In a dark cave, a person was laying down on a bed. His weak, and fragile frame would make one think he was dead for a long time but he was still alive. Looking at his eyelids, his eyes could be seen moving underneath them.
"How long until they return?" A female voice asked.
"For the last time, Lexi. They won't be back until a week and a half from now. They could come back earlier but that's if they're lucky enough to find an abundance of metal." A male voice replied.
Sitting up, the weak frame boy looked at the two talking people. As he sat up, the two people took a step back and fell to the ground as they stared at him in horror.
"H-he's awake! Go get Jason!" The boy said with urgency. "Take it easy, Antares. You've been out for two weeks now."
"Two weeks? Wait, who were you talking about?" Sebastian asked.
"Lycaon, Baron, Lendell, Katlynn, and Sophie went to the Northern Mountaintops to get a special metal for Lexi since she lost her arm."
"Are they crazy?! That place is dang-"
Coughing, Sebastian spat up a mouthful of blood. Kai, the person by Sebastian, was surprised by the color of his blood as it was purple compared to the others.
"I'll be heading toward the Northern Mountaintops." Sebastian said, standing up from the bed.
"Woah! Slow down! Jason said you need rest." Kai said.
"You don't understand. There's a specific beast that will hunt them down and kill them."
"What do you mean?"
"Among the beasts in the Northern Mountaintops, there's a specific beast that hates me and will not hesitate to kill them." He revealed.
"Then let us come. We'll help."
Looking toward the wall, he saw his black suit of armor on the wall. As he approached the wall, it turned into liquid and covered his body.
"No. I will have to do this myself."
Before Kai could refute Sebastian's words, he felt a strange energy enter his body before collapsing to the ground.
'Better get out of here before Jason and Lexi arrive.' Sebastian thought.
Leaving the cave swiftly, he looked north and headed in that direction. Although he wanted to stay at the camp with the others to ward off any powerful beasts, he needed to head to the Northern Mountaintops as everyone there was in danger.
______
"Watch out!" Lycaon shouted.
Currently, both Baron and Lycaon were fighting against a powerful pack of blue wolf-like beasts. They were both weak since they had used up nearly all of their mana against a party of yetis before.
"We need to retreat!" Baron shouted.
Nodding, Baron decided to use the rest of his mana to form a partially completed earth golem for a distraction. The distraction did gather the pack's attention as they were focused on the golem.
They then ran away from the pack until they arrived in a cave. A day had passed since arriving in the Northern Mountaintops and they didn't find any clues related to their friends.
Even though they didn't find any clues, they did manage to find more of that special metal they were looking for. One problem they did encounter was that they didn't have food. They did try to eat yeti's meat but it didn't exactly taste good as it tasted like rubber.
"Do you think they may have gone deeper into a cave? Perhaps they left a symbol instead of leaving clues for yetis." Baron said.
"Maybe… But where would the symbol be?" Lycaon asked, searching for a symbol.
After a while of searching, they couldn't find any special symbol. They weren't surprised by this since the Northern Mountaintops was full of caves.
"Maybe they didn't make a symbol, but just went deeper in."
Weighing the odds of the chances, they were extremely slim. The chances of being in the cave and taking the right path was slim as well.
"Who knows, maybe these caves are connected to one another." Baron tried to make sense of the situation.
"Fine. Let's go deeper in."
Looking toward a path, they decided to go deeper into the cave. Just as they had expected, the cave had multiple paths leading in different directions with no idea where they went.
Choosing a random path, they went deeper into the cave until they arrived at a huge cavern with giant spider webs. A shiver went down Baron's spine as he didn't exactly have the fondest memory with spiders.
"Look!" Lycaon pointed.
Staring at what he pointed at, Baron noticed a large silver sword in the corpse of a spider. It seemed like it was killed a day ago from the decay but it also seemed like it was taken from somewhere else.
Before they could proceed further, a giant spider jumped from the ceiling and stood in front of the duo. Although it may have looked like they would have struggled against the spider, they already knew about its weakness but it wasn't an ordinary one so they had to be careful.
"Repulsive Red!" Lycaon shouted.
A red orb was formed and released at the spider. Upon impact, a chunk of the spider blew off of it. This greatly surprised Lycaon as he didn't think the spider would be this weak.
"The tracks lead this way." Baron pointed.
Following the tracks, they found more corpses of spiders along the way. After a while of following, they noticed a giant hole in the wall and went through it.
"Hey!" A voice shouted.
Looking down, they saw the people they were looking for. They then noticed in the ice wall behind them that there was a giant ice worm inside. As they approached the trio, the underground cavern shook violently as if there was a fight going on high up the ground.
"What the hell is going on?!" Sophie shouted.
Pressing his hand against the ground, Baron felt high above the ground and probed the events happening up but he couldn't sense anything.
As Lycaon was looking around the cavern, he noticed a single pile of rock surrounded by water. On top of those rocks was a two flowers with light shining over it. Obviously it looked like something special as he climbed on top of the rocks and retrieved it.
Inspecting the flower, he knew it had to be important and decided to put it into his storage ring so Jason could inspect it.
"Alright, let's leave this place and never come back." Lycaon stated.
"Well, that will probably be a problem. You see, while we were running from the ice giant, we may have angered an Abyssal Leopard" Katlynn brought up.
"You what?! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to anger one of those?! You anger one, you anger the entire pack!" Lycaon shouted, angrily. "I swear, you all somewhat take after Sebastian… But I suppose that is somewhat good."
"Listen, we need to get out of here quickly otherwise they'll keep coming." Lendell said.
"Let's he-"
Slash!
In front of everyone's eyes, a giant claw came down upon Lendell and sent him flying into the ice wall. Taking a defensive position, they saw ten Abyssal Leopards fall from the ceiling. Since the cavern was darkened, it made it hard to see them as their majestic jet black fur made them blend in with their environment.
The only problems they had against Abyssal Leopards was their ranks and abilities. As long as they were in the dark, they could teleport short distances and the fact that they infused their claws with dark magic, which was poisonous to the body.
"Don't waste your mana on making giant swords. Focus on making small daggers circle us." Lycaon instructed Katlynn.
Everyone else already knew what to do as they didn't need words to convey their plan. Sophie took the role of assassin and zipped through the air to wait for an opening while Lendell partially transformed his body to become more tanker.
"Rahhh!" He shouted.
Taken by surprise, the Abyssal Leopards were pulled toward him. Combining his blades together, he activated his gravity magic and slammed them into the ground.
Bang!
A few of the Leopards were injured by the attack and Sophie immediately acted. A loud thunderstrike reverberated throughout the cavern as she appeared beside one of the Leopards and swung her Nodachi at its head.
Slash!
Thud!
"Watch out!" Lycaon shouted.
Falling from the ceiling, a larger Abyssal Leopard appeared and nearly bit off Sophie's head. It may have seemed like it wasn't problem for another one to join the fight but this one was different.
"A King Abyssal Leopard!' Baron alerted the others of the beast.
"Let's make our way out of here! If we can make it outside, then I can drop my meteor on the group." Lendell explained.
"You heard him! Baron! Transmute us a path out of here!" Lycaon instructed.
Turning around, Baron pressed his hand against the ice wall and started to transmute it. Slowly, he began to chip away at the wall and started to make his way up.
Slash!
"I'm gonna transform!" Lendell shouted.
His muscles started to bulge as he underwent his transformation. Soon, he turned into a full-fledged werewolf and charged into combat.
One of the leopards lunged forward and was immediately grabbed by him before being thrown against the ground. Before he could finish the beast off, another leopard jumped on him and tackled him to the ground.
It wasn't long until they were on top of him and trying to eat him alive. In retaliation, he decided to bite back and injured one of their eyes.
A wave of daggers flew above him and stabbed themselves into the leopards. The next to attack was Sophie as she zipped on by with her sword in hand and targeted the King Leopard.
Stab!
"Roar!" The King Leopard roared in pain.
"Hurry it up!"
"I'm trying!"
The King then stomped on the ground and released a wave of dark magic on the ground. The wave expanded across the ground and attached onto Lendell's arm.
"ARGH!" He roared in pain.
"Lendell!"
In response to the infecting magic, he lifted up his claws and chomped his arm off. He then ran forward and clawed at the King's face.
Slash!
He cut down the King and realized something odd about it as his claws went right through the King. Everyone saw this and looked around frantically for the King's true whereabouts.
A strong presence suddenly appeared behind Lycaon and lunged forward. But that would be a mistake on the beast's end as it saw its claws slow down.
"Now!" Lycaon shouted.
Three massive golden swords appeared from the ceiling and launched themselves at the Leopard.
Stab!
In front of their eyes, they saw as three Abyssal Leopards jumped and sacrificed themselves for the King. As the king saw their blood fall on the ground, a deep anger resonated within its body as it let out an almighty roar.
"ROAR!!!"
"Baron!" Lycaon shouted.
"It's done!" Baron shouted back.
Hearing his words, everyone ran into the tunnel and made their way with the Abyssal Leopards hot on their tails. As soon as they arrived at the top, Baron put his hands in front of the hole and closed it.
"RUN!" Lendell shouted as something high up in the sky could be heard descending.
As they were running, they heard the ground burst open. Turning their heads around, they saw the King Leopard looking around before running toward them.
Thump!
In front of them, they saw an ice giant make an appearance and stopped them in their tracks. They then watched as the Leopard slowly approached them.
"Duck!" Lendell shouted.
BANG!
Having listened to the command, they heard a loud bang hit the ground and shake it violently. Expecting the leopard to be dead, they were about to run in its direction until they heard rumbling from the rumble.
"ROAR!!!"
Coming out from the meteor, they saw the injured King Leopard and noticed the red hue around it as it symbolized it had entered berserk mode.
"Get ready! We have to finish it right here!" Lycaon shouted.
Before they got the chance to attack,they noticed a figure appear in the sky with a giant sword in hand before falling on top of the leopard and decapitating it in the process.
"Did you miss me?" The figure said, arrogantly.