Unfortunately, every one of their movements was observed by Benjamin using the water particle detection spell. And because of that, they didn’t have any success in finding Benjamin at all, and instead alarmed many of the magical beasts in the forest. Some innocent squirrels and raccoons suffered because of that; they were reduced to ashes by the fury the Priests took out on the environment.
About half an hour later, the expressions on the Priests’ faces were close to despair. Everyone was red-faced, one of them even looked like he was ready to cry.
They scanned the surrounding forests with angrily, like their emotions were piled up to a certain extreme. They suddenly turned around in unison, no longer looking around, and instead headed towards one direction without even a turn of their heads.
Seeing this, Benjamin couldn’t help being a little surprised.
But quickly, he reacted. Unquestionably, this game of cats and mouse had exceeded the patience of the three Priests. Their mental state had collapsed and they had lost even their desire to kill, deciding to give up on searching and not play Benjamin’s game any more.
Thinking of leaving?
Benjamin hid in the bushes and secretly shook his head.
He had already followed them for so long, fought such a long battle of attrition, finally broken down their mental states. How could he let these 3 people go just like that?
So, while continuously storing up ice chunks in the Space of Consciousness, Benjamin stealthily followed up with them.
Maybe they were pissed off to the point they couldn’t deal with anymore but the three Priests actually walked out at a pretty fast speed. Benjamin equally needed to quicken his pace just to keep up. When the distance between them reached approximately 15 meters, Benjamin felt that the time was about right. He prepared to attack.
He first brought out the gun model and made his preparations. Then, he immediately assembled the ice chunks that he had continuously been storing in the Space of Consciousness just now into a large sword of ice, brought it into reality and prepared to use it to break through the opponents’ barrier with one strike.
However, it was also at this moment the three Priests who were speedily walking, suddenly stopped in their steps, and turned around. They tore apart their disguise and the rage in their expression disappeared, turning into confident indifference. Their gazes were peculiarly steady, coldly thrown at the tree where Benjamin was hiding.
Those eyes, it was as if they had discovered Benjamin’s position much earlier. Observing this scene through his water particle detection spell, Benjamin’s heart sank with a thump instantly.
Oh shit.
With no time to react, he could only rely on his instinct for danger. He crouched down and rolled rather sloppily to the right as fast as he could!
At the same time, he felt a breeze of cold air to his left which stuck to his face and gave him a cut. Benjamin broke into a cold sweat.
At the same time the Priests turned around, a sword formed by Holy Light appeared extremely suddenly on the top of Benjamin’s head. The blade showed no signs of stopping, like a bolt of white lightning, and cut downwards the moment it appeared.
If Benjamin didn’t detect that something wasn’t right in time and roll towards the side, he would probably end up like the pig earlier by now, sliced into two halves by the shining sword edge!
What just happened?
Could it be that...the three Priests had already discovered him?
Thinking back on all that he had experienced just now, Benjamin immediately realised that he fell into their trap. It didn’t matter how the opponents found out; judging from their earlier expressions, they had known for very long. The previous rage and helplessness were all an act by this fucking group of Priests! They acted out the scene of their mental state collapsing just so Benjamin would reveal himself and they could lash out a counter attack!
He was too careless.
Looking at the ground on his left side which was slashed so hard that a deep ditch had formed, Benjamin couldn’t help but be scared. If he didn’t see the opponent’s expressions using his water particle detection spell, Benjamin would be more dead than dead.
He thought he was already sneaky enough, but who’d have thought, this group of people were sneakier than him!
That was too close....these people, how did they discover him?
Benjamin snapped back to reality, his heart still pounding when he thought of the incident. The Priests seemed to be equally as surprised by the fact that Benjamin was still alive. However, they snatched the opportunity first. After their initial surprise, they immediately began to chant the spell again. Once again, a blade of light formed from Holy Light appeared and floated above the top of Benjamin’s head.
Luckily, Benjamin was prepared this time, summoning the large sword of ice which he initially planned to use for breaking the opponent’s shield, and used it to protect the top of his head.
Ding!
As if between clash of real swords, a sharp noise ends rang out. The blade of light clashed with the large sword of ice. With a burst of Holy Light, the blade of light disappeared, signifying Benjamin’s success at blocking the attack.
Benjamin breathed a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, no matter how sly they were, the three of them weren’t very strong in terms of physical skills; their attacks could still be parried by Benjamin. If this weren’t the case then he would really have been screwed in this situation.
Still fine, still fine, although he was toyed with for a while, the current situation wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t fight back.
Regaining his balance, he rushed out from behind the tree to face these three Priests. His cover was blown earlier on, so staying hidden was now meaningless. He might as well take them head on.
On the bright side, for their performance to be more genuine, the Priests actually sacrificed quite a few crosses of protection. When Benjamin begins fighting them, he wouldn’t be too disadvantaged.
However, after rushing out from behind the tree and looking at the behavior of the three Priests, he couldn’t help but sharply inhale.
"Fuck...."
He saw the three Priests standing within the barrier, hands together, all chanting the same spell. In that moment, their spiritual energy seemed to have melded into one, forming a huge net above their heads. Countless Holy Light flowed and leaped around them, as if they had a life of their own.
Then, bolt after bolt of light blades formed in front of them, so densely packed it was like a swarm of wasps who had their nest attacked. So far, there were already 30 or more formed, and the number was still increasing....
Seeing this scenario, Benjamin’s heart sank even more.
Although he didn’t know what divine charm this was, whether an intermediate divine charm or high level divine charm, or a combination charm from the Church’s experiments, but looking at it aimed at him, Benjamin was clear on one thing: He couldn’t let his opponents release this skill.
Are you kidding? Looking at their demeanor, this lot wanted to mince him into ground meat! At that moment, Benjamin came to a decision. He took a deep breath, controlled the floating large sword of ice above his head, directed it at the Priests, and ruthlessly stabbed at them!
Bzz!
The large sword struck their barrier. Momentously, a crack appeared on the barrier which had previously looked indestructible.
However, just a crack wasn’t enough to interrupt his opponents’ spell casting. But Benjamin didn’t hesitate, and instead hurriedly and relentlessly stabbed at the crack with the large sword. A loud bang was heard again and the crack expanded. However, the barrier was still unshattered. As for the tip of the large sword of ice, it was stuck on the barrier, unable to be pulled out instantly.
Seeing that, Benjamin suddenly sneered.
He didn’t think of a way to withdraw the sword or any ideas along the lines of continuing his attack on the barrier with the sword. It was the opposite; he made up his mind and in that moment, controlling all the ice condensed into the huge sword, made it explode from within!
BOOM!
Crushed ice flew, akin to shrapnel after detonating a bomb, and scattered everywhere at high speeds. Even Benjamin himself needed to summon a barrier of water balls so that he wouldn’t get hurt by the shards.
As for the center of the explosion, a dense white mist hid the silhouettes of the three Priests. At the same time, because of the particle oscillations caused by the explosion, the water particles in that area were messed up and Benjamin’s detection spell couldn’t work. There was no way he could observe what happened in the icy fog.
But, what he could see were that the countless blades of light hovering nearby were disturbed by the fierce particle vibrations and had slowly began to self-disintegrate.
Seeing that, Benjamin’s was relieved.
The bottom line was that the large sword of ice was also a product he had used close to a hundred Ice Breaking spells to form. No matter what, an explosion caused by it, even if it couldn’t severely injure the Priests, could throw them into chaos, unable to cast spells.
Not to mention, he had also used the crack in the barrier to stick the sword deeper in. Unquestionably, the explosion at the tip of the sword left some significant damage on the three Priests.
Soon, as the fading of the leftover vibrations from the explosion slowed, the disordered water particles gradually returned to normal. Finally, Benjamin could use water particle detection spell to confirm the conditions of the three Priests now.
He closed both his eyes and began feeling. But just as the image reflected on the water particles entered his mind…
Bang!
A gun fight had started. Benjamin’s right hand which was behind his back, unhesitatingly lifted the gun he was gripping and shot. A bullet penetrated through the icy fog, and within 2 seconds, a dull thud was heard from inside the fog.
Momentously, Benjamin felt as though the great weight was lifted off his shoulders.
"I’ve counted how many Crosses of Protection the three of you carry all together, it’s around 70 in total, isn’t it?" He opened his eyes and suddenly spoke, a smirk surfaced at the corner of his lips. "You guys aren’t bad. After such a long battle, I’ve finally used up only one person’s Cross."
He purposely paused before continuing. "But, not being able to help him block this shot, you guys must be blaming yourselves."