Chapter 188: Chains of Penance

Joe had sent Salent flying out of the bushes with a single punch. The elf rolled twice on the ground, only coming to a stop when he crashed into a tree, wincing and gasping in pain.

The other wood elves were stunned.

***

Pecora, Goddess of the Forest was the second most important deity of the wood elves, and she in turn had biased affection for their kind. That was the reason wood elves were born with her blessings and naturally loved by the forests, and were nothing else than gifted masters in their environments.

Their blessings varied depending on the elven individual as well, but the most common is their affinity for the forests—like the Emerald Heart that the Players who had changed class to Junglewalkers, the wood elves could fuse their presence to the forest so that their adversaries would never notice them.

That was the exact reason why they were the most feared hunters in the forests.

A case in point was their encircling and slaughter of the slave hunters just a while ago. Their victims never noticed what was happening in time before they were wiped out by the wood elves—and that’s without destroying too much of the forest or using any spells!

The same thing was happening now as well: by using their stealth, they were about to get rid of those few young humans who didn’t look special in any way. To them, humans and tree-dwelling gorillas were not too different, and given their mutual hostility killing a few young humans wouldn’t burden them psychologically.

It just didn’t turn out as they would expect—because they had underestimated Edward’s party, not only had their targets weathered through their rain of arrows, one of them actually sent Salent, an adult elf flying despite attacking late!

Nonetheless, the wood elves were mentally composed enough. They simply assumed that Salent was caught and sent flying because he was underestimating those younglings too much, as such did not hide well enough as well as being caught unawares.

In fact, there were some veterans amongst them who were using that to instruct the younger elves who were having their first fight against human slave hunters, telling them not to be careless and that they must hide perfectly at all times, maintaining their bond to the forests.

But then Joe caught more elves and punched them into the air from their hiding place.

Even if the wood elves assumed that they were well-hidden—and granted, they were, Joe would never have found them if he relied on his vision, hearing, or even smell. The problem was that there was large yellow text hanging over their heads, and even those who had fused themselves perfectly into the bushes would have a ‘Wood Elf A’ or whatnot hanging over their heads.

That was basically no different from the ostrich that hid its head beneath the sand but exposed its butt cheeks perfectly outside and was infinitely conspicuous.

And it was not Joe either. Edward himself had also hit several butts—elves, to be precise.

Although they did not cause fatal damage, they still beat down to the last bit of their HP and until they were not getting up for the time being.

All Jessica did was cast barriers on them whereas Eleena continued eating her cotton candy, although her eyes kept darting towards the elves’ level over their heads.

Eventually, she found the wood elves of the highest level, a weird look flashing in her eyes just then as her thoughts remained as enigmatic as ever.

Meanwhile, Joe and Edward were wading through the forests, beating down one wood elf after another.

It was only after the elves lost a third of their forces that they finally realized that something wasn’t right—that all of them would be wiped out right there if they kept playing hide and seek.

Hence, at the call of the top-level wood elf, the others gave up on their hiding and switched to direct confrontation.

And with that, Edward’s easy time turned into a hard battle.

It was true that his group was slightly stronger than the adult elves and could easily rid one in surprise ambushes in a short time, and they would never lose out even in a one-on-one fight.

The problem, however, was that the wood elves had no chivalry. Giving up on subtlety to go all-out meant that the wood elves were now far beyond the elves that Edward and Joe were punching silly just now—being surrounded by them now felt as if they were being surrounded by a pack of wolves, getting wounded all over even before they could move.

As a matter of fact, they might already be dead if Jessica wasn’t healing them again and again.

Her massive output in such a short time certainly caught the wood elves’ attention. The top-level wood elf hence promptly gave up on the encircling Edward and Joe who were fighting without regard of self-preservation or potential death, rushing out to attack Jessica instead.

Being top-level also clearly meant great experience and veteran combat skills—the elf combined spells and arrows to interrupt Jesscia’s spells more than once, and in less than half a minute, the team’s weakest character was caught in a dire moment.

And yet, that was when Eleena who didn’t help at all finally caught their adversary’s mistake.

Immediately leaping out, holy golden light flickered behind her as it soon flowed like water down to her hand—condensing, solidifying, and then materializing into a colossal spear of light!

But it wasn’t the Spear of Victory, a skill Clerics learned at Level 15 while the Saintess-in-training herself had learned it at level 1.

Instead, it was the Chain of Penance, Eleena only learnt at Level 40 and required the Spear of Victory as a prerequisite!

The skill itself deals 0 damage, but would deal damage equal to the target’s hostility towards the ‘Players/God of Games’. That being said, it would also maintain approximately 1% of the target’s HP when the damage exceeds the target’s HP and debuff them with a Bind status. The power of the Bind status also depends on the targets’ hostility, meaning that the Chains of Penance restrained its targets harder the more hostile they were.

Of course, Bind was a power derived from the Game Rules as well, which meant it could be resisted by divine attribute or another Rule.

But that elf clearly didn’t possess divine attribute or Rule Resistance—his body was pierced by Eleena’s light, before the chains of light behind the radiant spear coiled themselves firmly around him.

If Aslan, the Great Lion of Justice was here, he probably would have a ‘why-the-bleeding-hell-that-binding-skill-feels-so-familiar’ sort of feeling…

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