Whoosh! Whoosh!
The moment the bandit leader finished his sentence, the rest of the bandits moved and surrounded Max. They had deadly and mocking expressions when looking at him.
"Hehe, although this boy is very handsome, our bandit group's ranking among other groups would improve greatly after killing him." A mature and beautiful female bandit, who apparently was the one-eyed bandit's wife and the second strongest person with the cultivation of middle-stage two-star, giggled.
Since there were many bandit groups in the vicinity of sun feather city, they had established rankings based on their strengths and influence.
The higher ranked groups had the privilege to boss around lower ranked groups and extort protection fees. That's why every bandit group was constantly trying to raise their rankings.
Since the one-eyed bandit group was newly formed, their rankings were obviously very low among other groups. For the past few days, they had been robbing people to make their existence known in the bandit circle and raise their rankings.
However, if they were to kill the disciple of the Cloud academy who was sent here to destroy their group, their ranking would go up quite a bit.
Max glanced at the bandit woman before ignoring her and focusing on the one-eyed bandit and the spear in his hand. This caused the bandit woman's expression to darken. She knew he was looking down on her since she wasn't much of a threat to him. Although other bandits were also a bit dissatisfied, they knew that no two-star mage would put them in their eyes with their one-star strength.
'Sigh, this is an earth elemental weapon.' Max sighed in disappointment. He had hoped it to be an elemental fire weapon so that he could use it in case its worth wasn't enough to buy the medicine for Flavia.
He then moved his gaze away from the spear and focused on the bandit leader. Seeing him walk toward him with leisurely steps, Max's eyes furrowed. He knew this bandit was overconfident and looking down on him.
'Heh! If that's the case…' Max scoffed and moved toward the bandit woman at his fastest speed.
Shua!
In the next moment, he appeared in front of her. The bandit woman was dazed; she hadn't expected him to have such speed or the guts to try to kill her when he himself was in such a 'dire' situation.
The expression of the one-eyed bandit also changed. Although he was a bandit and was cruel by nature, he still cared about his woman. His leisure footsteps became hurried as he brandished his spear and moved toward Max as fast as he could.
On the other hand, the bandit woman suddenly sneered, "I wanted to leave you for the leader to kill, but since you are so eager to die. Let me fulfill your wish."
Whoosh!
Just as she finished speaking, a dagger appeared in her hand and stabbed toward his chest at a terrifying speed. Because she was focused on him, the moment he moved, she knew he was aiming for her and had circulated her Mana.
Although Max was surprised to see her fast reaction, he showed no sign of panic. Just before the dagger reached his chest, he twisted his body out of the dagger's trajectory, successfully dodging the strike.
"What?"
The bandit woman's expression turned to disbelief. She hadn't expected him to be able to dodge her attack at such a close distance. However, before she could react, Max smiled at her and punched out.
If he wasn't trying to kill her, she definitely would have admired his enchanting smile, but right now, she could only compare it to a devil's smile. Seeing his fist becoming larger in her eyes, a chill ran down her spine, and her body froze.
"Stop, you bastard." Just before the punch could land on her, the bandit leader, who was still a dozen meters away, shouted and thrust the spear toward him.
Whiz!
A beam of condensed Mana shot toward Max at an extreme speed. Max felt a strong sense of danger from it and instantly jumped to the side.
Bang!
The beam of Mana shot past him and collided with the trees in the distance, one after another, leaving fist-sized holes.
"A grade three weapon is indeed very powerful," Max murmured as cold sweat appeared on his forehead. He could see that the bandit leader didn't do anything apart from pouring some of his Mana into the spear and thrusting it out.
Even so, the resulting beam was so powerful. This caused him to be extremely surprised, and at the same time, he was also relieved. 'Fortunately, he is just a high-stage two-star mage and can't use its full power, or I won't have any chance to fight him at all and would have died.'
Shua!
After forcing Max away, the bandit leader arrived beside his wife and stood before her. The bandit woman was relieved that she was still alive, and anger burned in her eyes as she spoke in a vicious tone, "Leave him half dead. I want to kill him by my own hands."
"Okay." The bandit leader nodded and looked at Max with an angry expression.
Whoosh!
After stabilizing himself, Max raised his hand, and a few dozen fire arrows materialized in the air above him.
Weng!
Seeing this, the bandit leader immediately poured his Mana into the spear, ready to defend.
However, his expression suddenly changed when he noticed Max looking toward the rest of the bandits and shouted, "Watch out."
Shu! Shu! Shu!
However, his warning was a bit too late. Before anyone could react, the fire arrows had pierced all of the one-star bandits' bodies and started to burn them.
After killing them, Max felt dizzy and took a deep breath to calm his mind. Because these bandits weren't standing in the same place and had some distance between them, he had to focus his Mind on targeting them at the same time.
Seeing this, the one-eyed bandit's face turned red in anger and shouted, "Bastard, I'll kill you no matter what." With much difficulty was he able to recruit these bandits, but now Max had killed all of them. This caused him to lose his rationality as he poured all of his remaining Mana into the spear.
"I don't think so." Max snickered coldly as faint orange-colored Mana surged out from his body and started to condense around his fist. He couldn't afford to be careless when facing someone with a grade-three weapon.
At the same time, he used his two-star Mana and threw two big fireballs toward them in order to interrupt or at least slow down the speed at which the one-eyed bandit injected his Mana into the spear.
Boom! Boom!
"You continue injecting Mana in it." The bandit woman said and used a spell to condense two long spears, which then slammed into the fireballs, causing them to explode.
Seeing this, Max's expression became solemn. From what he saw earlier, the one-eyed bandit only needed to inject his Mana to use the spear. Therefore, he immediately ran into the forest to buy some more time. He only needed ten seconds to cast his [Calidus Brachium] successfully.
"Where do you think you are going?" The one-eyed bandit barked and chased after Max. However, he couldn't run at his full speed since he had to focus on injecting Mana into the spear because he wasn't like Max, who could do so even when running at his top speed. The bandit woman also didn't dare to chase him alone since Max could easily kill her.
After three seconds, Max was half a mile away from the bandit duo since he wasn't running at his top speed. The one-eyed bandit's speed suddenly doubled as he was done injecting all of his Mana into the spear.
Noticing this, Max immediately increased his speed and put more distance between them since he knew that the spear's attack range was relatively high.
After seven seconds, Max was done casting as his fist burned with crimson fire.
'The intensity of this fire is several times higher than before.' After noticing this, Max was pleasantly surprised and turned around before charging toward the bandit duo.
"Hm?" The bandit duo was surprised to see this. The one-eyed bandit laughed coldly and raised his speed.
"Be careful. He seems to have cast a spell." The bandit woman warned from behind.
The one-eyed bandit didn't respond and continued toward Max. He had already noticed his burning fist and guessed that he must need to be in close range to his target before he could use it.
However, he didn't need to fear it since the range of his spear could attack was a hundred meters. The moment Max entered his hundred-meter range, he would attack and kill him.
Seeing this, Max snickered coldly. He knew what this bandit was thinking. When he was two hundred meters away from him, faint orange-colored Mana wrapped around his feet, causing his speed to rise dramatically, and he seemed to teleport in front of the bandit in the next moment.
"What?" The one-eyed bandit exclaimed in disbelief, and suddenly, a heavy sensation of death appeared in his heart.
