Looking at the clearly annoyed “Garuru,” Colin smiled.
His plan had succeeded. Now, Liami no longer had to risk herself confronting this demon; she only needed to catch up to and finish off the severely injured Kawasa.
That way, Liami could avoid danger and still safely level up—truly a win-win situation.
Exactly, Colin had Liami go after Kawasa not just for her safety, but also because it would help her gain levels.
In this world, besides accumulating experience bit by bit, the main way to level up was by overcoming difficult challenges. The harder the obstacle was to overcome, the more experience you would earn. Conversely, the easier the challenge, the less experience you would gain.
Using combat as an example: defeating enemies who are the same level as you or higher yields a large amount of experience and makes leveling up relatively easy.
But if the defeated enemies are lower level than yourself, the experience gained drops drastically.
As for why this is the case, even Colin didn’t know. He once prayed to the “Holy Light” and asked about these matters, but the divine oracle simply told him it was a rule of the world—nothing more.
Regardless, if Liami wanted to keep leveling up, she had to defeat people of equal or higher level than herself.
That was why Colin sent Liami to take care of Kawasa (Kawasa was level 60, while Liami was only level 55). After all, her level was too low, and she couldn’t stay that way forever. They had to speed up Liami’s growth.
There was a reason why Liami’s leveling was so slow—not just her, but everyone in Colin’s squad, including Colin himself.
The reason was simple: whenever danger arose, Colin, as the captain and highest-level member of the team, would rush to the front lines to quickly take down the most threatening enemies.
This meant that most high-level enemies were taken out by Colin, while slightly lower-level enemies were handled by Lavinia, the squad’s second strongest.
As a result, Liami and the others were left to mop up the weaker, lower-level mobs most of the time.
This caused their leveling to slow considerably, since most enemies they defeated were below their own levels. Even Colin and Lavinia faced a similar situation—the levels of the most dangerous enemies rarely exceeded theirs.
Therefore, while they dealt with many high-risk incidents, it was mostly reliant on Colin and Lavinia. Only in specialized areas (like Sifney’s expertise in demon knowledge) did the other members become truly indispensable.
And with future high-risk events only growing more dangerous, the safety of the squad meant they had to raise everyone’s levels—especially Liami, who was currently the lowest. She was their top priority.
This wasn’t favoritism; it was for the safety of the entire squad.
Colin firmly believed in his decision, while the opposing “Garuru” was already panting heavily.
She had been attacking Colin non-stop since earlier, only to have her strikes blocked by Colin’s Holy Light barrier or dodged casually by his contemplative stance.
She now clearly saw the gap between her strength and his, and could only hope Kawasa and the others could run farther and faster.
Snapping out of his thoughts, Colin raised his sword to block a full-power strike from Garuru, then countered by severing one of her hands.
Clutching her severed hand, Garuru’s expression grew grim.
It seemed the only way to help Kawasa now was one last desperate method. Garuru resolved this internally—after all, Kawasa was her longtime client, almost a friend. She would find a way to help him.
Watching the defeated Garuru before him, Colin suddenly had an idea.
Why not capture this high-rank demon as well, so Liami could use it to level up?
The thought had just formed in his mind when it immediately took over his focus. His eyes lit up—this was a great idea.
Usually, during high-risk operations, there was no time to slowly capture high-level enemies to help squad members level up, but now was the perfect opportunity.
There was only this one high-rank demon here. If Colin could drain its stamina and mana, then find a way to trap it, Liami could come back after dealing with Kawasa and easily level up again!
After considering the feasibility of this plan, Colin was ready to act. But just then, he noticed something strange about the demon before him.
Vines covered in thorns sprouted from the ground, wrapping around the demon’s body until Colin could no longer see it. All that remained before him looked like a huge fruit seed.
What kind of magic was this? What was it trying to do?
Colin immediately grew alert. Though he didn’t know the demon’s intention, he swung his sword at the “seed.”
But the “seed” didn’t budge; it was incredibly tough.
Colin raised an eyebrow—this demon had some special tricks up its sleeve.
He brought the Sanctum Sword to his shoulder, and dazzling light began to wrap around the blade. He prepared to unleash a full-powered strike to break the hard shell and see what the demon was doing inside.
After a few seconds of charging, Colin swung his sword down, striking the “seed” solidly.
Cracks appeared across the shell, then gradually it began to peel away.
This was the divine technique called “Holy Light Sanction,” Colin’s most commonly used ability. It required at least a few seconds of charging—the longer the charge, the more powerful the strike, but also the greater the mana consumption.
Colin relied on this technique because its power was excellent. In most cases, a single strike from “Holy Light Sanction” was enough to kill an enemy, saving much trouble.
When the shell had fully peeled away, Colin looked inside, only to find nothing—just a large hole that looked freshly dug.
Had it escaped? No, that wasn’t right!
Colin quickly stabbed his sword into the ground, and behind him, Garuru burst out from underground.
As she broke through the earth, her body began to emit a deep green glow.
Within just a second or two, a fierce explosion erupted from behind Colin.
After a moment, the dust kicked up by the blast slowly settled.
Colin remained standing unmoved, though several cracks had appeared on his Holy Light barrier. That was all.
Behind him, where Garuru had been, there was nothing left.
“I didn’t expect it to self-destruct. That dedicated, huh? For a demon tribe member, it would go that far? That was its true body…”
Colin truly hadn’t anticipated the demon would sacrifice itself to buy time for Kawasa.
It seemed the cooperation between the demon tribe and the demons still continued even now.
Colin sheathed his sword and glanced around. There was nothing else of note nearby.
He approached the orc he had protected earlier, ready to check on her condition.
At that moment, he heard a faint voice.
“Help… me…”
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.