My heart pounded in my chest. The sounds of the battle ringing in my ears. The smell of blood was heavy in my nose and the cries of both humans and mutated creatures all reached my ears.
This all felt like a dream- a really horrible dream. Something like this would have only been a scene from a movie but then again everything else should have too. I took everything in and it felt as if it would drown me.
I had thought that after all I had been through, my experiences, with Billy…or at least the ravid version of him I would be indifferent to the death of strangers and maybe even death in general. That wasn't the case at all.
This level of carnage was something I hadn't experienced at all. Even on the first day of the apocalypse, I had been in a relatively clean environment with the only blood shed being that of the Ravid turned Billy and then later the Black Wasp had made an appearance and I had to go through my first life and death battle.
Of course since then I have been constantly dancing within the edges of both life and death. I had fought large groups of mutated creatures, had a run in with the Tiger Gang and though I had killed a fair number of people and fought an equally fair number of battles… it was never anything of this scale.
A mutated creature came at me, it claws curving through the air in a wild vicious arc to tear into my flesh and bone. My body moved on its own, shifting to the side and sidestepping around the creature.
I snapped out of my thoughts concentrating on what really mattered right now.
'Focus Huey! You just need to do what you've been doing this entire time. Fight, grow stronger and then head towards your mother while also protecting my friends'
My right hand wrapped around the hilt of [Black Salamander], its obsidian blade flashing with a slightly dark light as I swung in a low horizontal swipe. The blade cut through the hind legs of the creature, it wailed in pain but was soon silenced by the point of my blade sinking into its skull.
A trickle of soul essence entered my soul, it felt small like a small drop of water falling into a large lake. The green letters of the Spirit Record flashed in my retina
[You have the soul essence of Level 4 Unclassified Mutated Fox…]
I tuned out the Spirit Record shifting my attention to something else.
[Earth's Evolution progress: 10%]
The evolution progress had ticked up in the last couple of minutes from 1% all the way to 10%. It was moving fast and if it continued to go up at this pace then maybe by the time this battle was over, Earth would have become a Second Stage World.
I took deep, slow breaths.
'Until then let's fight and get stronger. Hopefully before the 'Lurker' appears I'd have hit level 20' I thought the creature still lingering on the back of my head and I was absolutely certain that creature would make an appearance, how could it resist all the soul essence that was gathering here especially given that the evolvers and the beasts alike would be growing stronger as time passed.
The others of the group had branched off leaving only Jordan, Lydia and Candice with me.
Clara, Mordecai and Dulton had moved a little further to the east end of the battlefield while Conrad and Veronica were a little deeper and closer to the frontlines but still ultimately in the same eastern direction. Rina was further in the backlines helping with the injured together with a team of medics that was set up to help any injured who managed to make it back, and although she couldn't use her healing skill in large amounts, small bursts from time to time could really make the difference.
Nale had gone off with Vicky had gone off to the western front to support Thorne and other evolvers who were considered elites among those of Camp White.
WHOOSH
The wind shifted, causing the ends of my coat to flutter wildly. I turned my gaze to my left slightly.
Lydia had begun stood with her hands stretched forward. Her dark hair flowing the wind with an added grace to her and her brows were furrowed in concentration as she whipped her hands once more. The winds shifting and bending to her designs as her mana stirred.
[Air manipulation]
It was a skill that allowed Lydia to have absolute control over the air in a radius of 10 meters around her. It took a minimum of 10 mana point to activate but if she put her mind and effort to it then she could use more mana to make it even stronger…her limit was her imagination and how large her mana pool was.
Blades of winds shot from each swing of her arms. They weren't clearly visible unless one paid special attention to the wind around them. not to say that the wind was invisible but it was more…translucent.
"Wind blades" she muttered.
The two wind blades cut into an approaching pack of what appeared to be a pack of mutated dogs, cats and even some mutated forest animals that I didn't recognize at a glance but every creature here was carrying a heavy atmosphere of bloodlust that was almost overwhelming.
The blades collided with a couple of these beasts and sliced them in pieces that fell to the ground in a puddle of blood. The rest of the surviving beasts simply leapt over the piles of blood and flesh and continued their charge indifferently.
It was appalling really and strange…normally from what the [Beginner's guide] informed, during a world's evolution, all the beast with low intelligence would have their instincts for slaughter and thirst for evolution to the point that they would lose their minds and attack any thing with soul essence.
'These beasts should have been killing both each other as well as us…so why did it seemed as though all the creatures had rallied together instead?' I thought as the other creatures were getting closer now Jordan primed his fists, getting into a stance with bent knees. I released a breath calming myself and prepared my sword, holding it out in front of me.
"Candice its time to shine" Jordan said to which I could only laugh slightly. Jordan stood to my right, Lydia stood to my left and Candice stood to Jordan's side.
She rolled her eyes slightly but soon, her expression turned serious as she gave everyone a warning.
"EVERYONE WITH A 10 METER RADIUS! Close your eyes now if you don't want to get blinded!!" her mana was already circulation within her body in the unique way that was attributed to the activation of her active skill, she brought her hands closer to each other leaving a small gap between them. "[Blinding light]"
Following that a sphere of white light materialized between her palms. First it was small as a pebble and then it expanded rapidly as though it was a balloon, when it reached the large enough size it exploded into a wave of light to bright that I could feel it hurt my eyes just the slightest bit beneath my eyelids.
This happened all in a matter of heartbeats.
"Done!" Candice and I immediately opened my eyes to a scene that seemed to out of place that it would have been comical if not for the graveness of the situation.
All the mutated beasts that were affected by Candice's skill found themselves blinded and their senses overwhelmed. Some creatures that had been in a full-on sprint tripped and fell face first into the dirt, those that had been in the middle of a struggle against an evolver found themselves thrashing wildly-unable to find their enemies.
The battlefield descended into chaos- for the humans of Camp White, it was a godsend.
"Kill!" an evolver shouted and the humans charged.