...…

The battle inside the Church were getting more intense as more time went by. But the pressure was not pointing towards Shin and the other, it was meant for the opposing instead. And Archbishop Hervil was aware of it, that was why he really wanted to change the flow of the battle.

But before that, he needed to get rid of this annoying swordsman in front of him. He was not sure about it at first, but as the battle progress, this guy seemed not to take him seriously. He was only focusing at buying enough time for his comrades to finish off the corrupted monsters.

Naturally, the archbishop was not foolish enough to let that happened. That was why he was doing his best to get rid of this guy from his trail. Unfortunately, that was easier to said than done. Even if he didn't receive much damage from this guy, this swordsman was sticking at him like a chewing gum.

What's more, every time that Archbishop Hervil tried to break away from Zero, the latter would always speed up the pace of the battle and forcing him at being in the defensive.

Of course, just like the other games, the NPCs of this game should be much stronger than the players. But since this game was also following the class over the other class rule, it was pretty much harder for a priest class to beat a swordsman class in battle. Especially, when the latter was the current best swordsman of the game.

Given all of these, Archbishop Hevil would naturally become frustrated on this matter. But there was nothing that he could do about. Because even if he tried to empower himself to break away from Zero, the latter would always respond with a move that was more than enough to counter him and left him helpless at his current situation.

All he could do was to hope that his underlings would do the work for him. But even that seemed to be quite impossible. It was because the flow of the battle on the other sides were blowing towards Shin and his comrades' direction.

The corrupted monster that was currently being dealt by Lawless and others was now on the way towards its death. The group on Lawless' side were able to cut down the HP of their monster for more than 77%. Even if they took 30 minutes to reach this point, that was already fast given that this monster was currently at Level-150 with a rank of Corrupted Lord.

On the other hand, Simba and Morgan was able to lessen the HP of their corrupted monster at 22%, which could already be considered amazing given that they were only people dealing with it. What's more, Simba who was currently tanking the monster, didn't even receive much damage even if they didn't have a support at their side.

Meanwhile, Shin was currently showcasing a good performance on holding himself against a monster on this rank and level. Even if he was currently the weakest link of this group, he was able to lessen the HP of the corrupted monster by 11% all by himself.

Well, aside from the top-class supporting that Cloe was giving him, one of the reasons of it was due to his equipments.

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1. Lord's Courage (Passive): 'Suppression Aura' of any superior Monster will be lessened by 20% when you are fighting against them.

2. Monarch's Sovereignty (Passive): When fighting against superior monsters all of your damages will receive a 10% increase.

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Due to this item effects coupled with his Superior Battle Physique, the Suppression Aura of the corrupted monster in front of him was pretty much non-existent. What's more, his damage was also quite high because of them.

But during this battle, Shin was also doing quite a number of bold decisions. Because his back was being supported by a Godlike Support, he didn't have to concern himself about anything else aside from holding his monster in place; which was also equivalent to keep on attacking for him.

And with that, he was not afraid of doing quite a number of bold moves; or in other words, he was training his skills and techniques in the middle of the battle. He wanted to grab every opportunity so that he could improve his strength even more.

It was because he felt that he was too weak compared to the real peak experts. Aside from seeing the real battle prowess of Lawless, Faker, Ravier and Ember – Shin felt the big difference between him and them when Simba tried to gauge his strength during their first encounter.

And that was also the time when he realized that having good and high-class skills were quite useless whenever you were debuff by a lockdown skill. And during those times, the only thing that he could relied onto was his Combat Techniques.

And if you add the fact that he saw how good Zero at controlling his skills, Shin also wanted to improve at that area. He also could see how wide the variety of attacks that he could use if he had that kind of control over his skills.

Given that, Shin was currently doing his best to take advantage of this time to sharpen his sword and strengthen himself.

Cloe, on the other hand, didn't know whether to laugh or cry when she saw that. "And here we go again. This must be this guy's illness; he is always treating everything as a form of training. Curse this guy and his Battle Genius habits! Can he at least think about me, who is currently taking even more burden that is supposedly his?"

But despite saying all of those complaints, Cloe was doing quite the contrary. She was doing her best to support Shin at what he was currently doing. She was even sending some spells at the corrupted monster to make sure that Shin would not get struck by any threating strike that he couldn't dodge or block.

And with her all-time supporting, Shin was able to focus solely on improving himself without him knowing about it. He even forgot everything, and the only thought that was running inside his mind was to improve himself, sharpen his skills and became stronger.

Shin was unaware of how much time had passed when he was in this state. He didn't even notice that the others were already done with the other corrupted monsters on their sides and was currently helping him at taking down this monster.

He only regained his usual self when the third corrupted monster was taken down. He snapped out from that stated and came back to reality almost immediately, and suddenly heard Simba's voice saying.

"Looks like you are already awake. How was your progress? Did you manage to get a good harvest this time?"

Then Shin turned his head at Simba with a stunned expression on his face and not sure how to respond at that question.

And before he managed to give a reply, Cloe suddenly said to them. "That is not important right now. First, let's focus on this guy to finish our quest."

Then those two directed their attention at Archbishop Hervil. And at the same time, Zero finally 'let go' of the archbishop and put some distance between the two of them.

Seeing the frustrated look at the archbishop's face, Lawless couldn't help himself but asked. "Is he going to reveal his real strength now, and show that his is some sort of Corrupted Elder? Or is he going to transform into a corrupted monster just like the previous three?"

Simba nodded his head and said. "Maybe? The difficulty of this quest will not live up to its name if it is this easy to clear."

"Hehe… Kukukuku…"

Then the others suddenly heard the archbishop laughing with some evil tone. They would naturally knit their brows after hearing that.

And that was when Archbishop Hervil started talking. "We done kids. It looks like I underestimated you a little too much. But that is still fine, since you guys still can't prevent us from turning this City into the largest Corrupted Nest in this Kingdom."

"Did this guy was beaten so badly by the Sword God to spout out this nonsense in the middle of the battle?" muttered Lawless after hearing that.

At the same time, Shin and the others were still looking at the archbishop confusedly when the latter continue at what he was talking about. "What are you still waiting for? Don't tell that sacrificing those three are still not enough? You need to make your move now, so that we can finally proceed to the next plan."

The group was suddenly gotten off-guard at those words, which also made them to be struck numb after hearing it.

'Something terrible is about to happen.' This was the signal that their instincts were telling them when they heard that.

And the first ones to realized and fast enough to respond on it was Shin and Zero, which made them to immediately made their moves.

But unfortunately for the Sword God, the archbishop wanted him to have a taste of his own medicine. A bunch of golden walls suddenly appeared around him and trapping him inside.

Shin, on the other hand, immediately used the 'Death Travel' Skill attached on his lower armor without further ado. It was for him to instantly appeared beside Cloe.

But too bad for him, it was already too late.

Puchi!

A longsword already pierced Cloe's abdomen while being stabbed from her back. Then the assaulter suddenly forced the sword to move rightwards to lacerate her body in half together with some splattering blood effects of the game.

Then the time seem to stopped moving at this point when everyone witnessed this sight. They were completely gotten off-guard by the sudden turned of events!

...…