Luara grinned, rotating her sword arm, trying to relieve the tension she felt from swinging her sword for so long.
Currently, the battlefield was filled with the corpses of FrillGeckos, many sprawled in blood and limbs.
Currently, they were looking directly at the leader of the pack, a greenish grey lizard with a head as red as an agama and two frills standing erect on its neck.
Its maw was filled with small razor like teeth, each the size of an average human.
It stood on its hind legs, like a large dinosaur, it's fore limbs clawed like long curled hooks.
Its body was filled with scars which seemed to squirm, as Quather covered them, causing them to slightly patch themselves.
'Regeneration'
This ability was found in all Evo-Beasts no matter the level, but it was mostly prevalent in C-Class or higher. And the higher the class, the faster it healed.
It was rumoured that A-Class could even regenerate their heads as long as their cores were intact.
"Baldur, you've got to get in here... Now!"
Baldur, who looked tired and distracted, trying to catch his breath, instantly reacted. He dashed forward, gripping his spear as he came closer to Luara. She on the other hand roared, banging her sword to her shield and activated an ability in the process.
Taunt
The ability to grab the attention of an Evo-Beast mid combat was crucial, particularly if the target was somewhat sentient.
The lizard shook its head, trying to grapple with the sudden intrusive thoughts to attack Luara only. It almost succeeded had Luara not layered another ability into it.
Call of Durandal
This time, Luara's black heavy armour shone with blinding white light, dazing the lizard before her.
The shadows cast by the light from the Alpha Gecko suddenly squirmed, shadow birthing shadow as Li Mei crawled out from beneath the earth.
She couldn't cause much damage for her Grevious spells to work on it, but she noticed a something peculiar. All parts of the lizard regenerated faster than its back.
So she aimed for a backstab. She dashed through the shadows of the distracted opponent, running up its tail and up on its vertical back.
The lizard noticed this anomaly, shaking its head as it tried to look at what had climbed up on him. Just as he did, a spear struck right into its jaw, piercing it. Baldur had thrown his spear as a javelin, doing enough damage to pierce right through the flesh of the lizard.
This did not faze the Gecko, who swung its tail towards Baldur. It then turn its neck, biting at Mei, who has lodged her dagger into its back. She let gravity take her, ripping a gash downwards.
Before she could cast her Grevious Suture, the maw of the lizard was already closing in on her.
She kicked off its back, flipped in the air with such grace and poise, and then landed on her feet. Just then, the Lizard swung its tail, making a sweeping gesture for an area attack. Li Mei had not found her balance, and so she was slightly vulnerable.
Just as the speeding tail was to strike her, the shield maiden had jumped right in front of her at a very fast speed, virtually stopping the attack with a loud BANG! resounding from the collision of the tail and her shield.
"Focus Hela, don't break the rhythm" she roared, blood flowing from her lips as her shield and her armour shone brighter.
Li Mei knew she had made a mistake. The decision to jump off the Lizard was a poorly made one, as she could have melded into the shadow of it on its back, practically negating its attack and causing it to harm itself.
Then she would have emerged to continue rampaging its back. An effecient way to attack, playing around the taunt times the lizard would be distracted.
Her jumping off broke the rhythm her team setup inadvertently.
'But, it's mouth is so... Disgusting' Li Mei thought to herself.
Baldur on the other hand, had jumped to the lizard's face, grabbing at his spear and channeling Quather through it. A burst of light shone from it, vines seemed to grow where the wound was, causing it to deteriorate and rot.
Luara activated her taunt again.
Li Mei used her Grevious Suture on the same wound, making it bigger.
Soon they formed a combo...
Luara would taunt.
Li Mei would do damage
Baldur would deteriorate it.
Li Mei would expand it.
And slowly, they were able to beat the regeneration of the FrillGecko leader, weakening it.
At some point, it's energy failed it, and. Li Mei stood, ready to end it, her dual daggers drawn.
She turned the area around the Lizard dark, filled with shadows and vanished.
A long gash grew from the lizard's belly up to its neck, causing organs to rupture and burst out.
Her ultimate attack that allowed her to move at high speed and make decisive attacks through a shadow domain
She called it.
SLAUGHTERING SHADOWS
***Two days later***
The team had spent the entire day looting the remains of the lizard's, their gains immense.
Over 122 D-Class Cores
And 1 C-Class
The harvest worth in the millions of QC's. Their luck couldn't have been better as they found a nest of Evo-Beasts far from others... Meaning no other team came over to find out their bounty before they left.
They had been on the road, and during their journey, had realized the time difference was about 1 real world minute to 1 new world hour.
So they had only spent 48 minutes in the real world, but it translated to two days here.
The squad had been driving, and it seemed they grew closer. Luara was now less quiet as she answered questions from Li Mei, occasionally throwing a jab at Baldur.
Baldur as usual was talkative, trying his best to impress. After the First day, they had found a small disjointed herd of Evo-Beasts called Ruin-Deer running away, about three in number.
They had slaughtered them, and found tracks of another larger one just east of them.
"Mhmm, this must be a male, something seems to be chasing them." Luara put in, looking at the point where the tracks diverged.
"Or someone, look there now tracks of what was chasing them on the ground" Baldur put in, looking at the trees above.
Li Mei nodded, then spoke up.
"It could have been one person, if they used the trees... Maybe a B-Class expert?"
"Nah! No B-Class usually enters a designated D-Class gate normally. The cores they gain do nothing to their advancement due to lack of a sufficient amount of C-Class Evo-Beasts" Baldur objected, shaking his head.
"Then whoever it is... Is probably stupid. Can't he read the energy of his opponents... Going one on one with a C-Class Evo-Beast alone, even a C-Class Ascendant wouldn't do that!"
Li Mei didn't reply, looking at the direction the Ruin-Deer ran off to.
"I'll go scout ahead"
Luara lifted her brow with a questioning gaze, before sighing.
"Go, see if we can gain anything from this. If he or she is in danger, proceed to assist him or her. The Ruin-Deer males horns are particularly useful to us".
Li Mei nodded and then melted into shadows.
***Ten minutes later***
She followed the tracks diligently, and soon could hear the sounds of fighting and roaring ahead.
She remained in the shadows keeping her Quather in check to become totally invisible. This was one of the advantages of her shadow element; except her opponent was a higher class with high levels of perception, she was practically invisible.
She soon reached and opening where the battle was taking place, and what she saw dumfounded her.
A D-Class Ascendant was taking on a C-Class Evo-Beast on his own...
And he was winning...
This was... Surprising.
She knew how strong she was, and knew she would struggle to take down the Male ruin deer by herself, at least for a time.
But the guy in front of her seemed, relaxed. He fought with a fluid technicality, using his opponents movements to put himself in advantageous scenarios. He was literally running circles around it.
She noticed his use of poisons to weaken his opponent, but what took her aback was the act of mixing them mid combat.
'Such high level Multitasking '
His main weapons was a bow that could turn into a two sided spear, making him versatile in short and long range combat. This guy, was a genius in combat.
Soon, he had it in the floor, a dagger stabbing into its skull. He muttered a few words to himself that she couldn't hear and then the unthinkable happened.
He sniffed, and then tossed his dagger right at her position.
Li Mei almost didn't react, she was stunned that someone could see through her shadow stealth at such a low level.
Her eyes narrowed as she instinctually tilted her head, dodging the knife that lodged itself into the tree her shadow was hiding.
She remained absolutely still, not making a sound. This seemed to scare the man, who immediately ate the brain of the deer, excavated the core with fluid precision, and dehorned it as fast as possible, before disappearing into the trees.
After a minute, she sensed his energy gather into itself in a hidden spot and smiled.
'He thinks he can hide from me?' she thought, but didn't put it to heart. What was in her mind was how he found her so easily.
'He sniffed, so he has a higher sense of smell?' she thought, before walking out of her hiding spot, revealing herself. Knowing full well that she was been watched due to her affinity with shadows, she went to inspect the remnants of the Ruin-Deer male.
On getting there, her comms rang in her ear.
Her team had found something and she needed to get back as soon as possible. She sighed before dashing into the shadows, disappearing the same way she came.
One thing was sure in her mind...
'That guy, was no ordinary Ascendant'