Chapter 80 (1/2)

Chapter 80: Absolute Quietude

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

More than a month ago in Gladstone, Link had once defeated a Level-3 Dark Elf Warrior called Jiggs. But there was a distance between Link and Jiggs, and that gave Link ample time to cast his spells.

Now Link was facing another opponent, Jacques, who was also a Level-3 Warrior. But there was a critical difference.

This time, it was a sneak attack. Jacques had stabbed Link from behind. Link was only aware of it when it was too late. Jacques had also been observing and following Link for quite some time, so he was quite familiar with his magic spells. In short, everything worked to Jacques’s advantage!

The sword was aimed at Link’s heart from behind and the sword was shrouded in an icy-blue water element Combat Aura. The instant the tip of the sword touched Link’s clothes, a biting cold spread to his skin, which Link immediately recognized as Combat Aura.

By then, Jacker, Lucy, and Anderson were all focused on attacking the Elemental Puppet, so none of them had any idea there would be such a twist in events happening right behind them!

At that moment, except for the archer Gildern, none of them had noticed Jacques’s betrayal. But even Gildern wouldn’t be able to save Link,

Gildern wouldn’t have enough time to save Link either because Jacques attacked Link at the right time when he was focused on aiming an arrow at the Elemental Puppet. All he could do was stare helplessly at Jacques stabbing his sword at Link’s frail body.

“No!!!” bellowed Gildern.

Gildern’s scream had caught the others’ attention. Jacker turned around and was completely shattered by what he saw. When Lucy saw it, she completely abandoned the fight against the Elemental Puppet and rushed towards Link to save him.

The damned coward! I should’ve killed him! thought Anderson, fuming.

He then cast aside the fight against the Elemental Puppet too and rushed to save Link. Princess Annie had ordered him to protect Link’s life at all costs. If anything happened to Link, he could just kiss any hopes of an advancement in his career goodbye.

In fact, even if Princess Annie hadn’t ordered him to do so, Anderson would still do anything to save Link because he had conceded to the plain fact that without Link, the rest of the team simply had no hope of getting out of this place alive. Link’s life must be saved no matter what!

But Lucy and Anderson were too late. Nothing could change the fact that no one could save Link now, he only had himself to rely on in order to survive.

The moment Jacques attacked him, Link knew that he had a very short time to react, probably less than 0.1 seconds. All he could do in that time was cast Level-0 spells. Among all the Level-0 spells he knew, the one that was the most powerful and that had the shortest spellcasting time was Glass Orb.

Using his Matchstick wand, he had decreased the spellcasting time for Glass Orb down to one every 0.04 seconds.

In 0.1 second, I can only unleash two Glass Orbs, which isn’t enough to damage Jacques’s Combat Aura or even to block his sword attack.

Fortunately, Link’s thinking speed was as quick as lightning, so he could analyze the situation in no time. He knew that to survive this attack, the wisest plan wasn’t to attack Jacques or to dodge his sword, but to minimize the damage his sword could do as much as possible.

Once he was clear of what to do, Link’s wand lit up and 0.04 seconds later, a dim blue orb flew out in a zig-zag trajectory, going around Link’s body and hitting Jacques’s sword’s blade before exploding.

Bang! The Combat Aura on Jacques’s sword flickered, counteracting with the fire elements in the Glass Orb. Nonetheless, it was not sufficient to block the Glass Orb’s explosion, so the blade of his sword was bent slightly.

An instant later, another glass orb appeared and the bent blade of Jacques’s sword bent even further. Because the second attack came right after the first one, the Combat Aura on the sword did not have time to recover from the first attack yet, so for a short while the strength of Jacques’s Combat Aura was halved.

It didn’t have any significant long-term effect, though. In truth, a Level-3 Warrior like Jacques didn’t even need half a second to restore the lost strength of the Combat Aura caused by the Glass Orbs back to its original level.

But to Link, this half a second of weakness was more than enough.

After the two Glass Orbs, Jacques’s sword was blasted and bent by the explosions and was deflected away from the position of Link’s heart. But even so, Link could not stop it from stabbing his body.