'Good job Mars! Trying to socialize with people, I am so proud!'
Esen gave a thumbs up to her beloved, as he jumped from the branches of the stone-like trees.
'What?'
He asked, making Esen momentarily confused before she looked into what he was planning.
'Of course.' She deadpanned. 'And I thought your social skills had got better, making friends and everything…'
He ignored her remark, as he could sense the void beast he was after. He jumped on one more branch and stopped to look at the beast that was running to where the Earthly Brute had been killed.
If Mares had to describe the beast, he would say it was something like a crab with a rhino, with six legs and a head that resembled that of the horned animal. It had yellow scales covering its body and it was at least ten meters tall.
The silver-eyed looked at it thoughtfully, wondering how he should get the beast's attention.
'I didn't get a lot of practice with this one yet…'
He casually used his fingers to take out a chunk of a branch, put it in the palm of his right hand, and aimed at the beast. Making use of the physical rejection technique he copied from Elaso, the piece of stone went flying from his hand, hitting one of the monster's four eyes.
Its roar of pain could be heard even from where the students had gone to.
'Subtle as a comet.'
Esen said with her arms crossed in a joking tone.
'Stealth is not really my thing. Now…'
Remembering how Elaso was using his power to jump into the middle air, he decided to give it a try.
The beast changed its trajectory and was running to the stone tree he was in. Mares looked back and jumped off the branch. In reality, what he was trying to do wasn't particularly hard. He just had to time correctly to the moment in which he would kick the air and apply the physical rejection, and what he was rejecting, in this case, was air, which allowed him to treat it as a type of invisible platform almost.
Mares kicked the air and jump on it, in a way, almost floating. If Elaso was there he would be shocked. Besides the fact that Mares had managed to copy his technique, the ability to jump in the middle air was something he only acquired after years in the coliseum and lots of training, while Mares did it on his first try. One could only marvel at how a difference in talent could affect the results.
If his memories regarding certain things on Earth weren't so fuzzy he might have compared his current skill to the ability to double jump in video games. Either way, the silver-eyed went back in the direction the students were. From time to time, he would throw stones he randomly took out of the trees, and throw at the beast, to make sure it would keep following him.
'It is a good ability for now, but it won't be too useful once you learn to fly.'
Esen said while she was floating in Mares' mind space.
'That's for the future. But flying would be… interesting. Wonder if I could fly through space.'
As someone that once had none of those abilities, the prospect of flying was undoubtedly attractive to him.
'Hihi, knowing Mars of course you will.'
Esen had absolute trust that if he wanted something, he would be able to do it.
It took just a few more minutes for them to see the students again. They had analyzed the path the other beasts were taking and found a place that would probably be safe.
This time the situation was totally different, they were not passively waiting for the beast to come nor would be taken by surprise. The students that had so poorly performed before, meaning almost all of them were determined to do better now.
Though their real experience was none, it was not like they had never trained for this situation before. But in the academy, they were in a highly controlled environment.
Now that Lhian had time to prepare, she managed to use her knowledge and leadership capabilities, even if she lacked real practice. Either way, that was the whole point of their excursion.
"It's in your hands."
Mares' voice reached their ears, but they couldn't see him. None of them were bothered by that because they already could see the void beast, the Orest.
The monster also lost sight of Mares, getting disoriented before noticing the flock of students and changing its rage toward them.
"Barriers up."
The silver blue-haired ordered, and fifteen to twenty students appeared from behind the trees, in a formation that encircled the Orest. They pointed to the beast with the palm of their hands and yellow barriers were consecutively formed, each one of them connecting, and raising to a total of ten meters of height.
"Shooters!"
From some branches of the stone trees, another group of at least fifteen students aimed in the beast's direction with their fingers. Like Mares' own energy shooting skill, astral energy accumulated on the tip of their fingers, forming a sphere, before becoming a beam that hit the beast. It didn't look like it was doing much damage though.
'Oh… mine is better…'
Further from the battle, Mares stated as he watched their shooting abilities.
'Of course, it is. You turned a void beast breath into a shooting technique, is simply unfair to even compare the two since yours has a much higher concentration of Astral Energy. And you can't compare your Astral Energy to theirs. Hihi, my Mars sure is amazing.'
Smiling because of her words, they kept watching the battle.
It was clear that the various shoots were nothing more than stings for the beast. However, being stung over and over again without a break would enrage anyone, especially a mindless beast.
ROAR
Instinctively, void beasts tended to infuse their roars with some Astral Energy, either to better intimidate prey or any other enemies. And it worked even in conscious species.
The students palled and their barriers got dangerously thin, some on the edge of collapsing.
"Don't you dare fall!"
Lhian's shout was direct and brutal in a way they never had heard before. And it was also extremely effective. They had already completely failed her and did not wish to repeat the same error, even if it was for the simple reason of not wanting to look bad in Lhian's eyes. Such a simple thing could be effective, and though their barriers were weakened, they were still standing.
"Front attack!"
Lhian sighed in relief before giving one last order. With that five people, she included, jumped in the circle. Out of the five, Mares only knew about Luo and Clest. He did notice Winna in the middle air, seemingly preparing her attacks. The other two members of the quintet were outside, with Calon seeming to be controlling something similar to a drone, that was shooting the beast, and Vessino simply watching the battle unfold. He seemed tired, sitting on the ground with his back on one of the stone trees.
"Don't plan to join?"
The four armed almost jumped in fright when he suddenly heard Mares beside him.
"Boss!"
Once the small fright passed, he exclaimed happily. Mares ignored him and asked again.
"Is this because of what you did earlier?"
The four-eyed smiled embarrassedly and nodded.
"Yeah, it wasn't easy to make a poison to take down that beast. I am out for the rest of the day."
Mares slowly nodded.
"Interesting ability."
Hearing the compliment from the person he was referring to as boss, a smile formed on the lips of the member of the quintet.
Luo was the first one to attack, veins popped up in his body, and his muscles bulged. He jumped and punched the neck of the beast, pushing it back to the center of the circle.
The other two students Mares didn't recognize also moved, with circles forming in their pulses and forehead. The long-haired recognized that it was a strengthening technique, not as good as his own or Luo's innate technique though.
They were on the right and left sides of the Orest, while Clest was on the back, all of them covering to stop the beast from trying to attack the barriers again. Luo was on the front, looking for an opportunity to strike again.
The beast was intimidated and furious, circling its body around, trying to look for a weak link to attack and break its encirclement. It ended up deciding on Clest.
With a roar, the beast threw its huge body in the three-eyed direction, who didn't even blink her eyes. With calmness, and a speed that surpassed the beast, she got the blades that were on her waist, slightly inclined her body upwards, and in the blink of an eye, she was once more behind the void beast. The difference was that one of her blades was in one of the beast's eyes.
The beast roared once more and stopped, seeming lost with the sudden change. Luo and the other two took this as a chance to attack.
'Bad idea.' Mares thought.
It was a sign of their lack of experience.
The beast was indeed more agitated, but being cornered and injured only made it more dangerous.
It didn't wait for them to attack, it jumped to the side, hitting one of the students with the lateral of its body. The student was sent straight into one of the barriers, colliding with it, and coughing blood as he fell.
The students that were near that barrier paled and almost let it fall from the fright. The one that was thrown seemed to have lost his consciousness.
"Shit!"
The beast was not forgiving and went in the direction of the fallen student. Luo, Clest, and the third other student went to try to stop it, while Lhian's attack seemed to be reaching a critical moment.
Luo and Clest were the fastest, but she didn't have the same strength to stop the beast, making her resort to attacking it by throwing her remaining blade at one of the few eyes still intact of the beast.
"Don't repeat the same move in sequence."
Mares spoke in a low voice. Vessino that was on his side, and even if tired seemed to want to jump into battle, heard it.
The blade didn't reach the eye, the beast only had to slightly move its head down for the weapon to barely scratch its skin. Ultimately, the attack amounted to nothing.
It was up to Luo and his colleague to stop the beast's advance, as they got in front of it and tried to hold the monster down by holding its head.
The creature tried to open its mouth to bite them. Luo predicted that, and used all his strength in keeping the monster's jaw closed. They managed to slow the Orest down, but it was visibly taking everything they had.
It was at that moment the difference in level between a learned and an innate technique was clear.
It took a stronger thrust of the void beast for the student using the academy's learned technique to not be able to hold any longer, being thrown above the barrier, breaking some bones in the process, and leaving Luo to be the last one holding the monster back.
"Fuck… fuck!"
And he was at his limit. His veins and muscles were bulging so much that it looked like they could explode at any time. The beast was advancing step by step, frenetically moving its head, trying to throw Luo away as he did with the previous two.
"Sorry for the wait!"
Winna finally said, having her spell ready to go. The reason she took so long wasn't because she was doing something particularly complex, but the scale of what she was doing.
'Mages truly are something else.'
The silver-eyed thought with a whistle.
'Hihi, as if you can say anything.'
Looking up, above the barriers, and reaching almost the tip of the trees, there was a tornado formed of air that looked dense enough that one might be able to touch it.
"Retreat!"
Lhian gave her last order, as she was also ready to attack, and her move lacked no destructive force compared even to Winna's.
"YOU HEARD THEM BITCH!"
Luo screamed as he proceeded to headbutt the void beast and punch it with his two arms, succeeding in pushing the beast back.
"See you!"
He finalized by jumping meters back, joining the other students that were putting as much distance as they could from where the beast was. Different from the last time they tried to avoid a void beast, this time they were not running from the monster.
Above Lhian there were two big crystals, of at least half the size of the beast's body, that were shining in a deep blue, like the horn in her forehead.
Through his eyes, Mares could tell the crystals were overflowing with astral energy and were ready to explode at any moment.
Both Lhian and Winna were pale and sweating, both their big moves were taking quite a toll on the pair.
"Fall!"
The two screamed at the same time, as the gigantic tornado and the two crystals fell into the beast's body, which had zero chance of escaping the scale of the attack.
Mares took Vessino, fastly moved to catch Lhian falling and Winna as well, and jumped as far as he could. The students all reunited and raised one single barrier, everyone putting all their astral energy into it.
The result of the attack was a simple one. A great explosion.
Winna's tornado had such a great force that it destroyed the ground and cracked the surrounding trees, adding the stone material to the tornado, making the effect of the tornado even worse, as everything would be thrown around. All the surroundings in a radio of twenty meters were gone because of her attack.
And to top that, Lhian's attack was an explosion of concentrated astral energy. The radio was much smaller, only half of Winna's, but the sheer destruction was much bigger. Ignoring the violent winds that were caused by it, a crater that was probably thirty meters deep was formed on the ground.
Their attack turned the field in which they just had their battle unrecognizable, and pretty much vaporized the void beast.
'Talk about overkill… and I wanted the core…'
Esen laughed at her beloved sense of priorities.
"Heh… this time… we did it…"
Lhian's commemorated, not seeming to mind that she was still being held by Mares.
"Indeed, if you wanted to get the attention of every void beast in our surroundings, you did it well."
Everyone could hear Mares' remark, and they all stayed silent for a good minute.
"Shit…"
Luo was the one to break the silence. He had gone back to normal but looked very tired as well.
"Indeed. We should get going."
Some mistakes happened along the way, but everyone felt much better now. Overall, the day could be called a small improvement.