The feeling of walking over bones was very unpleasant, to say the least. And with their nerves stretched to the limit the group was paying extra attention to distinguish what was their footsteps and what could be from something else.
"Wait a moment." Mares suddenly said, raising his right hand.
They all stopped as instructed, and watched as the silver-eyed signed for one of the Karraps to go forward. By the beast's body language, it was noticeably unwilling, but it could not deny Mares' orders, so it went ahead.
For a while, the only noise was that of the Karrap steps, breaking through the bones on the floor. The beast went deeper and deeper into the cave until it could no longer be seen or heard.
"Are these all the Void Beasts that surrounded us?"
Calon asked in a whisper. His voice was so low that the others barely registered.
"Probably. But this is not usual behavior, normally they just run away, emptying the territory."
Winna said, pointing out that something was off.
"Unless it already started."
Mares was the one to say so, making them all realize that maybe they had less time than they originally thought.
"Why would it start earlier though?"
Luo asked with frustration, as things seemed to get even more complicated.
"Because it wants or needs more energy than we thought. It might be bigger or stronger than we already anticipated."
Lhian said with dread in her voice.
"As if things weren't hard enough before…"
They had to agree with Venissino.
Though, even now knowing things were worst than they first had imagined, none of them felt too anxious or stressed. Mares' words still hung in their heads, giving them reassurance and confidence to face what was to come.
The silver-eyed was paying close attention to Esen's mental energy signature. They couldn't do something as far as using the beast's eyes to see, but it was easy to sense the wavering of emotions it had.
Contrary to the students, the Karrap was filled with anxiety and fear. The beast could feel where it was going and what was surrounding it. It was as if the very ground, walls, ceiling, and everything in that cave gave the Karrap a sense of pressure, of being just a helpless creature in front of the true beast, as if he could be attacked from any direction.
And then their connection was cut before they could react.
'ARGH!'
The side-effect of the beast suddenly dying was that the mental energy Esen put into the Karrap was ripped, affecting the white-haired. It was a pain equivalent to ripping the skin off. The fact that Esen's reaction was so minor was thanks to her high pain tolerance, even if after this time living simply as a soul, she had gotten a bit unused to the feeling.
The pain also went to Mars because of their connection, but his tolerance to it was much higher and his only reaction was a frown, unnoticeable thanks to his mask.
"Something is coming."
He warned, with his multi-weapon already turned into a sword. As they took their battle stances, they also stepped back, spreading themselves in an arc formation. Thankfully the cave was very big, so space for battling was not an issue. And they didn't have to wait long before seeing their first foe.
As Mares had once described it, it still had a body that somewhat resembled a mix of a rhino and a crab. Though now its scales had a much more copper-like color instead of yellow, its legs were much thicker and bigger, meaning the whole thing was almost ten meters tall, compared to the one he had attracted for the students to fight against.
It was a rank-four Orest, already using its Void Armor.
"He makes the other one looks like a cub."
It was the only thing Calon could say before the beast thrust its body forward, aiming to smash the group. As it seemed to be the norm with Void Beasts, the size did not represent the monster's speed.
In response, Mares also jumped to meet the beast head-on. His strength was reinforced and his sword had rings of air moving at high-speed surrounding it.
Moving the sword in the format of an arc, he managed to make quite the scratch on a portion of the monster's chin, one that was bigger than his torso.
Following his attack, Lhian, Winna, and Calon respectively, launched theirs, aiming at the scratch. A big explosive crystal, a slash of air, and a bomb all hit their target, making an explosion, the damage further growing the scratch.
Meanwhile, using the momentum, Mares managed to change the way he was holding his sword and thrust it forward, concentrating his reinforced strength in his arms and using the air rings to manage to penetrate through the scales of the Void Armor.
And to help himself to avoid falling again, the silver-eyed got hold of the beast's scales, and covered his fingers with crystals, making sharp claws out of it. Different from Lhian's, his crystal was of a silver appearance and had a shining light to it, truly resembling a star in the form of a crystal.
The Orest didn't stay still as Mares made his attempt to keep his hold on the beast, but its attempts to throw its head around to unbalance the silver-eyed gladiator were stopped by a strong blast of wind in the other side of its face, followed by another bunch of explosive crystals that took the monster's attention.
And on the other side, Luo's body had changed, becoming more bestial, he seemed to be halfway through his transformation, but he stopped there. A cold white light went out of his claws, and he made two cutting motions, forming a large X. The energy projected itself against the beast, hitting it by the side.
While their attack failed to properly injure the Orest, only making shallow scratches, it worked as both a short distraction and an annoyance, two things Mares could make use of now.
Thrusting his sword forward, he penetrated through the Orest's scales, cutting through its flesh as finally, all the blade managed to cut through the beast's defense.
The monster roared in fury and pain, opening its huge mouth. The scream created a wave that made the six students shake but failed in knocking them down. However, it did take the balance out of them, as all the attacks that they were preparing to send straight into the monster's mouth, were missed.
The most dangerous one had been Venissino's poison, which he had put in his elongated nails and thrown. It fell near Calon, who witnessed them hitting a rock and melting said rock in seconds. He tried to not think of what could have happened had he been a few centimeters to the side.
While the six were affected by the scream, Mares managed to stay unmoved, attempting to use the air rings to cut more through the armor and the beast's flesh. Though, he very soon noticed that simply using the air-based technique to cut the armor was not viable, as it only seemed to do shallow marks on it.
Mares narrowed his eyes, thinking of trying another approach when a sudden sense of danger made him push his sword back and jump. It was just in time to avoid what looked like a giant and thick needle, connected to a string of Astral Energy.
As if it wasn't enough, thorns started to form in the beast's armor and they were launched against the silver-eyed.
Ignoring the leg for now, Mares made the multi-weapon turn into its spear form. He spun it around his body while making more air rings cover him. The gladiator improvised defense worked as all thorns aimed at him, instead of hitting, went around, following the flow of air created by the air ring technique.
The students also had to worry about those thorns, and each one of them defended differently. Clest avoided all flawlessly without much issue. Winna, like Mares, used the wind to redirect the thorns. Lhian attacked the thorns with her own crystal spikes. Luo grabbed the ground and took a large rock out of it, throwing it against the attack sent to him, and stopping the thorns altogether.
It was Calon and Venissino that were about to have some trouble with the attacks sent in their direction, as they couldn't react in time. Fortunately, it proved to be no issue, as Mares kept his attention on the group below.
He moved to do two things. Firstly, Mares shoot a sphere of Astral Energy at the incoming thorns aimed at the two students, destroying it and helping them. And secondly, he threw the air rings and thorns that were floating around him back at the beast, aiming for the same spot he attacked earlier.
Both were successes, as Venissino and Calon answered by cheering for Mares, and the beast once more roared in fury, feeling the same cut being attacked again, making more damage to it.
Using the same type of material as a Void Armor to attack proved more effective, as the thorns went deeper into the armor, passing through it and injuring the flesh.
Then, the silver-eyed finally landed, near the three male students, with Luo having just arrived.
He finally took a moment to look at the two detached legs, to see that they were the middle legs of the Orest, which were now connected to the body by two strings of Astral Energy. While the ability clearly had its use, everyone noticed that the beast's overall equilibrium was worse than before.
"We need to do something about those damn things!"
Calon screamed, referring to the detached legs.
"You all take care of that. Luo, help me with something."
The poison user said as he prepared himself for whatever his plan was.
"Sure. What do you want though?"
The wolf answered promptly. Instead of replying Venissino simply pointed to one of the Orest's eyes, making a huge grin form in Luo's lips.
"I am liking this."
Luo simply said as he got on all four. At that moment his body grew once more, his features getting even more animalistic and wolf-like, but still shaped in a humanoid silhouette. He was looking like a werewolf, from Earth's legends. Fortunately, his clothes seemed to adapt to that, not ripping apart. He had grown big enough for Venissino to stand on his back, and so the poison user did.
"What are they doing?"
Mares asked Calon, who seemed amused.
"Something fun."
"Wait, what are you, idiots-"
Before Clest could question them, Luo jumped.
"Hahahaha! Let's go!"
Venissino had a bit of a hard time to keep standing in his friend's back, but he manage to. And, after getting enough height, he also jumped to get further height, while putting his four arms together.
This whole deal did get the beast's attention, but Mares also acted. This time, he would be the distraction. To add to it, the silver-eyed was also clearly aiming to the same stop he was constantly attacking, so all the Orest's attention went to him.
With that, Venissino made his attack after taking a deep breath. He was face-to-face with his target, it was impossible to miss.
A dark green glow covered his four hands, as a liquid that looked like jelly. The liquid seemed to take the form of a large needle, at least one meter in length, as it was shoot, hitting the Orest's eyes.
"Heh, nice."
Venissino with a smirk and a tired face, had used a considerable amount of his reserves of Astral Energy for that attack.
The beast's attacks, using the legs tied by Astral Energy, aimed at Mares all missed because of the sudden pain of having one of its eyes hit. However, the pain wasn't the worst, it was the poison.
While Venissino's poison previously wouldn't be able to affect a rank four Void Beast, after he spent almost the whole day concocting new poisons, trying to achieve higher lethality, he now had something to affect, as minimum as it could be, even a fourth rank.
Added to that, however, was what Mares had done, helping the group expand their reserves of Astral Energy. What none of them, not even Esen, knew yet, is that besides increasing their levels of Astral Energy, it would also give the group a bit of a bonus.
The eye that was hit started to become a dark green color, with faint smoke going out of it.
"Got it!"
Unfortunately, Venissino's celebration was short-lived. The beast was at the peak of its fury, having been injured and poisoned, while barely attacking back.
At the moment it opened its huge mouth, a hellish scream, worst than all the others it had ever given, spread out through the cave, which started to shake dangerously. Rocks began to fall from the ceiling, together with stalactites.
Besides that, the Orest started to frenetically move its detached legs around, with no clear pattern to it, making it much harder to dodge.
"Shit!"
All of them thought at the same time, as everything around them started falling apart.