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My severed arm laid at my feet. Blood was slowly filling the pitch-black room and already went past my ankles. I raised my head and saw a mirror. My reflection stared back at me, bloodied, dead in every sense but physical.
Then, the glass cracked and it stared back at me with a mad grin. The blood suddenly reached over my shoulder and I gasped. My reflection started laughing and I gradually lost every feeling across my entire body.
I opened my mouth to breathe and shout, but the blood rushed in and I was silenced by the gargles before clawing at my throat.
"?..! R.?! Ra-!"
I heard a voice calling as I helplessly sunk.
"Rakna!"
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Rakna's eyes snapped open and he immediately grabbed his throat. After he was sure that he could breathe normally, he gasped and started panting as sweat ran down his forehead. He rubbed his eyes and shook his dizziness away before looking around.
Pronos was quite literally under his chin and seemed to be anxious for him. And if his very gloom appearance was anything to do by, the little guy's connection with his master had unluckily made him suffer a bit from the incident as well.
Flavia was crouched next to him with worry written all over her face. Allan was also there but in contrast, his expression expressed a certain disconsolate understanding instead of pure worry.
Fortunately, the Wind Walkers were too far away to have seen his little episode but Nyx who had not moved since earlier was gazing at him with palpable sympathy cast under an appraising scowl.
"Rak, you're good?" Allan spoke up and Rakna grunted as he scooped Pronos up and put him on his shoulder. He used the wall to stand up and groaned as he staggered a bit.
Flavia was about to help him when he raised a hand to stop her. He huffed and leaned against the wall before taking out a cigarette and lighting it. He then wiped his sweat and combed his hair with his hand. In just a few seconds, he was back to a state where it would impossible to tell that anything had happened.
"I'm fine. It's not the first time and it won't be the last anyway," he muttered and blew out a puff of smoke which, if you looked closely, had faint blue glimmers in it.
"Trauma?" Nyx inquired without beating around the bush. She knew that she wasn't a very tactful person anyway and she could easily tell that the man in question was someone who wouldn't feel offended by this simple question.
"Yeah," he replied indifferently, as expected. He grabbed his cigarette with two fingers and showed it to her. "This thing; highly condensed medicine. But, let's be honest, it's quite literally a drug in the most straightforward meaning of the word. It was mainly meant to repress my mind from breaking apart when switching from one state to the other. But I also use it to stop the nightmares."
He continued smoking as he cracked his sore neck. "Normally, I try to never go too deep into REM sleep. That's why I'm used to taking naps so that I don't feel too tired. If I want to not have these nightmares, I have to sleep around 16 hours a day. I'm sure I don't need to explain to you how it was hard for me to do in these circumstances."
Nyx surprisingly sniggered. "I can understand that."
Then, the four of them fell silent until Leis called them from the other side of the gym. "Everyone's ready to start. What about you guys?"
Rakna burned through the rest of his cigarette with one inhale and threw it on the ground. He then casually walked away from the wall and stepped on it. "Ready," he curtly said and unwrapped his scarf before transforming it into a bow. "I'll join the people in the firing team up there. Pronos, Allan, you stay here to defend the entrance. Flavia, support every side. And, if you're willing to, you can do the same, Nyx."
The red-eyed woman nodded calmly. "No need to worry. I will listen to your directives. I'm not a strategist myself. I will help your lady friend over here. I believe we can produce good results together."
"I agree," Flavia followed with a smile.
"Good to hear," Leis said and turned around. "Guys! Its time! Get into position and prepare to open the west door first. If they ever break through the barricade to the south, split up as planned."
""Understood!""
Rakna watched them spread out and followed the ones climbing the stairs placed to the side of the building to reach the glass panels. Pronos had already jumped out from his shoulder to take place on Allan's instead.
When he reached the top of the stairs, he took a panel with no one in front and opened it without hesitating. He started pulling the string of Sonata and three Eion arrows formed on it. The people next to him spectated in shock as he pulled the string back fully and released the three arrows at the same time.
Each of them pierced an eagle flying in circles in the sky. Rakna hummed, "Not bad." He looked at his hand and clenched it. It looked like after the fusion of his weaponry skills, his proficiency with the bow had indeed rocketed to a similar level as his spear mastery. Though, it wasn't as refined as it would be if he had reached that level of mastery by himself.
He had been the first one to shoot but the others couldn't just look at him. The Wing Walkers began to shoot at the eagles in single fire mode. One of them would shoot every two seconds or so to save as much ammo as possible.
Meanwhile, the other group had cleared the barricade and waited patiently. After a minute or so, they could say for sure that there wasn't any monster on the other side. It had been an hour and a half since they got here, after all. They probably had given up.
Leis slowly opened the door and looked from the left to the right through the gap. He nodded then opened the doors wide. He then stepped back and allowed the others to have a clear view of the outside and several goblins. "Shoot," he ordered with a calm voice and whoever had a clear line of sight opened fire.
The timing of this matched the moment when the eagle hunting team started firing as well. In just a few minutes, most goblins to the west side of the gym had been wiped out and at least a hundred eagles had been shot down.
Rakna appraised the situation as he released another arrow that killed his thirteenth eagle. Sadly, he couldn't shoot as many as he would like to since Sonata only was able to generate an arrow every twelve seconds.
"At this rate, the goblins will easily be taken care of," he muttered to himself as he glanced at the west side through the windows. The guns were incredibly efficient to kill goblins and considering how the others still alive were dumbly heading toward the entrance only to die meant that they would be soon done with.
"Yeah, but the eagles are another story," a voice said and Rakna looked at his right to see Dan walk toward him with a bow in his hand. "I'm out of arrows for one and we'll soon be out of bullets. Not only that, even though there are a lot of eagles, we could still get help from the ladies down there to slowly cull them but when the hobgoblins arrive, we'll be in trouble," he said and leaned against the glass panel with his arms crossed.
"Thanks to you, at least, they probably don't have a leader competent enough to lead them into a raid against us. But this will still be a bit annoying. It might take more time than planned."
"Hm," Rakna nocked another energy arrow and killed one eagle who had tried to plunge and then turn in his direction in midair. "No need to worry," he said and mentally commanded Sonata to turn back into a scarf; something that he was still pleasantly surprised he could do now.
He still needed his case to kickstart it when it's a scarf, but other than that, the System would somehow hear his thoughts and change the weapon's form in consequences.
"What do you mean?" Dan scowled.
"You'll see," he walked away from the window after closing it. He looked down at the inside of the gym and spotted his two friends plus Nyx calmly waiting for their turn to step in. "Flavia, Nyx," he said with a voice that was neither loud nor quiet but the two nonetheless heard him.
When they turned their head to look at him, they each caught an object. "The green is a stamina potion. Flavia, I noticed that your stamina goes down when you use your telekinesis. It might not fully heal your mind but it should help, if just a bit. And Nyx, yours is a simple and effective mana potion. Hold onto it and use it when necessary."
"We will, thank you," Flavia smiled and Nyx curiously looked at the liquid inside the tube in her hands.
"You have my thanks as well," she said. "Much to my embarrassment, I couldn't buy one of these in the shop when prioritizing something else."
"Hey, nothing for me?" Allan complained.
"You have Pronos with you. That's one of the best helps I can give you already," Rakna said and walked back to the window where Dan was looking at him weirdly.
"What are you planning to do?"
"Simple," he replied and opened the glass panel wide. He put one foot on the ledge and looked at the spectacled teen. "I'm going to do what I do best," he uttered and jumped out.
Dan watched in shock as he saw him transforming midair before landing on the ground outside in his wolf form. He then howled with everything he had and rushed toward one hobgoblin nearby as two Lv.9 Shadow Wolves appeared at his side.
After that, Dan saw dozens of gray wolves come out of the forest and attack goblins on sight as a shout from a growly voice echoed through the air, "This time, it's not attrition. It's slaughter!"
Every wolf responded with a howl and everyone back at the gym was dumbfounded, especially those who had witnessed Rakna jump out.
"And there he goes," Allan sighed then as if on cue, he started hearing clicking sounds. He looked at the entrance to see the Wing Walkers retreating whilst dropping their now empty guns. "Well, I guess it's time for us to go in."
"Agreed," Nyx was the first to move. The crowd at the entrance made room for her and as soon as she had a view of the opened door, she released a wave of shadow spikes that killed off the closest goblins in one strike, shaving off around 10% of her mana.
"Heh," Allan snickered and ran past her, directly getting out of the building. He charged at one confounded goblin and crushed its head. At the same time, he heard a notification telling him of his successful promotion to level 9 which he profited to allocate two points to speed and the remaining two he had saved up to strength.
Following after him, Flavia came out of the gym and began to twist the neck of every eagle she saw and every goblin that came close to her. With her ability to now target several of them, a single glance could make ten foes die instantaneously. Leis' main team composed of himself, Gantt, Dan, and Leia could only watch with a wry face.
"Do these guys even need us?" Leia deadpanned and Gantt laughed good-naturedly.
"We can't let them do all the job now, can we?" He said and stepped out with his shield in hand.
Leis smiled helplessly as Leia scoffed and rushed out with her hammer over her shoulder. He then schooled his expression and drew his katana before his silhouette blurred in a burst of speed.
Dan sighed wearily and waved his bow which then transformed into a knife attached to a string; the only item he had bought from the shop. He used the string to spin the knife around him before almost disappearing because of the speed of his movements.
For the next hour, only the triumphant howls of wolves, the dying screeches of goblins, and the dull sounds of eagles hitting the ground could be heard.