Essence of War

Sia silently looked at Luna for two seconds, before ruffling Achilles' hair, who was laying on her soft thighs.

"It's him."

Everyone was baffled by the sudden words but they were dumbfounded by the silvery-white-haired elf's intimate action with a man more than that.

Achilles was surprised by the fact that she just exposed he was the one who killed it, but soon decided that it didn't matter.

'She must have something in mind.'

"Isn't he just a Higher Evolved? How could he have killed that thing?" Jackson scoffed at what Sia said, he wasn't buying it at all.

Achilles was annoyed by this old bastard talking out of nowhere when he sensed something strange.

'...Do I know her?'

He was looking at the bob-cut woman who stood the furthest away from him, she was staring at him with indifferent eyes, but he could tell there was a hidden emotion behind them.

Sia also began noticing a particular gaze directed at Achilles, her brows furrowed slightly for a moment before she glanced at the latter.

'Why is she looking at you funny?'

'Beats me! I've probably met her somewhere but we for sure didn't interact.'

'Weird...'

"Big sis?" Luna looked at Sia puzzledly after seeing that she was silent.

Before the succubus could reply, however, multiple auras started approaching their direction swiftly.

It didn't take a genius to see that another wave of the horde was coming, this time much more powerful than everything that came before.

"Talk later." She said to Luna and Mina first before looking straight at Achilles, her irises slowly changed their colors.

[You've recovered yet?]

[...This should be enough.] Achilles replied as his pupils also changed into a red shade.

The couple stood up as they brandished their weapons, the impending horde of horrors was heading toward them at an alarming speed.

With one look into the other's eyes, the duo understood their objectives instantly and disappeared from where they were, leaving behind the four who just stupidly stared at the empty space for a moment.

"...Let's go, Mina!" Luna was the first to snap out of her daze and spoke to Mina.

The fox girl nodded slightly before the two charged into the battlefield.

Yuna and Jackson were quiet for a second and followed up soon later as well.

'Let me see if that brat is really as strong as that woman says.' Jackson thought doubtfully as he eyed Achilles' silhouette.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three pterodactyls flew across the sky as they breathed down breaths of flames. The lizards didn't seem to care about their fellow Corrupted as some weak monsters got burnt into charred corpses, but the stronger ones remained unperturbed.

While the three pterodactyls were still ravaging everything from above, they noticed two tiny humans figure coming closer to them.

The abominations let out low shrieks and they breathed out even more fire than before, completely engulfing the two humans below.

After 10 seconds, the monsters began diving down to claim their reward as they sensed an abundance of power coming from the two humans.

They searched within the sea of flames without being bothered by the heat, these monsters naturally had immunity against fire, otherwise, they would have burnt themselves a thousand times already.

One of the pterodactyls looked left and right cluelessly as no matter how hard it tried, there was still no sign of a human being.

While it was still distracted, a blurry silhouette appeared behind it from the burning flames.

Two red gleams flashed brightly as the shadow dashed to the lizard. The creature realized something was upon it and it turned around.

The Corrupted quickly defended itself, but it was already too late. The blurry shadow created a massive cut on the former's torso.

It shrieked painfully before flying up into the sky again, the cry seemed to have warned its brethren as the two others flew up as well.

They turned to where the silhouette was and let out threatening roars.

"""GARGHHH!!!!!"""

The blurry shadow — Achilles clicked his tongue in annoyance when he saw that his sneak attack had failed.

'How the hell should I kill them?'

[Rein in your mind, darling.] Sia's beautiful but also strangely familiar voice sounded out from behind him, but he could not sense anybody nearby.

'Sia?'

[You're having too many unnecessary thoughts in the midst of battle. What strategy to kill them, their strengths, weaknesses...etc.]

[The essence of war is murder. Either you die or your enemy dies. Nothing else matters.]

Achilles felt three invisible hands wrapping themselves around his neck, each of them was unfamiliar...but oddly dear to him?

[...Show them hell.] Three voices that bore no resemblance — one mischievous — the other caring — the last obsessive, were overlapping themselves.

Different...but also the same.

Achilles felt all his thoughts disappear as the only thing that remained in his mind was.

[Die.]