They Called Me Trash? Now I'll Hack Their World-Chapter 201: Are You Sure?

{Third Person POV}

[Inside The Dungeon Cave]

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Garf lay on his back, gasping like a fish out of water, a hand pressed against his chest where the blade had punched through.

Blood seeped between his fingers.

"Hold still, you giant idiot!" Yenna snarled.

She was kneeling beside him, had a thick wad of cloth directly over the bleeding puncture wound in the center of his chest, pressing down with all her body weight.

"Luckily you managed to avoid getting hit on your vitals," she whispered, her voice tight with forced calm.

"Hurts... like I got hit... anyway..." Garf’s voice was weak, breathy.

"Yeah, well, nearly dying tends to hurt." Yenna’s hands glowed faintly orange as she channeled what little healing magic she knew, not much though, she was a combat mage, not a healer, but enough to help the healing potion he took.

"Just stay still and—"

With her free hand, Yenna reached out, her fingers curling into a tight claw.

Three spheres of violent, roaring fire materialized in her palm.

"Flame Burst!"

With a furious shout, she hurled them at the hooded figure standing in the cavern shadows.

But the figure didn’t flinch. They didn’t even dodge.

With a lazy, practiced flick of their bloodied blade, they swatted the air. The fireballs were cleanly bisected, the six halves harmlessly splashing against the cavern walls behind them, raining harmless embers into the dirt.

"That bastard," Yenna clicked her tongue, her eyes narrowing in pure hatred.

A blur of motion tore through the gloom.

Rolf lunged from the flank, his twin daggers flashing as he aimed a desperate flurry of strikes at the figure’s ribs and neck. But his speed meant nothing.

The figure simply swayed, letting Rolf’s blades whistle through empty air.

They moved with terrifying economy. As Rolf overextended on a downward stab, the figure stepped perfectly inside his guard, clamped a hand around Rolf’s forearm like a steel vice, and used the rogue’s own momentum against him.

Rolf’s eyes went wide. "What—" 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

With a brutal pivot, the figure slammed Rolf bodily into the jagged cavern wall.

Rolf’s scream cut off as the air left his lungs.

"Take this!"

Mira’s voice rang out from across the chamber.

Her bowstring hummed a deadly tune.

Whistle! Whistle! Whistle! Whistle!

A half-dozen arrows tore through the air in a tight, inescapable spread, all coming from different angles, forming a cage pattern designed to leave no escape route.

But the figure merely just raised their free hand.

A hexagonal dome of pale, translucent blue energy flared to life... a high-tier mana shield.

The arrows struck it with a series of sharp, concussive cracks, shattering into splinters against the barrier.

"Out of the way!" Yenna roared, leaving Garf’s side.

She thrust both hands forward, hurling a fireball three times the size of the last one.

"Inferno Strike!"

Superheated plasma slammed into the center of the mana shield.

The impact deafened the cavern.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The blue barrier spider-webbed with glowing fractures under the intense heat.

Mira didn’t hesitate; she instantly fired three more armor-piercing arrows into the center of the cracks.

CRACK!

The shield shattered like cheap glass.

But there was nothing behind it.

The hooded figure had simply vanished.

"Mira, behind you!" Rolf choked out from where he was slumped against the wall.

Mira spun, but she was too slow.

The figure rematerialized right in her blind spot, stepping out of the shadows with a tightly coiled fist already in motion.

Mira barely managed to cross her arms over her chest before the heavy, leather-clad knuckle slammed into her forearms.

WHAM!

The sheer kinetic force lifted the archer off her feet.

"Argh!"

She skidded backward through the dirt, her boots carving trenches in the stone floor, until she managed to catch her balance.

She lowered her bruised arms, nocking another arrow, but the figure was already gone again, melting seamlessly back into the pitch-black recesses of the cavern.

A tense, suffocating silence fell over the group, broken only by the crackle of Yenna’s residual fires and a wet, ragged cough from Garf.

Rolf forced himself up, his legs shaking violently.

He leaned a trembling hand against the stone wall, his face entirely drained of color.

"He’s... he’s too fast," the rogue wheezed, spitting a wad of blood onto the floor.

"And it’s not just his speed. He’s reading us. It’s like... like he already knows what we’re going to do. What our blind spots are. It’s... it’s just like..."

"Edric," Yenna hissed, finishing his sentence. She glared into the dark, her fists clenching until her knuckles turned white.

"That treacherous, backstabbing bastard."

This time, Mira didn’t yell. She didn’t raise her voice to defend the man she had argued so fiercely for just minutes ago.

Her grip on her bow trembled, and she slowly lowered her eyes to the dirt, her jaw clamped shut in a bitter, silent realization. The fighting style was too familiar. The counterattacks were too perfect.

"Ghhh..." Garf let out a low groan, shifting his weight.

Yenna spun around.

"I told you not to move, you stubborn—"

She stopped. Garf pulled the bloody cloth away from his chest.

Beneath it, the terrible puncture wound had closed, leaving only a thick, raised knot of freshly stitched, pink skin from the high-grade healing potion.

Garf planted his heavy gauntlets in the dirt and pushed himself up. He retrieved his war axe and iron shield, rolling his massive shoulders.

"I can move perfectly now," he grunted. "Keep your eyes open. He’s playing with us. We need to—"

A shadow dropped from the ceiling directly above him.

The hooded figure descended like a falling guillotine, their blade aimed straight down at the gap between Garf’s neck and shoulder armor.

But Garf was a veteran. Without even looking up, he angled his massive iron shield upward, bracing his back leg.

CLANG!

Sparks rained down as the figure’s blade met solid iron.

Garf gritted his teeth, his boots sinking an inch into the dirt under the crushing weight of the plunging attack, but the line held.

"Got you!" Yenna screamed.

She was already there, a massive, white-hot sphere of fire fully conjured between her palms, illuminating the entire cavern. She aimed it point-blank at the figure suspended in the air.

"Not this time, you piece of shit. You’re going down!"

The hooded figure, still pressing their blade against Garf’s shield, slowly turned their head toward Yenna.

Beneath the shadow of the hood, a cruel, arrogant smirk flashed in the firelight.

"Are you sure?"

Yenna’s eyes widened in sudden, horrifying comprehension.

A sharp rush of displaced air sounded from behind her.

Before she could even turn her head, a second hooded figure stepped flawlessly out of her shadow, a jagged, poison-slicked dagger already slicing through the air toward her unprotected neck.