When the bright purple light descended, it was like an emp had discharged; the entire battlefield was stunned and imediately ground to a stop.
All those who saw it felt as if they were just given a warm yet strange embrace.
In fact, it wasn't just those who saw it that had this weird feeling. As long as they had souls and were on this planet, this feeling washed over them.
The feeling was indeed strange. It was as if you heard someone who was important to you, who you hadn't been in contact with in a long time, call your name for the first time again. It was a feeling of excitement and relief to be able to see them again; a feeling of regret and guilt for not being able to not see or talk to them in such a long time; even a slight feeling of playful annoyance, like how one would feel when your mother tells you to throw out the trash but you're 0/10 in League Of Legends.
However, only those who saw the pillar of light had a more intense feeling of it. This was because the light was seared into their memories, solidifying the feeling as well. Those who did not see it only had the feeling run through them for a second or two before returning to normal.
…
Bob was in a daze, as was everyone else, while watching the light come and leave just as quickly.
Even after it left he was just as dazed, unable to process completely what had just happened and the feelings he had. It was only after someone had recovered first and ambushed their enemy that the battlefield quickly resumed under the clashing of abilities. In the end, Bob had merely assumed that someone extremely powerful had used some wacky ability designed to confuse people in order to get the jump on them.
Currently, Bob was in a group with four others, all of whom were rank-6. Actually, a group of five was extremely rare on the battlefield. Scratch that, it was basically impossible to occur naturally and only when you force it can it happen. Worse yet, under normal circumstances, other teams would form in response to the initial one. Inevitably, this would just devolve into Team Fight Tactics.
Of course, this wasn't an ordinary battle, but rather a tiered one. So when Bob and company pretty easily beat two response teams, the squirrel army quickly realized they needed to up the ante.
In fact, the group was fairly frightened when they were suddenly targeted by a rank-5 squirrel. The killing intent in their aura fluctuation washed over them, causing chills to shimmy up their spines for a second.
"Boss, ribbit… what do we do now?"
The first among the group to speak was a frog person who looked very concernedly at his "boss", Bob. Not just the frog person, but the deer person as well as two humans all looked at Bob. If this fellow didn't have a sufficient plan, they would just immediately run away. As they should.
Bob, on the other hand, merely smiled, showing his glistening white teeth. Seeing his underlings… I mean comrades look to him for an answer, Bob couldn't help but feel his confidence grow exponentially. After all he too was the prodigal son, a scion, of a tribe, but the people he had surrounded himself with were simply freaks of nature. Only the lazy Fluffy could reassure him that he wasn't completely useless.
Now, did he actually have a plan to kill the enemy squirrel?
No.
"Don't worry, it's enough."
In other words, he was confident enough in his and everyone else's abilities to be able to overcome this challenge. As for everyone else, they were a bit confused by his statement, but ultimately decided to trust in this strange looking person for now.
At first glance, it might seem like a bad idea to put faith into a person you haven't even known for a day, who's character is unknown, but their logic was sound albeit hasty. For one, although he was a rank lower than them, his buffs directly increased their power by about forty percent. This alone might be enough to contend with the rank-5 squirrel. Also, who knows what else Bob might have up his sleeve? So far, he hasn't revealed any rune formations or skills.
Basically, they were all horrible gambling addicts.
…
Seeing his target speaking amongst one another, the squirrel was tempted to put a nut in their mouth for some leisure time. I mean, how ridiculous! What was this, some kind of play!? Lives were on the line here!
However, the squirrel had already prepared. Their wooden sword had already been planted, with its brown runes glowing and its roots now burrowing.
Of course, Bob could hear the roots shuffling and moving through the dirt and snow underneath him, so he was ready to counter. Now, everyone else was also ready, but not because they knew they were being ambushed, but because they weren't battle illiterate.
As such, when the sharp roots sprung up from the ground and sneak attacked the weakest member of the group, Bob, a single word from him was all that was needed for action to be taken.
"Thommy!"
Immediately, Thommy the frog also sprung into action, using a skill on his legs and diving into Bob, pushing him aside. With the simple activation of two other separate skills, the frog's vocal sac quickly expanded with yellow gas. Then, with the help of his further strengthened muscles, he forced the gas through a small opening he made with his mouth.
Like a jet, the gas was forced through the hole and propelled him upward fast enough to avoid the impaling of dozens of spear-like roots. Crazier yet, the gas seemed to inflict some kind of poison as yellow spots quickly grew on the roots. Being a fair distance away, the squirrel didn't quite catch on that something was wrong until the poison reached the tip of the sword.
Disconnecting the roots by deactivating the rune formation, the growth on the sword slowed significantly. Then, with a bit of soul juice, the squirrel forcefully expelled the poison. However, it did not take long for very small spots to reappear.
This was concerning to the squirrel. They hadn't really ever dealt with poison directly, not even adding on the fact that poison was more tricky attribute than others. Like the plant attribute, at least this poison in particular, had an organic nature or system of laws.
In easier terms, to compare to a game called Pokémon, the physical has a resistance to the supernatural. To go even further, thats why when on the same level, soul juice actually nourishes and promotes the physical.
In the case of this poison, being part physical, it binds with the carbon making up the cell membrane, stripping away the element and causing rapid cell death. With the addition of soul juice, it becomes more potent and is even able to grow as long as it is able to bind with carbon atoms. Of course, the frog knows nothing of cells or atoms.
The squirrel had to force out the poison a second time before it disappeared with no traces left, leaving them slightly concerned. Seeing the rest of the group ready to counterattack, the squirrel silently cursed, thinking that this fight would not be as easy as they originally thought.
"Frilla!"
Suddenly, with another shout from Bob, Frilla the deer took action.
With an enchanted deer antler in hand, she agily ran towards the enemy in the hopes of piercing their flesh with its sharpened ends. With the activation of a skill, her leg bones grew by a size, increasing the blood flow by two-fold and making her muscles bulge. The skin on her furry legs turned red from the raging blood which sharply increased the strength in her legs and consequently her speed.
At the same time, the rest of the group retaliated.
Thommy activated another skill which forced the yellow gas into his tongue, creating six clones that shot out like flexible laser beams towards the enemy.
Both of the humans, one male and one female, activated their respective sigils. The woman's sigil was a droplet of mysterious dark-blue water. The man's sigil could be said to be even weirder as it was literally just a ship In a bottle.
With the activation of a rune formation, the droplet turned into a blue bow in the woman's hand. She cocked a blue arrow and sent it towards the enemy.
The man on the other hand, with a thought uncorked the bottle, causing the water and the ship inside to spill out. With another thought, it suddenly grew into a full size warship, stunning all those who witnessed. The next moment, clamoring can be heard from inside the ship before dozens of wooden human figures barged out, yelling and grunting all kinds of profanities at the enemy.
Immediately following that, a total of fifty cannons charged with rank-6 soul juice pointed at the unsuspecting squirrel, blasting out cannonballs weighing over fourty pounds