Chapter 144 Stop Right There, This Is Definitely Not a Melee Weapon

“What are you two trying to prove? If anyone is staying behind, it should be me. I was the one who proposed this expedition to the principal. Ruby only got involved on his own. Take Baiyu and the students and go!”

Swat clenched his fists. No one had expected matters to develop this way, but he could not let Ruby and Tinasha be dragged into trouble because of him. Staying behind was the most reasonable choice. Though he was only a minor mage, insignificant before this horde of magical beasts, he could still buy them a little time.

“I’m not arguing with you. Get lost!”

Tinasha’s insistence on staying behind had already annoyed Ruby enough. Now Swat was trying to hold him back as well, and Ruby’s temper flared. He seized Swat by the collar and punched him squarely in the face, knocking him to the ground.

“You—you hit me? Even my great-grandfather never hit me!”

“Shut up. This accident was caused by your negligence, and that makes it your responsibility. Because of that, you have to take responsibility now. You must bring every student back safely—not a single one missing. Only then will you have atoned for your mistake.”

Ruby grabbed Swat by the collar, hauled him to his feet, and shoved him toward Baiyu.

“You’re a teacher too! How are you any different from me?”

“Tinasha and I are friends. I have a duty to protect her. Now go.”

“Teacher Ruby, I...”

Baiyu bit her lip, hesitating. If she stopped concealing her identity and used necromantic magic, she could certainly rescue Ruby from this crisis. But that would go against the promise she had made. For a moment, she had no idea what choice to make.

“You go too. Use your power to protect the students.”

The instant Ruby met Baiyu’s eyes, he knew what she was thinking. But he did not want her identity exposed because of this. If it had to be revealed, it should be for the sake of protecting the students—not him.

“I’ll come back as soon as I’ve taken the students to safety!”

Seeing the magical beasts drawing closer and closer, Swat gritted his teeth and began retreating with the students. In truth, he knew it was almost impossible. The city behind them was half a day away. The round trip would take an entire day, and whether Ruby could survive that long would depend entirely on himself.

With the aid of the Lightfoot spell, they still moved quickly, but they could not outrun the flying beasts known as Thunderbirds. These fifth-tier monsters were extraordinarily fast in the air, and blades had grown from the fronts of their wings for use in attack. At full speed, those wing blades could slice through rock with ease.

“Don’t look back! Keep running!”

The students heard the thunder of wings drawing nearer. Just as they were about to turn and fight back, Ruby’s shout rang out. He raised the sniper rifle in his hands, and bullet after bullet hooked into the flying Thunderbirds like chains of death. Compared with the thick hides of land-dwelling beasts, birds had extremely fragile bodies. Even small-caliber rounds could tear through them with ease.

The combined experience of Earth’s finest snipers allowed Ruby to hit moving targets in the sky without difficulty. Thunderbirds pierced through the body fell like rain. Ruby did not need to kill them; he only had to deprive them of the ability to fly.

The weapon Ruby was using was an SG550 semi-automatic rapid-fire sniper rifle. Appearing in another world for the first time, it displayed the might of modern firearms to the fullest. Its thirty-round magazine gave Ruby a certain margin for error. In general, only one shot in ten went wide.

Of course, Earth possessed firearms more powerful and more advanced than this one. But Dragon needed time to reproduce their internal mechanisms. In the end, Ruby had chosen this weapon because its construction was simple and its rate of fire was high.

The Thunderbird leader soon realized that its forces were suffering devastating losses. For a while, it could not even determine who was attacking them. In the end, its excellent hearing told it the truth: whenever that strange fire-stick roared, one of its companions fell. It therefore fixed its attention on Ruby.

The Thunderbird leader let out a piercing shriek and led more than half its forces toward Ruby. As for the dozen or so Thunderbirds still pursuing the students, Ruby ignored them. With Swat and Baiyu there, those creatures were no threat at all.

“Human boy, this is becoming troublesome. I can’t manufacture bullets as quickly as you’re using them.”

White smoke drifted from the barrel formed by Dragon. Then his voice sounded. With such a miraculous partner, Ruby did not even need to pause to reload, but as the Thunderbirds drew closer, Dragon began to show signs of exhaustion.

“I’m good at close combat too. Cold-weapon sequence thirty-one: Shield Axe.”

Ruby knew there was no point clinging to the rifle’s killing power now. He immediately issued Dragon a new command. Dragon rapidly began to transform. The long, slender firearm soon became a black blade roughly a meter and a half long, with a dark skull engraved on the guard of its hilt.

The remaining magic formed a rectangular black shield nearly as tall as a man. Unlike an ordinary shield, it possessed gleaming metal blades along both sides, while an identical skull was carved into its center.

The Thunderbirds’ assault was already upon him. Ruby swiftly seized the new weapon, blade in his left hand and shield in his right. The moment he raised his arm, the shield caught an incoming attack.

Sparks burst forth as the Thunderbird’s sharp talons scraped violently across the shield. Ruby put his strength into his right arm and knocked the attacking beast aside. With his left hand, he swung the long blade upward in a flawless rising slash, and its keen edge instantly cleaved the Thunderbird in two. Blood splashed across the black skull on the shield, lending it a strangely alluring, almost demonic beauty.

“Then it’s time to begin the next round of attacks.”

Ruby shook the blood from the blade—not because he disliked the mess, but because he was preparing to combine the blade with the shield. He thrust the blade into the shield’s center and pressed the skull on its hilt. The blade extended by nearly half a meter. Combined with the shield, it became an entirely new weapon more than two meters long.

Ruby gripped the axe handle with both hands and began to swing. Spinning slashes and diagonal cuts followed one after another. The blades along the shield’s edges sliced through a Thunderbird’s body with every strike. This weapon, nonexistent in the other world, reaped lives with cold indifference.

As the shield became drenched in blood, the skull’s mouth gradually stretched wider and wider. Finally, when it opened as far as it could, a breath of white mist poured from within.

“Glorious Blade!”

Ruby knew that meant the weapon was fully charged. He shortened the blade mounted on the Shield Axe, gripped the hilt with one hand, and seized a handhold inside the shield with the other. A blade of light ten meters long sprang from the shield’s front.

Before the Thunderbirds could react, the weapon cleaved them in two. Ruby swung the blade of light several times, and then it vanished as its energy was exhausted. Not a single Thunderbird capable of attacking remained.