Infinite Realm

With a bleeding left shoulder and a slowly draining HP, Yukino stared at Goro while keeping her defense up against the elementalist behind her.

Even though her HP was slowly draining, Yukino didn't take any health potion because she knew that they wouldn't let her as Goro would most likely use that opportunity to attack. The good thing was that unlike the other dark players, Goro didn't use poison in his blades.

4 seconds. This was the least amount of time she would need to retrieve and ingest the entire vial.

Goro grinned while seeing her in thought before taking a stance and rushing towards her again.

"Get ready goddess. This time, I won't go easy on you."

As Goro closed in, he didn't use his previous tactic of tossing out a bunch of hidden weapons. Rather, he slashed out a deftly flurry of attacks, with every swing of his dagger succeeded by another, all in quick succession.

Goro's control of his blades together with his skill at slashing out in quick succession, made him worthy of his title as an expert. In a wide view, it looked like he was carving out a flower in the air as all that could be seen was a flower-like pattern made up of a bunch of flashing white marks. Goro's dagger skills and accuracy were deadly with each strike containing a hint of decisiveness and hunger to take a life.

Despite the overbearing form of Goro's dagger skills, Yukino stood calm with her great sword in both hands. She slashed out with full force, totally ignoring the sensation of pain that her body feed back to her brain.

She had earlier analysed Goro's strike long before it came to her, even though Goro had struck out as quickly as possible. With the aid of her high level analytical ability, which every expert has trained to a different level, Yukino easily spotted the weak link in Goro's attack and hacked towards it.

Goro, on the other hand, wasn't surprised by this development as he believed that such a simple skill shouldn't prove too difficult for a true 'Queen' to handle. He quickly stopped his attack and changed to a different one, a single strike attack.

Compared to his previous assault filled with decisiveness and destruction, this one looked so graceful and elegant, free-flowing like a stream on a mountain. Nonetheless, it wasn't weak as Yukino felt that if it landed on her, she might not survive it.

'Martial technique : Flowing River.'

The martial technique, Flowing River, was just one move unlike the Lotus sword art or the Seven Dragon moves. To make things worse, the technique was far below the level of the aforementioned two. Even so, this one move was still quite impressive as just like the Dragon's Claw of the Seven Dragon Moves, it was also flexible and had a high striking power.

As Goro's attack was about to land, Yukino used a foot technique to retreat from him. In her current state, facing such an attack from wouldn't be wise especially with the pains from her left shoulder together with the hallucinations effect that could take place at any time. Truth be told, Yukino instinctively retreated because she felt that it would be very dangerous to continue a head-on battle with Goro since the [Light Hallucinations] could trigger at any moment like it did previously.

Even though she retreated quite some distance away from him, Goro wouldn't let her go so easily neither would the elementalist let her get behind the [Curse of Zamatrian]'s range.

While Goro dived in for a head-on assault, the elementalist began chanting a spell.

*boom*

Suddenly, a huge explosion out as the entire hall began to vibrate with the ceiling letting off dust particles as if it was about to come crashing down.

The 'earthquake' had set the elementalist off his balance as he nearly tripped and as a result, had his spell canceled. On Goro's side, he was luckily able to keep his stance though, due to being caught by surprise, he almost fell face flat on the ground.

Yukino, on the other hand, was the luckiest of the 3 as she swiftly held her balance despite the continuous rocking. But keeping her balance wasn't the only thing she did. She shrewdly used the opportunity, brought about by the explosion, to dip her hand into her beginner's bag and withdraw a vial. Using the pause in the battle, brought about by the same explosion, Yukino downed the contents of the vial into her body.

Once the contents were completely ingested into her system, Yukino felt an itchy and flaming sensation in her throat, all the way down to her chest. Her face had a little sheen of black displayed underneath her skin, like a blush but occupying a large portion of her face and also black in color. Yukino felt energy coursing through her veins and muscles. Despite the [Curse of Zamatrian]'s [Slow] effect, Yukino felt like she was far faster and stronger than her peak state. This wasn't an imagination nor a fleeting feeling due to desperation. This was real.

Rather than a health potion, Yukino had made a different decision and had used the berserk potion meant for the boss' raid. Why? Because she realised that even if she used that moment to down a health potion, she couldn't change the end result of the battle. At best she would only delay the results, but what good would that do for her? In the end, Yukino made a decision that would surely get her punished. She took the berserk potion for herself as with its help, not only would her HP bar increase but also her [Strength] and [Agility] too.

[[ Temporary Body Enhancing Fluid : Simple Grade

[Strength] +5

[Agility] +7

[Vitality] +7

Duration : 12 seconds

Cool-down : 3 hours. ]]

Compared to the [Diluted Simple Berserk Potion], the [Temporary Body Enhancing Fluid] was far weaker. Not only were its attributes lower, it also lacked an effect on the [Dexterity] attribute. The only advantage it had was the lesser cool-down time and longer duration. But that should be expected as one was gotten from a Mortal rank chest while the other was bought in an NPC store.

Emperor's Might had spent quite a lot of silver to get their hands on this potion as it was sold in limited quantities. It was supposed to be a trump card in their boss raid but seeing as she would soon lose her lives in the hands of the Maniac Chief of Savage Tribe, who would most likely boast of this achievement, Yukino decided to use it to save not only herself but also the guild's honor.

"A berserk potion?" Goro frowned while studying her expression. As a dark guild capable of rivalling super guilds, Savage Tribe also had a few berserk potions in hand, but for this mission, Goro didn't receive any because this mission was organised by a part of the upper echelons of Savage Tribe and not the entire guild. Since it wasn't the entire guild, Goro wasn't given access to strategic goods apart from the [Curse of Zamatrian].

"I would like to know whether you still think of me as a push-over, Goro?"

Goro frowned and took a stance preparing to face the Snow Goddess head on but he was surprised to see her just standing still.

'Wait, something's wrong…' Goro thought. "Tinklefish!" Goro turned and screamed at the elementalist but what greeted his eyes was Tinklefish being ruthlessly slashed continuously by Yukino.

Before Goro could rush towards him, Tinklefish's HP fell to zero as he collapsed on the ground with various sword marks on his chest.

'How did she do it?' Goro stared in fear at the woman in front of him. If before he could easily tease the Snow Goddess because of his faith in the [Curse of Zamatrian], right now, Goro wasn't sure he could handle her by himself. She seemed to have change from that cold and prideful lady to a demoness that killed without hesitation while playing with your mind.

Throughout the battle, Goro had thought that everything was in his hands. He had even let the other Emperor's Might players purposefully escape because he believed he had more chances of taking down the Snow Goddess and also the aftermath of such a defeat would be catastrophic to Emperor's Might's prestige as a super guild.

The only unaccountable mistake he made was letting the berserker die but nonetheless, Goro thought that, no, he believed that he could still handle Yukino all alone and even if he couldn't, Tinklefish was still there. But with his death now, the [Curse of Zamatrian]'s duration slowly coming to an end, Yukino's berserk potion and the mysterious skill she used just now, Goro had totally lost faith in completing the mission, feeling that the difficulty had taken an unexpected turn for the worse. All he had in his mind now was how to retreat.

"You're next." Yukino said as she stared at Goro like a tiger spying on its prey. She took out the elementalist first because she didn't want any variable in her one-on-one against Goro. Even with the berserk potion, Yukino felt like she wouldn't be able to handle Goro on her own. She believed that since Savage Tribe wanted her dead, the [Curse of Zamatrian] shouldn't be the only trump card they brought against her. Sadly, she was wrong without even knowing.

Normally, Goro wouldn't have felt anything but now, he suddenly felt cold sweat behind him. Taking a deep breath, he said "My apologies goddess but it seems I might not be able to entertain you any longer."

As he completed his statement, he hurriedly detonated a smoke bomb, activating stealth and escaping from the hall. Because of his speed and decisiveness in retreating, Yukino wasn't able to find him even though she had a much higher attribute in [Agility] as of now.

"Goro. I will deal with you later and by that time, you wouldn't be able to escape again." Yukino said in a low voice before staring at the door Chesces and co.. had passed through and then taking a step forward.