Almost at the same time as the large imperial had swallowed the pill, his partner was also doing the same. Reinhart tried to stop him, but the man took a cut in his arm to afford himself the few precious instants to take the medicine.

Reinhart knew he had failed, but that didn’t stop his attacks.

Red, who was watching the fight, warned the knight. “It’s an empowering pill!”

He also shot another arrow at the imperial at that exact moment. The man avoided the projectile with expected ease, but Reinhart followed up with another swing of his sword. The scene from earlier didn’t repeat, though.

Instead of fumbling to defend himself, the imperial counterattacked. He charged at Reinhart in a flash, while the man was still in the process of raising his sword. His opponent’s improved speed took Reinhart by surprise, and he tried to pull his blade back to intercept the incoming blow.

He knocked the imperial’s sword slightly off-course, but it still managed to cut him in the shoulder. Reinhart took this opportunity to retreat before being overwhelmed, but to his surprise, his opponent didn’t follow up with another attack. Instead, the imperial also took a few steps back and took something out of his pocket.

It was a slip of paper.

Both Red and Reinhart had an inkling as to what came next.

“Shit!” Reinhart cursed to himself.

He tried to close the distance to the imperial, while Red also took another shot. The man used his sword to knock the boy’s arrow out of the way and continued to retreat, scratching at the talisman with his other hand. The item started to emit a golden glow and a shape of light formed in front of the imperial.

Reinhart reached the man at that moment and stabbed at him below the brightness. Suddenly, the shape of light moved and intercepted the knight’s attack. A ringing sound of metal striking against metal echoed in the cave, and Reinhart’s strike was deflected with no issue.

The light surrounding the shape dimmed, and underneath it, an object was revealed. It was a translucent round shield, delineated by golden lines and floating in the air in front of the imperial.

Reinhart frowned. He tried to flank his opponent and strike from the side, but as soon as his sword approached the imperial, the shield flew over and intercepted his attack in a flash. Then his enemy struck.

The shield floated out of the way, and the imperial’s sword came stabbing over at Reinhart. The knight was prepared this time around and was able to parry the blow. However, under the effects of the pill, the imperial continued to attack and Reinhart was rapidly put on the defensive, forced to do everything he could to fend off the man.

Red nocked another arrow and shot at the imperial, seeking to help Reinhart. However, the shield circled his opponent and intercepted the projectile, making it bounce out of its translucent form harmlessly. The boy frowned, but he tried to shoot again a few times, changing angles.

However, it didn’t matter. Whether it was low, high, from the right, or from the left, the shield always floated over with surprising speed to intercept his arrows, and the imperial didn’t even bother dodging his projectiles any longer. This was not to mention the fact that no apparent damage was being done to the shield, as Red saw no signs of cracks even after shooting at it over nine times.

‘What do I do?’

Reinhart was able to put up a defense against the imperial, but from his expression it was taking its toll on him. In the meantime, Narcha and Eiwin weren’t faring much better.

Their opponent didn’t even bother putting up a barrier to block their blows. Eiwin’s strikes seemed unable to hurt him, while Narcha was hanging by a thread as she blocked the giant’s halberd swings and kept him off her partner. Red doubted his arrows would faze the man either, seeing as not even Eiwin’s blows gave him pause.

‘Do I use a talisman?’

It seemed like he was the only one in a condition to do so. However, it was not that simple. His chain lightning talisman could probably pierce the magical shield, but it also had a significant activation time, which would attract attention by its glow, and he had to get within a certain range of his opponent so he could be certain he would hit. Not to mention, he was afraid that this spell might also hurt his companions, who were in close proximity. Then there was the Wind Bestowment talisman, which would improve the effectiveness of his weapon. Yet, that meant little when Red was fighting against opponents who were also being protected by talismans, one of which was wielding an enchanted weapon himself, it seemed.

‘Close combat then?’

That was pushing his luck. These people weren’t the unthinking monsters he was used to fighting, and they had killed Lesser Ring Realm beasts even at their lower cultivation level. Red doubted things would end up well for him if he tried to engage in melee.

The boy struggled for an answer. Then his gaze wandered to a certain presence all of them had ignored since their fight started.

‘The snake!’

The beast was still alive, though breathing heavily and bleeding copious amounts of blood. It had its eyes half-closed, and it was clearly close to death.

An idea came to Red. He sneaked around the room where the fight was happening and the imperials were too engrossed in their own combat to notice his presence. Then, after getting into a position where the monster had a clear view of him, he took something out of his bag.

It was the insectoid core.

One of the most curious aspects that Red had learned about monsters was how they consumed spiritual materials. The physique of monsters was far superior to humans, and as such, they could resist a lot of the toxic elements in spiritual plants and other objects, so they did not need to extract these before consumption. This, of course, also included other monsters’ cores.

Cores were one of the objects filled with the most condensed Spiritual Energy in the world, and it was common that monsters would consume the cores of other monsters to recover or to possibly get stronger. It was a powerful supplement for beasts - one they could rarely resist.

Much less for a wounded monster.

It was why the stag had chased after Red once he showed the core. It was also what the boy planned to use against the snake.

Red got close enough to where he was certain the monster could see him and raised the core in his hand. He didn’t even need to say anything to catch its attention this time around. The monster’s almost closed eyes shot open, its pupils dilated, and its wounded body stirred.

The boy noticed this and turned around to run away, putting his core back in his bag again. He heard the snake starting to move behind him and he pushed his Upper Leg Vein to reach his goal as soon as possible. And that was right behind where Narcha and Eiwin were fighting the imperial.

The movement of the supposedly half-dead snake didn’t go unnoticed by the others in the room, who took a moment to stare at the beast in confusion.

Red called out to his companions. “Narcha, Eiwin, move away!”

The two of them looked at Red. Neither of them hesitated, though, as Narcha pushed away from the giant with her saber, while Eiwin also ran back. The man was about to give chase when he heard the snake’s slithering body approaching him from behind.

In its frenzied state, the monster only had eyes for Red, or rather, for the core he had been carrying. If the imperial had stepped out of the way, the snake would have simply ignored him and gone for Red, but the man had no way to know that. He just saw the giant monster charging at him with bloodthirsty eyes, and he raised his flaming halberd to strike it. The snake, on the other hand, saw someone who tried to block its way to the core, so it attacked without mercy.

The jaws of the beast opened, revealing its vicious fangs, seeking to bite down on the man. The imperial raised his halberd, stabbing at its open mouth.

It all happened in a flash. His weapon pierced into the snake’s hard palate, but that wasn’t enough to deter it. The jaws of the monster started to close, its fangs a meter away from piercing into his shoulder. The imperial was quick to react, though, putting the butt of his weapon against the floor for support while using his right foot to step down on the monster’s lower jaw, keeping it from closing.

The snake kept forcing its jaws to close, while the man’s veins seemed on the edge of popping from his sheer effort to keep the fangs from biting into him. For a moment, they were in a stalemate.

That was when Narcha and Eiwin struck.

The two didn’t need Red’s prompting. Eiwin dashed forward and dove at the man, using the entirety of her body weight and strength to dropkick him in the back. This was enough to push him forward into the snake’s jaw and make him stumble. The halberd slipped, and the resistance against the monster’s bite slackened.

The snake saw the opportunity and forced down, its giant fangs piercing into the imperial’s back. The man’s body, or at least the lower half that Red could see, contorted in pain for a moment, before the beast bit down against and it ceased moving.

A hiss came from the snake, as its gaze sought Red again. Before it could do anything else, though, Narcha was already attacking. The warrior jumped up and onto the monster’s head and, before it could react, she stabbed down with her saber.

The weapon pierced into the snake’s head up to its hilt. The monster hissed in pain and its body contorted. Narcha jumped off while her weapon was still in the beast to avoid being smashed as the snake rolled around.

Everyone in the room distanced themselves from the dying beast in fear of getting caught in the middle of its thrashing. The monster death throes lasted about twenty seconds, before it finally laid still and didn’t move again. The corpse of the large imperial was still hanging out of its mouth.

Narcha let out a loud laughter and looked over at the remaining imperial. “I guess it’s not us who are going to meet our end today, is it imperial?!”

On the other side of the room, the man paled.