body’s features, he was sure it was going to use that AoE skill. Every AoE skill had an area limit; although he didn't know the limit of its skill, he was ready to run at least a hundred meters. Maria had already run away from her previous spot.

Using his high agility, he took a few seconds to run away a hundred meters. The place they were fighting in was extremely vast, around 400 meters. A mere 100 meters was nothing.

A few seconds later, the zombie guardian opened its mouth as a green gas with a pungent odor gushed out, covering 50 meters around it. The stone floor melted to goo due to the corrosiveness of the gas. Looking at the melted goo, Kenshin took a breath of relief for avoiding such a disaster. If he hadn’t run away in time; then even if he hadn't melted to goo, he would have been poisoned to death.

The poison gas seemed to not dissipate as it remained stagnant covering 50 meters of the space. The green gas was so dense that nothing was visible inside. He had no idea where the monster was. Suddenly the gas seemed to part as two zombies ran towards him like a train. The Guardian had used Summon Minions again.

Maria appeared out of nowhere and sent one of them flying with a kick. The other one was greeted with a burning stab to the head, courtesy of Kenshin. Kenshin noticed that, compared to before, the minions summoned this time were very weak. So weak that they were dead with just a single attack.

“Maria, It was weakened by a lot. We must find it and kill it!” Kenshin said, looking at the green fog.

“On it! I have already used an Explosion Ring around this area” Maria replied while giving a thumbs up.

“Wow!! Then, I must try harder” disregarding all reservations against her, Kenshin used Death Slash.

Like before, his sword glowed an eerie purple color, getting the hint, he slashed it in the direction of the fog. The Death Slash also had an effective area of 50 meters, so it was okay. A purple ring formed in front of him and floated towards the fog. Then it expanded and covered the whole foggy area.

Not wanting to left out, Maria also clicked her fingers.

And just like that, a massive explosion occurred rocking the entire floor.

‘-100’

‘-200’