When the walls of dust, and crushed lives, rose through the carnage, I think that's when I understood what Master Stargazer meant by that lesson.
Top-notch synchroners really have little reason to care about common sense.
What makes me wonder why the world hasn't spiraled into carnage yet? The answer can be inferred from simple logic, they don't live on islands, each completely isolated from the other, so the reactions and considerations of other Synchroners have to be taken into account before acting.
My epiphany is interrupted by Talavar's swords of light, which kill the beasts with efficiency and simplicity, and also something I'm personally grateful for: it doesn't have the same macabre visual impact as Jill and Kaz's abilities.
Would my ability be the same if I could synchronize light? Probably not since a Ligverborge's abilities are described as 'enhancements'.
Still, Talavar's ability to control the thousand swords of light interests me.
As I daydreamed Talavar and Jill continued the killing, a swing of the blade and a thousand followed, a flick of fingers and roots and vines assaulted the beasts, it looked like the two of them would indeed manage to take care of the horde alone.
Until now.
Hidden among the tigers and buffaloes, a feline jumped out, a cheetah with two tails that ended in short blades of bones and each spot of its skin was a stake, from its mouth you could see the serrated tongue when it growled.
As the edged cheetah tried to get even farther away from the rest of the herd, roots popped out of the ground and tried to grab it but the feline leapt or slashed at everything in its path, until it got to the two of us.
He jumps and tries to attack us with his claws, we jump to the sides avoiding his claws, then the tails make a semi circle horizontally one to each side, from this attack we first duck until the cheetah has to retract the tail and Before he could react we gathered to his left.
"Shouldn't we stick with the small fish?" I ask Mingten in an ironic way to shake off some of the nervousness.
"If you compare the other beasts in the horde, it's small, it just isn't a fish." What response. I don't even know what to say.
At least I'm not so tense anymore.
"What's the plan?" I ask, mentally preparing myself for how crazy things can get.
I mean, crazier.
"I've never seen such a beast so, first let's test the waters, if we can handle it with just our skills, great." Mingten speaks what I can only assume is the standard method for dealing with unknown beasts.
The cheetah runs this time instead of jumping, but he doesn't run directly towards us, no, he runs at an angle and then circles us.
"What if we don't?" I check that we have a plan B, although I'm not sure I'd call what we're doing plan A.
It's more like an outline of a plan.
"We lure this thing into range of the barrier, or back to Jill and Talavar." It will have to serve.
The cheetah extends one of its tails, Mingten blocks it with her sword and I take advantage of the fact that he is running in circles and from my ring I shoot a jet of fire in front of me without bothering to aim.
As the beast is running in circles at high speed he will end up going through the flames on his own and even if he has a way to dodge it he is doomed to have to slow down in order to avoid the fire.
The cheetah walks straight through the flames, setting its fur on fire, and the tip of the stakes, changes course, coming straight at me, with the clear intention of making me experience what it's like to burn alive.
No thanks, I already know how it is.
I snap my fingers and the fire in the cheetah's body spreads out suddenly, unfortunately not enough to kill it, but the sudden increase in pain was enough to stop its advance.
For a few seconds the cheetah is there convulsing with pain, but out of anger or survival instinct he soon comes back to himself, but his recovery was too slow.
When he was about to force his own body to move through the pain, Mingten was already running towards the cheetah with almost superhuman speed although it didn't compare to the beast we faced, it's more than enough.
Holding the sword with both hands, she stabs the cheetah between the eyes, I feel a sinister vibration in my sixth sense, the cheetah shakes and in sequence blood begins to flow from its eyes, mouth and ears while its body slides from the blade to the floor.
"All of you back to the Tower! Now!" The Stargazer Master's voice carried through the area shrouded by the vicious barrier of dust.
"You're way too late boss." I hear Talavar scream and then I see him jump on top of one of the light swords and point the metal sword in the direction it should go.
"You heard the Master can you go back to the tower, this will be over soon." Talavar shouts in our direction while extending a hand to Jill who also climbs on the sword of light and in seconds they are on our side.
"THEY GO!" You don't have to scream from so close. "What are you waiting for?"
"Well…" I start to speak.
"It was a rhetorical question!" Ohh, damn
"We will." Mingten says so and runs back to the tower entrance.
Will no one watch our backs while we run away? That seems like a bad idea.
I do this? Even worse.
Yep, all I can do is run and pray that being last in line doesn't screw me over.
After my mind reflects on my possible choices, I start running with all my strength, I never thought I would be grateful for Kaz's zombie run, I feel that my body would keep running even if I fainted.
Despite all my efforts with no one to hold back the horde it's only a matter of time before the beasts catch up to me, well it was. Before any beast can pose a threat to us, the Master Stargazer drops from the skies, between us and the beasts.
I can't contain my curiosity and I end up looking back to see what kind of skill he's going to use. He extends the index and middle fingers of both hands and a jet of, fire? A jet of blue-violet energy I've never seen condenses into long blades millimeters from the Master Stargazer's fingers.
He waves the fingers of his right hand horizontally in front of him, the blade extends until it reaches the beasts and slices them like tofu while cauterizing the slash lines without giving the flames a chance to spread. And then the left hand, and with those two blows half of what was left of the horde was wiped out.
After that he kept the fingers of his right hand in the same posture, while he closed his left hand in a fist that soon began to glow with the same color as the blades of energy, he opened his fist and from it several points of light began to spread and multiply until fill the space within the barrier to resemble a starry sky when viewed from afar.
With the index and middle fingers of his left hand separated this time, he slides his fingers through the air from top to bottom as if trying to cut something.
My sixth sense activates on its own, in it I see the points of light as real stars, the traces of their orbits and...
The energy eruptions, which the points of light are synchronizing.
Realizing what's about to happen, I obviously run again.
Not even a second later, I hear the hiss of superheated air, the snarls of dying beasts, I see the intermittent flashes whose glow envelops everything like lightning in a storm.
I can also almost feel the twisting that had tortured me before, to a much lesser extent than I had experienced, but without a doubt it is the same force that was used to teach me a lesson.
Gravity, he can simulate orbits around himself which messes up the center and perception of gravity of things and people around him.
Now is not the time to analyze someone's powers, especially not up close, me.
After this procession of distractions that my mind made a point of focusing on more than my own survival, I reach the entrance of the tower, a little after Mingten.
A little and a fraction more later, but, details.
From inside the Tower, with the doors still open, my curiosity overcomes my common sense again and I look at the scene that the Master of the Tower is making.
In the sky the false stars he created rotated in a circular orbit right in the center of the area delimited by the dust barrier, the stars shot rays of energy out of themselves that sometimes returned to themselves or were caught in the gravity of other stars, while a significant amount of energy beams fall between the beasts ending their lives.
Despite all this, only my eyes were fixed on the mandala of light that this chaos created in the sky.
"You can close the door, the master can't use all his power if he has to worry about us." Talavar speaks, snapping me out of the trance I was in, and I close the door as he suggested.
************
"Well, no more distractions, I guess" I say with an exasperated sigh.
I look at the barrier that surrounds the entire area around the tower, and I wonder what my old friend is thinking.
With a slight smile I pronounce what he must be thinking seeing this whole scene.
"The two of us, for these beasts, is overkill." With that tone full of arrogance he has in every action.
Unfortunately, he's completely right, another bad habit of his, he only manifests himself when he's at least ninety-eight percent sure about something.
I start walking towards the horde of beasts, which honestly don't pose much of a threat to me. The biggest concern they manage to cause me is the fact that I don't want to wipe out the ecosystem around the tower area, which means that I don't wipe them all out at once.
Well, I just have to finish off a few of them at a time, quickly, which will be the same thing.
I manifest the plasma blades in both of my hands, extend them like laser beams from my fingers towards the beasts, and twist the plasma trajectory like a whip swung to the side.
Cutting down all the beasts in my range, another three or four attacks like this counting the false star mandala and this antics should be over.
Which also means it's going to be time for them to explain what the hell caused this. Depending on the answer...
Kaz will be in charge of the punishment.