Chapter 19: VOID BEASTS
They did not dwell too long on the question. The answer was obvious. Silas took the left wing, while Alia took the right.
"We only need to check 10 kiloters. If the void beast is stronger, just retreat and wait for ," Silas instructed.
Alia scoffed at his words. "Whatever."
Silas only shook his head at her pride before he turned to the left wing. He was about to move when he heard Alia’s voice.
"Make sure you don’t die," she said as she burst forward.
Silas furrowed his brows, turning back at her blurred figure drifting through the trees. "I should be telling you that," he yelled. He was confused why soone weaker than him would be worried about him dying and not herself.
He turned to the front. With a tap, he shot forward, tearing through the air.
Alia stopped in the middle of so trees, her eyes scanning the place before she looked up. Aether rushed into her legs as she shot upwards. Seemingly defying gravity, her body twisted midair, landing on one of the branches. The aether in her legs was withdrawn quickly. She needed to conserve her aether as much as she could. She looked at the entire plain from that height, noting anything special.
"Just so tier 1 void beasts," she muttered in an uninterested tone. "Well, at least, they can serve as warm-up."
As those words left her mouth, she dropped from the branch, her body plumting towards the ground. A few ters away, aether pulsed beneath her feet, canceling the impact entirely. Not even dust was raised from the fall.
Without waiting, she moved, her body like a mirage as she quickly approached the group of unlucky tier 1 void beasts. They were close. In less than 2 minutes, Alia made contact with them. She unsheathed her katana from her side, not even stopping. Aether surged through her entire body at once. Her body moved like a flash, stopping just a few ters away from one of the beasts. She turned back with a crazed grin as she returned her katana to its sheath.
Blood spluttered from the beast’s neck as the head slid off cleanly. The other beasts did not even mourn the death, nor did they feel fear from her overwhelming display of power. They lunged at once.
One of them, a wolf-like beast with the tail of a scorpion, reached her first. It swiped its claw forward, tearing towards Alia’s face. She sidestepped cleanly, not even wasting energy.
Before she could counterattack, another beast, a butterfly with arms that looked like those of a gorilla, punched towards her head, the sound barrier shattering from the force of the punch. Alia was not scared. Her body twisted, sorsaulting over the punch like it was nothing.
As if anticipating the action, another beast was already there, its elephant-like tusk smashing down towards Alia’s stomach.
"Tch!" she groaned, seeing as she had driven herself into a corner. But she did not panic. As the tusk neared, she pulled the katana out in a quick draw, returning it in the sa breath. The movent was too fast to be followed by the eyes. Alia landed softly on the ground, the tusk falling beside her. The beast, a cat with six eyes, cried out in pain.
"You are too cute to suffer," Alia said, taking a clean step to the side to avoid a punch from the butterfly. She drew her katana, slashing at the cat’s head. The blade t no resistance. Like fate had already declared the result, the katana sliced cleanly through the neck.
She withdrew her katana, her back bending, parallel to the ground as she avoided the wolf’s tail. Her hand shot upwards, holding the tail before it could pull back. She yanked it with her aether-infused arm, tearing it from the wolf before it could react. Black blood splashed from the tear, but Alia couldn’t care less.
She rose again, blocking a punch from the butterfly with the flat side of her blade. The force sent a bone-rattling tremor through her body, but it was only enough to paralyze her for less than a second before she struck back. She thrust forward at the butterfly’s head. The blade drove through cleanly.
"Only you remain," she said, pulling the blade out of the falling butterfly and pointing it at the wolf. Instincts took over as the wolf’s body glowed with a dark sheen.
"Is this void energy?" Alia wondered, fascinated by the energy the wolf radiated. The wolf’s tail regenerated in an instant. Then two more.
"Is this the legendary berserk mode?" Alia scoffed at the wolf. She recalled one of her lessons that talked about the rare chance of a void beast entering a heightened state near death. "But it doesn’t really look much."
The wolf lunged forward. The smile on Alia’s face froze. The tail pierced through her shoulder, creating a gaping hole that leaked blood profusely. Her eyes widened, realizing what had just happened.
"It evolved to tier 3 directly," the words forced themselves out of her mouth. In that mont, she realized she could have died if not for the tily shift of her body.
On a branch close to her, Alfred looked down calmly, contemplating whether to help or not. He knew for sure that he would go help if she was about to die.
"If the next attack will kill her, I will intervene," he said.
The wolf beast jolted back, creating distance between itself and Alia. It released a loud growl as its bloodshot eyes locked onto her. Boom. Like a bomb, the floor beneath it exploded as it shot forward, faster and with more strength.
Alfred sighed on the tree as he was about to jump down.
"Hey, I thought you asked
not to die," she heard the nonchalant voice say. Her eyes, already snapped shut, opened to see Silas, blocking the wolf’s tail with just one hand.
"I knew that was ant to be for you," he added with a smile.
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