Two glows of light, like the rising sun, shone brightly before Pannis’s eyes.
As Pannis reached out to brush Nellie’s long hair aside and touched her cheek, Nellie’s drooped head did not lift, but her half-open, half-closed eyes suddenly flared open. Her eyelids flipped back, and her gaze shot through the gaps in her hair straight at Pannis’s face. The originally dull eyes lit up with two intense gleams. The empty look in her eyes instantly beca sharp and filled with a murderous aura, convincing Pannis beyond doubt that she might never lose consciousness and beco a lifeless shell.
Ti seed to suddenly stand still, and both maintained their original stance, frozen for an instant as if shocked by this turn of events. However, it was only for a mont before Pannis reacted, rolling his eyes skyward and moaning, "Oh, no, it shouldn’t have been like this."
The next mont, Pannis suddenly sprang into action, his hand still outstretched forward, but his feet were retreating backward at breakneck speed, as if carried by a gust of wind. No, not just like the wind—he was fleeing so quickly that he actually stirred up a fierce gale. Compared to the hesitation he felt when approaching earlier, his will to flee was utterly resolute, without any pause in the process, making it clear there had been no psychological struggle during that ti.
Although he was fast, Nellie’s body was no slower than his. Just as Pannis had retreated about four ters, Nellie, with eyes brimming with intensity, also sprang into action. With her lance held level in front of her, she closely pursued Pannis without relaxing her pace for a mont, and she was making every effort to close the distance between them.
Pannis felt he was going insane; he must be the biggest idiot in the world. Although he had yet to determine why Nellie had been in a dormant state, he could have just waited from a distance, perhaps carefully preparing a pot of mountain peak green leaf tea, setting out a dish of fragrant, crisp, salt-roasted green-skinned nuts, and then leisurely sitting afar, eating and drinking while watching Nellie’s subsequent actions. Instead, he foolishly approached her, waking her from her slumber, in what was undoubtedly the most idiotic choice of his life. If he had the chance to do it over, he would probably... well, he guessed he would likely do the sa thing.
Although he was making light of his plight internally, Pannis didn’t even have ti to voice these thoughts out loud. He could only hold his breath and hope to escape a bit faster, as the invisible ground receded beneath his feet.
However, he was quick, but Nellie was quicker. The knight, though she had started a bit later than Pannis, had an absolute speed that was higher than his. Thus, in their high-speed chase with one retreating and the other advancing, the distance between them gradually narrowed.
"This won’t do," Pannis told himself. "If I continue like this, in less than thirty seconds, Nellie will close in to the distance most suitable for her attack. If it drags on to that point, even if I want to change tactics, it’ll be too late. I’ll definitely be dragged into the abyss of death by her endless onslaught of attacks. Instead of that, I might as well stop outright and face the battle; at least I can maintain so control and not be completely at Nellie’s rcy."
No sooner had he thought it than he acted on it. In the midst of their chase, Pannis looked up at Nellie’s eyes, which seed to hold so emotion—perhaps it was his imagination, but Pannis didn’t have ti to confirm. As their eyes t, his running legs suddenly stopped, his feet rubbing against the invisible ground, decelerating him to a standstill in an instant.
If anyone in the world knew Pannis best, it had to be Nellie. Her understanding of Pannis had beco a knightly instinct, so much so that even if she temporarily lost consciousness, her instinct could guess what Pannis was thinking. Therefore, when their gazes t, Nellie almost simultaneously with Pannis made the choice to stop the pursuit. Although they hadn’t closed the distance to the optimum attacking range, the knight’s battle instinct would not let any opportunity slip by. Before either had co to a complete stop, their lances had already turned into countless shadows of spears, each shadow seeming like a bloodthirsty fang, viciously thrusting towards Pannis’s body.
"Haha, fell for it, dummy," Pannis chuckled, his figure transitioning from stillness to motion again. His feet had yet to stabilize before he started to swiftly retreat, trying to escape Nellie’s attack range, all the while muttering, "I’m warning you, take it easy or else be careful I’ll teach you a lesson later."
Pannis’s concern was not at all excessive, for he had clearly realized what would happen next.
Yes, although he had barely deceived Nellie by alternating between motion and stillness, causing her to cease her chase, it clearly hadn’t co without cost. While he might avoid the subsequent attacks, the fatal thrust Nellie launched in that instant of stopping was inescapable, no matter what. So rather than how to teach Nellie a lesson afterwards, what Pannis needed to consider more urgently was how to keep on living while enduring Nellie’s attack. This was no simple matter.
"Sssss," the lance tore through the air, letting out a series of piercing screams. Mixed with the screaming was the faint thud that could be heard—the sound of the lance piercing flesh and leaving a trail of horrific marks. The knight’s lance in Nellie’s hands wasn’t going to swing in vain; in the process of Pannis’s abrupt stop and subsequent quick start, she had been presented with ample opportunity. Even if it wasn’t the optimal attack distance, Nellie’s lance would not miss its mark. As the sounds of "thud, thud" rung out, streams of blood jetted from Pannis’s retreating figure, making him look like a water bag punctured with countless holes.
However, although Pannis’s body now had at least a dozen through-and-through wounds, he had finally shaken off Nellie’s close pursuit. After creating so distance, he promptly drew his one-handed sword, facing Nellie with a guarded expression, always on alert for her approach.
But Nellie didn’t move again; she once more lowered her head, sinking into silence. Apart from a change in location, she was no different from before.
"Cough, cough, hey, wake up," Pannis, clutching a particularly badly bleeding wound, called out to Nellie from a distance: "I’m telling you, don’t think about tricking again, I won’t be deceived a second ti. This ti, I absolutely won’t co close again."
"What do you an ’deceived again’?" Completely contrary to Pannis’s expectations, the seemingly silent Nellie suddenly lifted her head and asked in confusion, followed imdiately by a sharp gasp of shock: "Ah, Kyle, what’s happened to you, why are you so badly hurt?"
"Heh, heh, I’d like to know that too," Pannis’s eye muscles twitched frantically, he looked down at the wounds leaking blood all over his body, rolled his eyes in resignation, and then fell straight back.
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