"I don't need help from a weakling like you," Luke sneered.
That weakling comment pissed me off. My hand darted to his throat, and I gripped him tightly as I lifted him off the ground. He was heavy, but not too heavy.
"I'm not the weakest one here Luke," I sneered back, "Now you can either stick to your stupid pride, and die," I dropped him, "Or you can swallow that pride for a few hours until we get back to the settlement, and your chances of survival skyrocket."
I glanced over to Conrad.
"Now I know the two of you hate me," I smirked, "And I hate you too, but we can act like civil adults for a few hours."
"I guess little cyclops really did become a monster," Conrad spoke up, "I thought you having an ability was just a rumor."
"I told you not to call me that," I looked at Conrad angrily.
"Cyclops?" Luke sounded confused.
"Yeah because he's only got one eye," Conrad explained.
"Looks like he's got two to me," Luke snorted.
"Are you telling me that you think that his phony blue eye is a real one?" Conrad started chuckling.
"Conrad," I picked up a rock off the ground, "Don't make me hurt you."
The matter of fact way I said it seemed to let the fact that I could kick his ass sink in. I tossed the rock a few times to test it's weight. I threw the rock as hard as I could at a beast that was approaching us. The rock pierced it's forehead, and killed it mid stride. The beast lost control of its stride sliding to a stop about thirty feet from us.
"Yes," I fist pumped, "Three more incoming. If I had to guess I'd put them around tier three, or that rock trick wouldn't have worked. Can you two handle them?"
"I could use some more time to rest up, but I can handle a fight. You?" Savannah looked at Ethan.
"Yeah," Ethan looked nervous.
I focused on Ethan.
{You want me to help?} I stared at him for a few seconds.
Ethan looked me in the eye so I could hypnotize him. Ethan straightened up right away. His confidence grew in proportion to how much his fear shrank.
"You get one," Ethan walked the direction the beasts were coming from, "I'll take the other two."
"I've seen you fight scaredy cat," Conrad shouted at Ethan, "You can barely handle me."
Ethan obliterated the tree I'd used Luke to damage earlier. Gathering the splinters around himself.
"Never mind Savannah," Ethan smirked, "I'll take all three of them."
Conrad looked at Ethan with disbelief. He'd only seen Ethan like this one other time, and Ethan had beaten everyone without looking at any of them. Ethan had the hundreds of bits of wood orbiting him slowly.
"Are you ok with letting Ethan handle them?" I looked at Savannah.
"Fine by me," Savannah walked up to my kill to scan it, and get it's crystal.
Ethan's bits of wood moved around her seemingly without him having to think about it. I leaned back into a tree to watch Ethan do his thing as the first beast got within his area. All the wood chips shot towards the beast at the same time. Shredding the beasts skin clean off as it howled in pain. Savannah just casually strode over to claim that beasts crystal as well.
The wood chips divided into to even groups as they attacked the last two beasts. Shredding bits, and pieces off them as he bled them out as quickly as possible. Savannah collected the crystals as the beasts fell from Ethan's relentless assault. I didn't think anyone in this group would underestimate him again after seeing this.
"Believe it or not," I looked at Conrad, "Ethan is the strongest one out of the three of us. I'm the next one down from him, and Savannah is the weakest. She is our voice of reason. She keeps us grounded so we don't get ourselves killed."
Savannah stood up, and looked at me with a smile.
"Yeah well," Savannah chuckled, "Your voice of reason says we should get out of here before we attract more attention."
"Let's go," I smiled back at her.
It was obviously a fake smile, but Savannah didn't seem to care. Traveling with these guys kind of trapped me in my human form for the time being, but they'd live. We traveled semi separate from each other, but within line of sight for a while. Once we got close enough to the settlement for us to see it we left them, and headed back out. It didn't take long for us to get away from the settlement which allowed me to take my true form again.
I stretched my wings slowly as I looked around our surroundings. I had to be careful not to get too close to anyone for now. Anyone human. I shook my scales out, and started walking towards the canyon. According to the map this world was small, and riddled with deep canyons.
The canyons were filled with high level beasts. While the surface was covered in weaker beasts. The canyons were why this planet was ranked as highly as it was. My body tensed as we got closer. I could sense danger within the canyons.
The closer I got to them the more I could sense danger. I kind of wanted to find out what was down there, but the closer we got to the canyon the stronger the beasts were. Tier four, and five were much more common close to the canyon.
"Stay out tonight?" I sat down, "Or go back in?"
"The stronger beasts come out at night," Ethan stated, "It would be a good way to get some more points, but we really don't need them."
"We could probably just casually hunt the rest of the trip, and still get a decent score," Savannah sat down to rest with her back up against a tree.