Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"See you outside, boy. Don't let anyone take your next woman ever again. Hahaha!"

Wilder spoke out loud before landing his punch on Tuan. But as soon as he did that, he knew his attack had been dodged. That's because he didn't receive any feedback of impact through his punch.

Wilder was just about to turn to his right when he saw an orange-slash heading for his neck. He raised his hands to block it with his artifact-protected palm.

Clank!

A metallic sound made its acoustic appearance. Tuan's attack was stopped. But then Wilder felt something strike his chest. The next thing he realized was the fact that Tuan had bolted from the scene using his movement spell and Fire Wings at a greater speed than he had shown earlier.

'How the fuck his guy is so fast….'

Wilder was about to finish his chain of thoughts when he looked down at his chest again where he felt some weird sensation. He observed that now there was a star-shaped array mark printed all of a sudden over his tank-top. A black ink spread on its own, maintaining the form of the star as it spread.

Soon, the ink made it past the tank top and spread all over his body. The star-shaped array attached itself firmly to Wilder's torso. The small array trap used his own mana as glue that Wilder was leaking through his body's natural defenses to keep the vial of potion bomb stuck to him.

This vial of potion was placed in the middle of the star-shaped array. And it was changing its color rapidly. Wilder immediately understood what it was when he saw it. He would have never thought that the Tuan guy he had seen battling in the competition would use something like a potion bomb. That too in combination with an array trap.

Wilder tried to pull the vial stuck to his chest with all his might. But he could feel that he wouldn't be able to pull that vial from its position before breaking the array trap first. And it'd be too late if he tries to break the array trap.

"This mother fuck…"

BOOM!

The potion bomb exploded when Tuan landed on his spot a sufficient distance away from Wilder. The butcher looked back to see Wilder as well as his contract beast getting engulfed by a dense cloud of flames.

Tuan retrieved a scroll and opened it. There was the same star-shaped array trap's layout printed over it. He placed his hands over the layout and imbued his mana. In the next moment, the array trap vanished from the scroll and appeared over his palm.

Tuan had reloaded the array trap layout over his palm because he knew one blast would not be enough to take care of Wilder.

His guess was right. A distinct mana pulse was released from within the cloud of flames soon afterward.

"Aaaaargh!"

Wilder came out of the cloud of flames and smoke screaming. He had an earth-element armor spell covering every inch of his body. However, it looked like it had been cracked. The flames had managed to penetrate his defensive spell with the help of the potion bomb's explosive power.

"Aaaaah! You motherfucking son of a bitch, I'll fucking kill you."

Then Wilder disappeared from his position. The defensive spell he had cast had taken the shape of his body. After the caster left the defensive spell, the empty shell remained in its position. It crumbled soon afterward.

The man that had emerged from the earth armor now had crack-shaped burn marks all over his body.

Only the clothes near his groin had been saved due to the baldy prioritizing his junk's safety. All his other clothes were lost. As a result, the burn marks could be clearly seen. They looked like tiger stripes on his tanned body.

Wilder charged at Tuan with an exceptional speed he hadn't shown before. It was clear that he was pushing the boundaries of his spell beyond the scope of their normal output. Thanks to his class-specific trait, he could bring out 120 percent of any of his spells' effects at the cost of enraging him and decreasing his intelligence.

The barbarian way of enhancing a spell's effect was a dual-edge weapon. It was focused on the ranker's rage-controlling abilities. As the rage of the barbarian builds up, it lowers the intelligence stat. After it dips below a certain value, the ranker won't be able to cast any more spells until their intelligence stat recovers.

The more rage a barbarian felt, the more powerful the effect of their chosen spell would be. It would also expedite the process of barbarians not being able to cast any more spells. The rage-driven mentality would also compromise the ranker's natural thought process, making it difficult for them to plan and think clearly after analyzing the situation.

Tuan could feel that Wilder was trying to maintain his rage to keep his contract beast spell active. Tuan didn't know but Wilder had ordered his contract beast to cast his shell-like defensive spell on him.

That's how he survived the blast. The defensive armor spell he had used earlier only took half the burnt, which had been escaped in his direction due to the shell-like spell cast by his contract beast.

Wilder was a bit apprehensive about Tuan's insidious way of using array traps and potion bombs. Wilder maintained the beast contract spell for the fear of having to use Luko Shanko again, commanding the beast to cast its shell spell protection on him.

Wilder's earth-element movement spell was also based on gravitational force. The bald ranker glided over the ground as if he was ice-skating on the most slippery grounds.

Tuan smiled cruelly when Wilder was approaching him. He gripped his orange-red swords tightly before releasing a flying slash at the guy. This time it wasn't just a regular attack obtained by imbuing weapons with elemental mana.

Invi-Blaze!

The inscribed spell of Tuan's orange-red swords.

Wilder didn't see anything. He didn't even feel the attack until it was too late. The next thing he knew, his torso had been inflicted with a bloody sword cut.