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Especially since this war game takes place underwater, a setting that severely limits the adventurers' ability to demonstrate their skills.

So he instructed his family members to plant the bomb underwater a day in advance, out of the sight of the military police, and also arranged for two divers to lie in wait underwater to ensure the timing of the explosion was precise.

Not only that, they also planted bombs underground on the shore. If they couldn't take down Fujimaru Ritsuka underwater, they could take him down on the surface!

The impact of the explosion blew away the tents that Ryu and the others had placed nearby to change clothes, and also blasted up the soil, creating a cloud of smoke and dust.

"This should kill them all, right?"

The person speaking was still the one responsible for dropping the bombs, but this time the bombs weren't thrown out; they were buried beforehand.

"It's a pity they weren't killed in the explosion."

Amidst the smoke and dust, Fujimaru Ritsuka's voice could be heard.

"what?"

The cloaked figures stared in shock as Fujimaru Ritsuka gradually emerged from the smoke and dust. Fujimaru Ritsuka, shirtless, had skin that radiated a faint glow, which slowly faded and returned to normal under their gaze.

Some people couldn't help but frown as they looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka's posture.

Has he gotten a little bigger?

However, others did not realize this.

"It doesn't matter how that happens, hurry up..."

"shut up!"

A woman stood out from the crowd.

She pulled down her hood, revealing long pink hair, and looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka with indifferent eyes.

"It seems that the Savior was hiding other abilities that I was unaware of when he was on the sky last time."

"Since I already know I'll be going up to the Sky Curtain, then naturally I'll try to hide something, right?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't deny it either. Anyway, I said I hid it, but do you know what I hid?

"That's right. When you're being watched by others, you naturally have to hide some of your abilities."

The woman nodded in agreement.

"Therefore, it is clear that our operation this time is doomed to fail."

"It seems you have a good understanding of your own limitations."

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at the woman in front of her with surprise.

"Are there really people as clear-headed as you in the dark faction?"

"Even we want to live, don't we?"

The woman spread her arms wide, her face showing complete nonchalance.

"After all, when you first become an adventurer, who doesn't want money and honor?"

“You’re not fighting for money or honor anymore.”

"Let me ask you this: you're not thinking of surrendering now, are you?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at the other person with some curiosity.

“Although I have a temporary post in the military police, unfortunately, this is my private time, and I will not follow the procedures of the military police.”

Since they're a dark faction, just kill them outright. Fujimaru Ritsuka is too lazy to play that game of trial.

You've already thrown bombs at me, and now you realize you can't win and want to surrender? That's impossible!

"That's not it."

The woman shook her head with a smile on her face.

"I just wanted to talk to you a little longer, and I've said enough, so goodbye!"

Boom—

An even more violent explosion erupted on either side of Fujimaru Ritsuka, and the shockwaves from the explosions slammed directly into her body.

The firelight and smoke completely obscured the view of everyone present.

Valetta Gretti, this is the name of a woman who is a core member of the Thanatos Familia, a Level 5 advanced adventurer, and she is skilled in a special kind of magic called barrier magic [shaldo].

This rare spell requires chanting an extremely long incantation to activate. After the lengthy chanting, it can create a barrier with a radius of 60 meters, continuously weakening the stats of anyone who enters. However, it takes time to activate, and the higher the opponent's level, the slower the activation time. It was originally intended to be a targeted spell to kill the Loki Familia, but now it's being used against Fujimaru Ritsuka.

Because of Fujimaru Ritsuka's formidable strength, she deliberately spent some time chatting with her in order to weaken Fujimaru Ritsuka's abilities as much as possible with her magic.

In her opinion, Fujimaru Ritsuka was unharmed in the explosion, which was clearly due to some kind of defensive skill.

If you can defend when your stats are normal, can you still defend after I weaken your stats?

"it is a pity."

As the dust settled, Fujimaru Ritsuka reappeared before them unharmed. His skin glowed faintly as before, and he had grown at least 5cm taller, with his muscles becoming even more muscular.

"He really did get bigger!"

The sharp-eyed person noticed Fujimaru Ritsuka's change again.

[The Roar of the Wounded Beast]

It converts the damage received into magical energy and stores it within the body. This is a permanently activated Noble Phantasm from Berserker Spartacus!

After suffering a lot of damage, as a price for storing a lot of magic power, Fujimaru Ritsuka's muscles and body size will increase, turning him from a young man into a big muscle man!

Fortunately, she only suffered from two explosions, and Fujimaru Ritsuka's height only increased by 5cm, so she didn't turn into a super muscle monster like Spartacus.

"What's wrong with you, buddy?"

Valetta Gretchen also noticed the change in Fujimaru Ritsuka, but precisely because she saw it, she couldn't understand it at all.

No, what kind of ability is this? It can't even weaken my own magic. In fact, after the explosion, it not only didn't become weaker, but it seems to have become even stronger!

Do you think I'll explain it to you?

Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't speak, but instead held her hands to the surface, and magic began to surge.

"You guys seem to really enjoy using bombs to kill people. In that case, I'll let you experience what it feels like to be killed by a bomb."

"Oh no! Run!"

The ambush with magic and bombs was ineffective, and Valeta immediately ordered a retreat. She didn't know what Fujimaru Ritsuka was planning, but her intuition told her that it was dangerous and she had to get away from here quickly!

However, retreating was useless; she had already been targeted by Fujimaru Ritsuka.

"Die hanging upside down, you charlatan of all things!"

With the activation of her Noble Phantasm, the massive amount of magical energy gathered on Fujimaru Ritsuka's body instantly dissipated.

Instead, Valetta suddenly burst into flames, her entire body shooting skyward like a pillar of fire erupting from a volcano.

The heat and impact generated by the bomb explosion were all returned to her.

P.S.: Third update today~~~Looking for recommendations~~~Looking for hate mail~~~Looking for donations~~~~

Volume 1: 146. The Prisoner's Dilemma Revisited

Flames shot into the sky, then dissipated. The terrifying heat and impact lasted for less than a second. In that one second, the heat was concentrated and exploded, and as a result, Valetta was instantly burned into a human-shaped charcoal!

It has to be said that the mechanism of Angra Mainyu's Noble Phantasm is amazing, directly locking onto the enemy and reflecting the damage back.

Unfortunately, he only has a mechanism and no numerical value of his own!

But things are different now. Angolan Manu alone is a noble mechanical waste, but with Spartacus's stats, he is no longer a mechanical waste; he has both mechanical and stats!

The injuries Spartacus suffers do not affect his body; instead, they are converted into magic and stored within his body. As long as he can store it, he can continue to absorb and convert it into magic.

After combining, Fujimaru Ritsuka only needs to stand still and take the hits. She does receive the damage, which is recorded by Antonidas's Noble Phantasm, but it won't cause any real harm. Moreover, the converted magic power can be used to increase the Noble Phantasm's output multiplier. Antonidas's basic magic power can only reflect the original damage when releasing a Noble Phantasm, but Spartacus's magic power, which is obtained by storing damage, can make the reflected damage double or even more!

The final result was that Vareta, the commander of the Thanatos Familia, was directly ignited by the rebound of the explosives he had detonated, and it was a double damage rebound after being enhanced by magic!

At the same time that Valet Tower was set ablaze, Ryu and the others, who had been waiting underwater for a long time, took advantage of Fujimaru Ritsuka drawing everyone's attention to come ashore from another place.

Once ashore, the three immediately launched an attack on the Thanatos Familia.

This is no longer a war game; it's a crusade against the dark faction!

Daphne and Cassandra had no experience fighting the Dark Faction, so they simply fought as usual, one in front and one behind, looking no different from their usual adventures in the dungeon.

But Ryu is different. As one of the victims of the Dark Faction, even though all the members of her Familia have been resurrected, she still wants to kill the Dark Faction as soon as possible!

Previously, one of the dark factions, the Rudra clan, was hunted down by Ryu until only one person remained, and now no one knows where he is hiding.

She was overjoyed that the Thanatos Familia had come forward on their own!

A verdant wind enveloped the wooden sword, which then mercilessly slashed down at the fleeing Thanatos Familia.

It has to be said that Ryu's character design is very similar to that of the swordswoman Ais. Both of them are agile one-handed sword fighters, both have blonde hair, and both are skilled in using wind element magic. However, in terms of personality, one is an ignorant and emotionless person, while the other is a useless tsundere.

After Ryu made his move, a violent wind swept across the entire field.

Ryu transformed into a ruthless killer, her body wreathed in green wind as she charged through the crowd. Unlike the Sword Princess, she didn't attack with thrusts, but instead slashed forcefully, using the power of the wind to accelerate her movement. She would strike directly as she passed by her enemies, and soon the members of the Thanatos Familia were all wounded around the waist.

In other words, since the Divine Mirror was still broadcasting live from here, going too far might affect the clans, so he only severely injured them instead of cutting them in half at the waist.

Five years ago, these people would have died in all sorts of different ways.

Even so, the severe back injury was enough to keep this group going for a while, because such an injury, if not treated promptly, would quickly lead to death from excessive blood loss, unless they could hold out until the military police arrived from Orario. But it was unlikely that they could hold out until the military police arrived.

Because this place is dozens of kilometers away from Orario, the military police would surely be cold by the time their wagons arrived.

In less than a minute, the dozen or so people who had come to ambush them were either seriously injured and knocked to the ground by Liu, or knocked down by Daphne and Cassandra together. None of them were able to move anymore.

Aside from using his Noble Phantasm to deflect damage and ignite Valetta at the beginning, Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't interfere at all during the entire process. After all, the Astrea Familia isn't just about him; the members of the Familia also need to be trained.

After clearing out the Thanatos Familia, Daphne stripped them of their clothes, twisted them together to make makeshift ropes, and tied them up. Even though they were severely injured, she didn't leave them alone; she tied them up anyway, since the Dark Faction had no human rights.

"Solved!"

Daphne clapped her hands after she finished, looked at the group of guys who were still whispering, and couldn't help but nod.

This was her first time dealing with the Dark Faction. In the past, when Orario was in darkness, she would always run away as soon as she saw the Dark Faction's actions. Unexpectedly, this time she took the initiative to attack and even won easily. It feels so good to follow the right people.

"Daphne, thank you for your hard work."

Fujimaru Ritsuka, who had been observing without intervening, also offered her gratitude at the opportune moment.

"Leave the rest to me."

"Okay, you can handle the rest."

Daphne quickly moved aside.

Fujimaru Ritsuka stepped forward and stood in front of these people.

"So, can anyone tell me now who ordered you to attack us?"

Faced with Fujimaru Ritsuka's question, all of them lowered their heads and did not answer, which made Fujimaru Ritsuka laugh.

"Pretty tough, huh? As a rat lurking in the shadows, you actually put on a show of loyalty and forgiveness for me!"

"In that case..."

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at Daphne and Ryu.

"I'd like to trouble you two to gag them with cloth so they can't speak."

Although they didn't know what Fujimaru Ritsuka was going to do, Daphne and Ryu did not hesitate to gag them as instructed.

“Very good, in this way, you will not have the opportunity to communicate with each other.”

After Fujimaru Ritsuka finished speaking, she picked up one of the people and walked into the nearby woods.

After leading the man into the forest, Fujimaru Ritsuka did not remove the cloth from his mouth, but instead asked him directly.

"Answer me, did Ishtar send you to attack us?"

The person being asked was clearly taken aback, but did not answer, remaining silent.

Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't mind, just smiled at him, and then carried him away from the woods. However, after taking him out, she didn't throw him back to the original spot, but gently placed him next to a big tree, letting him lean against it, and even patted him on the shoulder with a smile.

This action left everyone else very puzzled.

After finishing, Fujimaru Ritsuka walked back to the crowd, pulled out another person from it, and carried them into the woods. After throwing the person to the ground, his question changed this time.

"That guy just told me who sent you. In exchange, I'll let him go. Now it's your turn. Are you going to continue saying nothing?"