I let go of Celeste's dead body and it fell to the ground with a dull, sickening thud.

"She… she killed herself?… Why? Why did she…"

Just as I was still in the shock of what had just happened, a notification appeared to my side.

[You have acquired 100 Karma points.]

[Available Karma points: N 2,355 / P 150]

I snapped my gaze to the notification. Though surprised, I suspected it was because of my act of trying to save Celeste that I earned the positive Karma points. I turned back to look at her corpse one last time. Though it made no sense that she had just suddenly killed herself, I couldn't dwell on it, because I had no time to.

Turning away from her corpse and quickly returning my attention to the battlefield, I reached into my inventory and pulled out another mana elixir. Bonds used the mana of their bearers, and since Aika was fighting nonstop, I was running dangerously low again.

The ghouls now in the central plain were over thirty and more were still flooding into it from all sides. Seeing that Aika was overwhelmed, I yelled out, "Aika, return!"

In response, Aika burst into a flurry of feathers that all turned into numerous ravens and flew back to me.

But with her return, all the ghouls began chasing after her and rushing towards me too, like hungry wolves.

Seeing the ghouls in this frenzied state, I couldn't help but frown in growing dread, because from my previous knowledge of the game, these ghouls were calculative creatures. They only attacked a few numbers at a time and waited for an opening or a mistake from their opponents before overwhelming them.

This drastic change in their behavior was strange.

Why were they suddenly like this? Why were they all throwing themselves at us without regards for even their lives.

While I was pondering this, the ravens reached me and all of them began joining back together until Aika coalesced into her form and landed lightly behind me with her back against mine.

"Something is wrong…" I muttered, handing her a health elixir I had pulled out from the inventory.

She immediately grabbed, uncorked it, and began chugging it down quickly, then when she was done, she said hoarsely, "I feel so too…"

"What do we do, Aika? There's too many of them."

"What else? We can't outrun them, so we have no other choice than to fight…" She gritted her teeth. "…Or die."

I sighed… then drew in a resigned breath. "Together, Aika."

Aika threw away the empty vial to the side, then nodded. "Together… Ced."

At that moment, the ghouls reached us.

Aika instantly lunged toward the nearest ghoul, gripping the hilt of her katana with both hands lowered. Though these creatures were extremely fast due to them being of the Second Grade, Aika had, for some reason, begun to slowly match their speed.

She sidestepped, avoiding the creature's blade, then slashed its side with her katana, which had erupted in flames again. Without slowing, she immediately bent over backward, allowing a horizontal slash from another ghoul to pass right over her. Without giving that ghoul a chance to recover, she pointed two fingers at it like a gun, and flames shot out, engulfing the creature before she was on to the next.

I, on the other hand, clenched my fist and lunged at the ghoul that was hurtling toward me with its spear. That was when I noticed that my speed had also increased. Though I wasn't exactly matching the ghouls' speed, I could at least see their movements clearly. Following the combat tutorials that had now appeared at my side, and while still running, I bent over, ducking low beneath the spear's thrust, then drove my clenched fist into the creature's exposed stomach.

Of course, my blow wasn't enough to physically harm the creature, as I was still Grade One, but I wasn't aiming for impact. The moment my fist connected with the creature's stomach, a burst of eerie flames erupted from the point of contact, instantly consuming its core and blowing out through its back.

Moving swiftly, I moved on to the next ghoul, pivoted left to dodge its outstretched blade, then tapped its side with my palm. The side I tapped instantly erupted into flames that slowly began to burn the creature. But by the time the entire creature was engulfed, I was already ducking under the next creature's sword and tapping its leg.

[Leap Back!]

Without looking, I leapt back, and a spear slammed down exactly where I had been. I immediately looked up, clapped my hands together, and a wave of black flames erupted, instantly consuming the creature now directly in front of me and uprooting its spear from the floor.

Just then, the tutorial screen screamed really loudly in red:

[Duck!]

I immediately dropped, and a massive bone sword whipped less than an inch over my head.

Spinning around, I saw the ghoul, larger and faster than the others, suddenly hurl its sword down with terrifying speed.

'Crap!'

I dropped to my back and scrambled backwards, and the massive sword gashed the ground right between my legs

Now I was down and couldn't rise in time. The creature had already lifted the sword to strike again, and my eyes widened with fear.

But just before its sword came down, a sword of black flames burst out from its chest.

The creature staggered, but still brought its sword down…

However, that brief window allowed me to immediately roll over to the side, narrowly escaping the massive bone blade. It struck the ground where I'd been only a moment before, showering me with dirt and debris that stung my eye. But before I could even get a hold of myself, I suddenly felt Aika drag me violently backward by the collar of my shirt. A second later, a massive spear by another ghoul slammed right where my head had been.

"Ack!"

I rubbed and opened an eye to see Aika spin her blade and slash the chest of the creature before it could withdraw the spear from the ground.

But before the flames from the sword slash could completely destroy it, the ghoul lunged out, seizing Aika by the jaw and instantly lifting her clear off the ground, aiming to crush her head.

I could hear the sound of bone breaking.

Aika groaned in agony and immediately released her sword, grabbing the creature's massive arm with both hands, her legs kicking wildly as she fought to break free.

Panicked, I screamed, and a torrent of billowing black flames erupted from me...

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