"Damn it!" Oliver shouted.
Explosion, blast, shock wave, the forces of destruction swirled together around him.
Some of the wild beasts surrounding him got crushed, some cut in half, and some had broken bones as they flew far away colliding with the trees.
"Can't you keep your attacks away from me!?" Ella complained as she shot a water ball towards the flying wild beasts, the water ball exploded into hundreds of tiny, piercing spikes before hitting them, each one directed at different targets.
They were chasing none other than Elisa who seemed to be fighting multiple flying wild beasts, and each of those was fighting one another to have her as their dinner. Elisa being tossed in mid-air from one mouth to another struggled to catch a moment for herself.
Elisa was out of Oliver's and Ella's attack range, but they were doing their best to chase her.
"Why are all these beasts coming towards us!"
"I don't know!"
They may be SS rankers but the wild beasts weren't some insects either, they may be weak alone but when dealing with this many it becomes a problem, more so in an environment like this.
It was a chaos.
"Damn it, I am going to use advanced rank spell Oliver! No point in being a cheapstake!" Ella shouted with annoyance in her voice, stretching her hand out in the air.
Oliver in an instant jumped far away from Ella and the beasts surrounding them.
And then Ella snapped her fingers.
In an instant, the severely large towering swords of water formed in the sky and started falling down just like the water droplets have been all this time.
Everything within 500 meters of Ella was completely and utterly destroyed, some beasts were cut apart, some had their bodies riddled with countless holes and some were completely left beyond recognition.
And then a dragon born out of the water was formed as Ella rode it, calling out to Oliver who jumped up on the dragon, it began to head towards Elisa leaving behind the catastrophic destruction.
"This is why I asked for a soul-bound dimensional storage, you just can't be careful with stuff during a fight. Well, their potion backup is dead. Next up is dividing them in different directions. Wonder when she will notice the position though." A voice devoid of any emotion said taking a pause as it continued "Welp, you are next, go give them a jumpscare by emerging from underground"
As if responding to the indifferent voice, a low grunt was heard.
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"What the hell did just happen here?" Edison voiced out his concern as he looked at the devastating landscape in front of him, trees were uprooted, lots of dead bodies of beasts, and then one of a wild beast with its head crushed on the ground, there was also a body of a beast complete charred black, the craters will being filled with the rainwater.
"Seems like they were attacked by lots of wild beasts and that's the body of quetzalcoatus, I can assure you that beast is a high-ranking one. Anyone below SS- would have a hard time dealing with it. Though you don't usually come across them." The vampire said.
Orson silently surveyed the surroundings, he willed the mana in his eyes to observe them carefully.
If not for the current weather he would have never done that, even with his mana proficiency S ranked, the pain he felt when he willed mana into his eyes was absolutely terrible. The searing pain he felt in his eyes was akin to bacon being thrown into a piping hot pan.
He gritted his teeth enduring the pain, unlike Ella who is an elf who is good with their ears Oliver and Elisa who are beastfolk with great senses the dwarf who has eyes better than others the vampire who is a vampire, Oliver is a human, this was his only way.
In Noah's words 'You know, you are one unfortunate, sad sack of shit when you are born a human in a world with different intelligent species. All you can do is suck it up, after all, it is what it is.'
With his newly, improved vision, Orson surveyed the surroundings. As he looked through the almost washed-up trails of footprints, he assessed the situation.
"It seems that they have headed towards east" Orson voiced out his thoughts.
"Did you just will the mana into your retina? You are crazy." Edison said, he for one, would never will mana into his retinas for he knew how painful it is.
"Haha...Hahahaha!"
Edison freaked out by the sudden emergence of laughter as he turned his head towards the source of the laugh, his eyes met the female vampire's figure, in the distance, slouching down.
"What did you find?" Orson asked.
"Take a look yourself, before careful though." She showed a silver thread to Orson and Edison.
Both curious looked at the thread and reached their hands towards it, the moment they did they felt the sharpness of the thread.
"Use your status now" They both did as the vampire instructed.
======================================================
Thread of assasination - Laced with high-grade Poison.
When touched with mana or aura, becomes sharp enough to cut through even mana or aura-layered objects, albeit only a little. =======================================================
""Eh..""
That was all they could both could utter.
"That's not all, the thread is broken, but you see, the setup isn't so simple. First, it was set loosely, no one could get cut if this is just loosely hanging but the moment the destruction stuck this place, the trees fell in a way that resulted in the thread to be not hung loosely anymore. Once the thread was no longer stuck all it needed was to get the touch of mana and ...it will become sharp enough to cut through a person coating themself with mana. Hey, look this thing has a little blood on it, touching won't be enough to cut through unless someone approaches the thread itself with some speed. You get what I am saying?"
The implications of the vampire's words left both Orson and Edison simply... creeped out.
"Whoever did this is absolute nuts!" The ecstatic tone with which the vampire shouted was beyond deranged.
And soon her expression turned serious "So, which one is it? We go to the east or follow the trail of this thread, which trap are we falling for?" She asked, leaving the decision to her leader, Orson.
For moments Orson stood still not uttering a single word, the vampire simply watched over Orson's expression and mused while Edison complained "What are you thinking so hard about!? We need to go and look for them, if they are poisoned and in trouble, we need to go help them as soon as we can!"
With a deep breath, Orson spoke "You will go to the east and look for them. I will go and look for where this thread will lead us along with Edison"
"Wait, why aren't we going to save them!?" Edison shouted.
"Because we don't know if they are alive, and I am sending her there, she is as strong as me" Orson replied in a frustrated tone.
"What? What do you mean you don't know if they are alive!? What kind of bullshit are you spouting!"
"You saw it yourself Edison, if it really went as she said then ...whoever came up with it, definitely doesn't have traps that stop there. This person predicted the very destruction of a fight that would take place in a precise manner as if he could see the future! He set his trap as if he knew how things would turn out!" Orson shouted, his anger and fear evident in his voice.
Orson was angry about how things were turning out and with their smartwatches not working they couldn't contact their groups and fear ...of losing more of his comrades, one of the reasons why he didn't want to go there himself, he was scared of finding them dead.
Before Edison could voice his complaint, the vampire bid her farewell without wasting any of her time.
"Oh well, I will get going then, need to be as fast as possible."
With that, Edison and Orson were left alone.
"Are you coming with me or not?" Orson asked to which Edison begrudgingly nodded.
...They didn't know, they were walking towards their own death.
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(Noah's Pov)
My expectations were low, but holy hell.
This is just absurd.
This is plain stupid at this point.
Edison ate the fruits that were injected with my potion, of course, there was no way of knowing which fruits any of them would eat so I being a good guy, injected the potion in all of them.
I mean, not really I just downed the number of possible routes and then poisoned all the fruits of those places.
Anyway, the thing is Edison ate the fruits I have injected with a liquid that blocks all mana or aura flow, slowly without letting the person realize it. However, it takes hours before it shows its awesome work.
So yeah, Edison became baggage that Orson had to carry all the while being attacked by the wild beasts. I had instructed the ones I had control over to make it so that other beasts ran in their direction. The results were as I had expected them to be.
Edison died, and Orson couldn't protect him.
Orson continued on his journey and reached the castle, met Liza, and got cut off in half within seconds. Damn, they were both supposed to be SS+ rankers yet, Liza killed him just like one would a fly. Well, she has been an SS+ ranker for a far longer time than Orson, it was inevitable.
As for Oliver and Ella? Lol, they got separated because of constantly being attacked by the beasts.
Out of those 20, I send 15 of the wild beasts to put Oliver down. Oliver's pretty temperamental so he got done in easily with the help of traps I had set in there. Hm? What about the other 5? I used 4 of them to kill Edison.
While I used the remaining one for Ella.
Ella, well she was poisoned. How? Assisination tricks 101. So yeah, it became harder for her to continue fighting, not only that she didn't have her dimensional storage, so she couldn't heal herself.
And just like that, they all died.
Nah, whom am I kidding, that Marcus didn't give a shit to these people, no proper weapon, no armor, nothing.
He literally just sent them to die.
As for Elisa, she is in front of me, her breathing ragged, her body tattered, blood dripping down her face, she will die, even if I don't do anything she will die. She has exhausted far too much of her aura to deal with those beasts.
See, this is why demons are scary, their ability to control the sheer amount of beasts is scary.
In my case, I had used the stronger beasts that I got from Liza to lure them towards these guys, well... more like scared them away.
Anyways, so yeah, Elisa is pretty much on death's door.
But damn, been a while since I saw someone looking at me with just a clear hatred.
"An adult trying to beat a child is child abuse. How about you calm down?"
"I will kill yo-cough!"
Girl, you can't even speak properly without coughing up blood once!
Why so angry?
Anyways, at this point, even I can take off your SS ranker.
Ha, besides, my magic's stronger than any of them.
You see, magic spells are divided into 4 ranks, beginner, intermediate, high, and advanced rank.
Those ranked from G- to D+ can learn beginner spells, those ranked from C- to A can learn intermediate spells, those ranked from A+ to SS- can learn high-ranked spells, and those ranked SS to welp whatever SSS+ can learn advanced spells.
The higher the level the more spells and devastating spells one could learn.
Yes, your rank matters.
But I play with hacks!
..I wish I could at least.
Anyways, so yeah, I am psychic, for me, the amount of devastation and strength of my spells completely depends upon how vividly I feel them.
In other words, I can use whatever!
I may be weak but when it comes to pure magic and shit I ain't losing to even most of the high rankers!
Also, I don't need to use mana for my attacks!
Unlimited advance-level spells! That's what I can do!
You wanna pick a fight with me? Think again!
Thinking all that to myself, I turned towards the person seeking my blood.
Well then, let's get some exp~