They talked a lot for a bunch of people who didn't even know that they were fighting children without a single smidge of essence in their body, hm? Otis's eyes flickered towards the blood spilled, the way that those grievously injured by bullet or blade now rose up once more as puppets. He fired one bullet towards the closest brigand, watching as it bounced off from the Personal Barrier that manifested. Forced activation. Wouldn't last too long then. The chamber was broken open, more bullets slotted into them with mechanical efficiency. With essence, he could have drowned those men in a swamp. With Ethos, he could have summoned all manner of enchanted tools.

"Would be easier if you could just temporarily deactivate the rings," Otis said to Fianchetto. "But failing that..."

The Strigidae settled deeper into his shooting stance, one hand behind his back, other hand extended, both eyes wide open. Regular bullets could not puncture a Personal Barrier so easily, and he doubted that an unenhanced Iraleth would have much better luck without the boons of the Inheritor. As such, there was only one way to handle this.

Measure the distance between heartbeats, wait for moments of predictable trajectories, and aim to shatter weapons with gunfire.

Is that what they were doing? Chunji didn't precisely like the prospect of the request, but it would seem that there was little choice in the matter. It would've been easier if they had access to Essence, but it was a problem they would have to deal with. With a sigh, Chunji quickly approached Davil and adjusted his wheelchair before leaving the cart. "Well, we'll try our best," With a shrug, Chunji immediately hid in the chaos of the battlefield.

However, it was more challenging than expected. He wasn't a master of stealth, so naturally, some of the bandits head straight at him. Chunji wielded his poisoned scalpel in one hand and consecutively performed incisions on the bandits. The type of poison he applied was one he concocted himself during his training before his invitation to the academy. It was an amateurish cure that was based on eliminating the pathogens and all cells that were inflicted with the pathogens. Chunji had mixed some of his blood along with other remedial ingredients such as a lizard tail, rabbit fur, and some herbs that his mother grew.

It was amateurish and quickly discarded before Chunji decided to test it. The moment the scalpel melted through the bandit's Personal Barrier, it was clear that Chunji had made the right decision in not testing the poison on an innocent living being. The small incisions soon began to redden and blacken as they circulated through the bandit's body. It would seem that the Grand Lotus Serpent was entirely happy with the arrangement that one of its kin was no longer connected to it.

As his poisoned 'cure' and curse were completely independent of his body, Chunji would at least suspect that the ring wouldn't activate under these circumstances. He had no real control over what the Great Lotus Serpent's Curse did outside of his body.