Chapter 154: Clearing Out the Fire Crossbowmen

Venigo saw a fire archer raise an extended heavy crossbow and take aim at him. He let out a cold laugh, raised his hand, and beckoned with his finger, flashing a thumbs-up before drawing his thumb across his neck and flipping it downward.

Enraged by the gesture, the fire archer pulled the trigger, sending a bolt flying straight at his face.

"A customized heavy crossbow with witchcraft enhancement. How interesting," Venigo murmured softly.

Amidst his faint scoff, Venigo didn't even budge, as if he hadn't even seen the incoming arrow. The bolt fired from the heavy crossbow carried immense force; even without an arrowhead, it was capable of piercing straight through a man and knocking him airborne. What did Venigo rely on to afford such utter disregard?

He had Sophie right by his side.

Style Forty-Two: Iron Angle.

Instead of unhitching the greatsword from her back, Sophie drew the cicada-wing soft sword gifted to her by Venigo. The soft sword moved like a phantom, tracing a brisk, straight zigzag line right in front of Venigo, cleanly cleaving the bolt in half out of thin air, sending the fragments flying past Venigo's left and right.

"Not bad," Sophie said. "A powerful bow."

"It's even enchanted with witchcraft, probably to boost the velocity of the bolt," Venigo replied.

Just at that moment, the sharpshooters returned fire. A long arrow cut through the wind and snow, landing right in front of the fire archer.

It didn't pierce through.

"Mutated!" Venigo sneered. "Just as expected, they've been altered by the Goat-Blowing Cult."

The struck fire archer let out a miserable scream. He reached out, yanked the arrow out of his chest, bit the arrowhead off in a single motion, and spat it aside.

"A semi-corrupted body isn't easily killed by arrows," Venigo chuckled darkly, snapping his fingers. "Shooting? Actually, I excel at that too."

Character selected, analysis complete... Reconstruction initiated, Tactical RPG System, Level 30 Archer, construction complete.

Venigo slowly drew the Iron-Cleaving Bow in his hand, took aim at the fire archer across the way, and let out a light huff.

The archer class from the tactical system possessed no flashy skills; its greatest strengths were its astonishing range and considerable lethality. Equipped with the Sniper's Chapter and the Demon's Chapter, both hit rate and lethality would see a marked improvement.

It was an unadorned yet formidable combat role.

With a swift *thwack*, the bolt pierced straight through the fire archer's skull. The archer, who had been screaming moments before, collapsed instantly without a sound, perishing right where he stood.

Venigo began engaging the fire archers in a duel of marksmen. His movements were unhurried—he slowly drew the bowstring, nocked an arrow, and took his time aiming. Yet the moment an arrow was loosed, it would pierce into the target's skull faster than the speed of sound, punching straight through.

Following that, another fire archer would silently drop, without a single exception.

"Good grief," a nearby sharpshooting soldier chuckled. "Though the precision isn't much to speak of, this range is top-tier even among our own marksmen."

Venigo nodded silently.

His bow and arrows picked off the enemy one by one, striking terror into the hearts of the fire archers. The cowering fire archers retreated to the very rear, while the Malzars swarmed forward, charging directly toward Snowball Outpost.

"Showtime," Venigo chuckled lightly.

The sharpshooters began to quicken their rate of fire. Once they let loose, they could empty a quiver in a matter of short moments, and in doing so, leave behind an identical number of corpses staining the snowy ground. But arrows were finite after all, and the sharpshooters could not sustain prolonged combat. After emptying two quivers, they withdrew to rest.

At that point, the Prism mercenaries stepped up to fill the gap.

Though they were merely "amateur" archers, they could reliably strike their targets once the enemy closed the distance.

The moment an arrow hit, the earth-elemental magic imbued within it would deliver a violent shockwave to the target, bypassing armor protection and delivering an impact akin to a hammer blow. While this impact wasn't fatal to the sturdy Malzar barbarians, it was still enough to force them to stumble and slow their pace.

And that brief hesitation invariably invited a flurry of additional arrows into their flesh.

Before long, dozens of slain corpses littered the battlefield, most having taken four or five arrows before finally howling and crashing to the ground.

"The efficiency is a bit low," Venigo complained with mild dissatisfaction.

"For this caliber, it's quite good," Sophie remarked.

Having finished their twelve arrows each, the Prism mercenaries tossed their training bows aside.

Drawing their saber-toothed tiger longswords, holding a round shield in one hand and a blade in the other, they fixed their eyes on the advancing Malzars.

Sophie, too, drew her Arena Blade and stepped out in front of the mercenaries.

"Better let my men go first," Soft suggested.

"No, your duty is to guard the sentries," Venigo grinned. "When it comes to attacking, we are somewhat more professional."

Even as the words left his mouth, a figure had already darted out. Unsurprisingly, it was the little wolf-girl.

Cheering delightedly, she brandished a pair of lethal claws and lunged toward the Malzars. While she was still mid-air, two Malzar spellcasters raised their hands and unleashed crackling arcs of dazzling lightning.

Rapid directional shift!

With incredible agility, the wolf-girl twisted mid-air, slipping cleanly between the two bolts of electricity. Letting out an excited, piercing howl, she drove her claws straight through the chest of one of the female spellcasters.

The second female spellcaster showed not a flicker of expression, displaying no fear at the imminent danger before her, nor any sorrow for the death of her comrade. Without a moment's hesitation, she raised her hands, converging a mass of electrical energy that crashed down toward the wolf-girl and the fallen witch.

"Annoying," the wolf-girl scoffed. With a flash of movement, she sprinted straight up to the female spellcaster, suddenly shrinking her posture and sliding like a rubber ball from beneath the witch's feet straight to her back.

This maneuver was dubbed "Hide-and-Seek" by the wolf-girl, and its origin traced directly back to the evasion techniques mastered by the Wolverine persona constructed by Venigo.

Once she rolled behind her target, the wolf-girl had countless ways to launch a fatal assault.

For instance, Hunter's Claws!

A storm of claw shadows instantly slashed a rapid succession of wounds across the female spellcaster's body. The wolf-girl didn't exert excessive physical force, but her speed was terrifyingly high; the massive volley of instantaneous lacerations was more than enough to rob the opponent of her mobility.

Should the female spellcaster so much as twitch, the jagged wounds formed by the intersecting cuts would spew gushing torrents of fresh blood, dropping her to the ground, utterly paralyzed.

"Is this... how it's done?" Suna's quiet voice drifted from directly behind the wolf-girl. When the wolf-girl turned her head, she caught sight of the young vampire just stepping back from behind another Malzar, leaving the soldier with his heart pierced clean through as he collapsed headfirst onto the ground.

"You're not faster than me!" Akana shrieked loudly, hurling herself at another target. Suna tilted her head in slight confusion, her form shimmering into mist and slipping effortlessly through the slashes of three converging Malzar longswords.

Without even solidifying her body first, she directly invoked her vampiric drain, sucking life from one of the men.

A geyser of blood instantly erupted from the shallow wound of the Malzar, showering down upon the mist-form Suna. The crimson fog darted nimbly through the crowd, quickly re-materializing into a solid form before retreating back into the shadows.

Akana laughed heartily, her double claws tracing a gigantic 'X' in the air.

Wherever her claws swept, the spraying fountains of blood dyed the snow a brilliant crimson, while wherever Suna silently manifested, enemies would quietly tumble face-first to the dirt with barely perceptible wounds.

The two of them alone tore the Malzar assault into absolute disarray. Meanwhile, Venigo's precise archery unfailingly struck at the most opportune moments, severing any attempt by the enemy to mount a counter-offensive against them.

At that moment, Sophie led the Prism mercenaries in leaping down from the low wall of the outpost, driving straight through the enemy formation like an unyielding wedge, devoid of any superfluous flair.

From start to finish, Sophie utilized only a single move. She simply raised her sword and thrust it forward.

Style Sixteen: Rock Piercer!

Her blade was far from sharp, yet beneath that single thrust, whether the Malzars attempted to parry with their swords or dodge aside, the outcome remained identical: they were impaled by the slightly blunt tip and sent hurtling backward through the air by sheer brute force.

That non-sharp sword, wielded with Sophie's staggering strength, tore even larger wounds, making it deadlier and far more terrifying.

By comparison, the performance of the Prism mercenaries could be described as remarkably practical and rugged. Much of their swordsmanship had been taught by Sophie, meaning it shared the hallmark traits of her style: utterly devoid of flashiness, prioritizing utility above all else.

However, in learning Sophie's unadorned swordsmanship, the Prism mercenaries had also absorbed a healthy dose of Venigo's cunning. Operating in groups of three or five, they invariably fought outnumbering skirmishes, relying on division of labor, coordinating fake-outs with flanking onslaughts, or delivering fatal stabs from behind while the enemy was distracted. In any case, they rarely engaged in honorable one-on-one duels.

Their efficiency was exceptionally high. In terms of raw strength, the Malzar warriors were no weaker than the Prism mercenaries, but their chaotic tactics and lack of powerhouse anchors left them riddled with vulnerabilities under Sophie's competent command, easily carved up and devoured by the Prism mercenaries.

All in all, it was a battle hardly worth dwelling upon.

As the sun sank below the horizon, the surviving Malzars fled in disarray. The Prism mercenaries briskly cleared the battlefield, stripping away every last possession from the enemy with a greed difficult for northern border troops to fathom, tossing the plundered goods into a chaotic pile left out in the wilderness.

"Nothing here has any real value," Venigo said, gesturing to the items hauled back by the mercenaries. "Leave the fire archers' crossbows for me to study; as for the rest, pile them by the corner as scrap metal."

During the few days Venigo stayed there, Snowball Outpost was subjected to over a dozen assaults, the participants varying with each engagement. However, Venigo noticed that the proportion of fire archers among the attackers was steadily increasing, and the bodily modifications they underwent were becoming increasingly pronounced.

During the final assault, over twenty of those fire archers could scarcely be considered human anymore. Their abnormally developed arms could effortlessly crank foot-draw crossbows, maintaining a staggering rate of fire of fifteen bolts per minute—something utterly impossible for a foot-draw crossbow by all normal standards.

Yet the fire archers had pulled it off.