Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Lisa watched as how Chuck struggled to keep up with their enemies lightning-speed attacks and brutal swings. She continuously cast Light magic, one of the four rare forms of Mana to cover any gap that the enemies might exploit.

[Healing Light], [Light Ray], [Light Barrier] she cast one spell after another without holding back her mana. But even then the injuries Chuck suffered earlier were far worse and as time passed, more and more wounds accumulated on his body.

She thought back to the time when Chuck used all of his strength to shield her from the collapsing cliff.

If only Chuck wasn't injured while saving her, he wouldn't struggle this much against enemies of this level. Now that all of their teammates that have been with them through thick and thin were now all gone, Chuck was left with no choice but to hold the frontlines alone.

"[Aiding Light]" Lisa cast a light magic spell and buffed the stats of Chuck for a short period of time. She watched as how even while alone, Chuck didn't back down and held his ground firmly. Even while injured, with every swing of his long sword, he was able to knock back his enemies.

Spells continuously rained down on him from the enemies on the backlines and bathed his body in blood. Clearly, his body had accumulated lots of wounds that couldn't even be imagined by an ordinary person and he was holding on with just his sheer willpower.

Looking at his state, Lisa's eyes glossed over, and tears continuously trickled down her cheeks. Even when her mana was running on a deficit, and pushing her body any further would definitely harm her, she still kept healing Chuck over and over again.

Just when she was about to cast her light magic once again, the tail of the Falcon Winged Bull-Ox managed to slip through Chuck and whipped Lisa smashing her into a tree.

BANG...

"LISA… AHHHHhhhhh" seeing that Lisa got hurt by the tail of the chimaera that managed to slip through his defence, he shouted in concern towards Lisa and in rage towards his enemies.

Forgoing all his defence due to his fury, he charged up towards the chimaera and brought it down in one fell swoop. However, due to his rage, he was full of openings and his enemies weren't incompetent enough to neglect that opportunity.

Immediately after Chuck brought down the chimaera, rumbling lightning taking the form of hundreds of swords, berserker energy filled with bloodthirst and pure strength, along with novice tier spells of many different attributes came raining down.

Chuck wasn't afraid of being hit by any of them but what made him frighten and lose his mind was that all the spells weren't targeted at him and instead flew straight towards Lisa.

Lisa's class was a mage which made her defence vulnerable than even an ordinary warrior. there was no way she could survive through the barrage of attacks.

"Ugh" enduring the pain, Lisa used her staff to get back on her feet. She was a level 325 [Sage], a class higher than the [Wizard]. Her class greatly strengthened her magic and luck but didn't provide much in the other areas of stats. Taking a direct hit from a level 281 Falcon Wing Bull-Ox, it directly shaved more than one-third of her HP.

Puffing out a mouthful of blood, she desperately tried to get back up. Her mind was currently hazy and a tingling pain kept assaulting her head due to overexerting her mana. She knew that Chuck would be in trouble if she didn't continuously heal him but no matter how much she tried, the haziness didn't disappear and the tingling pain in her head kept worsening.

Lisa could sense that the surrounding manas was in a turmoil and was rapidly convulsing. However, she was currently in a state, where she was not conscious enough to detect the imminent danger.

"LISAAAA" she heard a loud cry coming from Chuck which was filled with desperation and helplessness before everything was drowned by deafening noises.

BOOM… BOOOM… BOOM… BOOOM…

Hundreds of meters of the area was instantly covered by the magic as they devastated around the forest and in the eye of all this magic was Lisa.

The power brought forth by the combined might of Laris, Dale, and dozens of level 200 [Wizard] was enough to make the ground tremble and it felt just like a small-scale earthquake.

Earth and dirt rose into the air for dozens of meters and covered everything in dust.

"Cough… cough… what happened?" after the haziness and the pain in her head finally receded a little, dust-covered all her vision and she couldn't see a thing.

"Lis...a… are you..a.ll..right?" she heard a faint voice from amidst the dust which seemed to faintly resemble Chuck's. Sensing that the voice came from very near her, she tried taking a few steps towards him.

But her steps halted soon enough after she noticed chuck standing right in front with his back facing her.

However, what made her lips quiver and her heart break in sorrow was the figure of the person in front of her.

The man was drenched in blood from head to toe, his body was filled with wounds and he was missing an arm. A large pool of blood lay beneath him but the man was still standing just like a tall tree during a storm that refused to budge down.

"Chuck?!… Chuck!!… Chuck!!!" with a heartbreaking voice, Lisa ran towards Chuck and held him close to her.

The wide-area magic that was targeted at her, was stopped by him. He used his very life to shield her from the attack. His sword that was made of Black-gold, a [C] tier weapon that had accompanied him for a long time was in pieces.

Currently, he felt no pain nor any discomfort, even the wounds he had suffered in his battle, hurt no more. It was as if his sense of pain was numbed to the point where he couldn't even feel anything. His body lost all its strength and was starting to fall back when his body was caught in a soft embrace.

With reddened eyes and tears continuously trickling down, Lisa held Chuck close to her.

"PHEW..." Seeing that the pair had finally gone down, Laris revealed a satisfied smile and at the same time, he felt a sense of pride burning inside.

Chuck Remington his valour and accomplishments were so great that it also reached the city of Morgress and Laris of course heard some of them. The man had accumulated so much merit that he became the guild manager of the branch guild seven years after joining the guild.

Laris acknowledged that the man was truly strong after exchanging blows with him and now, he had defeated that very same man.

As he was about to end the pair, Dale made a move before him. Overtaken by madness and thirst for battle, Dale's towering body sped towards the fallen pair.

"Not enough… more… more" overflowing strength ran rampant inside his body and repeatedly invoked his hunger for battle. Until the duration of the [Battle Hunger] ends, Dale would be in a state where he would continuously seek to battle someone no matter friends or foes.

The side effect of the skill is that the mental state of the user would become unstable the more they used and relied on the skill before losing their mind. Despite that many warriors that got the [Berserker] class after reaching level 300, mostly use it as it provides a massive buff to their stats which can allow them to turn any situation around.

Right now, it looked like Dale had lost his mind and was ruled by his hunger for battle. The consequence of using the [Battle hunger] skill.

Lisa tightly hugged Chuck who looked like he was hovering between the borders of life and death and completely ignored the onrushing Dale. She didn't wish for such an ending but fate was cruel and unpredictable. It showed her moments of bliss only to drop her in the pits of hell the next second.

She embraced Chuck and caressed his cheek, the man who would always wear a stoic face and bicker with her in every opportunity he can find, currently had a peaceful face. She knew how desperately he wanted to save her and for that he worked his body so bad that it was truly a god's miracle that he still had a faint trace of life.

Victory and defeat didn't matter to her any longer.. If they were destined to go down, she at least wanted to share the same fate as him.