Chapter 204: Everyone’s Enemy (3)

The factions of Liqueur didn’t dare challenge Keter and Stella relying on numbers alone. No matter how often they dismissed Keter’s strength, saying they avoided him because he was annoying rather than frightening, they still acknowledged it deep down. Keter might not be the most powerful warrior alive, but he was someone who would not die easily.

Stella, on the other hand, was simply strong. Many had witnessed her wrap her whip in an Aura Laser, a symbol of a Grandmaster. Overwhelming her with sheer numbers alone was impossible.

Thus, they prepared their own trump cards to deal with them. To counter Stella, the whip-user, they had recruited five whip masters, each a five-star Master. To face Keter, renowned for his mastery of dual daggers and martial arts, they gathered four specialists in extreme close-quarters combat.

One of them even came from the Red Eye Gang: Cataract, the one who had boldly declared to Keter that it would be his death day. Together, this four-man squad was each fighters of executive-level caliber. He grinned confidently, rolling up his sleeves to reveal faint cracks along his forearms. He formed a triangle with his fingers, and the cracks split open.

What had seemed like cracks were actually eyes. They opened, their eyeballs rolling around to prove they were neither fake nor illusions. He had one on each palm, three on each forearm, and another on his forehead. With his regular two eyes, Cataract now had a total of eleven eyes.

Ohhh... I can feel it... everything in this world... I can see the flow of air, the grains of mana... even the thoughts of those worthless insects...

This was no exaggeration. With nine additional eyes on his body, Cataract now had vision surpassing human limits. Not only did he have no blind spots, but some of the eyes functioned like those of nocturnal creatures or animals that sensed body heat.

Hehehe... and these are just side benefits. The real ability is the power to see through everything.

Keter was exceptional in close combat. This wasn’t just that he was technically skilled; it meant that he was good at psychological games. In particular, his fighting style excelled at deceiving the senses, especially sight. Thus, an opponent who could observe him from multiple angles would have no reason to lose in close quarters, as they would see every move he made.

Even without the eyes, Cataract was a martial artist—a Master-level fighter from the Samael Empire. In pure hand-to-hand combat, he believed he could match Keter. Now, with the eyes granted by Maran, he was certain he could not lose.

Still, even confident Cataract had one lingering doubt.

Rumor has it that Keter switched to using a bow. That has to be a bluff. He’s insane enough that it might be true, but even then, it’s been less than half a year. No one could master archery in just half a year.

Keter’s main weapons were daggers. He sometimes used throwing techniques, but they only had a range of thirty meters. While he could use all kinds of weapons, no one had ever seen him use a bow, except for a few who claimed he did once when fighting the Red Comet.

But anyone can pick up a bow, can’t they?

“Hahaha! I, Cataract, will tear you apart, Keter!”

Just as Cataract finished preparing for battle and stepped forward to leap, his eleven eyes clearly saw Keter, nearly three hundred meters away, drawing a jet-black bow and nocking a pure white arrow.

He’s really using a bow? And at this distance, he’s aiming at me?

Cataract knew little about archery, but he knew that bows didn’t usually have such long effective ranges. Yet, Keter released the bowstring, and the arrow flew. Cataract saw it with his eyes, but perception and actual time were different. This was the ability of the eyes Maran had given him.

It’s fast, and it’s coming this way. Is he targeting me?

Seeing the arrow and perception were completely different. The moment he perceived the arrow flying, it was already right in front of him.

Cataract couldn’t understand. His eleven eyes told him the arrow was real, its trajectory was aimed right at him, yet none of his other senses acknowledged its existence. They rejected it, insisting it wasn’t an arrow at all.

An arrow fired from such a distance should carry sound and weight, but to every sense but sight, there was nothing. This meant that it was most likely an illusion. Still, if it were real and he ignored it, he would be dead, so even if it were an illusion, he needed to evade or block it.

Cataract should have made a decision immediately, but the sensory contradiction overloaded his brain. However, the human brain was fast; even in complicated situations, it could recover, re-prioritize, and solve problems in under a second.

I have to dodge it!

A martial arts genius, Cataract, moved before thinking, twisting his body hard to avoid the arrow.

Confident, he shouted, “Hah! Keter! Nice shot, but you’re far from hitt...”

He never finished his sentence. It felt like something was caught in his throat. It didn’t take him long to figure out that it was because of the warm sensation in his chest.

I dodged it...

The white arrow he thought he had avoided was buried so deep in his chest that only the fletching was visible.

Ah... so that’s it. I dodged after the arrow hit me.

The fact that Cataract believed he had dodged Keter’s arrow was itself an illusion. The arrow was far faster than he had anticipated. Keter’s double-accelerated shots were something even the strongest warriors only understood after being hit.

The lack of presence of the arrow confused me, but never did I think the arrow itself would accelerate.

Cataract was a genius, so he instantly understood why he had been struck. If a second arrow came, he would surely be ready. But no second chance came.

“Damn it...”

Thud!

Cataract collapsed backward, the hand on the arrow to pull it free.

As the witnesses were frozen in shock, three figures stepped forward: they were the remaining members of the four-man squad, Keter’s designated counterforce. They were no less fearsome than Cataract—in fact, they actually looked stronger than him. This now three-man squad consisted of a warrior the size of an ogre wielding a hammer as big as a grown man, a puppeteer flanked by two grotesque dolls with mouths split ear to ear, and a middle-aged man with narrow eyes dressed like a schoolteacher.

They looked down at Cataract’s instantly slain body with smug expressions.

“Hehe... Cataract was the strongest of our squad.”

“Which means we, being weaker, have no reason to step in.”

“And besides, we never heard that Keter could even use a bow.”

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Those were the first and last words of the trio.

* * *

The Four-Man Squad created to kill Keter had been dismantled just like that. They just retreated from the battlefield before anyone could even react. It was a ridiculous turn of events, but the people of Liqueur weren’t about to back down so easily.

“Kill them!”

“Take it!”

Shouting like a battle cry, the mob surged forward. Keter clicked his tongue as he watched.

“

Tsk, tsk.

I’ll give you credit for gathering here, but it’s clear you came without a plan.”

He flicked his left hand, and White Cloud that had been lodged in Cataract’s heart reappeared in his grasp. As with any relic-grade equipment, retrieval was also a built-in function. Keter was disappointed by the mindless charge, but he smiled in satisfaction at his weapon’s performance.

“As expected of an arrow forged with the authority of one of the Four Lords. I didn’t think it would take down Cataract in a single shot.”

Although Cataract had died to one arrow, Keter didn’t underestimate him. If he had fired an Aura Arrow instead, Cataract would have surely avoided it. His battle experience, coupled with eleven eyes, would have made it possible, even if his shot was double-accelerated.

It may not work twice, but if it works once, that’s already a huge advantage.

Out of the five opponents Keter had considered the most troublesome among the thousands present, he had just assassinated one with White Cloud. Another one was the narrow-eyed middle-aged man from the Three-Man Squad, but he had fled on his own. That left only three strong enemies.

The rest of the thousands posed no real problem to Keter. It wasn’t because they were weak. They might look like street punks and local thugs, but every one of them was at least a two-star warrior. Liqueurians had no choice but to awaken their aura in order to survive in the brutal environment. As such, those who survived were naturally strong.

Even regular soldiers without aura could, in large enough numbers, bring down a Master-level warrior. And the ones surrounding the Infinite Bank now weren’t just anyone; they were from the major factions in Liqueur. Many of them were four-star warriors, strong enough to serve as lieutenant-captains in a knight order outside Liqueur.

On top of that, there were plenty of Master-level warriors wielding weapons of pure aura, even if the quality was lacking. These warriors came charging at the Infinite Bank from all directions without fear, ready to die.

And yet, Keter’s expression wasn’t tense; he looked as though he were stifling a yawn.

“You guys don’t know the first thing about war. No matter how many of you gather, it won’t change a thing.”

One look at their charge told Keter there was no discipline or order, but that was to be expected; these people might be used to brawls with a few dozen warriors, but never in Liqueur’s history had thousands attacked a single target at once.

The numbers were large only because the four major factions were gathered here, but none of them were taking orders from anyone. Not even their own executives tried to command them. It was every man for himself.

One of the most basic concepts in proper battle was for the vanguard to break through first to open the way, but here, no one kept formation. The faster ones simply overtook the slower ones.

“What is this, a footrace?”

It wouldn’t have been an issue if only one or two behaved that way, but thousands were doing it all at once. Obviously, this led to them tripping, stumbling, and crashing into each other. They were getting injured before they could even swing a weapon.

Watching the rabble was mildly entertaining, but Keter had places to be. He adjusted his grip on his bow.

“Come to think of it, you haven’t yet had a taste of true archery, have you?”

He had used archery when he fought the rampaging Red Comet, but only a few had witnessed it. Back then, he had to rely on Demon Arrows since aura didn’t work, which ended the battle quickly. Even if someone had seen it, it would have looked like nothing more than an ordinary bow and arrow.

I’ll show you that a bow is a strategic weapon.

And strategy, simply put, meant denying the enemy the chance to fight. Keter shot into the air, anchoring his position with magic, and drew his bowstring back to its limit.

Voong...

Milky Way, an Aura Arrow with its explosive power compressed, made its debut in Liqueur.