Chapter 88: Together
The impact caused a catastrophic disruption in the beast’s mana flow. The absolute darkness of the do flickered, then violently shattered like a broken mirror.
The artificial night of gate without a moon rushed back in. But it felt very much relieving than the utter darkness of that do.
The colossal bird was stunned in mid-air, its wings flailing wildly as it lost its magical altitude.
Garret didn’t miss a beat.
The giant Warrior leaped off, his thick legs propelling him upward like a cannonball. He grabbed the beast’s thick, feathered legs with both hands, his muscles bulging as he used his overwhelming physical mass to violently yank the house-sized bird down toward the earth, completely grounding it.
"Claire!" Garret roared.
Claire’s eyes snapped open, burning with a brilliant, blood-red light.
Her massive greatsword hovered in the air above her. She didn’t swing it with her hands.
The air around the pitch-black blade violently warped.
With a deafening BOOM that shattered the sound barrier, the greatsword launched upward. It beca a blur of red and black, screaming across the short distance and striking the beast dead center in its bloated chest.
The force of the telekinetic throw didn’t just pierce the beast.
It completely cleaved the colossal bird in half.
Dark blood and iridescent feathers exploded across the ruined street. The two halves of the massive Calamity beast crashed heavily onto the asphalt, twitching violently before rapidly beginning to dissolve into coarse, dark ash.
Claire slowly lowered her hand. The greatsword spun in the air and returned to her grip, the dark tal hissing as it cooled.
Garret landed heavily, dusting feathers off his gauntlets. Rol let out a long, shaky breath, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead.
A perfectly smooth, dark violet crystal erged from the ashes. A C-Rank core.
Claire stepped forward, picking the core out of the dust. She held it tightly in her hand, staring into the dark, twisted horizon.
Suddenly, from over a mile away, a violent burst of light pierced the pitch-black sky.
A massive ball of dark orange fla shot upward from the silhouette of a jagged, folded hill. It exploded mid-air, casting a brief, flickering glow over the ruined terrain.
Claire’s red eyes narrowed.
"That was the Punk’s trick," Rol confird, stepping up beside her. He was the only one who had witnessed Hide use Abyssal Fla before. "Why is that asshole doing that? Does he want to attract beast to himself? He doesn’t even know we are here."
"Or he’s fighting," Garret rumbled, cracking his knuckles. He had taken two potions that helped recover the wound on his shoulder.
"We need a light source," Claire stated, looking at the dead, black trees surrounding them.
Garret walked over to the nearest horizontal tree trunk. With a single, effortless twist of his massive hands, he snapped off a thick, heavy branch.
They had no Mages in their group, so they had to improvise. Rol struck his combat knife rapidly against the tallic plating of his gauntlet, creating a shower of sparks while Claire used her telekinetic friction to forcefully heat the wood’s surface.
After several intense seconds, the wood caught fire.
A makeshift torch flared to life, casting long, dancing shadows across the broken street.
The three of them broke into a dead sprint, tearing across the ruined landscape toward the fading light of the explosion.
A mile away, the terrain was a jagged nightmare of broken bedrock and tall, overgrown grass.
Hide was running as fast as his legs could carry him. His breath ca in sharp, ragged gasps. He was currently carrying Evelyn—who was still unconscious and bleeding from her forehead, securely on his back.
Elara was sprinting right behind him. Her small hand was locked in a death grip onto the back of Evelyn’s ruined shirt, using it as a physical anchor to guide her through the pitch-black maze.
"Hide, slow down!" Elara wheezed, stumbling over a piece of broken concrete. "Why are we running so fast?!"
"Because staying there ans dying," Hide gritted out, his glowing blue eyes scanning the darkness.
His instincts were screaming at him. The mont he had killed the Slaughter Doll, that sothing was wrong.
They had to get away from the hill. Now.
They plunged down the steep incline, crashing through a thick patch of tall, bladed grass.
Suddenly, Hide saw up multiple figures moving rapidly toward them from the deep forest ahead.
Hide skidded to a halt, nearly sending Elara tumbling into his back.
He gently lowered Evelyn to the ground, stepping in front of the two girls. Dark mana instantly poured from his hands. Zenith’s towering, armored figure materialized, raising its massive sword in a defensive stance.
Hide gripped Night Singer, his muscles coiled like springs.
A faint orange light flickered through the trees.
The figures burst through the tree line.
Hide froze.
It wasn’t a pack of beasts.
It was Claire, holding a makeshift wooden torch, flanked by Garret and Rol.
"Hide?" Rol called out, imdiately lowering his combat knife.
"Who’s there?!" Elara practically shrieked, blindly waving her wand toward the light. She couldn’t see past the glare of the torch.
Then, her eyes adjusted.
Elara’s face instantly crumpled. Tears of pure, overwhelming relief flooded her eyes. She dropped her wand entirely and sprinted forward, throwing her arms around Claire’s waist in a desperate, clinging hug.
"Claire!" Elara sobbed loudly, burying her face in the white combat suit. "I thought we were going to die!"
"..."
’She is supposed to be a goddamn Major. She is like a child.’ Hide lampooned.
Claire exhaled, a long, heavy breath of genuine relief. She reached down and gently ruffled Elara’s ssy hair.
"Good work," Claire said softly, her red eyes softening for a fraction of a second. "Thank god you are alright."
Garret imdiately knelt beside Evelyn, checking the pulse on her neck. "She’s stable. Just knocked out."
Rol looked at Hide. The F-Rank was covered in dark blood, his clothes were shredded, and he looked exhausted.
He opened his mouth, but decided against it and didn’t say anything.
Claire looked up from Elara, her eyes locking onto Hide. She was about to speak, to formulate a plan for extraction.
But before a single word could leave her mouth, the world stopped.
A horrific, deafening groan echoed from the hill Hide had just run down. It sounded like the tectonic plates of the earth were literally screaming.
Everyone snapped their heads toward the sound.
The entire peak of the hill filled with buildings and ruined houses, violently buckled. Every single piece of debris, every slab of concrete on the surface was instantly shattered into fine dust, crushed completely flat under an imnse gravitational pressure.
Two figures were descending from the sky.
On a closer inspection, they all were shocked to find out that it was a girl and a man behind her.
She looked no older than twenty. She had incredibly long, flowing golden hair that seed to defy gravity, drifting lazily around her shoulders. She was completely naked, her skin flawless.
But her eyes were what truly froze the blood in Hide’s veins.
Her right eye was a deep, oceanic blue. Her left eye was a piercing, vibrant yellow.
She touched down lightly on the flattened peak of the hill, her bare toes barely disturbing the dust.
She looked down at the six humans standing in the valley and smirked.
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