Sou! Sou!
Just as he was about to continue attacking the masked woman, he was attacked from the side.
Shua!
He reacted instantly and dodged to the side. Looking over, he saw Bartan hiding behind a tree 100 meters away and attacking him with another water ball. He quickly dodged it too.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
All three water balls went past him and collied with the trees behind. Immediately, three one-meter-thick tree trunks were blasted apart.
"What power!" Max exclaimed while wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. If he was even a second late, he would have been seriously injured if not dead. He wasn't delusional enough to think that his body was tougher than the tree.
Seeing his attack miss, Bartan quickly hid behind the trees and started casting this water bullet spell again. Like Max and others, he also needed some time to cast it.
"Hehe… are you going to ignore me now?" Suddenly a cold yet enchanting voice sounded close to him.
Before he could react, a dark chain lashed towards his head.
Boom!
Since he couldn't dodge in time, he conjured a 300 MP fireball to counter the strike which caused an explosion.
However, the dark chain didn't disperse even after that and his chest that left a light wound.
Thankfully, the explosion had reduced its power and changed the attack trajectory or it wouldn't only have been a light wound.
Seeing this, he immediately retreated as his frown deepened. This woman was very strong and her control over dark element was very masterful comparable to Hoary's. A single chain that she casually created was two times as powerful as his fireball.
'It's very troublesome now.' Max felt his head hurting. If it was only this woman, he had the confidence to face her and kill her even though it might take some time. However, there was also Bartan who was waiting to strike the moment he lowered his guard.
"Ahhh…" Just then a shrill scream sounded. Max and the masked woman turned to look and saw one of the man being pierced by Belen's vines.
Swish!
Another vine sprouted out from behind him, and pierced his head. After that she directed her vines towards a woman who was fighting against Leticia. Because of Belen's addition, she quickly suffered some injuries was soon put in a deadly situation.
The masked woman's expression became ugly upon witnessing this. She glared at Bartan and shouted "Ugly bastard. If you don't want to die, help them."
Bartan became angry at what she him but he still went to help them and started attacking Belen.
Seeing this, Max's eyes twinkled. Belen could keep Bartan busy for a few minutes which meant he could fight the masked woman without having to worry about Bartan taking advantage.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Instantly, he conjured two fireballs and shot them at her.
Boom! Boom!
The masked woman also reacted quickly and attacked with her dark chain, exploding both the fireballs before they could get near her.
Seeing this, Max wasn't discouraged and started spamming fireball after fireball, forcing her to continuously defend.
…
"Huff… huff…"
After a while, the masked woman's breathing rate had become quicker and her movements started to become sluggish.
Max on the other hand seemed completely fine apart from a frown that was still present on his brows.
He had used a total of five thousand mana points until now and only had three thousand plus more but this woman was still holding on.
On the other side of the battlefield, Bartan was suppressing Belen and Leticia single handedly.
Initially, Belen was able to hold on but very quickly, her advantage turned into disadvantage because his water snakes were able to badly damage her vines and she had to use more mana to sustain them.
After a while, Leticia finished off her opponent and came to help but even then, they weren't able to gain the upper hand.
Haory was also finding her opponent difficult as her opponent was a strength type mage who had high defense. So her sand spikes were only able to cause some minor injuries to him.
Rima on the other hand had cut her opponent's hand off with her destruction wheel but after that, she wasn't given time to conjure it another time.
Moreover, her opponent had gone berserk after having her hand disabled permanently and started attacking her in a frenzy. Without any spell to attack or defend, she could only try to dodge and occasionally attack her with her sonic spell which did nothing more than stunning her opponent for a while.
Therefore, very quickly, her body was riddled with injuries and was in a very bad condition.
Huu!
Max took a deep breath after dodging another one of the masked woman's attack and cast the [Death Rain].
Swoosh!
A few dozen arrows materialized in the air and pointed towards her which caused the masked woman's expression to change.
'I have enough mana to defend against this spell but after that I'll be completely vulnerable. Tch, only if this bastard hadn't destroyed my shield.' The masked woman glared at Max.
The shield she was talking about was the dark shield which she used to block his [Calidus Brachium].
It was a grade two mid-level artefact and could block most of the attacks from peak two-star mages but it was shattered in one strike from him.
She then quickly analysed the current situation and found only four of her teammates alive. Two of which were fighting against Rima and Haory while two were lying on the ground because of the serious injuries they received from Max's surprised attack.
'Sigh! This task failed miserably.' She sighed inwardly. Then she looked at Max and smiled "I've to admit defeat this time. However, the next we meet, I'll defeat you for sure."
"Heh! Do you think I would let an enemy like you escape?" Max scoffed at her words and the fire arrows swooshed down on her.
"Hehe… You think you can stop me…" The masked woman laughed and turned into dark shadow.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
As the fire arrows fell down and caused the small-scale explosions on the ground, the black shadow weaved through them and vanished into the trees.
"Damn it!!" Max cursed in frustration. He let another enemy that might prove to be even more troublesome than Bartan.
"Hehe… Don't worry. I won't target you like this guy. I'll challenge you to fair battle and kill you." Just then, the masked woman's voice sounded from behind him.
Shua!
Max turned around and saw her carrying her two injured comrades and vanished into the forest once again.
Seeing her retreat, Haory's opponent also retreated and forced Rima's opponent to go with him.
Sigh!
Max sighed. He really wanted to kill her so that she won't be another nuisance to him but he didn't expect her to have to the ability to escape even though she was almost out of mana.
'Let's hope she is true to her word.'
He then turned towards Bartan who was fighting Belen and Leticia.
"Fuck!!" Bartan cursed seeing the masked woman and others retreat.
He was counting on the masked woman to kill him or at least severely injure him so that he could finish him off.
He quickly conjured a dozen water snakes and attacked both Leticia and Belen before running into the forest to escape.
Chase!
Belen and Leticia instinctively wanted to chase after him after dealing with the water snakes.
Whoosh!
However, just then Max whooshed past them "Wait here."
When Bartan was only 200 meter into the forest, he caught up to him.
Sou! Sou!
Fire arrows materialized above him flew toward Bartan, lightening up the dark forest.
"Ahh!!"
Seeing him catch up to him, Bartan knew that he won't be able to escape today. He shouted and cast his water barrier which deflected all the arrows but this also weakened his barrier.
Max appeared in front of him and started casting [Calidus Brachium] and said laughingly "Why are you escaping now? Didn't you say you will kill me the next time we meet. Don't tell me your words are only worth shit."
Bartan trembled in anger hearing him mock him. Never in his life he felt this humiliated. He gritted his teeth and took out a blood red pill.
"Today, I'll kill you even if I have to die in process." After saying this he brought the pill close to his mouth but his hand trembled. He knew that he would definitely die soon after eating this pill.
He then looked at Max and thought 'If I die after killing him, I'm sure Dalton family won't mistreat my family.' Thinking this, he stopped hesitating and ate the pill. He didn't have any path to retreat after asking so many resources from Dalton.
Boom…
Immediately after eating the pill, his aura became two-fold stronger while his skin started reddening and cracking
"Mm?" Max frowned seeing this and retreated. He got an intense feeling of danger from him right now.
"Where are you going. Die!" Bartan shouted and three water bullets materialized in front of him in an instant and shot at Max which caused latter's expression to freeze.
