小嫂子的味道

He was already abusing his [Foresight] skill and forcefully increasing its range was the last push it needed. Neither his brain nor his eyes were able to handle that much stress and to prevent his head from exploding under pressure the skill shut itself down automatically.

This was a safety measure all of the high-level skills have in them, but here it rather did the opposite. The effects started to kick in.

Just like when Zero had deactivated his skill after using it continuously for thirty minutes for the first time, he started to slowly lose consciousness.

The view before his eyes danced and ran in every other direction. He fell to the ground, with many a demon beasts around him, all of them ready to attack.

One of them stood on two feet and raised its bulky arms up in the air and targeted Zero down on the ground; it was planning on smacking Zero to death and making him a pulp of flesh and meat and blood.

Its arms were halfway through when suddenly a sword stabs the beast in the side of the chest, it was Alada. She gritted her teeth and pressed the sword further, but the demon\'s skin was hard. Thus she activated her magiken.

The blade of her sword shone and she, at last, pushed it deep inside the chest of the beast. There it pierced and destroyed its core, killing the demon as it fell lump to the side.

"See? You NEED my help, and I just proved how helpful I can be," said Alada as she glanced at Zero with the side of her eye.

At the same time, she engages another beast in combat, it leaped toward her and she blocked it with her sword after delivering a furry of slashes. However, one more came at her from the back and yet another from the side.

This was bound to happen, as the number of beasts wasn\'t going to go down that easily.

She would\'ve been stabbed and shredded right then and there, but as those beasts were charging a strip of pure darkness came.

It was like a long scarf, and it was so black that it seemed to have been made of pure shadows.

The scarf was moving at will, and before soon it wrapped itself around all the beats near Alada and Zero. The beasts had let their guard down because they didn\'t know whether to see this thing as an enemy or not and before they could have decided it was already too late.

The scarf tightened all of a sudden and was as hard as a rock and as sharp as a blade, ripping close to the bodies of the beasts it squashed them into pieces. As strange as it may seem, the scarf had wrapped itself around the chests of all the beasts.

Thus when it tightened and tore through their skin, it ended up destroying the cores as well.

[I told you to be CAREFUL just a few moments ago, and here you are getting yourself killed again!] Req scolded inside Zero\'s head; and even if she was not aware of it, she was providing him with more pain as right now his brain was already under too much pressure, a mind link just made it worse.

\'Tch! It was not really my mistake. I get it! I get it already! I\'ll be careful from now on so get out of my head,\' Zero replied in a tired-sounding voice and brushed her off.

This scarf was, of course, sent by Req. In fact, it was one of the attacks the Requiem sword could perform: [Scarf of the Night Sky].

Since the surroundings were clear, at least for now. Alada took the moment and helped Zero to stand up. Though that was quite a difficult task in itself.

Zero was losing consciousness rapidly along with control over his body. Then there was the wide gush the beast had opened in his back; blood was losing a lot of blood as well.

It was like his body wasn\'t listening to him. He wanted to stand up and take hold of his feet and body, but he couldn\'t. He didn\'t know why exactly, he just couldn\'t.

But be that as it may, Alada wasn\'t about to give up either and despite the struggle she had to do, in the end, she was able to make him stand on his feet by supporting him on her shoulder.

"Now you owe me a big one. Once all this is over, you\'ll have to take me on your team or whatever you have. I\'ll work for you, and you\'ll help me in return," she said in his ear; though he didn\'t hear all that clearly since his sense of hearing was beginning to fade all the same.

Therefore he didn\'t reply either. He probably didn\'t want to.

They started to walk forward; due to his injury, Alada had intended to drop him to Anya and then take hold of beasts in the middle grounds herself.

She didn\'t exactly know why, but on this cold and chilly night of winters she suddenly felt hot. And it was not the type of hot you feel while standing under the sun or near a campfire, it was the type of hot you feel when you have a very high fever.

The only difference was that instead of feeling it in her head and body, she was getting a burning sensation in her stomach. And it increased to tenfolds within seconds. She touched her lips with her free hand and found that there was blood coming out.

She looked at the blood on her fingers, and then she tilted her head down and looked at her stomach.

Then all became clear to her.

There she saw the hand of demon beasts coming out of her stomach, tearing her skin and penetrating her body from one end to the other.

Soon the hotness she was feeling faded, and she was cold; too cold. She looked at Zero who had the same blank expression on his face, the light in her eyes faded and she slowly resigned to the ground.