That night, Uriel went to the beach with the intention to repeat his routine like usual. After several failed attempts to kill the rman king he didn't hold much hopes of success, but he could feel he was getting closer with each passing day.
At first, fighting against the rman army vanguard was impossible and he needed to retreat after killing a couple rman even with the presence of his friends and the strength boost he gained from his dagger. Then he figured the ti it took for them to recharge their water projectiles which allowed Uriel to keep fighting for longer without the need to keep Dash active all the ti.
It wasn't until Luna was able to examine one of the corpses before it disappeared that she was able to learn the location of their flux orb, the purpose of their internal organs and the thickness of their skin. This newly acquired knowledge helped Uriel to defeat the cryptids in a single strike while it also allowed him to know more or less what to expect from them.
After that, all that was left was to learn their attack patterns to finally get close enough to the rman king to fire at him with his Magnum revolver, though even after all his effort that was as far as he managed to get since the bullets would cause no damage to the creature whatsoever.
Charging the shots with flux energy helped a little, but the little damage they caused was aningless as the cryptid was able to regenerate himself.
It was a stalemate that repeated itself each night, but things were different on this particular night where the moon was nowhere to be seen in the sky and even the stars seed to be turning their face the other way just to make the black of the night even darker.
Uriel's dim lantern moved across the beach at a speed that made Nika believe for a second he was using Dash, but at monts it beca even faster to the point of almost disappearing from sight.
"So, we're just going to sit here? I joined this company to make money." Alice said with a pout, now uncaring of Uriel's progress.
"This is interesting." Said Luna in a monotone, though the aning of her words couldn't be more ominous. If she found sothing interesting then it couldn't possibly an anything other than danger.
"What is it?" Nika prompted the annoying huntress to speak.
"The rman king didn't show up tonight," She said pointing at the shore where the rman king usually awaited for Uriel to get close. "every ti we co, it's been there. Always silent, always quiet and serene. This ans sothing changed."
"Isn't it a good thing?" Asked Bella hovering in front of Luna.
"No, I just realized sothing. We co here every night to watch Uriel fight, not just to give him support, but also to learn anything we can about the rman. I think it's possible the rman king has been doing the sa thing and that scares ."
***
Uriel road the shore killing anything and everything that crossed his path under the watchful eyes of his team, ready to jump in at a mont's notice. Now he was accustod to running on sand he didn't feel heavy anymore and was able to perfectly aim the Red thread of fate directly towards the cryptids flux orbs, effectively killing them on an instant.
As effective as this strategy turned out to be, it had the downside of their flux orbs being wasted. Not that he had any choice, though, since rmans were far stronger than the beast rank cryptids Uriel was used to fighting against.
Whenever rmans attempted to use numbers against him, Uriel would shoot a flare to blind them for just enough ti to slay them before they were able to recover. When they, instead, dispersed to fire at him from multiple angles, Uriel would return fire with far better precision.
It took him a long while to learn, but now he was in the best shape he had ever been in his life and beca an adept combatant able to fight against hordes of creatures that could wipe an entire hunting party, completely on his own.
This newfound confidence was likely the reason why he dared to venture just a few steps into the water without noticing Luna signaling him to retreat. The result of this seemingly harmless blunder ca faster than Nika could blink and before Uriel wanted to notice, a long fishing spear went directly through his hand, arm and chest tearing away the under armor like it was made of butter.
"Uriel!" Shouted Nika when she finally managed to get to his side, but the rman king slapped her away with a gesture fit for an emperor sending his minions away. Only she didn't move from where she appeared as the water beneath her feet had beco solid like concrete.
It wasn't frozen, just eerily still and impossibly hard as though the weight of the entire ocean had shifted into that small portion of sea where the two hunters remained.
Alice and Bella fired away, one with her bow and the other with her trait, but despite channeling a considerable amount of flux energy their attacks amounted to nothing against the thick scaly skin of the cryptid.
'We're dead.' Uriel inwardly thought.
'Shit, we're dead.' Nika too thought to herlself as ti seed to co to a halt. They looked each other in the eye without actually seeing each other as their very lives flashed in front of their eyes, but that lasted only until a bright flash of light ca off from the tiny Luna who had rushed in to help.
"Don't step into the water!" Uriel shouted, but it was too late as Luna was now caught by the cryptid's 'Sea Lock' skill.
A disgusting grin was drawn on the rman king's face, the scaly crown that crested his head shimring faintly as it channeled enough flux energy to keep them locked for centuries and he retracted the hooked tip of the fishing spear, tearing through Uriel's internal organs in a violent burst of blood.
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