"Aaaah! I missed it. Kazak!"

Eren's reflexes had allowed him to react to Shima's attack at the very last moment, preventing the lizard-type beastkin from fatally wounding him. Shima retreated as soon as she could after she saw that her attack had missed the mark.

Shima couldn't maintain her camouflage after attacking Eren. She asked for Kazak's intervention in the hopes that she would be provided with cover for her retreat. After all, she wasn't a close combat fighter and her body stats were not meant for frontal combat against someone like Eren.

Shima had only created a bit of distance between herself and Eren when she felt something cut a strand of her hair. A sound-element arrow had been shot in the direction of her retreat. Instead of being provided with a cover, Shima realized that her retreat was being used as a decoy to attack Eren.

"You motherfu..."

Kinnnnnnnn!

The sound element arrow was detonated abruptly when it was closing on Eren. A cloud of mana storm was created as the arrow detonated, blurring the vision of everybody like it was some kind of smokeless haze.

Shima was about to curse Kazak and Viyu for their insidious way of using her. The arrow detonated near her, and she was caught in its effects. Therefore, she felt the effects immediately on her body. She couldn't even complete her cursings as she lost control over her body's functions and nervous system.

In the next moment, Shima was dropped to the ground with her eyes and her nostrils bleeding. Her ear canals started dripping blood as well. The beastkin died right after spitting blood from her mouth. Her heart just gave up on her after being subjected to a heavy foreign mana invasion.

"Viyu, what the fuck did you do? Are you backstabbing us too?"

Rollo yelled at Viyu before charging at her with his sword drawn. It was unacceptable to him that another Spider had seemingly betrayed them. However, Kazak used his movement spell to intercept Rollo and caught him by his shoulder.

"Wait, Rollo. Viyu did that under my suggestion. I was responsible for using Shima as a decoy to get to that bastard."

Viyu was too stunned to realize that Kazak had really stood by his word and taken responsibility. She kept on looking at Shima's lifeless body that was lying on the ground with her moist eyes.

'You.. you are not at fault Viyu. It's the circumstances. They forced you to take this action. I.. I am sorry Shima. I really didn't want to hurt you like this."

The ranger had tears running down her cheeks as Rollo and Kazak argued. She didn't pay attention to what they were yelling.

The elf closed her eyes and looked up to deal with the conflicting emotions she was feeling at the time. When she opened her eyes, she saw the same pixelated layer of the barrier that prevented her from looking at the sky clearly.

She was about to look at her team members and try to break the ongoing fight between Kazak and Rollo. But then she felt something was wrong after looking at the barrier.

'The barrier is still active. If that monster was the array eye operator of this isolated space, shouldn't it be dispersed after his dea..'historical

A wave of dread washed over Viyu as she came to a possibility of why the isolated space was still working. The sound-element haze still obscured the Spiders' vision and mana sense as she looked in Eren's direction.

Viyu opened her eyes in horror when she could see a blurred shadow standing amid the haze. She quickly identified who that shadow belonged to. The elf's lips started quivering and her eyes started shedding more tears.

Instead of getting scared by the shadow, she was angry at it for surviving her attacks. An attack that killed one of her team members. Because it was now clear to the ranger that Shima had died in vain.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! He.. he is still alive.."

Viyu cried out of anger and injustice. She felt that it was Eren's moral duty to die with Shima because only that way she could make sense of her team member's death.

Rollo and Kazak stopped fighting when they heard their ranger's cry. They both froze from punching each other in the face and looked in Viyu's direction only to follow her gaze.

"How.. how the fuck did he survive?"

Kazak was most shocked and guilt-ridden by the recent developments of events. He had thought that Eren was a done deal with the way he had set a trap for him using Shima and Viyu both. He was lowkey proud of himself for saving both his and his teammates' lives.

Roko and the team of Spiders he was leading were also stunned by the recent turn of events. They had reached one corner of the isolated space where the barrier touched the ground.

They were in the process of filing the array disk with their various spells. The ex-demonic rankers, however, were also keeping a close eye on Eren's condition with their mana senses.

"Fill up the array disk faster, guys. We don't have much time.

That monster's still kicking. We may have to ditch these idiots and the House of Spiders as well after escaping from this wretched place."

In a grim voice, Roko addressed his team members. The rest of the group looked in Eren's direction and saw a blurred shadow. But their mana senses were telling them that he was in pretty good shape.

Roko wanted to use the entire team of Spiders as their rear guard to escape from their current predicament. Just like Kazak used Shima as a decoy. Only there was no camaraderie involved when it came to the ex-demonic rankers. They only wanted to do this for their own survival.

Roko and the ex-demonic rankers quickly started filling up the array disks with their respective spells. They were now eager to drop the "ex" behind their reference and embrace the demonic life once again.

***

Raise. Aim. Swoosh.

"Die.. you monster.. just die."

Another runic arrow was fired at Eren by the emotionally agitated Viyu. This was her last rune-empowered arrow that she could shoot at Eren. She followed the lethal strike with a barrage of her normal long-range attacks, giving everything she had to get rid of the blurred monster standing in the now-fading sound-element haze.

Only now were the Spiders able to see that Eren had deployed a semi-transparent barrier around him. It had to be an artifact-generated protective shell because the Spiders hadn't sensed Eren casting a defensive spell of his own.

The sound-element arrow was repelled away by the barrier. He was safe inside the barrier while the aftermath of the runic arrow's detonation wreaked havoc around the surroundings once again.

The Spiders realized how Eren had stayed alive after facing the insidious attack on him concocted by Kazak and Viyu. He had deployed the barrier when he realized he couldn't dodge or divert the arrow.

"This ring really came in handy."

They heard Eren's casual voice from the blurred haze created by the sound waves congregating in one place. He couldn't move while the barrier was active. So all he could do now was wait until the sound-element mana dispersed from his surroundings.

Eren looked at the ring he was wearing and flashed a smile. This was the ring he had received from Rog the assassin. He would rarely use this artifact on his missions because he didn't find himself in a really life-threatening situation until now.

However, Eren knew that those rune-empowered sound-element arrows were no joke. He had to admit to himself that he was lowkey scared of them. They could rob him of his movements and his ability to cast spells. The mortifying pain they inflicted on him was a different matter altogether.

There was one more reason Eren didn't like using the ring. It would keep him in one place after the barrier had been deployed. His battle style was centered around his Blitz Steps. As a result, its use would create a conflict in his style.

This flaw in the ring's usage was shown to him by none other than Ariadne. She was the one who had effectively used the ring's properties against him and made him disperse its barrier mid-fight.

However, Eren realized how critical the defensive aspect was in a ranker's life at this point. Sometimes waiting around wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Especially when one was already surrounded by multiple opponents.

Eren would have been in a critical situation if not outright dead if he didn't have this ring with him. For that, he was thankful for the ring and its effects.

"This.. Adelman's ring!"

Roko yelled in surprise as he saw Eren's barrier from a distance. The battlemage looked in the ex-demonic ranker's direction and couldn't help thinking to himself.

'Hmm. Adelman's ring, huh? First Jario and now this guy. The demonic rankers seem very familiar with this ring. I need to find out more about this artifact.'

===

AN: Eren obtains Adelman's ring in chapter 98. Its name was first mentioned by Jario in chapter 109.