DING!
[Acquired Skill (Natural Assimilation/Forestry Transformation LV1) Unlocked!]
[Acquired Skills come to newly Reborn individuals faster than most as you are laying the foundations for your combat style and preferred use of your abilities. After exiting the Acquisition Stage (LV1-LV30) of your System Level, Acquired Skills will no longer be available unless you experience a Class Change.]
"If I wasn't almost dead, I'd cry from how cool this is....." Claude huffed from inside his feral bark helm. Out loud he whistled and Ren began digging in the distance. The dark of night hid him well.
Sapien shook his head as he eyed Claude, the verdant beast-knight. "Incredible..... there's something you aren't telling me. No student our age is this adept at elem--"
Claude attacked, taking off on all fours. The two arms at his back sprouted flowers that spit a toxic gas cloud, coating the rapier and shield at the end of each limb in a corrosive slime.
Sapien opened his arms in a hug and clapped.
The wind gust ripped a few flowers off his cloak, turning it into a cape. Claude was too heavy to be moved. He was on Sapien like a wild multi-limbed dog.
He snarled, the longer arm from the root-golem stabbed at Sapien with the poisonous wood rapier.
Sapien sidestepped, letting it cut through his luxurious hair. He smirked and then the rapier expanded into a great-sword with the addition of more roots in a flash that cut open Sapien's cheek.
"You're going to die, Claude.... And that's frustrating. It's a waste!" Sapien punched Claude.
His spell-bloom shield arm lowered to cover his face. The impact was so hard, the white flower shield's blue pollen rays warbled like a struck window.
"Heard you the last twelve times." Claude pushed aside Sapien's arm and slashed at his face with his other hand.
He opened his cheek enough to see his teeth from inside his mouth. The poisons on his claws ate away at the skin. Fighting the healing process. Forcing him to use more mana.
"You aren't listening. FOOL" Sapien head butted him.
Claude stumbled backward, helm cracked in a dozen places, "Because you're a dumbass!"
Claude's snouted helm sprouted antlers that he used to headbutt Sapien with and flip him into the air.
From above, Sapien caught Claude's extra arms and pulled himself into Claude so hard he smashed into the ground like the gravity suddenly tripled.
His golem shell cracked in a dozen places. Sapien pried his shoulder out of Claude's back and rolled away just as Claude's golem skin exploded in a shrapnel blast of wood.
"It won't be here. I know the serpentmancers got you all scared but look at it's victims..... nobodies. It's culling the weak. Whoever's controlling the serpent's is twisted and psychotic but they're driven by a good cause. They're drawn to strength.... A very noble cause in a world like this. You're strong. You'll live through this. Hell, even some of the weak have lived. It's all a game--"
"Shut up." Claude pounced.
Sapien was gone by the time he hit the ground. As he did, he stabbed his arms into the earth and sent a wave of wooden spikes bursting in all directions.
Sapien moved faster than Claude's eyes could follow as he hopped and ripped through the bramble blast.
"A game! It's a game and you're risking your life for it. The Wraiths aren't even monsters."
"Are you telling me that furry thing that threw a tsunami at us was human?" Claude asked as he stood.
"In every way that counts. You want another example?" Sapien asked.
Claude ran through his wooden spikes, ripping them out of ground to throw as spears with all four of his arms.
"When you first arrived, something big happened. Students died, right? Did it shock you? Did it feel unjust? A waste? I bet you made graves for them. For nothing."
Sapien caught a spear and drained it's life force. Some of his hundreds of poisoned cuts healed faster. It wasn't enough. He wasn't noticing the burrows in the dark sand.
"Wait...." Claude just processed what Sapien said.
"Without the Serpentmancer no one would be dead. Theyre in the gods damned University! They're fine! We get it, you can play hero. Now play ruthless. BE ruthless. That's the real lesson for the real players in this game. All the poor lowborn talentless rejects play sacrifice games. FOR US! We are designed to win, they are designed to donate. That's how its done in the Tangents. Low gives to high. Weak work for str...." Sapien stumbled.
He looked down at himself and realized all the small cuts and grazes weren't healing. They were festering. The blood bubbled. The wounds were red and green all over with puss oozing like snot.
Sapien dug his heels deeper into the sand, searching for more bugs to steal the life from.
Claude whistled again and Ren dug his way out of the ground. At Claude's feet, he coughed up a slimy chewed ball of bugs and clams.
For the first time in a while, Sapien didn't seem eager to speak.
"I knew if I let you talk, you'd tell me things I couldn't know as a non-legacy with no connections to the University. Thank you for the Intel. But also screw you. Julii wasn't nobody. Nobody who died here is worthless. Sure, this whole thing is supposed to be a game, but the only way it could be played on your terms is if you're a psycho. I'm not, and that's why I'm not playing. Forget the hero talk for a minute. You hurt my friends. I wouldn't join your family if I was an orphan." Claude said.
All four of his arms raised a spear.
Sapien was returning to his withering form. Muscles deflating. Skin paling. Hair fall--
"AAARRGH!" Ursula exploded from the ocean clinging to a shark. Portions of it's flesh were frozen and broken off where Ursula was climbing the beast. On it's tail and fins, Claude's Island dogs hung on with iron tight bites.
Sapien turned to face the massive fish and rage monster just as it was about to land on him.
Claude summoned a volley of roots from below, holding his hands and feet to the ground so he couldn't grab the shark and regenerate.
"WAIT,--"
The shark collapsed on top of Sapien. Ursula landed atop the shark. She roared and hammered down blows on the flailing shark until portions of it's brain clung to her knuckles in frozen clusters.
"Ursula." His helmet peeled away and revealed his face. Green, blue, red and brown veins stemmed from the armor and connected to the sides of his face.
[Your Dryadic Essence strengthens.....]
The berserker looked up from the shark once it stopped flailing.
"Are you g--"
Ursula leaned over and threw up a gallon of ocean water.
A few seconds later and he was carrying her into the jungle.
When Stella saw him walk up, she hissed.
"You understand you look worse than the Wraiths right?" Stella asked.
"That's debatable." Claude and Ursula came to a stop beside the mess of unconscious students.
"There's not much I can do. I'm not a healer. I bandaged who I could, but that's nothing..." Stella said.
"It's something. Thank you for helping.... even when some of them tried to kill you." Claude replied.
"You're a terrible influence." Stella grumbled.
"Sapien would agree but he's muzzled by a beached shark right now." Claude said.
"What?"
The island dogs came trotting into the jungle. They ran past Claude and hopped over the students, landing beside Stella and Grimm.
Rivera dropped a chunk of shark flesh at Grimm's feet. Grimm purred in thanks and scarfed the meat down wildly.
Ren snarled at Grimm. Claude could almost hear the regal prehistoric badger-beast telling the long legged Arctic cat to have manners.
"What's the plan?..... And what are you doing?" Stella asked as Claude crouched over one of the students and shut his eyes.
"Trying to get us back on our feet."
"My feet are tired." Ursula groaned, "I'm gonna go punch Sapien again."
"Save your energy. I need you." Claude said as he opened his eyes.
He looked down at Trey. The cream skin colored healer had seen better days. His nappy light brown hair was full of sand and twigs. His armor was dented. Cuts covered his freckled face.
Claude's back arm once wielding the flower shield lowered. His palm hovered over Trey's face. The wooden palm twisted and split like a forested kaleidoscope. From the open space a bright orange flower bloomed. Yellow and green veins trailed down the petals.
He brought it closer to Trey's face. The center pollen pad split open like a mouth and spit a foul gas.
Trey was up immediately, coughing and gagging from the smell.
"What the hell is..... Hey. Am I dreaming or are you a dryad?" Trey mumbled as he sat up and scooted away from Claude.
"Neither. Heal Goren." Claude said.
Trey looked around some more, forcing Claude to grab him.
"The surfers are captured, Sapien is down. All of our allies are almost dead and the night only just started. Heal Goren and save everyone. You took an oath."
Trey blinked once and put his hands on Goren's chest as he lay beside him. Healing rays glimmered in the dark forest.
In the following minutes, Goren was up.
"Heal the mages. They'll process the magic easier and get more of it. Then the archers and swordsmen. Leave the tanks. They're outclassed by the wraiths. I'll protect them but they cant join any serious fights." Claude explained as student slowly began to rise.
Claude stood and watched the sky.
Ursula Legrand was moved to first place, now with nine hundred points following the defeat of Sapien with a shark suplex.
"Sorry for stealing your thunder. Wanna punch me?" Ursula asked.
"Hell no. That's not important. How many points do you gain for defeating a wraith?" Claude asked.
"Like six hundred. They're game enders. Defeating a wraith isn't really a thing t--..... Oh." Ursla mumbled as she looked over the leaderboard above.
Sapien created a power vacuum. End's Island had the highest concentration of power among students. When he defeated them all he freed up a lot of spaces.
First place was nine hundred points, basically everyone else was barely hitting two hundred.
Except second place.
Held by Samuel Leon. With a fresh six hundred and forty points.
"Samuel just defeated a wraith."
The sky lit up as purple flames bloomed like cosmic wild flowers on some distant island.
"He's going after the next.....what a jackass." Ursula said.
Claude shook his head, "Ursula, he's going after all of them. He's trying to find me."