Chapter 52 – Between Hope and Despair (4)

With a soft thud, the body of the level three brooder fell to the ground.

Aleen felt the effects of his skill finishing and quickly jumped back towards the girls before more monsters could attack him.

A brief headache and a feeling of exhaustion caused him to stagger slightly, but thanks to Elvila’s barriers, the monsters were unable to exploit it to attack. Aleen quickly circulated his mana through his body to recover from the fight against the level three. Then, he looked again to the monsters attacking and sighed deeply.

Despite not being injured during the fight, this was the most difficult battle that Aleen had until now. When he was fighting the level three, Aleen gave his all to kill it, and despite it, he was close to failing.

If Elvila did not attack the monster when she did, Aleen was sure that his attack would have been unable to hurt the monster.

“You have to be more careful, Mr. Aleen.” He heard Elvila speaking from behind him. “Never underestimate the monsters, even more, if their level is higher than you.”

With a brief movement, she replaced the damaged barriers and made sure of keeping the monster at bay. She then moved her sight towards Aleen and continued speaking.

“Though your skill is very incredible, it’s not almighty. A level two would find difficult to escape from it, but a level three is different. They are able to react to your incredible speed only through their enhanced senses; and even if they cannot evade the attack, they probably can find another method to block it. Besides, your skill has a very clear weakness.”

Aleen turned serious when he heard it and looked towards Elvila with an expression of doubt.

Seeing it, she shook his head and pointed to his sword. “Your skill makes you very fast, but I noticed that it doesn’t increase your attack power directly. The only reason because it was so effective until now is thanks to the kinetic force created by the speed of your body when the skill is active; but if a level three has enough time to defend against your attack, you will be unable to break through his defenses.

“Because of it, you must be careful when you use your skill; mainly against a level three. Every time that you use your skill, you must make sure that your enemy is unable to defend against it or that your attack power is enough to break through his defenses. Only like that can you make the greatest use of your skill.”

Aleen kept silent when he heard it, before nodding slightly. Now that he thought about it, Elvila was right. There was a reason because the strength was measured in levels through the dimensions; so, it was normal for a level three to be stronger than a level two.

Until now, Aleen only fought level two monsters, or an injured level three; because it, Aleen had a mistaken idea about the strength of a level three.

Fortunately, he was able to notice it now. Otherwise, such naïve thought could have caused his death.

Aleen shivered slightly when he thought about facing a level three without enough preparations and increased the strength on the hand holding his sword to calm down.

Looking towards the monsters attacking Elvila’s barriers, Aleen took a step forward and asked curiously.

“Miss Elvila, can you follow my movements when I use my skill?”

Elvila smiled. “I can follow them slightly, but I’m unable to keep with your speed. Of course, if I want to defend against your attacks, I only need to create a barrier.”

Aleen smiled wryly when he heard it and shook his head. Then, he began to fight again against the monsters.

Behind him, Ana put a pondering expression when she heard their words. Different from Elvila, she was unable to perceive what happened when Aleen used his skill.

To her, Aleen first became a bolt of lightning and then, the monster was already dead.

Despite it, however, she understood that the fight against the level three was not so simple as she thought.

With a worried expression, she concentrated in Aleen and did her best to follow the battles.

Aleen continued parrying the attacks coming from the brooders while doing his best to prevent any monster from passing through him. At the same time, Elvila continued creating barriers around them; creating a new one every time that one was destroyed.

But despite it, the space where they could move began to decrease. Aleen noticed that the rate at which the barriers were being destroyed began to catch up with the rate which Elvila created new ones.

A grave expression appeared on his face when he noticed it. They had killed around ten monsters from the moment when the battle began, including one level three; but despite it, Aleen felt that the numbers of monster around them did not decrease in the slightest.

Frowning deeply, he began to think about a way to get out from this situation.

At that moment, Aleen saw another pair of monsters coming towards him.

“Two level three, huh?”

Feeling the pressure coming from them, Aleen smiled resignedly and prepared to face the new danger.

The two level three did not hesitate to jump towards Aleen and use their claws to destroy the mana barriers protecting him.

Aleen felt the barrier shake for a moment due to the strength of the monsters. Without hesitation, he took a step forward and began to face them.

Using his sword, Aleen stabbed towards the belly of a brooder.

The monster used a claw to stop the attack while attacking Aleen with another, but Aleen ignored the monster’s attack and put all his attention in attacking.

With the recent experience, Aleen knew that a level three was a few times stronger than him; so, if he wanted to have an opportunity to win, he could only leave his defense to Elvila while he did his best to hurt the monsters.