This Monster Is Strong But too...

Seeing that all the team members had evacuated the room, Liu Ying also began to retreat.

"Captain, I'm going to direct operations in the hallway."

As a mid-level combatant, she couldn't intervene in the fighting. She wouldn't presume to direct Pang Shuo in combat matters, trusting him one hundred percent.

Pang Shuo nodded, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the lizardman on the ceiling.

"I'll lead the charge. The rest of you watch for an opening."

With injuries and as the prime target of attacks, it would be too difficult for Lin Cang to provide support as a main force.

Qi Yuan also seemed to specialize in ranged attacks.

Although only Class C, Pang Shuo had volunteered to take on the more dangerous role.

Having spoken, he leapt upwards with a swing of his blade.

The lizardman could see everything clearly from the ceiling. It nimbly crawled across the surface.

The blade struck the ceiling, carving a slash and leaving a black, burnt mark where the flames had scorched.

Dust and debris fluttered down from the ceiling.

Having missed with his first strike, Pang Shuo drew back his blade and jumped back to the floor.

The lizardman's long tongue shot out, aimed straight for Pang Shuo. Pang Shuo had just steadied himself when he hurriedly dodged the attack.

The tongue struck the floor, leaving a fist-sized shallow crater, then withdrew at lightning speed.

Reacting quickly, Lin Cang summoned vines to wrap around the tongue.

He pulled with all his might, trying to yank the lizardman down.

Clinging fast with its suction pads, the lizardman held firm to the ceiling as both sides reached a stalemate.

Pang Shuo steadied himself again, enveloping his blade in flames. He swung his weapon, focusing his full strength into the hilt, aiming directly for the tongue.

The lizardman let out a long screech, forcing Pang Shuo to retreat.

At the same time, it freed a hand to shoot out spatial blades, severing the vines and retrieving its tongue.

Its attack wasn't over. It activated its abilities, vanishing from the ceiling in an instant.

Clang!

The blade vibrated with a humming noise as Pang Shuo's combat instincts from years of experience allowed him to raise his sword just in time to block the lizardman's vicious claws.

The claws glittered with a dangerous black-purple sheen.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The lizardman unleashed continuous attacks, all parried by Pang Shuo.

Pang Shuo let out an enraged roar. The flames along his blade extended as he swung the longsword to bisect the lizardman at the waist.

Caught off guard by the sudden attack, just as the flames were about to strike the lizardman, it abruptly vanished.

Rustling sounds came again from the ceiling.

In the brief exchange between the two men and one monster over several rounds, Qi Yuan, who had shrunk back to the junction between the hallway and room, was left dizzy from watching.

The lizardman's bulging pupils shifted, looking over the two still in the room.

"The opportunity has already been missed. Should I attack? What if that wood controller has a mutual destruction technique..."

"Let's try again. As long as he can't act, we can pick off the gold-eyed one, breaking through them one by one."

The thoughts were fleeting, almost too quick for Qi Yuan to capture.

A long screech broke the stalemate between the two sides as the lizardman struck first.

Its superior monster physique endowed it with the ability to react swiftly to any attack, but the confined space limited its actions.

Having successfully captured its thoughts, Qi Yuan dodged while warning the enforcement team, "Get away from the walls!"

No sooner had he spoken than the slender tail smashed against the already damaged wall opened up by the enforcement team.

The already unstable wall collapsed, sending fragments of stone and bricks flying outward.

Reacting quickly to the warning, the enforcement team members had limited space to evade in the narrow hallway.

They each displayed their abilities, using their powers to watch out for each other and dodge this wide-range attack.

Having moved faster than the others, Qi Yuan had nearly been caught in the AOE. He really wanted to say,

"I shouldn't be here..."

Espers and monsters didn't waste time talking, immediately getting down to business. He had no opportunity whatsoever to participate.

Stuck in the middle, he was neither able to leave nor join the fight.

Finding a crack in the floor to squeeze into would better protect his pathetic life.

At Lin Cang's feet, little sprouts burst from the ground, instantly growing into trees two men thick that wrapped Lin Cang in their branches, shielding him from the flying rubble and the lizardman's sneak attack during the chaos.

"You're not getting away!"

The branches quickly extended under Lin Cang's control, intent on impaling the lizardman and nailing it to the floor.

The lizardman once again activated its spatial leap, vanishing into the void.

Having fought it twice already, Lin Cang was all too familiar with its spatial leap. Countless branches shot forth, covering the area several meters around where the lizardman had disappeared.

With the lizardman's level, its spatial leap could only jump a limited distance without gathering power. A short-distance leap it triggered instantly could only traverse a few meters.

Sure enough, the lizardman reappeared within range of Lin Cang's branch attacks.

The corners of Lin Cang's lips quirked up as he controlled his abilities to sharpen the branches to an incredible degree.

Looking down on his abilities just because he had fallen and lost, it would suffer a huge loss.

He had pulled the rug out from under it; this time, with him not having moved, there was no way he would fall again.

Suddenly, the unexpected happened.

A grating scraping sound rang out. Space rippled around the lizardman, concentric circles emerging in the void with it at the center...

The tree branches within the ripples twisted along with the distortion.

After a brief one second spatial distortion, the warped space reverted to normal. The distorted tree branches broke into segments, falling to the ground.

Pang Shuo touched the long blade in his hand with a look of shock, feeling chilled all over.

If he had charged at the lizardman just now, one hit from it would have finished him off already.

Qi Yuan's eyes were also wide with astonishment, but his shock differed from Pang Shuo's. He had read its thoughts.

"That was close... too close... If I hadn't kept a few tricks up my sleeve, I would've died."

"I was saving this move for the human gold-eyes, but it looks like I'll have to expend another card here..."

"I'm taking a loss here..."

Qi Yuan, a human gold-eye: It's trying to kill me...

Lin Cang's expression was also solemn as he loudly strategized with Pang Shuo, "Don't go near it. Keep your distance and attack with your abilities. Use your power to shield yourself."

Abilities could mutually restrain each other. Using one's power as a shield could reduce the damage dealt by other abilities.

This was also why telepaths were useless against espers.

Ordinary telepath espers didn't have the chance to level up enough to break through other espers' ability shields.

"Got it."

Pang Shuo surrounded himself in flames, enveloping himself in the fire.

Now that its cards had been seen, the lizardman no longer hid anything either. It imbued its spatial ripples into its claws.

With one swipe, it pierced through the wooden defenses around Lin Cang.

If Lin Cang hadn't reacted quickly to shield himself with his abilities, his body would have been gouged through as well.

The two abilities collided with a tremendous force that blasted Lin Cang backwards.

He slammed heavily into the wall, the shock and impact damaging his internal organs. As he opened his mouth, fresh blood gushed from this throat.

"Old Lin, you okay?"

"Cough cough... Spatial abilities...really hard to deal with..."

Lin Cang wiped the blood from the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Damn it, we're fighting for our lives here while they're still dragging their feet over there."

Pang Shuo spat in disdain, cursing the delayed support.

Taking cover behind the rubble, Qi Yuan shrank back, feeling implicated even though he truly couldn't provide any backup.