It was a sight that many of those in the Grant Academy that day could ever forget. One reason for this was that though the Grant Academy was a prestigious academy for those who are in the magic wielding world, many, if not most, of the students and staffers were not in the path towards fighting related careers. If anything, most of them were going to be scholars, researchers, developers, defenders or inquisitors and even governmental officials, and only a few of them were going to be fighters or battle mages. Therefore, most of those in the academy, under normal circumstances, would not have come into close encounter with any dangerous magical creatures and beasts. And what would the reaction from these individuals be when they actually got into contact be? Panic and terror.
Barely three minutes after the hearing of Caroline Baker and Jason Lin coming to an abrupt and chaotic end, where one of the inquisitors, instead of the two students being questioned under the suspicion that they were responsible for the circulation of the toxic contaminants, were taken into academy custody, a huge monster broken out from the ground inside the academy hunting ground. After devouring the hunting ground rangers on duty, it moved towards the main campus, where it might have sensed that there was some sort of buffet.
To say it was a monster was an understatement - yet there were not many suitable words for it. It was a shapeshifting dark red blob of flesh with several heads from different animals and creatures on its body, but as it later turned out, they were not actually heads at all, they were actually constructs from the blob flesh body, like the tentacles on a snail's head, and each time a new head popped out, it was something different, sometimes it was the magnified head of some plain animal, sometimes it was that of a magical beast, and sometimes it was even a head that looked like a plant, a fern, a dead tree or even a piece of strangely shaped rock or boulder.
"Aaaaah! Help!" a female student was paralyzed and fell onto the ground just by looking at the monster, and the monster responded to her screams just like any other monster would - it grew a head like that of a giant leech and bit down on the student, swallowing her whole.
"Go! Go!" just this moment, an academy faculty ran towards a group of students that seemed to have also been paralyzed on the ground, but he was not able to stand up straight either - there was some kind of strange aura around the monster, which seemed to not only have instilled fear, panic and extreme stress in his head, but also seemed to have caused his powers to vibrate and even burst from his pores uncontrollably.
A large crow head made a hoarse croak, then long, dark and spiky tentacles shot from behind the beak and wrapped around the academy faculty and the paralyzed students.
Only the academy faculty was able to put up a decent fight - he released a lightning energy blade from his hands and cut off some of the tentacles that were wrapped around the students, two of the students fell to the ground, but the rest were immediately devoured by the crow head.
More and more faculty members rushed from the buildings, some of them started casting their attack spells against this monster from a distance, while the others started casting protective and moving spells on those that were affected by the aura in attempts to save them from a horrible fate.
The attack spells struck true, and the monster bled, in dark green, dark red, dark blue and just pure black. The monster let out a deep, shakey growl from the center of its blob of a body, then scales and shells started growing around its exterior, forming into a thick protective layer around its body.
The attacking spells started getting bounced into the air and dissipated on impact. But this gave the faculty members a much needed chance to rescue the rest of the students and faculty members under the effects of the monster's aura.
"Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching" some kind of weird mechanical sound came from behind the thick protective layer, then shortly, something metal rose up from behind it. It was a long metal thing, six thick and hollow metal tubes placed parallely, with a rack placed across the middle section of the tubes, stabilizing all of them.
With another "whinsh" mechanical sound, he metal tubes started spinning.
"Duck! " "Take cover!" some faculty members recognized what that metal thing was, and immediately cried out in fear.
Fire sparks started bursting from the metal tubes whenever they spun to the top position, and thousands of condensed and explosive energy bolts started raining down on the entire field in front of them, and covering the positions of the majority of the students and faculty members in front of it.
Seven energy shields were conjured on the field in order to protect the students and faculty members, and all of them immediately started flickering in different colors, like they were about to break and crumble anytime.
"Boom!" one of the weaker shields was destroyed, and the four individuals behind it were instantly shredded by the hail of energy bolts, without even a chance to scream.
"Crack!" a loud sonic boom exploded in the air, a figure shrouded in silver energy leapt into the air and descended from the sky like a meteor in full speed. It was Professor Barnes, with his giant broadsword in his hands. And with a metal crashing sound, Professor Barnes' broadsword unleashed a powerful energy slash that severed the giant gatling gun made of monster flesh from the monster's body.
Professor Barnes bounced back into the air after the attack, and he released a powerful remote fist strike, a silvery white energy fist shadow shot out and pulverized the gatling gun in midair.
The monster groaned in pain, and three tentacles with mouths with sharp teeth inside at the tip popped up from the body and tried to bite down on his body. But he was instantly pulled away by a light green energy rope.
"Everyone out! Activate the perimeter defense system!" the voice of Glenda Grimes resounded throughout the entire campus.