The Transcendent Godslayer

'What is happening to me?' Kallen questioned internally, struggling to comprehend why his body was reacting this way.

Although he knew he was suffering a backlash of overexerting his body... pushing it way too far, it felt far too much.

His mind was drained, sluggish, and empty of energy, the migraine hammering against his skull without the slightest reprieve.

'I need to move,' he willed to himself, but his body had shut down and wasn't listening at all.

He gritted his teeth, but it was to no avail. He couldn't even hear a thing, as though a void had replaced his hearing, and his vision wobbled with each passing second. In fact, the light in his gaze kept dimming, little by little.

Strength drained from his body rapidly, and for the first time since all this mess began, he felt… unlucky, even though nothing that had happened, nor anything he had achieved, was a product of luck.

Worse, the elusive feeling he had been chasing all along, that made him push himself this far… had eluded him.

His eyelids drooped shut against his will, his mind turning even more sluggish.

This was certainly the worst place for his body to shut down... in the middle of a battle where he was both the common enemy and the weakest target.

There was also the female archer he had led away. He wasn't too worried about her, considering where she was, but he couldn't shake the thought that she might make it back.

It was just one mistake, and he was already so vulnerable and ungraded. He didn't like the feeling one bit.

'I just hope it activates on time,' he thought grimly, as his eyes shut completely and his consciousness slipped away.

His body continued to let off extreme and unhealthy waves of heat, that bent the air around him in waves akin to heat flares.

---

The force and intensity of the battle between the orcs and kobolds slowly waned as their caution reached its peak.

The arrows of the unknown archer had suddenly stopped, and now they found themselves more wary of an attack from whoever it was than of the enemies standing right before them.

The orcs had already discarded the thought that it was the female archer lurking within the trees, yet at the same time, they couldn't come up with an answer as to who it could be.

Kallen didn't even cross their minds. If the sniper in the trees was Kallen, then where was the female archer who had gone after him?

The kobolds, on the other hand, believed another kobold village was trying to deliver a fatal blow to them in their moment of crisis, and frankly... they had succeeded. What they were doing now, was just trying to cut their losses as much as they could, until the big fallout.

Though it could also be a member of these foreigners the Existential Compendium called Orcs, the fact that their people were not spared as well, scraped that idea away from their mind. Though there was also the other possibility that it was a foreigner, just of a different party, who had decided to reap from the chaos.

For both sides, the best path forward now was to cease fire and retreat as cautiously as they could, as no one knew what the archer would do next.

Everyone's guard was raised to the highest, eyes darting rapidly through the trees.

It was possible the sniper had already fled... something both likely and unlikely at the same time, yet the insidiousness of their methods was too frightening for either side to believe such a simple conclusion.

One of the kobolds cautiously approached the Chieftain's corpse and bent down to lift it. They couldn't just leave their comrades here and just retreat, even worse, their next chieftain.

They would all receive as befitting burial after.

The next instant however, his expression froze. His eyes widened in horror as his body seized up, and then he collapsed to the ground.

The others instantly jumped back on reflex, their Wills flooding into the surroundings at full might.

But their expressions only worsened when they realized there was no arrow protruding from the fallen kobold.

"Poison!"

The word echoed in their minds like a decree.

What unsettled them even more, far more than the poison itself, was the fact that they had noticed nothing before it happened.

No movement, no shift in the wind, no sound. Almost like he had died to just one unseen strike that killed him in an instant.

The moment they realized what was happening, it seemed to have triggered a snowball effect, as they began to plop to the ground one after another, without a single visible sign of being poisoned on their bodies.

The only giveaway if it could even be considered one, was the look of horror etched across all their faces as they fell into eternal slumber.

While Kallen remained unconscious, notifications continued to flood in...

[You have slain Second Ascension Orc — Berserker...]

[You have slain Second Ascension Kobold — Loyal Sworddman...]

[You have slain Second...]

[You have slain...]

Until every last one of them had died.

Kallen had Aeneas' treasure ring to thank for that. Inside the ring weren't just healing pills, but also elixirs of various kinds, and most importantly, a potion of poison.

He had coated all the arrows with the poison before even taking the first shot. That preparation was the very reason he had chosen this route in the first place.

Kallen understood his limitations well and knew he couldn't kill them all in direct or indirect combat. They weren't stupid to keep falling for the same trick.

And if even a few of them survived, then regardless of how many he'd slain, there would be nothing left for him. Their surviving comrades would simply carry their corpses away, and he needed said corpses for Essence Plunder.

So, even though he was unconscious now... something he hadn't anticipated, none of his plans had gone awry.

Not even the trap he had left for the female archer, who was busy trying to escape or at least, stay alive, under the assault of the old kobold Chieftain who stood at the Peak of Second Ascension.