When everything was sought and the plan was clear. The group started approaching the reddish plant about 10 meters ahead.
Ella was stopped at 7 meters in and with Lucas and John in the front, they all went in with the formation.
"Now" Lucas stopped and showed a hand signaling everyone to stop. He nodded at John and started approaching the plant like the last time.
Sarah was shivering from just the feeling that the plant would pop up anytime, she couldn't believe that Lucas was not afraid, and in truth, he really wasn't.
Lucas had already killed the rapacious plant, it may have been due to luck but he had a big part to play in it. With each kill, it was as if his fear was decreasing.
With the spear in his left hand hidden behind his back. Lucas approached and crouched down but was ready to fall back anytime soon with just a simple jump.
After waiting there for 10 seconds, everyone started second-guessing things. Alas, it was too late.
CRACK!
"It's happening!" Lucas jumped behind and made the formation complete. Sean was ready to give a buff anytime, his limit was only one for now and he had to wait for one minute in order to give another buff to another.
Barney started hovering the spear near him, the spear was on his right, its tip desperate to puncture a hole in that plant. Even after he started floating the spear, Barney had no problem or stress.
The weight of the spear was half the axe head, it could be even less.
The crack on the ground became bigger until Lucas could see the whole silhouette. The rapacious plant was different this time, its height was higher than before and the big mouth of its looked enormous.
John gulped when he saw the creature, his eyes were saying that the unwavering confidence from before was getting lost.
Lucas on the other hand had his heart pumping fast. He saw the creature and could feel the bloodlust it was emitting.
It had happened since the Kobold who was filled with bloodlust. Lucas could still feel that tingling in his body when he made eye contact with the Kobold but the rapacious plant didn't make him tingle as much.
"Uncle John, come!"
SWOOSH!
Lucas ran toward the rapacious plant that was above 10 meters in length.
'Its range is better than the first one...' Lucas thought and kept running until the rapacious plant itself came toward him.
Lucas at the right moment faked his movement to the left when he moved toward the right. The rapacious plant head went past him horizontally and scraped his chest a little but nothing happened.
'The fuck?' Lucas thought when he saw the open mouth of the rapacious plant for a second. He could swear that there were small numerous canines in its mouth.
The rapacious plant didn't make any noise, it didn't stop and go back for Lucas but instead, its big head traveled toward the group.
"Get back, everyone!" John came in front of its trajectory to stop the thing before it could hurt anybody. Till now, there had been no problem with the plan as it had just started.
But he hadn't felt a single thing in his mind and that was the fear that the others felt.
While Lucas and John had already experienced something worst than this. the Kobold may have died but it was too ferocious, the sheer claws of its could make many freeze from fear.
The same thing was happening to the others when Sean was supposed to already give a buff to John to help him stop the big plant. He had frozen in one place while looking at the upcoming slobbering mouth of the enormous plant toward him.
Things like how could the plant even travel like this, to begin with, came to his mind yet they kept changing. So the hope of having the plan become successful was going toward a lost cause.
John threw his spear on the ground and gritted his teeth. The rapacious plant was going to hit him anytime now and he didn't want the spear to get in the way. He had the ability to get away but the people behind him were too important to just disregard.
BANG!
John used his hand to stop the rapacious plant and it worked, he used both his hands to grab the ends of the big rapacious plant's hand.
"Urgh... it burns!" John shrieked as his hands started to sizzle, at one hand, he was not able to comprehend why he could stop this big thing with his hand, and on the other, he was feeling like his hands were burning from water.
His hands were all slobbered up and Lucas knew that it was acidic.
"Get back here!" Lucas used his right hand to pull the red stem of the big plant. It made the plant jerk a little but the power was not enough. He hit his spear with power on the ground and the end went inside it which helped it be erect on the ground even when he was not holding it.
Lucas used both his hands to pull the plant and it worked. But John was getting pulled with him as if his hands were stuck there. At a second glance, Lucas saw a big slobbery tongue wrapped up on John's left hand that he didn't seem to feel with how the burning feeling on his arms and hand was increasing.
"Get away from my dad." Barney didn't remember to use his telekinesis and just smacked the spear that was on the ground. It was on the ground because his concentration was hindered when John got in contact with the rapacious plant's mouth.
SMACK!
Barney hit the slobbering tongue that was wrapped around John's arm with the spear's length. The rapacious plant loosened the grip on the arm and finally, John was free when he got down on his knees right in front of the big plant.
"Urghhh... s-shit!" Barney exclaimed while holding his hand, when he hit the tongue, it was a bit soft, and the saliva all over it spilled around. One of the drops fell between his fingers and the skin around corroded very quickly.
The rapacious plant saw the opportunity and was going to just gobble John up when Lucas increased the pulling until the rapacious plant got further with him from the group.
"Aunt Ella! Heal Uncle John while I take its attention!" Lucas shouted ad picked the spear up when there was no need to pull. The rapacious plant was pissed and it was speedily moving toward Lucas.
"O-Okay" Ella came running from the sidelines and knelt near John. Her hands started emitting white light. When she saw John's face, a tear could not help but fall from her face.
She made the aura do its work after keeping her hand on his wound that he was holding with yet another wounded hand. John's face became calmer when he felt some relief in his wounds. At one thought, he knew Ella was doing her wonders on him.
SWOOSH!
Lucas on the other hand was running everywhere while dodging the Rapcious plant's agile attacks.
The others couldn't help but just look at the scene with wide eyes.
"T-The plan is ruined! Let's just run back!" Sean exclaimed. He was panicking hard from the thought that if his dad could get injured, then he was nothing against this thing.
But John only got injured because the others in the back didn't move from the trajectory of the rapacious plant. If he wanted, he had a level-headed mind and would have jumped to the side on time.
"Sarah! Only you can do something! SHOOT!!!" Lucas said while running fast, the rapacious plant was just meters away from catching him and he didn't have a choice but to run.
'If I stop, the fucker will just gobble me up.... shit.' Lucas knew in his heart that he had made a bad decision.
Even if he didn't think this but he was the leader of the group and making such a decision was risky for the whole group.
Everyone agreed to the plan because both the fighters made it sound easy but in honesty, Lucas and John were thinking of taking care of everything on their own.
But one must come back to reality in order to see the real picture. Both of them had learned the lesson quickly.
In panic, Sarah made a small fireball but her hand kept shaking. She closed her eyes and calmed herself down yet the shivering didn't go away.
Her eyes started blazing with determination when she saw that Lucas's speed was decreasing.
'If I don't do something quickly, Lucas will get eaten.'
With this thought, she shot the first fireball of the day toward the moving head of the plant, Sarah had to predict where the big plant would go a second later in order to hit a moving target.
It was just something she knew from the past when she saw her brother play a shooting game and he shot a bullet ahead of the moving enemy but it still hit it.
With great prediction, Sarah shot the fireball.
SWOOSH
The fireball went in a horizontal trajectory until it was very close to hitting the plant but it was too fast and went further without hitting. Yet the rapacious plant could feel the heat from the fireball even when it was close to it for a second.
Its whole existence told him to attack the one who threw it and its eyes went to Sarah who was making yet another one.
It moved its mouth slowly toward Sarah and was going to attack yet a grave mistake has already been made.
Lucas, who was furious from his action saw the spear near him that he erected. He grabbed the spear and when the big plant was readying itself for yet another speedy travel to Sarah.
He pounced on the back of the big plant which made it fall on the ground. Lucas knew he was taking too much risk but he did not want to let anyone else hurt because of him. He readied the poison-laced spear and punctured it right in the center of the red head.
"S-Shit!" Lucas's balance got bad after the head started moving and he fell to the side. his legs were also very sore from all the continuous running at full speed for a long time.
The head bobbed up, greenish liquid kept falling off its head and mouth. Before it could do anything unnecessary, the rapacious plant just fell on the ground.
BANG!!
[Congratulations! You have killed an Avaelonian creature of level 4 with companions!]
[Dificulty level- Hard]
[+20 EXP]
The notification came to him and a sense of relief formed in his mind. The fight was over.
"What the hell?! I leveled up!" A voice came from close.
Lucas's exhausted eyes darted toward the voice. All the pleasure he just felt just vanished... It was Sean that spoke up.
'He didn't do anything? He only fucking stood there? How? Why?' Questions formed in his mind and just like when he questioned the number of phases at the start. Some texts formed in front of him.
[All the members of a group get the end experience points equally.]
"I did too!" Barney spoke up, excitement evident in his voice.
"Me too but I feel dizzy..." Ella said while she kept healing John's wounds until he stopped her. He gave her his support when she kept her hands on her head.
Lucas just got up, his face formed an unpleased expression yet he didn't complain. He was the one that got them in danger because he was excited to fight.
"Sarah, can you help me get to Uncle John?"
"Sure"
Lucas with Sarah went to John who was just sitting beside his wife, comforting her while she faced the stat change.
John looked at Lucas who was staring at his wounds with a guilty face.
"What's with that expression? These wounds? They are nothing, now we got more water with us? Be happy!" John said with a grin and tried to be as enthusiastic as he could. He wanted to hide his real emotions.
Lucas just nodded in response and sat there with everyone until his breathing became okay.
The two brothers had already forgotten what had transpired just a few minutes ago and bickered happily about their level-up.
Another 10 minutes later, they all started traveling back with the corpse of the rapacious plant in tow.
When they reached back, Lucas just sat alone thinking about his actions. When others were just together eating, there was only one person who came to his aid.
"What's bothering you?" John asked while looking at his hands which Lucas was doing too. There was not a single scratch on his fully burned hand from before.
Everything was healed by Ella's continuous skill use.
"... I was wrong this time. I-"
"You did nothing wrong..." John interjected and continued, "You saved everyone, Lucas. You made my family level up when they didn't do anything."
"Don't worry about it..." Lucas said with a smile.
"No, it's not okay, you killed the thing. And everything got divided. There was no drop too. I am really sorry, Lucas... I wasn't able to help you at all."
"What are you saying, Uncle John? When all these shi... people were frozen, you literally sacrificed yourself for them. If anyone was a hero today, it was you." Lucas said and patted his shoulder in reassurance.
John didn't say anything for a while, Lucas was right and it didn't do any good for him.
His sons were deadbeat in the whole hunt. And if they were not there, John was confident that he and Lucas would have taken care of it without trouble.
"Lucas... we made a mistake this time. You and me, we both were wrong. But let's not forget that it still was successful... we can only move forward."
They talked for a while, both saying things the other needed to hear even if they were cringe.
There was impatience and they wanted to fix this emotional trouble soon as...
The next phase was going to start the next day...
---
Thanks for reading!
The chapter was too long today but this was the end of Volume One- The Prologue.
Every 120 Power stones= 3 Bonus Chapter---- 45/120
(Read Author's note)