Dale stared at Gary and stretched out an arm which the latter promptly took.
He lifted the Awakened to his feet. It was the least he could do.
’Considering the breakthrough he inadvertently gave .’ Dale smiled from ear to ear.
It was as Austin said, the only limit was the understanding — or lack thereof — of the ability user.
From the edges of the forest, Austin and Sarah walked out. No, more like limped out.
The redhead had patches of his clothes burned and cut. So parts of his exposed skin were red with deep cuts... undoubtedly from claws.
Sarah wasn’t that much better off. Her hair was considerably shorter and the uneven length told them that it wasn’t her choice to reduce its length.
Her uniform was better off than Austin’s in the regard of burns but it arguably had more cuts. At least, she didn’t have any cuts on her skin.
When they got to the camp, they crashed on the ground.
Gary imdiately ran to Sarah and Dale went to Austin. "What happened?" He asked as he unsheathed Blight.
His roommate scoffed. "Damned bird. I swear I’ll turn it into wings and make olettes with its eggs."
He offered the saber to Austin and the latter took it.
His muscles rippled and reduced but the cuts and light burns faded away. Save for the lack of energy, he was fine.
Dale raised an eyebrow as he took the weapon away from him, "So I’m guessing you didn’t manage to kill it."
Austin started ranting about how chickens were so much better but Dale was already with Sarah.
He handed her the saber but she refused. Either she truly lacked an injury or she believed she’d be fine without healing herself.
Dale walked back to Austin and sat beside the redhead. "Tell about the bird."
Austin nodded and began his rant. From the corner of his eye, he could see Gary listening in. "The bird... well, the Eagle, has a shadow ability which it doesn’t hesitate to use."
"When we got there, it noticed us and jumped from its nest letting itself free-fall. At first, we thought it was dumb and suicidal but we couldn’t have been more wrong." His eyes flashed with a malice Dale didn’t know his roommate was capable of producing.
"The mont it made contact with the shadow of a tree, it vanished and appeared behind us from our shadows. I barely managed to shove him out of the way."
Just the description alone of the bird’s skills was frightening but Austin wasn’t done.
"Rather than retreat and try again, it flew through another shadow and tried to attack from a different one. Mind you it still hadn’t stopped its montum, so it kept going faster and faster and faster still."
It sounded like a nightmare... almost like they were stuck in a pinball ga with a man-devouring bird.
Austin shivered slightly, "At this point, we were already struggling to avoid its claws and beak. I let it scrape my skin just so I would have a clear shot."
"I threw my fist out but before I could hit it, the damned bird exploded into pure shadows and just passed through , reaching for more shadows."
At this point, Dale’s jaw hung low. ’What sort of beast is that?’
Yet, his roommate still wasn’t done.
"The bird kept accelerating, occasionally turning into shadows when we were about to attack it and flying out of the shadows. We couldn’t predict where it would co from. There are shadows everywhere, Dale."
The scenery sounded like a nightmare. No wonder it had managed to be migratory.
It wasn’t like other beasts could stop it.
Austin sighed. "Sarah realized that we couldn’t escape with our lives so she set everything on fire, temporarily ridding the place of shadows. We used that chance to flee."
Once his narration was over, a heavy silence fell on them.
Gary seed to be calm in thought while Dale was spiralling.
’What sort of monsters do the forests contain?! Surely the military wouldn’t have sent us here if they knew that such a beast was here.’
And to make matters worse, he was absolutely sure that the eagle wasn’t even an Ascended beast else they wouldn’t have survived.
Sure the Awakened trio was technically the sa rank as the beast but in general, beasts were far stronger than humans... albeit to what degree often varied.
’Ahh!! This is very troubleso. What do you do against an enemy that is stronger than you, faster, and seems to possess intelligence?’
If it were in the slums, the only answer was to run but alas, either they faced the beast close to its ho or it faced them at the camp.
It was a matter of ti but their clash was inevitable and either they kill it and keep their lives or it kills them.
’Why ?’ He felt utterly defeated.
It wasn’t completely hopeless though.
Unlike the beast who possessed only a paltry amount of intelligence... at least Dale hoped so, they were humans and thus wielded ingenuity and deductive reasoning.
The fact that they had been able to escape was a sign of that.
Sarah had been onto sothing when she set that part of the forest ablaze. Fire naturally generated light and its initial ignition would have been bright enough to temporarily get rid of shadows.
If they could escape, then it must have worked.
Whether they realized it or not, the bird must have received so damage else it would have resud its chase.
As powerful as it was, it wasn’t infallible.
Like all beasts — and arguably humans — it would spend so ti tending to its wounds then it would resu its migration and hunting.
Before that ti, they had to properly note down the powers displayed by the eagle, co up with a plan to kill it while taking into account possible abilities it might have.
Not to ntion that they had an Ascended beast to kill before the month was over.
’We are you going to die!!’
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