Chapter 293: Joker

The moment Leo’s eyes fell on the hunter perched in the tree, he immediately drew the handset from his trouser pocket.

"Team Leo is under attack! Team Leo is under attack!" he exclaimed, holding the handset close to his mouth.

Meanwhile, the two girls on either side of him drew their wands, while the boy who had just slain the Demonic Orchid took the position at the front, his sword pointed at the hunter still lazily hanging from the branch, swaying back and forth.

"Didn’t you just say you could reach the top ten in one go?" The joker’s mildly surprised voice came from behind the mask. He was taken aback by how quickly Leo had informed the others that their team was under attack.

The joker hadn’t even attacked yet.

"Now you need others to defeat a single person whom you were just talking trash about?" the joker asked, landing gracefully on the ground with a mid-air flip.

The squad immediately took a step back, assuming a defensive stance.

"Hmph! Why would I waste my energy fighting you alone when there are forest tokens to be found?" Leo scoffed, taking out his wand from his storage ring but remaining at the very back of the group.

"Exactly! If Lord Leo wants, he could defeat you with a single spell," the girl on the right with two small braids retorted.

"In a single spell!" the girl on the right wearing a cat-ear headband added, raising one finger.

For a few seconds, a strange silence followed as the joker simply stood there. Slowly, his head tilted towards the sky until it was perpendicular to his body, one hand resting on his mask.

"Bwahahahaha!" His loud, unrestrained laughter filled the forest, his hand repeatedly slapping his mask.

The squad exchanged confused glances. From the reports of other hunters’ attacks, they had learned that hunters attacked in a rush so they could quickly defeat a team before reinforcements could arrive. However, it had already been a minute since Leo had reported the attack, yet this hunter hadn’t even made a move.

The laughter gradually subsided into low chuckles before eventually coming to a stop, but his ridiculous posture remained unchanged. With his head still tilted back, the eyes behind the mask shifted towards the squad.

"Oh, God... you’re so screwed," the joker stated, his voice dropping to a low tone.

The sudden change in his voice made the squad flinch. Before he could even move from his spot, Leo shouted, "One Ring Lumin Spell: Light Barrier!"

A barrier of faint yellow light materialised around the squad like an inverted hemisphere, enclosing them within.

The two girls beside him followed suit. "One Ring Geo Spell: Earth Wall!"

A circular wall of mud rose from the ground.

"One Ring Hydro Spell: Water Protection!"

Another barrier, this one made of water, enveloped the trio inside.

The only member from the Order of Blades coated his sword in Mana Blade and assumed a defensive stance within the layers of barriers.

"Hahaha, we’ve already been attacked by a senior before," Leo boasted, resting his hands on his broad waist. "Even after five minutes, they couldn’t make a single dent—"

His words abruptly cut off as he saw a fist thrust through the barriers, tearing cleanly through all three layers.

The squad froze completely. Even though the fist was right in front of the sword-wielding boy’s face, he couldn’t muster the strength to swing his sword at it.

Slowly, the arm retreated, causing the mud wall to crumble and collapse to the ground. Beyond it, a gaping hole was revealed in the water and light barriers.

The squad’s breath caught in their throats, their eyes instinctively fixed on the massive hole, as everything beyond it was blurred by the shifting water barrier. They could see nothing but the grass and trees outside.

The suffocating silence was killing them.

"H-he must have retreated, scared of the reinforc—"

An inverted head suddenly popped inside the hole, staring at them with that fixed, unsettling, ear-to-ear smile.

"Boo!" the joker whispered.

The poor squad felt their hearts leap into their throats.

"KYAAAAA!!!" The two girls screamed in horror, rushing behind Leo’s massive frame for cover. He, too, had instinctively taken a couple of steps backwards.

As for the vanguard, who had witnessed the jumpscare from the closest distance, his sword slipped from his hand and struck the ground with a metallic chime. Soon, his body followed.

Thud!

The poor boy had lost consciousness from sheer terror.

Yet it didn’t stop there. Four fingers emerged from either side of the joker’s head. They gripped the two barriers, their fingertips glowing with faint dark mana.

Crack!

The fingers stretched outwards, tearing the barriers apart.

"I’m coming..." the joker whispered in a menacing tone, placing his hands parallelly on the ground as his body arched into a creepy, upward-bowing pose.

The joker moved towards them on all fours, his stomach facing the sky, his inverted face sporting that terrifying smile that drew closer with each passing heartbeat.

---

"Only a hundred metres more," Gareth muttered to himself, a hint of excitement creeping into his voice as he leapt from one tree branch to another, his eyes fixed on the red dot on the map. "Given Noah’s nature, he would never stay with the group. Vlad doesn’t seem like the type to work with a team either. This dot has to be one of those two."

Within seconds, he passed the last massive tree, beyond which the person he had been searching for had to be waiting: Vlad or Noah.

Gareth landed on the ground with a heavy thud, his eyes behind the mask fixing on the figure a few metres ahead of him.

A pool of thick, green liquid spread around the figure’s feet. The corpse of a massive Orc, sliced in two at the waist, lay before the figure. Drops of the same green liquid dripped from the long katana in the figure’s hand.

Gareth’s brows furrowed. It was neither Vlad nor Noah. Not even a man.

It was a petite girl with long lavender hair tied into a high ponytail.

The girl glanced back at Gareth over her shoulder, her pale, pupilless eyes fixing on the sudden intruder.