Blood sprayed in a violent burst.
The bear whose eyes had been stabbed let out a wail of pure agony—especially because Bell didn't just stab in; he twisted hard for good measure. But the daggers were simply too small. Even hitting a vital point, they couldn't deliver a finishing blow.
Driven berserk by pain, the bear thrashed wildly. Bell was forced to let go of the daggers and was flung aside.
The sudden turn shocked even Duncan.
But shock didn't matter—an opening like this was something he would never waste.
The instant Bell was thrown away, Duncan sprang up, his spear carrying the last remnants of Wind Cutter, and with a clean, efficient stroke he took the bear's head. Before the corpse could turn into black ash, he grabbed Bell and bolted.
His final trump card was spent.
The enemy, however, still numbered nine.
The earlier sequence of effortless kills might give the illusion that anyone could do it—that "I could do that too" feeling—but Duncan, who'd fought them up close, understood the true gap better than anyone.
Their recovery potions and stamina potions were gone.
To move more freely, Duncan had even ditched his backpack, abandoning everything. The only correct play now was to exploit the bears' lingering caution and run with everything they had.
This was, without question, a major victory.
Even if they fled in disgrace now, Chaldo wouldn't have the right to criticize them. Escaping a coordinated pack of a dozen monsters at roughly your level—and still killing three—was a record worth boasting about.
Now all that mattered was surviving.
The path ahead had finally opened, and in the entire Great Tree Sea there was no safer place than at Chaldo's side.
People say you meet what you fear.
People say Murphy's Law always finds those who cling to luck.
People say "battlefield flags" are superstition—
but they work.
In the split second Duncan's guard loosened, a harsh tearing sound ripped through the air from all directions—
the exact same sound as Duncan's Wind Cutter.
Wind blades.
The sound of air being sliced.
But these were louder than Duncan's, broader in reach—like that absurdly wide "warning strike" from before.
Even when Duncan used Air Step to leap higher, two wind blades tracked him with terrifying precision.
With nowhere to dodge, Duncan hardened his heart.
He kicked Bell away with one brutal shove, gripped the spear shaft with both hands, and chopped.
A thunderous boom exploded as his slash and the wind blade canceled each other out. But without a foothold in midair, Duncan was blown backward by the shock—
and the second wind blade arrived immediately.
After forcibly taking the first hit, Duncan was locked in a moment of helpless stiffness, unable to move.
He wrenched his body left with every ounce of strength, braced the spear shaft in front of his right shoulder—
First came a skin-crawling cutting noise, like a power saw chewing through metal.
Then a violent blast.
Duncan's body slammed down like he'd been struck by a battering ram.
"Duncan!"
Everything had happened too fast.
Less than a second ago, they'd been feeling the joy of escape. In the next, Bell had been kicked aside and Duncan launched away by wind blades. In under ten seconds, a winning situation inverted completely.
Bell sprinted toward where Duncan crashed.
The impact had gouged a deep pit into the ground.
Duncan's right shoulder was ripped open by a wound so deep bone was visible—running from the shoulder all the way down toward his abdomen. White bone and red, twitching muscle were exposed in a horrifying display.
His beloved white spear had snapped in two.
He still clenched the front half in his left hand, but the back half was gone—lost somewhere in the chaos. The wind blade had destroyed the weapon, then continued into Duncan's flesh, and finally detonated across his body. Beyond the clean slicing wound, the explosive force left his entire arm effectively ruined.
Only because Duncan's durability was absurdly high had he avoided being cut in half. A normal adventurer would've been split cleanly—or at minimum would've lost the arm entirely, not merely had it hanging there in a grisly mess.
Fighting panic and trembling hands, Bell poured every last drop of his recovery potions into Duncan.
He'd only ever seen blood like this when hunting animals.
This was the first time he'd seen someone beside him injured so badly—and he couldn't stop his hands from shaking.
Even so, he forced himself to do what he'd been taught: he tore fabric from his clothes and packed it down to stop the bleeding.
"Calm down. Don't be afraid… I'm not dead yet."
Three bottles helped Duncan's pallid face regain some color. The bleeding slowed and the wounds began to knit—slowly, painfully—but the low-grade potion simply wasn't strong enough, not for damage this extensive. Unless they had high-tier healing or a panacea, this wasn't getting fixed.
And out here, in the wilderness, there wasn't even a shadow of another person—let alone high-tier medicine.
The shop did sell stronger potions.
But their combined money still wasn't enough to buy anything that cost hundreds of thousands.
"Don't stop moving," Duncan said, forcing himself upright. "Listen, Bell. Keep going forward. My right arm isn't responding anymore. I can still use my left, but as you can see—my weapon's finished. I'll cover the rear."
After Bell slapped on rough bandages, Duncan dragged himself to his feet and pushed Bell onward. When he'd taken the wind blade, he'd deliberately pulled his legs in; the follow-up shock still hurt him badly, but with the potion's help he could still run.
"I'll cover the rear!"
Bell answered immediately, matching Duncan's injured pace.
"Don't argue now! You can't take their attacks! Obey me!"
Duncan roared—rare fury, absolute urgency—and forced Bell to speed up.
The bears' speed sat between Duncan and Bell. But injured Duncan was no longer Duncan at full strength.
If he could delay them even a little—if he could buy this child distance—it would be worth it.
They were still more than a day's travel from Chaldo.
The road was close to hopeless—
but it was better than both of them dying here.
Another wind blade screamed in.
After Duncan had killed three of their pack, the bears seemed to have decided: they wouldn't come close anymore. They would grind them down with wind blades until they died.
"GO! I don't want to die in a place where no one even knows!"
Duncan swung the remaining half of his spear like a short sword and chopped the wind blade head-on.
The spear tip—crafted from the fangs of the Magic Wolf King—was still hard, still reliable.
But Duncan could only wield it one-handed now, and he couldn't endure the massive impact that followed.
The collision blasted him backward again—straight into a tree with a sickening crash.
The blow made him cough up blood.
Injuries that hadn't fully healed flared worse, visibly and rapidly. He bit his tongue to stay awake and forced himself upright. His eyelids felt heavy enough to drop him into unconsciousness on the spot.
Yet he still gripped the half-spear.
His body was too heavy to speak.
So he simply stared at Bell with bloodshot eyes—an order more final than words.
Whether Bell finally understood that look, or finally made up his mind—
the moment Duncan stood, Bell turned and ran, headlong into the endless tree sea.
....
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