Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

He smirked, "fantastic. My question for you is roughly the same."

"Let's hear it." I smirked back.

"Will you cooperate and admit your crimes willingly, or do you prefer to do it in a more... Primitive way?" He brought his hand to his chin and chuckled.

"Well, I think both of us have the same answer, no?" I tilted my head and gazed down at my inventory window while sneakily trying to use the scrolls.

"Do enlighten me." He smiled.

[Ding!]

[Intelligence: 130 (+5) --> 130 (+100)]

[Strength: 39 --> 39 (+100)]

[Agility: 30 --> 30 (+100)]

"Alright. Glad we agreed to kill each other." I raised my hand towards him.

'BOOM!'

A tremendous amount of flame burst out from my hand, igniting everything in front of me, and dyeing the night sky bright orange.

Dude, this buff sure was amazing. I never thought I could have this much firepower. At this rate, my rifle would probably shoot like a tank.

"Whoa, little cub, you really woke up this morning and chose violence, huh?" General Zhang stared at me with an excited look, as if he was looking at some rare diamond.

"Move if you don't want to be a crispy eel." I shrugged his remark and cocked my rifle, because I knew that the elf king wouldn't go down that easily.

Although my int and strength stats were now higher than his, stats weren't the only determining thing in a battle, and he got higher agility, too.

"Chae! Look out!" Jeanne shouted from behind me.

"Ukh--!" I grimaced when an arrow suddenly grazed my left cheek until it drew blood.

"Amusing. Since when did you get this strong?"

As the dust cleared up, I could see a tall figure wielding a bow and arrows walking slowly towards us, emerging from the dust. He appeared unscathed, not even a slight burn on his clothing or his flawless skin. While he took an arrow from his back, his glistening blonde hair fluttered in the wind.

The figure gave me a smile, and aimed his bow at me, "It's only been one-- no, two days? I don't remember."

'Pshoot!'

I quickly grabbed the arrow, and clenched my fist until it broke into two, "let's just say I'm a quick learner," I grinned, "also, your silly poison won't work against me.

Hearing that, he eyed me from top to bottom, before stopping at my wounded cheek that was making a sizzling sound, "hmm, I see you're quite tough."

Well, of course I was tough.

I raised my hand, throwing him into the air with my skill and slammed his body on the sharp edges of the fence.

"Wha--!" I gasped when his body suddenly stopped in the middle of dropping, right when he was just a few centimeters away from the fences.

He smirked at me and opened his mouth, "aren't you forgetting something?" He said as he slowly floated down, although with a bit of difficulty despite me trying to lift him up again using my psychokinesis, "I'm a wind user. I think I've got a better grasp at controlling my mana than you do."

"Geez." I clicked my tongue in annoyance and stopped casting my psychokinesis on him. However--

'THWAP!'

I scoffed as I threw one of the unconscious elves onto him so forcefully that both of them ended up rolling on the ground a few meters away, "I may be unable to lift you up, but I sure can lift your subjects up."

"Cruel, little cub~" General Zhang giggled beside me.

'Fwoosh!'

I was just about to scold him when I saw something flew past me towards Erenduill. When I turned around to check, it was general Emilio's needles.

"If you've got time to laugh, you got the time to attack." General Emilio frowned as he charged past us and straight to the elf king laying on the ground.

"Couldn't have said it better." I let out a tiny laugh, teasing the white-haired general because he got told off by general Emilio, before pointing my rifle at them and charging it up.

'BANG! BANG!'

I fired a few rounds, while general Emilio took the opportunity to stab him with his spear. Dude, did he die already...? Just like that?

"Kuku..." A small chuckle was heard, followed by a sudden surge of mana.

The elf king had used the unconscious elf as a meat shield, tanking the whole damage until his body was beaten up and blood soaked his entire armor and hair. Meanwhile, the smiling man stood up, completely fine and without any visible injuries.

"A pity that he had to die for me, but it should be an honor for him to die while protecting his king." He chuckled.

"Dang, that's fucked up." I said as I pulled the trigger again, propelling a bunch of mana bullets at him.

"Think however you want." He replied while moving his arm from his left to his right, creating a wind wall that deflected all of my bullets.

"Tch!" I raised my arm high into the air, and the ground beneath him shook and shot upwards at a stupendous speed until the elf king was launched high up without any foothold beneath him, "try dodging this."

'BANG!'

'Fwoosh!'

Erenduill quickly made another wind wall in front of him, but my bullet missed it by quite a considerable amount. I shot way higher than I should have.

"All that big talk and you miss." He chuckled as he stabilized himself by floating up in the air.

"Did I?" I smirked.

'Crackle!'

"Huh?"

The sound of my ice bullet that missed by a lot made him turn his head, and narrowly missing my ice spear.

"Ugh, you're so annoying!" I cursed as I fired a few more rounds, pissed that my strategy failed.

I deliberately missed him so my bullet would go past his wind wall, and extended the ice from my bullet, making a Stabby McStab that went straight for his head. But alas, he realized in less than a second, rendering my plan useless.

"You can't beat me with your simple tricks," he dodged all of my bullets and general Emilio's needles with ease, which wasn't surprising, considering his high agility, "rather, you should spend more time thinking about how to save yourselves from me."

'BOOM!"

"ACK--!" I screamed when he launched his green ball of magic towards me with such speed that I almost didn't even see what hit me.

The same ball that crashed my ice castle open, hit me straight in my stomach, launching me a few meters back until I crashed against a few trees.

"Uwah, he's strong... I gotta be careful since my physique isn't that high yet..." I grimaced as I struggled to get up again despite my whole body screaming in pain.

Fortunately, my ass got saved by my brooch armor, and the fact that I tried to use psychokinesis on myself to soften my crash.

When I rushed back to them even with sharp pain inside my stomach, I saw the three of them, Jeanne, general Emilio, and Firiell already ganging up on the king, while general Zhang just kinda hung around, observing everything with extreme focus.

'Whoosh!'

I saw Erenduill releasing his arrow, and immediately picked up a random unconscious elf on the ground, throwing him between the arrow and Jeanne, effectively shielding the latter at the cost of this elf's life. Ugh, now we had one less soldier.

"Thanks, Chae!" She shouted, and immediately continued clashing her numerous swords against the elf king's wind shield.

"Hey, call that companion of yours!" General Emilio called out to me, while he dodged Erenduill's dagger throws that he just pulled out from under his robe. So he still had more weapons. Ugh.

"No! He's expensive!" I pulled out the motor oil from my inventory, twisted the cap open, ran and leapt onto the tall wall with ease, before jumping into the air towards where the elf king was.

"Huh!?" General Emilio asked in confusion.

"Ack, in any case, he's just expensive, okay!?" I replied in frustration, since I didn't want to explicitly say that I was conserving my mana in front of this elf king, which made me unable to summon Luke, "take this!"

'Splash!'

I threw the content of the bottle onto his wind shield, until the disgusting smell of motor oil filled my nose.

"What are you doing--?" Erenduill frowned, his tone of voice was a mix of shock and confusion.

"Freeze!" I shouted loudly and extended my hand, while ice dust blew out from my palm, freezing each drop of motor oil.

'Crackle, crackle!'

I grinned as the motor oil I just threw started to form ice, and freezing the wind wall along the way, since they were basically mixed together. As a finishing touch, I extended the ice so I would have a foothold, and jumped up until I was on top of him.

"Now, die." I saw his wide eyes through my scope, and instantly pulled the trigger.

'BANG!'

I made sure to fire a charged mana shot, the powerful one, so if he somehow managed to dodge that, it would at least inflict a little bit of damage on him. To my surprise, though, I myself was thrown a few meters backwards upon the impact. It was as if a tank had really opened fire.

"Ukh--!" As I flailed on the air, struggling to orient myself, I felt a gentle wind slowly bringing me down. Ah, must've been Jeanne. It turned out that although I had psychokinesis, it was pretty hard to control my movement if I wasn't sure myself which way was up and which way was down.

"Chae! Are you okay!?" I heard her shout from near me as I continue to descend until my feet were on the ground again.

"Yeah, fortunately. Thank you." I smiled and quickly charged my rifle again. There was no way he died just like that.

"Big sis Chae! Be careful! Uncle Erenduill hasn't used his crest yet, we still can't lower our guard!" Firiell frantically warned us with horror on her face.

"Huh? Then what was he doing all this time?" I questioned.

"That was just his element, all of us can do that! Just like how uncle Ioriell was able to use wind, remember?" She explained with haste.

"Ah, true... He only used windy-wind and arrows so far, and a little bit of dagger action," I clicked my tongue, "then what's his crest's power?"

'Rumble, rumble..."

"Eh? The ground is shaking..." Jeanne looked down, and when I followed his gaze, I gasped when I saw that cracks were forming underneath our feet.

"Uncle Erenduill's crest power is--"

Oh, crap.

I finally realized it.

Just when I was starting to understand the situation, I faintly hear his voice coming from the cloud of smoke from my shot earlier.

"Arise, my monsters."

"--as his title suggests, the power to claim his authority over monsters."