Both Lyria and Livy jumped sideways to increase their distance while also swiftly grabbing their daggers and putting up a defensive stance.
"You bastard, Cooper! What do you think you're doing? Do you think losing one wrist wasn't enough, so you came to lose your life too?" Lyria roared in anger, her voice echoing across the area.
She intentionally did so, but it was useless—they were already far deeper in the forest with no other humans around.
Livy was still shocked. She didn't speak but simply prepared herself for immediate combat.
Individually, neither Lyria nor Livy believed they could defeat a Rank 1 Warrior, but together, they might resist long enough to devise a solution.
Cooper chuckled darkly as he stood.
He was, in fact, extremely furious internally. He, a Warrior, had failed to sneak-attack a Mortal! This was too great a disgrace for him to bear. Thankfully, Jack was far behind many trees and foliage, so he hadn't seen anything.
After his failed attack, he was even forced to use his Mana to protect himself! This disgrace was something he couldn't easily digest. If both Lyria and Livy hadn't been chosen to become Jack's wives, he would have broken all their bones before killing them.
While he was still shocked and furious, that amber-eyed girl dared to remind him of his dishonorable past—where he'd failed to break the neck of a mere eight-year-old parentless beggar—and made him, a Noble of the town and a 'Warrior,' lose his right wrist!
The anger Cooper had suppressed for so long reignited.
He decided he would break at least a few bones on both Lyria's and Livy's bodies before making them sign the Scrolls. Jack could simply order them to report that a bear or some wild beast in the forest had attacked them.
Lyria and Livy's faces paled further as, out of nowhere, massive Pressure descended upon them, making them feel as if their insides had grown heavier.
Cooper released his Spiritual Pressure upon both Lyria and Livy. Although it cost him a massive amount of Mana, he only needed a few seconds to deal with both girls, as his physical stats were still far above any mortal's.
But unlike Cooper's expectation—that Lyria and Livy would be tasting soil—they stood upright on their ground with the same defensive posture.
Cooper's expression turned solemn and furious, as this was yet another disgrace and insult from mere mortals to him, a powerful, respected Mana Wielder of Ringwood Town!
He couldn't understand how Lyria and Livy remained unaffected by his Spiritual Pressure, so he rationalized it as them struggling internally just to stand straight.
Though Lyria and Livy felt heavy and panicked internally as this being their first life-and-death battle against a Mana Wielder—their Constitution stats were still high enough to avoid being flattened by Cooper's pressure. This much strain was almost negligible compared to their training with heavier weights.
They were also not naive enough to believe Cooper attacking them deep within the forest was just for a friendly duel. He was definitely here to kill them both!
Cooper didn't respond and charged straight toward Lyria.
He thought Livy was a tough nut, as she had made him use Mana to protect himself, but the same couldn't be true for Lyria as well.
He would crack Livy later after dealing with the sharp-mouthed little bitch.
Unlike when Lyria and Livy were just eight-year-old kids, they had far surpassed what a normal Mortal could reach in stats and skills. In the past, they couldn't even see or react to Cooper's speed, but currently, they could perceive and react!
Lyria felt Cooper's charge was like how Bella Noll used to throw metal balls at them—it was that fast and dangerous.
She quickly sidestepped and dodged Cooper's left-hand jab, then followed with a side kick straight to his defenseless lower ribs.
Cooper was startled again.
What was wrong with these girls? One was scary enough, and now the other too?! No—before that, how could they move so smoothly under his pressure? It made no sense! They were just Mortals!
Lyria's kick might not seem amazing, but Cooper could see just how precise it was.
Side ribs are usually weaker than frontal or back bones, and even if they didn't break thanks to his high constitution, he would still be in a hell of a lot of pain and out of breath. That would give both girls the chance to either run away or attack him further while he recovered.
Cooper hesitated on whether to use his Mana Defense again. It didn't cost him much to defend a small area, but if he had to do it ten more times, even he would run out of Mana.
In a split second, he decided and quickly used his Mana for defense.
He just needed to put these girls down before he was completely drained—it was as simple as that.
While Lyria and Cooper clashed, Livy seized the chance to attack simultaneously.
She dashed toward Cooper's other side and kicked.
It was fairly quick but only arrived after Lyria's attack landed. Her kick targeted the exact opposite side—Cooper's right ribs.
Cooper was infuriated. He used his right forearm to deflect Livy's kick upward, which would also give him an opening to attack both girls at once. And he wasn't going to hold back!
But he never expected Livy's attack to be more than it seemed.
The moment his forearm diverted her kick, Livy used her momentum to raise her other leg and struck his now-defenseless ribs.
Cooper had no time to curse. He quickly used his Mana Defense to shield his entire right side.
But due to the force behind Livy's charge, the kick was far stronger than Lyria's quick, short-range strike. Cooper lost his balance and stumbled toward Lyria.
Using 'Mana Defense' was like wrapping a thin barrier of pure Mana over one's skin. It wasn't a technique—just a rudimentary way to block attacks or reinforce strikes with Mana. This could help block bludgeoning or piercing attacks and reduce the shockwave to a certain extent, but the raw force behind it would still remain. It could only be endured by one's own constitution and balance.
Just as Cooper helplessly staggered two steps toward Lyria due to Livy's attack, all his hair suddenly shot up straight in alarm—as if he faced a life-threatening danger. He even felt he was going to die.
He barely had time to move his eyes forward, and what he saw nearly froze his heart in horror.
Lyria's dagger was plunging straight toward his right eye.
The precision and speed were so swift that there was no time to dodge; neither could he move his head in any other direction to make other parts of his face take the dagger, as it was coming at a very abnormal angle—one that could penetrate even his high constitution. The strike was so unnaturally precise that even before impact, he knew for sure he was a goner.
What filled him with dread and terror wasn't just the attack's power, but how the amber-eyed girl exploited his skeletal positioning at that moment!
It wasn't just about Lyria's dagger technique or precision that was scary—but her prediction of how his body would be a second later, where his head would be, or how his skeletal posture would be. All were taken into consideration when she attacked.
Lyria was an expert at this, making every attack of hers deadly. If it wasn't deadly, then it was just a feint for the follow-up deadly attack.
And to make the best of Lyria's talent, Bella Noll made her practice... geometry to an extreme—not just in theory, but in practice—including detecting weaknesses of every moving object: which spot was best to attack, at which time, from which angle, with how much force. Everything was so deeply ingrained into Lyria that she could make split-second calculations mid-battle.
Eric and Livy were also fairly good at this, but Lyria was on a completely different level when it came to such battle awareness.
Normally, for a Mortal to use a Mortal-tier knife or sword to penetrate the bones of a Warrior Rank 1 was nearly impossible. But Cooper could see—given the angle, precision, strength, and speed with which Lyria was attacking—that even if he intercepted it with his sturdy Warrior's forehead, the dagger would penetrate deeply and fully!
That level of attack was coming toward him from a Mortal!
This level of precision and skill was something that probably even a Rank 3 would fail to execute, unless they were highly experienced and true veterans in battle instead of just jumping Ranks and relying on their stats to bully others.
Cooper's hair stood on end.
He could even picture how the dagger would penetrate from his eyes toward his brain and might even come out from behind his skull. Although he was terrified, and also extremely incensed at how these mortals were treating him—an esteemed Mana Wielder of Ringwood Town—oddly, at this moment, he also couldn't deny that what he was seeing was strangely appealing and captivating.
Wide, large, and expressive amber eyes sparkled with deep hatred and anger, almost like shining, glowing jewels or diamonds. Teeth clenched, natural reddish lips, dark brown long hair flowing behind her with the rotation she had pulled as she attacked with the dagger in a backhand grip.
Cooper was not judging this from his sexual fantasies or even from how an opposite gender might appreciate the other. He was simply captivated by something that he himself didn't quite understand. To him, it almost felt like he was looking at a gorgeous warrior goddess who had descended upon a battlefield of ugly men, killing enemies upon enemies, men upon men, and no one could defeat this single beautiful woman who had drifted into the war of millions.
Perhaps because Cooper saw his own death reflected in those large amber eyes, a strange yearning helplessly emerged from his heart—for whoever the woman was, he even felt he had fallen in love with the aura of such a terrifying war goddess.
But Cooper was still a Mana Wielder. Even if he had lost his senses for a split moment, his body still reacted to the incoming deadly attack, and he swiftly used his Mana Defense to the best of his ability around his eyes, face, and neck for the impact.
Pang!
Cooper was directly struck on his right eye, and the attack angle was such that, after the hit, the only way his head could take the force was by springing backward violently toward his spine and back.
Even as a Warrior, his neckbone could have completely shattered and dangled backward as if it had suddenly turned into jelly.
Cooper had realized this, so he used his remaining Mana—whatever he could muster in that split moment—to strengthen his spine, along with his neck and back region.
Mana could also be used to strengthen one's internal organs, but as a Warrior, Cooper was not best at using Mana in such subtle ways. To have great Mana Control, one needed higher Intelligence stat, and Warriors were terrible at that. Of course, they could train in it, but increasing the Intelligence stat was far more difficult than increasing other stats.
Cooper had to prioritize protecting his spine and back, as this was not a duel. He understood that unlike the town's girls, who would hesitate to even kill a pig, these two girls weren't going to hesitate to kill him. If he ignored it, then although his neckbone might not completely break like a mortal's, he would still be far too severely injured to continue battling, and the end result would be so horrifying that he didn't even want to think about it.
Cooper had never imagined he would be pushed this far by mere mortal girls.
As Cooper had to use whatever Mana he could muster to protect his skeleton, he helplessly couldn't do anything more for his right eye, which took the direct blunt.
Although his Mana Defense blocked the penetration and reduced the shockwave somewhat—but not the force—and the force was so great, with no outlet to release due to the fact that he had strengthened his spine and back, the only option left for his right eye was to burst, and burst completely!
*"Ahhhhh!"*