Kabanata 51
As a speedster, the Veloce saw through the attacks and evaded them swiftly. Despite having a lingering pain, his legs were still fast, and evading the flying feathers was an easy task.
When the attacks stopped, the Class-SSS decided that this was the right time to counterattack. The monster moved like the wind and approached Shana without creating any sound. His sharps claws were tingling to tear the woman in half.
He knew that killing her was impossible but he was confident of hurting her at least once or twice. And this moment was the best time to do that. He swung his deadly weapons and cut her, or so he thought.
"Grah!"
The Veloce's shoulders were eaten by fire.
The wings protected Shana and when the claws touched the burning wings, the fire crawled up to his shoulders. The Veloce realized that touching her was a bad idea. He grunted and spent his energy to back away.
To quickly extinguished the fire, the shuddering monster dug his shoulders into the ground. He put his shoulders into the ground and waited till the fire went down. Fire needs oxygen and the Veloce cut off that resources causing the fire to die. Despite having a strong defense because of his golden skin, the fire still damaged him a lot.
When he acknowledged that the fire was already dead. He raised his shoulders and saw how cooked they were, they were charred black and he gritting in pain as he watched how his shoulders throbbing in anguish. He swallowed a grunt but it was obvious that he was in deep pain. He glared at the woman but she was not there. She vanished.
"You should focus on your enemy, not on your injuries. You're a Class-SSS anyway and your injuries will easily heal."
"!!!"
Goosebumps, he was having goosebumps!! The Veloce started sweating as the woman whispered with her sweet voice. Within just a second that he lost his vision, Shana appeared behind him and even whispered in his ears. This was screaming danger. The Veloce roared and rotated his body, since his claws were injured, he used his long leg to kick the woman. Yet, what he hit was nothing but air. Shana disappeared again.
"Oya? Are you getting old? I'm here you know."
The Class-SSS moved his head and saw that Shana returned to her earlier position. Her wings were wide open and burning majestically. She could pass as an angel, definitely. Although her attitude was not that of an angel, dark angel perhaps.
She yawned as if the battle was boring for her. Well, to be precise, Shana fought thousands of Class-SSS so she felt that this battle was just a walk in the park. Furthermore, the Veloce already lost its will to fight her to death, his real intention was to escape. So she couldn't treat this as a battle at all. An enemy who tucked his tail to run away was not classified to be called an enemy, the best description is coward. This Veloce is a coward. Despite being blessed with Kakaiba, he still decided to run.
"Sad to say, you are too weak to realize that you are already dead."
Omae wa mo shindeiru!!
Before he could even understand what she meant, he realized that his body was being engulfed by flames. He cried and rolled his body, the only way to extinguish the fire was to do the standard procedure of stop-drop-and-roll. In this case, the Veloce was smart. He knew what to do to stop the fire.
However, he forgot an important factor. Shana could shoot continuous flame. Even if he tried to roll, the fire would only get worse.
No matter how much he tried to extinguish the fire, Shana kept throwing fire at him. Instead of killing the fire, the Veloce was slowly eaten by the fire while rolling in the ground. It was a pathetic scene for him, he was groveling on the ground and crying hard as he was being burned alive. Even the tears that came out of his eyes immediately evaporated. It was hard for him.
"Guwwaaarrr!!"
He crawled and did his best to fight the fire with his regeneration. It was futile, in fact, it made him suffer more. It only made his suffering last long.
In the end, the monster lost his strength and remain on the ground as the fire continuously turned his body into charcoal. He died a pathetic way. He lost his N-core before he even died. And worst of that, he didn't have a peaceful death. He couldn't achieve his dream and he would remain a failure forever. A fitting ending for his cowardice.
It didn't take a long time for the Class-SSS to turn to ashes. The fire slowly died when it didn't have fuel anymore.
Shana looked at the ashes nonchalantly, she saw millions of creatures turned into ashes being killed by her flame. She just turned around and didn't look at it anymore. She was finished.
With her wings, she flew around and quickly reached the meeting spot. She saw Captain Yora commanding the mercenaries. The reserved mercenaries who were guarding the ship were there too. They need helping hands to gather all of the resources in the village. Precious metals are their targets and it seemed like they hit jackpots. The main building, the Class-SSS house, was filled with precious metals. With the quantity alone, it seemed like they won't have a problem for about three months. They could sell this to the nearest metropolis and earn bucks of money.
"Oh, even you Keenan? You want to help too?"
Shana saw that Keenan was helping the others by carving out the N-cores of the monsters. N-core is N-core, even if the N-core came from a Class-E Veloce it was still important. It could make a Nightbreaker strong.
"Yeah, I have experienced in this. Taking N-cores is what I'm good at."
"You bet."
Of course, he was used to it. Keenan spent his time in the wilderness killing monsters and taking their N-cores. As a matter of fact, the way he took the N-cores out of the bodies was so artistic. As if he did this almost thousands of times.