Infinity Is My Affinity?!?-Chapter 81: What’s the Worst That Could Happen?

The forest clearing fell into a stunned silence, broken only by Nico’s groans while the sweet, cloying scent of Grade-2 Healing Potion lingered in the air in a sickening contrast to the metallic tang of blood and the stench of greed of the men standing before his broken body.

Nico lay ten meters away from them, motionless amidst the grass, stared down by three predators who had momentarily forgotten their prey to process the impossible thing they had just witnessed.

High up in the canopy, the Elven Archer lowered his bow, eyes widening as he leaned forward on his branch to stare at the empty space where Nico’s hand had materialized the vial.

"Did you see that?" he called out in disbelief before jumping off the branch to walk up to his leader. "He pulled that potion out of thin air!"

"I did," Arlath nodded, his voice dropping an octave as a grin of unhidden greed slowly spread across his face.

He stared down at Nico and saw a walking treasure chest instead of their mark.

"Son of a bitch has one of the Demon God’s relics... a spatial storage."

Voss, the human mage, stepped closer while clutching the stolen shotgun with white-knuckled anticipation.

His dead eyes ignited with a feverish light as the realization of that implication hit him.

"If we nab that... we’re fucking rich," he breathed, already imagining the coins. "We can live like kings!"

Arlath let out a low chuckle as he turned his gaze back to Nico lying in the dirt to savor the inevitability of their victory.

"When we nab that," he emphasized, taking a step forward to claim his prize.

While the three men grinned at their fortune, those mere few specks of the third-highest-grade potion in the world seeping into his skin rewrote the reality of his condition.

The fractured ribs that had collapsed under the arrows and the leather strap knitted back together with silent, fluid speed, while the second-degree burns across his body vanished as fresh, unblemished skin wove itself over the brunt meat.

Even the swollen pulp of his face re-sculpted itself into sharp, pristine lines, though the heavy mask of blood and grime effectively hid the miracle from greedy eyes.

-Ding!

{Status has returned to normal.

Excess potency remains... culminating...

Buff: Accelerated healing for the next 30 seconds.

Host, consider yourself immortal for the next 30 seconds.}

Nico lay motionless in the dirt, feigning the paralysis of a broken spine while his mind raced at a velocity that made the world seem to lag.

He throttled the 55 MP Ice Reinforcement back to 45 MP, diverting the MP to activate a 2-second Precognition before slowly raising a trembling hand toward his attackers.

Arlath paused mid-stride at the movement.

He watched with mild curiosity as Nico’s arm shook violently in a pathetic, jerky motion that screamed of nerve damage and final desperation.

"Still twitching?" Arlath scoffed, planting his hands on his hips as he waited for the inevitable collapse.

But Nico ’refused’ to collapse.

Instead, the air around his bloody outstretched finger distorted in a swirl of white mana that was compacting rapidly until it formed a glittering sphere the size of a baseball.

A Snowball.

The sight made Voss blink in genuine confusion before a snort of disbelief escaped his nose.

"What even is that?" the mage wheezed, shaking his head as the tension drained from his shoulders. "That’s his last stand? A fucking... that?"

The Elven Archer, now standing just to Arlath’s left, lowered his bow completely.

"Brain damage..." the elf sneered,

Arlath threw his head back and laughed, "Let him throw it. I have to see this! Hah!"

Voss rolled his eyes but decided to humor the dying Nico.

After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

He flicked his wrist lazily, summoning a translucent, shimmering Tier-2 ward between them and Nico.

"There..." Voss smirked. "Go ahead, kid. Give it your best shot."

The three of them stood there, shoulder to shoulder in a tight, arrogant cluster, watching with amused grins as Nico aimed his glittering toy and glared at them with eyes that burned with a manic, crystalline brightness.

And the next second

-Bish-!Bish-!Bish-!Bish-!Bish-!Bish-!Bish-!

Nico unleashed the stream of glittering white spheres that hammered into the translucent barrier with the intensity of a Gatling gun.

The shield rippled under the deafening staccato of impacts, forcing the three men to flinch as the frost detonated against the mana wall.

Arlath watched the bombardment with a furrowed brow, trying to reconcile the impossible volume of fire.

"That kid definitely exceeds Tier 1... "

Voss nodded while reinforcing the shield with a lazy flick of his wrist.

"Even at a higher Tier, his mana should have run dry by now."

"Maybe he has a treasure that allows him to store mana," the Elven Archer suggested from beside them, his eyes gleaming with speculation.

The realization hit Arlath like a physical blow, deepening the greed on his face as he connected the dots.

"Dragons are treasure hoarders after all... how else would this bitch have so much good shit?"

Arlath crossed his hands with a smile stretching wider by the second, waiting out the storm, only to frown as he realized the continuous explosions had frozen the air beyond the shield into a wall of dense, opaque white fog.

And just as he did, a primal spike of danger screamed in his gut, but the warning came too late.

Nico’s body shoved through the barrier, shattering it like glass as he slammed his entire body into it like a demon birthed from the ice, moving with a speed that defied his earlier injuries.

Arlath turned just in time to see a flash of Nico’s Kukri slicing cleanly through the Elven Archer’s neck before the scout could even widen his eyes.

And in the same fluid motion, Nico snapped his left hand up and fired an AP Ice Pebble that curved in a path calculated with precognition past Arlath’s rising block to bury itself deep into Voss’s left eye socket.

The mage let out a choked gasp before his knees buckled, sending him crashing onto his back as the Ice Pebble shoved into his brain.

Ignoring their collapse, Nico carried his momentum forward past the falling bodies before twisting his waist to kill his speed.

He dug three deep trenches of frozen earth with his boots and his ice-plated hand, grinding to a halt five meters away.

Straightening up slowly, he flashed a blood-stained snarl at the gobsmacked warrior now standing alone in the clearing.

"Peekaboo, bitch!"