A figure appeared from the center of the explosion, barely visible to the dense covering of dust in the air.
He looked to be in a miserable state.
A dense coating of purple blood, some caked on his now naked body, some still dripping off his myriad wounds covered him like a cloak.
The figure's legs looked thin and disproportionately weak compared to the rest of his body, as if they had recently been regrown.
His arms sported scars galore that were healing and disappearing on their own as the figure continued to walk out of the crater.
However, Jackal looked a bit different than when he had been by Otto's side.
His eyes were wider apart on his head, and his torso was much thicker and, evidently, stronger.
This was his true appearance.
Jackal looked behind him, towards the dust filled crater.
No one was there.
He unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.
If Otto had survived even that…
Thankfully, his back up plan wouldn't need to be used.
Jackal glanced around at the thousands upon thousands of Throskarts surrounding the clearing.
They held their spells and arrows at the ready, as they couldn't yet determine if the figure that emerged belonged to the human.
Jackal's expression quickly regained its calm.
He was about to motion for them to put their weapons down, when he noticed something slightly out of place.
His body couldn't hold back from shuddering invisibly.
Right, if Otto had really died, where was his body?
Jackal had even used his influence with the game masters to make sure Otto wouldn't be able to select the 'revival' option in the game show after his death.
So shouldn't he have left a body, as well as a pile of coins by his corpse?
Jackal carefully scrutinized the crater in which he stood.
The dust-laden air heavily impacted his vision, but Jackal could still make out the general outline of any reasonably large shapes.
Otto's body was not among them.
It birthed an ominous feeling from the bottom of his heart.
He switched his gesture.
Throskarts gazed at him cooly.
Upon seeing the gesture, they tightened the grip on their weapons and once again pointed them into the center of the crater.
They couldn't miss their next shot.
If the human hadn't died from this…
Jackal checked his game screen.
His eyes widened.
[Current Rank: 2]
[Points: 1,467,543]
He had been in first place for the entire period of the game show's run.
How was it possible that someone had surpassed him?
Unless….
Jackal's expression darkened even further.
Not only did Otto survive the explosion, but he even had time to gather the million point coin?
He thought it had blown up along with the rest of the forest, and had subconsciously neglected the possibility that Otto could pick it up and use it to strengthen himself.
Veins bulged on his forehead.
That coin had been painstakingly brought here by him and his few thousands of subordinates.
Entirely for the sake of tricking Otto directly to his death.
How had things gotten to this point?
But at this exact moment, Jackal felt an alarm going off in his brain.
He had to MOVE.
He didn't think on it further.
Jackal immediately evaded to his right, ignoring his wounded, healing body.
He lunged to the right and rolled on the ground ten meters out of harm's way.
As soon as he dodged, a white-hot glowing fireball burned the area he had just stood.
A second figure appeared.
The crowd's eyes widened.
It was the human!!
But they couldn't hide their shock.
It was extraordinarily impressive that Jackal had managed to escape the explosion with the injuries that he did.
Moreover, it was clear that Jackal's body was still healing.
But Otto….
Looked as if he had never been burned in the first place.
His body looked pristine as always, and aside from a few obvious tears on his dark blue robe, one wouldn't be able to tell if he was injured at all.
Otto smirked and looked towards Jackal.
"Nice reflexes."
As soon as he spoke, arrows and spells came flying at him in all directions.
There were enough of them to completely blot out the sky.
Even Otto didn't dare to take thousands of arrows and mana projectiles head on.
He quickly cast [Wind Jump] and jumped twice on the air.
His body soared ten meters in the sky as Otto smoothly evaded the projectiles.
Jackal couldn't help but reel back.
His whole brain was frantically focused on answering the question, which he voiced in the next second.
His features contorted into a nasty grimace.
The next word was practically spoken as a growl.
"How!"
Otto looked at him calmly, eyes dispassionate.
He indifferently threw out a series of [Wind Blades] to keep Jackal on the move and to prevent him from focusing his energy on recovering.
His lips parted, as one eyebrow rose,
"You'll have to be more specific, my dear partner. How what?"
Suddenly, the whole area plunged into darkness.
It was the effect of one of Otto's most powerful dark element spells.
[Enfeebling Darkness]
Dark Element
Level 10
Creates a circle with 20m radius of pure, perfect darkness. Enemies are blinded, weakened, and will experience constant damage within this radius. Power escalates with proximity to caster.
Mana Cost: 525
Duration: 10 minutes
Cast Time: Instant
No Cooldown
He did this for two major reasons.
One, with a large area surrounding Otto wreathed in the ultimate darkness, projectiles would have a harder time honing in on his figure, leaving him more leeway to dodge and evade as needed.
Two, it became much more difficult to approach Otto as the darkness would sap even a powerful fighter of willpower, strength, health, stamina, and energy as well as mana.
Jackal growled even louder in reply while he continued to dodge and weave through Otto's mix of spells.
"How did you… survive… the explosion!"
Otto looked at him as if he was looking at a dunce. It was a shame Jackal couldn't see his expression.
"Have you not figured it out already?"
Jackal snorted and glared at the darkness coldly.
"I specifically had the area for an entire kilometer locked down with an expensive spatial stabilizer. Don't tell me you broke through it to [Blink] away?"
Otto tilted his head and smiled slightly.
Actually, immediately before the ambush, he had been incredibly surprised that the Throskarts had managed to get this far with their magical technology.
A spatial stabilizer was generally set up around an area to prevent a mage from casting space-element spells.
Since there were very few space element mages out there, this technology must have been developed in response to a singular human threat.
To be precise, in an area where space was particularly stable, it wasn't that it was impossible to cast space element spells.
It was only that cast times for spatial spells would exponentially increase.
Stable space was much more difficult to break through.
Otto quickly realized this point as he approached the ambush site.
This also led him to the discovery that in fact, this entire trap had also been set up for just one person: himself.
They wanted to prevent him from blinking away.
Even more important was to prevent him from casting one of his trump card spells: [Force Field].
And Otto still didn't understand how they had gotten this piece of information.
He remembered a snippet of conversation from a few days back,
"Otto, you have to be more careful when you go out! There are many strong people in this forest ring."
Jackal had looked at him with worried eyes, and continued with faux-nonchalance,
"Oh, right! But don't you have that one spell that blocks anything from hitting you?"
Otto nodded and glanced over.
"Indeed. One of my few useful null-element spells."
Now, Otto sneered at Jackal as the two continued to exchange moves.
"Aren't there more important questions you need to be asking first?"
Jackal's expression darkened further.
Yes, this was not the critical question.
It was only…he really didn't dare to hear the answer he wanted so badly.
As if on cue, Jackal raised a hand to prevent the Throskarts surrounding the two from attacking Otto.
Those projectiles wouldn't hurt Otto anyway, and were more apt to accidentally hit himself.
Taking time to break would also allow his body to recover!
Alas, Otto was not planning on giving his enemy a relaxing rest.
He quickly double cast [Weakening Ray] and [Dark Curse] at Jackal, causing him to gain the status effects [Hungry] and [Sleep Deprived].
Jackal's health, mana, and stamina also decreased.
Jackal glared at Otto, gaze filled with resentment, while Otto shrugged and picked his ear as he continued to send spells flying over.
His posture conveyed his nonchalance.
Was he supposed to take a break from attacking just because the enemy wanted to call a truce?
There was no such good thing in any battle.
"When did you figure it out?"
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