The Transcendent Godslayer

While the orcs under Kallen's influence were gaining even more and more advantage, they were far from pleased , due to the kill stealing.

These kobolds carried Essence far more potent than that of ordinary Second Ascension ascendants, killing them promised superior stat boosts.

But the archer, who they still assumed to be the female fatale, kept snatching the finishing blow at the last moment.

By the fourth stolen kill, their fury was plain. Those who had lost their prey glared toward the trees, shouting and warning "her" to stop.

The numbers were beginning to even out, with five kobolds already dead. From being outnumbered twenty to ten without the archer, it had now come to fifteen to eleven under the archer's influence.

But the orcs' surge of adrenaline and morale deflated in an instant when disaster struck.

In the blink of an eye, two of their own: the red-haired orc wielding a mystic staff so favored by mancers, and another bearing a spear, were impaled by an arrow each, in swift succession.

The red-haired mancer had only just opened her mouth to call out a skill when an arrow pierced clean through it, exiting from the back of her throat.

Her eyes widened in shock and pain, as she made chocking and gurgling noises, then the light within them slowly flickered out.

Before the others could even process the horror, the spear-wielding orc followed. An arrow punched through his neck and burst from behind with a spray of blood and fluids, severing his spine from his brain stem in one fell swoop.

"What are you doing?!" an orc bellowed to the trees in rage, his body trembling with a mix of anger and fear after narrowly avoiding decapitation from the kobold he was fighting, due to being shocked.

He only survived thanks to his quick reaction speed. But even that was short-lived.

He hadn't managed another sound when an arrow streaked in from nowhere, puncturing his eye and drilling deep into his brain with a wet squelch.

Blood and perhaps even tears... splashed across the snarling face of the kobold before him, who had been rushing in for a quick follow up attack.

In the span of a breath, everything was thrown on its head. The sudden losses cut down their budding advantage in both numbers and pressure, leaving the battlefield teetering once more.

Moreover, the archer who had been supporting them, pinning down the kobolds, was now tearing into them instead.

The kobolds, fueled by rage and newfound hope, seized the opportunity without hesitation, charging with bloodthirsty howls.

Beyond their fury, their intent was simple: kill every last orc... then hunt down the hateful archer.

---

Kallen took in all this from the shades of the trees as he continuously moved from one location to another.

His arms were flushed red and trembling, veins bulging out from them like steel cords, pulsing as if they were about to burst at any second.

With each twang of the bowstring, his numb and sore fingertips peeled more of its surface, while his aching fingers screamed in pain and exhaustion, while his body temperature had practically shot through the roof.

His skin, in its entirety, was flushed red from heat, but he didn't let up, burning almost recklessly through his reserve of arrows.

However, despite all this, his eyes remained unflinching, carrying a depth that seemed to gaze into a world of its own... and that was because it actually was.

With each pull of the bow, Kallen felt as though he could see and touch something so far away, yet impossibly close. It lingered at the tip of his tongue, and at the same time, a world away.

His movements were almost unconscious, yet he shot arrows and weaved through the branches of the trees with crisp precision, as if he had been born for them.

This feeling of touching upon something grand, something that felt so familiar and yet not, became even more apparent when one of his arrows made a kill, or when an orc was about to kill its opponent, which was why he was always able to steal the killing blow.

It was also the reason he kept shooting arrow after arrow, despite the strain and burning ache in his muscles, the searing pain in his lungs, the pounding of his heart that felt like it would explode from overexertion, and the whining of his shoulders and joints as if they were about to pop out of place... all while trying to understand what this thing was, and the peculiar feeling it gave him, only to fail again and again.

He felt like if he missed out on understanding this thing now, he would definitely regret. As for where that feeling of certainty came from, he had no idea... neither could he spare a brain cell to think of it.

Another arrow left his fingers and struck a kill and the connection deepened for only a split second, before it was back to being frustratingly faint.

Kallen growled in human frustration. His voice was so hoarse and unfitting for a nine-year-old that it sounded more like a beast's growl. Without hesitation he cocked his hand back to pull another arrow, only to grasp at thin air.

Only then did a hint of clarity return to his eyes, along with the full weight of exhaustion and pain... The feeling vanishing as well.

He stopped dead in his tracks, his body trembling on the verge of collapse, and leaned against the trunk of the tree he was perched in, his legs hanging over its branch.

The moment he gave himself a reprieve, his other body functions seemed to crash back into awareness like an avalanche, as the adrenaline he had been running on abruptly cut off.

Blood trickled from his eyes like tears, tinting his already swaying vision red. A migraine slammed into his skull like a sledgehammer, followed by blood seeping from his nose, not wanting to be left out.

His joints and bones ached so severely he felt as if they had stiffened, and each breath stabbed countless needles into his lungs.

Breathing was not only excruciatingly painful but also agonizingly difficult, as though his lungs were failing, or had already failed.

'What's happening to me?' he thought.