"Oh my gosh! Ken, is that you? Are you alright? OH MY! Your hurt! What happened to you? I'll get you to the infirmary as fast as I can! You guys! Did you see what happened to my friend? Whatever, there's no time! Help me lift him!"
Seeing the panicking short student running over, the two men exchanged confused looks that asked each other, "Is this kid retarded? How can he not read the room?"
"Come on, aren't you guys going to help? He's too heavy for me to lift alone! I mean really, look at how small I am!"
It took a few seconds for them to snap out of their confusion. Eventually, the man with the bone blessing stepped forward. With a devilish smile, he patted Terran's shoulder in a comforting manner.
"Calm down, calm down. We just stumbled across your friend and were just about to take him to the infirmary."
Terran could feel it immediately. "How kind, I didn't have a proper weapon, so this lad generously decided to provide me with one." Not even a second later, 3 sharp bone growths protruded out of Terran's arm.
Terran had left Ken's katana in a bush right outside the barrier. While it would have certainly been helpful to have a weapon in hand, he had been worried. Worried because he didn't know the extent of the other's bone-based blessing. It would have been bad if they had seen him as a threat. All for one simple reason, the possibility the blessed could restrict his movements. At the moment, Terran was as harmless as a ladybug from a distance.
The student's devilish expression grew until he realized the small kid in front of him did not have the expected reaction. In fact, not even a peep left the kid's mouth. Instead, a devilish grin mirroring his own spread across the kid's face.
Before he could quite comprehend the odd reaction, Terran swung his spiked arm into the man's skull. No scream was heard as the bone growth pierced his brain.
"You-you-you. You killed him!"
Terran tried to remove his spiked arm, but it was securely lodged in the now lifeless skull. He could feel his passive regeneration wanting to correct his bones, but he focused and tried to delay it. Of course, not even he could stop his regeneration from working its magic, but he could at least slow it down.
Seeing this, the other blessed was quick to react. Stepping forward, he threw out a punch, landing cleanly on Terran's chin.
"Motherfucker! That's definitely super strength!" Terran cursed as his jaw shattered. The bone spike snapped clean off as his body was sent flying.
"Ha-ha, maybe I should have thought this through a bit more before acting so recklessly. I just couldn't miss such a perfect opportunity with one of them leaving the group." Despite his self-ridicule, a smile remained on his face. It was just like his time in the trial. Maybe even more so in real life. The feeling of fighting with all his strength, betting his life on his belief that he could overcome his opponents. It was exhilarating!
Of course, Terran didn't just jump in because he was craving a good fight. He believed every day to be a game of poker. People took risks based on the cards they were dealt, and they either won or lost. Those that were too scared to take those risks were slowly whittled down by the ante until they died with nothing to their name.
This was the logic Terran based his actions on. Perhaps it was flawed, but that didn't matter to him because it was what he believed.
It only took a second for the one with the strength-based blessing to jump on Terran, pounding him into the ground with the force of a semi-truck. Terran's bones shattered, but it was nothing he couldn't recover from.
It was no exaggeration that while pinned against the ground, the blessed fists were punching straight through Terran's chest.
From the blessed's perspective, Terran stood no chance of surviving, the holes in his chest already spilling out blood. Little did he know, those holes he was so carelessly creating would soon cost him his life. As the blessed fist made its way into Terran's chest for the umpteenth time, Terran grabbed onto his arm and held it in place. Yes, Terran's raw strength was not even comparable, but the blessed was too surprised to know what was happening. Terran held on with all his strength. When the blessed's arm retracted, Terran was lifted out of the ground before being slammed back down. Yet, by this time, it was already too late. Terran had focused his healing on his chest. His muscle fibers immediately jumped at each other, swallowing the blessed's hand whole. It only took a second for his flesh and bone to win the war of supremacy over space. The blessed could only scream as his hand was reduced to nothing.
At this moment, a voice sounded over the noise of their scuffle. It might have seemed like a lot of time had already passed, but in truth, it had only been around 30 seconds. In that time, the third group member had gone to the path and back.
"Uhm guys, I looked everywhere but I couldn't find that Bastard's katana."
However, just as quickly, the man froze due to the current scene playing out in front of his eyes. He watched as the unfamiliar corpse grabbed onto his friend's arm before his friend's hand was eaten by a quickly closing chest.
It was easy to say that this event scared both of them shitless. The strength-based blessed had thought the small kid was already dead. He had only been pounding on him out of spite for killing his friend, and suddenly his hand was missing, and his blood was gushing out.
Terran went for the eyes before slamming his spikes into the man's skull in a moment of pain and unbelief. Luckily, super strength did not mean super durability. In fact, just by punching holes in Terran, the blessed had broken almost all of his fingers.
This time, Terran mustered all his strength and snapped the bone spike off, leaving it in the blessed's skull. "How perfect! One spike left and one undamaged head! I love when things come together!
At this point, the last member was paralyzed in fear. He had just watched the wound on Terran's chest heal, closing off his beating heart, which had previously been exposed for the world to see.
"Mo-mon-monster! You're a monster!"
"Oh, how ironic?" That was all Terran mumbled before swinging his bone spike.
Terran swung his last bone spike, only for the last man to snap out of his stupor. Immediately, his body flickered as he blended in with his surroundings.
"Shit, where'd he go? Invisibility?" Just then, he saw a flicker of movement before a long red sticky rope shot out of the darkness.
"No, it's just camouflage, but the darkness of night and this thicket of trees is making it impossible to see him.
The sticky rope wrapped around his spiked arm, restricting it and pulling him forward. The rope was not a rope at all but instead a tongue. The tongue threw him onto the ground. Terran tried to get up, but soon a kick flew at him out of the darkness. He tried for a second time, only to receive another firm kick, this time from another direction. It was impossible to see where the kicks originated, as the last man was still practically invisible.
"What should I do? I could absorb the other two's blessings. No, I shouldn't do that so openly. It would not be good if I suddenly started using his comrade's blessings, maybe if I had used super strength from the start, but it is too late. With this guy's blessing, he is very slippery in this situation. The second he wants to leave, I won't be able to do anything to stop him. Besides, the cost of AP to unlock higher ranked blessings goes up exponentially. I don't even know if I'd be able to unlock them after I steal them.
Should I unlock Imp's blessing? I have the required AP. No, not yet, I have one more strategy I want to try. Although, if I draw this out too long, he might also just run away. After all, I don't think he has the strength to even knock me out. I'll just have to kill him before he comes to that same realization."
All these thoughts were flying through Terran's mind at an incredible speed. Getting up, he put on the best scared for his life face he could muster. He tried to run but, just as quickly, got pulled back to the ground by the tongue. Kicks continued to rain down on him from every angle, but he continued to get up and run at every chance he got while adding in some much-needed huffing. His acting was truly Oscar-worthy as he slowly made his way across the space in the barrier while pretending to be afraid and out of breath. These repetitive actions continued to play out until Terran finally collapsed.
"Ha-ha, I wonder what the boss will say! Maybe I'll get a promotion! I can't believe those other two actually got killed by this weakling! They were always stronger than me, bossing me around, but look who is alive and who's dead! Look who managed to not only defeat but capture this little shit!
Blinded by success, the only man left standing wrapped his sticky tongue around Terran as he prepared to properly restrain him. If only he had been a bit more cautious, he might have realized that one of Terran's hands had fallen outside of the barrier when he collapsed.
The barrier displayed an image of how things appeared on both sides while ignoring foreign objects. This meant that the katana lying just on the other side was entirely out of sight.
For this reason, the final assailant was unable to react when Terran swung around with more vigor than he had even had during the beginning of the fight. There was a flash as the katana sliced through the air. In the next moment, the sharp blade just as easily cut its way through the disgustingly sticky tongue.
Standing over 4 bodies, 3 of which showed no signs of life, was a short yet handsome young man. His shirt was littered with several gaping holes, and the fabric was dyed red in blood. It was impossible to tell from his undamaged skin, but the blood dying his clothing was his own.
"Thank Gaia the school provides uniforms. Miss Sophie might have killed me if these were the clothes she bought me!"
The one complaining and the last one standing was naturally Terran.
Soon, a glow could be seen from under his shirt as several text boxes appeared in his retina.
[F rank blessing, Torus's Might, has successfully been stolen.]
[E rank blessing, Hades' Scalpel, has successfully been stolen.]
[D rank blessing, Chameleon's Anatomy, has successfully been stolen.]
[Quest, Thief 2.0, is now 3/5 complete. Time Remaining: 9 days.]