My job list is full of alien girls.

Chapter 43 You believe me, I believe you

"Is it you?"

When Aphrodite saw the figure emerging from the woods, her expression changed drastically.

The cool moonlight slanted across the cemetery.

The once lush trees and grass around them had been corroded by the dark red energy, leaving large areas charred black, and the withered, yellowed branches and leaves rustled in the gale.

In this world that resembles ruins, the leisurely wandering swordsman stands out conspicuously.

He wore an exquisite cyan-gold soft armor, the edges of which shimmered with a crystalline light, and his feather-like shawl fluttered slightly behind him in the night breeze.

He held in his hand the purple elven bow that had originally been in Alina's hands. At this moment, the surface of the longbow was covered with a layer of cyan-gold light, and energy condensed on the bow to form mysterious patterns, which were dazzling and colorful.

The moonlight shone on his ethereal and aloof face, making him look like a top-tier elf hunter straight out of legend—elegant, powerful, yet exuding a deadly aura.

With such obvious features, Aphrodite would naturally not forget him.

It's that wandering swordsman I met at the blacksmith shop a couple of days ago...

Why is this guy here too?!

Could it be that the earlier commotion attracted him here?

But this speed is too fast.

Why are there so many people in this awful place, the cemetery, today?

Or is it... that he has a connection with those two people?

The mysterious ranger before her forced Aphrodite to quickly calm down from her raging emotions and realize that her current situation was extremely dangerous.

Even in a cemetery, a large area with plenty of hiding space, Aphrodite was confident that she could take down the gravedigger and the not-so-powerful half-elf sooner or later.

But now, with the emergence of several unfathomably powerful individuals, the situation has completely reversed.

Aphrodite wasn't afraid of the knight-errant in front of her, but the presence of two other figures lurking in the shadows made her hesitant to be overconfident.

They might be hiding in the shadows, preparing an ambush. In that case, we'll not only have to face this ranger head-on, but also be wary of the half-elf's sneak attacks. It'll be quite a challenge.

Even if they didn't dare to ambush him and chose to escape and call for reinforcements, alerting the Papal Knights, he would still be in a completely passive position.

Aphrodite quickly grasped the situation and the stakes at hand, and immediately decided to avoid any unnecessary conflict with the other party.

"Haha, what a coincidence, we meet again~" She subtly tossed her wand behind her back, forcing a smile at the ranger before her. "What are you doing here?"

Rhodes naturally wouldn't answer her.

Because that would ruin the character design of the Swift Ranger.

But in Aphrodite's eyes, this behavior was seen as the ranger in front of her looking down at her with a cold expression.

"What an arrogant fellow..."

The intense sense of oppression made the succubus feel uneasy and resentful, but even so, Aphrodite still managed to force a friendly and ingratiating smile, and her voice softened.

"Since you don't want to talk about it, then forget it."

She subtly took a step back, her scarlet eyes flashing as she probed indirectly.

"Coming to a cemetery, such a deathly place, so late at night," Aphrodite's long, thin tail flicked beneath her dress, "would she be here for a stroll?"

"Lifeless..." Upon hearing her words, Rhodes glanced at the withered plants around him and felt deeply depressed.

This place was so vibrant just a moment ago; it's all because of that succubus's strange magic.

We can't let her get away with this!

Aphrodite suddenly felt a chill run down her spine, but she didn't know why.

Seeing that the strange person in front of her was unyielding and had no intention of catching up with her or engaging in conversation, plus the fact that she didn't know what schemes were lurking in the shadows.

It is not advisable to stay for long.

"It seems that you are not in a good mood tonight..." Aphrodite forced herself to maintain her composure, slowly backing away with a helpless smile on her face.

"I won't bother you anymore, I'll be going now..."

"You can't leave," Rod said decisively.

"We have no grudge against each other, do we?" Aphrodite offered a pitiful smile, her hands behind her back silently tightening their grip on her wand. "Are you really determined to keep me here?"

"right."

Just as Rhodes finished speaking, the tip of Aphrodite's wand, which had been hidden behind her back, suddenly lit up with a blinding dark red light.

[Magic Blast]

A violent, malevolent energy tore through the air and headed straight for Rhodes' face.

"Watch out!" Alina warned urgently from within the consciousness space.

Using the agility of the Wind Ranger, Rhodes twisted his waist and leaped lightly to the side.

boom!

A dark red energy beam grazed his cloak and slammed into the bushes to his side, completely corroding the already lifeless vegetation, sending black ash flying everywhere.

As soon as Rhodes' feet touched the ground, his right hand was already on the bowstring, the movement flowing smoothly.

The enchanted elven bow was instantly drawn to its full length, and emerald green wind elements gathered wildly at the tip of the iron-tipped arrow, emitting a sharp, whistling sound.

call--

As the arrow was about to leave the bowstring, Aphrodite's face hardened, and she uttered a short, obscure, silvery incantation.

【Silver Light's Sharp Words】

Tiny, silvery-white specks of light swept across the scene like a swarm of clouds, landing precisely on the wandering swordsman before them.

"That same trick again?!"

The somewhat familiar feeling made Rhodes and Alina realize something instantly. The magic they were gathering was immediately interrupted, and the enchantment effect that was originally attached to the arrows collapsed into a cloud of cyan-gold particles, dissipating into the night.

"The effect of [Armed Upgrade] was actually forcibly blocked by this strange spell?" Rhodes was stunned for a moment, then loosened the taut bowstring.

The arrow was eventually fired, but it reverted to an ordinary iron-tipped arrow. Without the enchantment, its trajectory was slightly off, and it was dodged by Aphrodite, who was prepared.

"That bow..."

Aphrodite stared at the elven longbow that had lost its enchantment, watching it revert to its original form, and suddenly froze.

That looks like the elven longbow that the ranger bought from the blacksmith earlier...

But that bow was clearly in the hands of that damned half-elf girl from before, and even the arrows were the same style.

Countless chaotic clues frantically strung together in Aphrodite's mind, and a terrifying possibility gradually emerged in her thoughts.

This can only mean that,

This terrifyingly powerful and mysterious ranger, that despicable half-elf, and that eccentric gravedigger... the three of them are in cahoots, and their relationship is so good that they can even borrow each other's weapons!

A chill ran from the soles of her feet straight to the top of her head, as if an unseen hand was constantly controlling her fate, sending shivers down Aphrodite's spine.

She began frantically recalling how she met these three people.

After a chance encounter at the blacksmith's shop, she took the initiative to approach the wandering swordsman, trying to recruit him into her resurrection plan. After failing, she never saw him again.

Later, she was hunted down by the Holy Light Church and fled in a sorry state through the sewers in an attempt to escape her pursuers. However, she unexpectedly encountered Rhodes, the seemingly ordinary gravedigger, and it was because of him that she escaped a calamity.

As for the half-elf, he was the gravedigger's companion, and they seemed to have a very close relationship.

The city of Misty City is so vast, yet these two groups of people, who seemed to have no connection whatsoever, happened to run into her precisely that night in the cemetery.

This could not possibly be a coincidence.

They've been watching us for a while now?

A huge, unknown conspiracy has already lurked in the shadows around her.

Aphrodite was quite certain that all her interactions with them so far had been impulsive and beyond her control.

But she just couldn't understand how the other party had managed to calculate every single one of her actions so perfectly.

"No, there must be another reason..."

Aphrodite bit her lip, fighting the ranger in front of her while rapidly recalling every detail of her interactions with them.

Finally, she suddenly remembered that the ranger and the gravedigger had both mentioned having friends from the Holy Light Church.

"It's holy light again..."

Thinking of this, Aphrodite turned pale.

Shocked, she dared not stay there for even a moment longer.

Aphrodite gritted her teeth, her bat wings flapping frantically behind her as she tried to increase her speed and escape the terrifying cemetery under the cover of night.

Rod didn't give her a chance at all.

The enchantment effect of the weapon upgrade is gone, but the high agility and basic shooting skills that the Swift Ranger class comes with are still intact.

Whoosh!Whoosh!Whoosh!

With a flick of his fingers, Rhodes sent three ordinary iron-tipped arrows flying in a triangular formation, effectively blocking all of Aphrodite's angles of ascent.

As a half-demon, Aphrodite possessed the ability to fly, but only for short distances, and her speed was far slower than that of an arrow.

Unfortunately, she couldn't fly any higher than the arrows could reach, making her a sitting duck in mid-air, where the arrows could easily pierce her.

She could only awkwardly turn back in mid-air and fall back to the ground to resume her fight with her opponent.

Aphrodite desperately wanted to escape, but she dared not distance herself from the ranger.

Once she's out of her spell's effective attack range, facing a top-tier archer who can continuously harass and threaten her, she won't even have a chance to fight back.

"You two really are persistent..."

A ruthless glint flashed in Aphrodite's eyes.

Since that was the case, she decided to hold back no longer, snatched a bottle from her bosom that was flowing with purple-green light, pulled out the cork, and tilted her head back to gulp down the potent magical potion inside.

A violent burst of magic erupted within his body.

The succubus's white hair flew wildly, and her scarlet pupils shone brightly, like two balls of blood fire.

The bat wings on her back suddenly doubled in size, and dark red veins bulged and throbbed on the surface of the membrane.

Its long, thin tail lashed violently at the ground, smashing the hard tomb bricks to pieces.

Complex black patterns sprouted from the demonic horns on its forehead, causing its overall aura to surge exponentially.

The potent effects of the drug forcibly aroused the ferocity of the demonic bloodline.

"Die!"

Aphrodite shrieked, her wand flashing out afterimages in an instant.

Dense, rain-like dark red energy materialized out of thin air, and a piercing roar echoed through the night sky.

The magical energy that instantly coalesced transformed into an impenetrable energy net, covering the entire area where the ranger stood, and rained down upon him.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Large tracts of forest were completely reduced to scorched earth.

With his superhuman agility as a Wind Ranger, Rhodes forcibly twisted his body and rolled backward before the first energy blast exploded.

The barrage of spells rained down from the sky, leaving almost no blind spots. Dark red beams of light exploded incessantly in the air, and powerful shockwaves ripped up patches of soil from the ground.

Even with the speed of a Swift Ranger, Rhode had to awkwardly leap and change direction repeatedly between the tombstones and charred tree trunks to avoid the attacks.

Mud, grass, and pebbles pelted his cyan-gold soft armor, causing his blood to surge and forcing him to desperately seek cover to avoid the intense ground-cleansing attacks.

"How did things turn out like this...?"

Seeing the horrific scene, Alina, inside her consciousness space, couldn't help but murmur to herself.

"I don't know." Rhodes ran away expressionlessly, pondering where the problem lay.

He only wanted Aphrodite to stay and restore the cemetery before leaving, but it seems the result was that half the cemetery was almost destroyed...

"Did we push her too hard before?" Alina sighed. "Especially you. Although I don't know exactly what you said that provoked her, my gut feeling tells me that the problem definitely lies with you."

"Maybe I really said something wrong?" Rhodes wiped the soot off his face. "Could it be that nobody wants her, which is why she's so angry?"

"I think there might be other reasons..." Alina carefully recalled what Aphrodite had told them.

"She repeatedly emphasized the resurrection magic, including when she was trying to seduce you, she kept saying it could resurrect important people..."

At this point, Alina's voice unconsciously lowered, "I'm afraid she has lost someone very important, and what you just said hit a nerve."

"Because we kept rejecting her and being hostile to her, she completely tore off the mask and was willing to expose herself rather than let us die."

"Well, maybe I should go apologize," Rod said dejectedly, dodging the tree trunk that had snapped in half and nearly hit him. "But it might not be the right time to do that now."

He clenched his fist as he said this.

It must be said that in the terrifying battle with Aphrodite, he gradually mastered the new power brought by the 40% resonance level.

So now, as long as Aphrodite is defeated first, his plans can proceed step by step.

But he always felt that something was missing from this power...

"There's another question," Alina suddenly remembered something during her analysis, "You went to the sewers specifically to merge with her, right? Then why did you stop?"

Perhaps it was because she was now one with Rhodes, and with their bodies and minds merging, even Rhodes' calm emotions were transmitted to her.

The bitterness that had been caused by Rhodes had lessened considerably, allowing Alina to begin to think about the matter calmly.

"My attempt to merge with her failed," Rod crouched behind a broken tombstone, the violent roar sending shivers down his spine. "She lied to me, saying she was willing to merge with me, but we couldn't resonate with each other."

"Is that so..." Alina pondered for a long time but still couldn't understand where she resonated with him, and couldn't help but ask, "Then why were we able to merge the two of us the first time we met?"

"Because you believe in me, and I believe in you."

"Huh? Eh?!" Alina in the consciousness space was stunned. "Why are you suddenly bringing this up?"

"Haven't you noticed?" Rhodes clenched his fist and said with certainty, "Even though we haven't known each other for long, our resonance is getting stronger and stronger, and even the Swift Ranger has become much more powerful."

"I think,"

"That's the power of belief."