Return of the Woodcutter

'Almost there,' Aito thought, hacking his way towards the exit, occasionally using his shield's shock wave ability for an easy clear. Even if it didn't kill, it was great for hurling small fries.

With Ogoro and Sheyla on his toes, he quickly arrived ten meters away from the staircase's entrance, only to see that elementalists, protected by warriors, were getting ready to fire. 

'Not this time, you fuckers.' 

"Sheyla, shoot them!" Aito exclaimed, creating breathing around them. "Ogoro, cover the rear. I'll take both flanks and front." 

At first, he didn't really expect them to follow through with his orders. He couldn't blame them since he wouldn't trust in someone else's judgment, someone he had met recently. 

However, he had underestimated his influence. Aito had, after all, saved them twice on top of granting them new powers, proving himself to be trustworthy. As the siblings saw it, if they couldn't trust this man, then no one else could be trusted in the Tower. 

Both siblings executed the order perfectly, without complaining. 

Ogoro hacked away at the incoming enemies, daring to activate binding string from time to time to either make them trip, rapidly restrain a few moves, or use a henchman as a weapon. 

While Aito covered both sides using his deadly two-handed executioner ax, Sheyla—who was in her Thrill of The Hunt state—aimed for the elementalists, taking into account their clothes coated in Durability, the warriors barring the way to her targets, the crossbow's effective range and Aito rapidly twirling around her to keep the enemies a bay. 

She activated Hawk-Eye and, as her focus quickly reached its peak, shot multiple bolts in rapid succession. Small projectiles flew past warriors and, one at a time, pierced an elementalists head, only missing twice. After only eight seconds, every elementalists had died by her hand.

"It's clear!" She shouted, announcing it was time to go. 

"Great!" Aito replied, "Let's go!" 

The trio quickly paved a path to the entrance. It appeared that the sect didn't have the numbers to flood the staircase with troops. 

But before they could walk up the stairs a powerful arrow whistled through the air and lodged itself in Ogoro's leg, in the backside of the knee where there was no steel armor part protecting him. The giant man stumbled and, surprised by the shot, lost his balance. 

"Shit," Aito cursed, placing himself in front of Ogoro to shield him from another projectile, hacking away incoming enemies. "Can you walk?" 

"Yes!" Ogoro replied.

"Then go up right now!" Aito said, defending the narrow entrance. "Sheyla, cover me! We'll hold them back here!" 

"But—" 

"Just fucking go, Goro!" Sheyla said. 

Ogoro knew he was just a dead weight in his current state and would do nothing but slow them down. Reluctantly, he broke a recovery bead—he had gotten from Aito in the room—to stop his bleeding turned back, and used his sword like a cane to limp his way up the stair as fast as he could. 

"Can you find the archer?" Aito asked, blocking yet another arrow. He was almost out of mana and wouldn't be able to use aura skills soon. Although tired, his stamina would allow him to go on for a while longer. However, if he were to be hit by one of the archer's arrows without Durability activated, it could definitely spell trouble. 

"Yes, but I need time," Sheyla replied. 

"Fine," Aito replied in between two strikes, "I'll buy you… as much time as I can." 

While Aito blocked the incoming wave of warriors, Sheyla took cover behind him, activating her Gift, Acute First Sense, to increase the range of her eyesight. 

Sheyla peered into the distance, sometimes crouching to avoid a few normal arrows. She saw the henchmen's hesitation to face Aito in melee combat, even though he was wounded and tired. He truly had struck fear in their mortal heart. 

She saw the archers located behind the enemy lines, who apparently had the order to shoot at will now. Occasional arrows flew in the air when they thought they could hit something. Funny how there was more friendly fire than an actual hit on their real targets.

She saw… nothing really suspicious. Whoever that archer was, he was hiding himself quite well into the crowd. 

Then finally, she identified a weird hooded individual that appeared to be an elementalists at first sight. The man was lifting his index finger in front of him, pointing at Aito. She wondered if it was truly the mystery archer but nonetheless aimed at him. Sheyla had only a dozen bolts left in her magazine. Every shot counted. 

Suddenly, a yellow string shot out of the man's finger, passed by a few henchmen, and wrapped itself around Aito's arm that was wielding the ax, hindering his movements. 

Sheyla focused her attention on the man, and, since Aito was buying her some time, decided to use her new skill. Aura traveled from her bosom to the crossbow, enveloping the bolt with a yellow layer that was particularly thick at the tip, as if it was creating a new sharper bolt of sorts. 

To further improve the destructive power of the skill, she used Durability on the entire repeater, strengthening the structure and bowstring, increasing its effective range by at least a fourth of what it normally was. 

Then, pressing the trigger, she released the deadly projectile. It spun through the air, straight and true, passing by warriors who felt a gust of wind near their ears. The hooded man barely had time to realize something was extremely wrong when the bolt flew under his hood and pierced his brain. 

That was how Borat, one of the four managers, a Lv2 stringman, a man unknown to the trio, and a secondary character, died without being ever given a spotlight. 

With its caster dead, the yellow string that was wrapped around Aito's arm faded and disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place. 

In front of Aito, the henchmen's fear grew even more as he once again resumed the massacre. Hacking, slashing, piercing, bashing and… halted by another powerful arrow that struck his right leg at the center of the bruised spot. Although it rebounded, the impact created a slight, barely audible cracking sound. 

"FUCK!" Aito shouted to externalize his anger and frustration over a fissured bone. It probably wasn't that big of a fissure, but it still hurt like hell. He gritted his teeth through the pain and resumed the carnage, albeit at a slower pace due to his accumulated injuries. "Sheyla got him yet!?" 

Two replies to his question rapidly brushed past him in a form of bolts, flying through the crowd to hit two cannon fodders but not the mystery archer.

Aito's Intuition flared up, imploring him to evade an incoming attack. He shifted his shield to the side blocking an arrow that hit like a truck. 

The seemingly unending wave of challengers, his injuries, a mystery archer, and his almost empty mana storage turned the situation into a real hell for him, even more than before. Soon, he'd be forced to fight without Durability. Possible, but much, much harder to do. 

Two bolts flew past him again in succession, lodging themselves yet again in two warriors. 

"Sheyla!?" He asked, too busy trying to stay alive to actually make a real sentence. 

"Not yet! He dodges every time!" 

'If it continues like this I'm screwed,' he thought, blocking yet another arrow. 'I don't know if she'll get him in time. Running and turning our back to them right now is unthinkable. We'll just get shot by the mystery archer.' 

WOOSH! 

Two more bolts were sent into the crowd with no apparent success. That's when Aito decided it was time for a change of plan. 

"Fall back!" Aito said, thinking of slowly walking backward while fighting. 

"No! Just two more shots!" Sheyla replied. 

"Shit…," Aito said, hesitating. In this situation, two more shots seemed longer to him than two more minutes when in fact it'd be two seconds. Still, he decided to trust her with this. "Fine!" 

At that moment, the yellow color coating his gears dimmed a little, indicating that Durability was about to be deactivated. Barely a second after, his shield was the first to be uncoated, then his breastplate. 

A strong sense of danger swarmed him as he could feel an ethereal, possible arrow going through his leg as Durability turned off. Aito immediately moved his shield to protect himself from the vicious projectile that punctured his shield but didn't go through it.

Almost as soon as the arrow hit Aito's protective gear, one of Sheyla's bolts flew straight to the arrow's source where a masked man hid behind a warrior, using him as a meat shield, then sneakily went behind another warrior as the previous died.

Knowing that he'd only swap a meat shield for another, Sheyla took her time to charge the bolt with her remaining aura, aimed and fired. 

—Active Skill: Piercing Shot—

The bolt flew straight to her target, taking a trajectory that prevented it from hitting the cannon fodders in its way. With a perfect aim, it reached an area between the meat shield's chest and shoulder where there were only muscles. 

No bones would hinder the bolt that pierced through leather armor like it was butter. It effortlessly went through and hit the mystery archer hiding behind. 

"Got him!" Sheyla said, "Not a kill, though." 

"No matter!" Aito said, front kicking away two henchmen while thinking of taking this small window of opportunity to run. "Fall back!" 

Without Durability, Aito couldn't be as careless as before. Fearing he wouldn't last long in his normal state he bashed a few henchmen using every iota of strength at his disposal before rapidly turning his tail and run as fast as his injured leg allowed him. 

Sheyla used her three last bolts to cover their retreat, aiming at their pursuers' legs who fell and created a snowball effect by hindering their fellow sect members' footings. 

Since she was now faster than Aito with an injured leg, she remained slightly behind to push back the few warriors that got through with quick sword slashes and stabs. 

Halfway through, they heard a guttural roar that came from within the enemy ranks. 

"Come back you fucking coward!!!" Sam shouted, pushing away his own subordinates to make a way to his sworn enemy.