"The Mantises are probably over there. The village was destroyed by a fire too." Raymond voiced his thoughts and the others agreed without question. They had come this far, there was no way they were going to back down when they were so close to their goal.
Without further consideration, the team of eight increased their pace towards the source of light and as the gap between them became closer and closer, the light grew brighter and bigger.
30 minutes of running later, and the group stood before a house sized opening in the cave wall, with the light they were chasing being so bright at this point they had to squint to properly get a view of what was inside.
"Stay alert, we don't know how many enemies we might find in here. Even with the fire lighting up most of this sub-cave, there may still be some dark corners where a Mantis could be ready to pounce on you at any time." The group nodded in unison to Raymond's advice as they surrounded the cave entrance from both sides.
The scene reminded Alex of the old fashioned way police on ancient Earth would raid people's houses, but he brushed the thought away to not cause any distractions for himself.
Being so close to the entrance, nobody wanted to speak — not wanting to alert the beasts inside to their presence, so Raymond, as the team's de facto leader, raised his hand and counted down from five using his fingers.
Five…
Four
Three
Two….
One!
Szzz!
Right as the group rushed through the entrance into the grand and spacious cave, only one thing came to their mind.
'Hot!'
It was scorching in there, the difference in temperature inside and outside was like night and day.
However when Alex, Brute and the others recovered from their stupor, shock and confusion filled their faces.
'Where are all the Mantises!? What the heck is that thing??'
Instead of the dozens of Mantis beasts they were expecting, inside there lay a huge lion like creature which until a moment ago was lazily snoring away on its back, before Alex and his group came storming in and awakening it from its sleep.
Alex instinctively looked at Raymond and Joanne — unlike the others they didn't seem to be shocked. Instead their eyes were filled with jubilation, Raymond looked like some sort of crazy maniac with the way greed just oozed out of his eyes when he looked at the huge lion.
'It seems these two know something that we don't.'
However right now he had more important things to think about.
Like how they were going to deal with this situation.
'This thing is clearly not in the same league as F rank beasts. This can only mean it is an E- rank beast, or…'
Alex had his suspicions that this thing wasn't even an Early E rank beast either, and just the thought of it terrified him to his core. The strongest in their team was only E- rank! How were they supposed to take down something a whole level above him with only a few measly F and F+ ranks to support?
"Everyone, get into formation! If we want a shot of making it out of here alive, then you need to cooperate with each other so I can whittle it's health down, this thing is a Mid E rank beast!"
Raymond shouted his orders with a much more commanding tone than he had ever had before. It seemed he had shed his previous affable and approachable persona for this new cold and commanding one.
Everyone listened to his order and moved into the formation they had discussed previously in their plans to fight the group of Mantis beasts. However the formation was incomplete as both Alex and Brute hadn't moved from their location.
"Explain yourselves. You said you were 100% certain those were the tracks of Mantis beasts we were following. Care to explain why we end up encountering this flaming lion at the end of your tracks, with no Mantis in sight?"
At first glance, one might assume Brute to be all muscle and no brains due to how he looked and how he preferred people called him, but he was no idiot nor a pushover.
A bitter grin appeared on Raymond's face as he heard Brute's demanding questions.
"You are too smart for your own good." With that, a small dagger appeared in Raymond's hand and before anyone could even react in time to what he said, he flicked forwards and it flew at incredible speeds.
Fwoosh!
On the other end, Alex only heard the sound of wind splitting and a dull thud before all hell broke loose.
Right as the dagger left Raymond's hand, the flaming lion attacked with a supremely hot breath of fire that spewed sticky, flaming liquid everywhere like a flamethrower.
Alex didn't notice this though.
'What just….'
His thoughts paused when he looked towards the source of the thud.
Brutus.
Right where he had been standing, with his hand still on the hilt of his sword, Brute lay lifeless with a dagger protruding out the back of his head.
'Raymond just… Killed him?'
'Why?'
Nothing made sense to Alex anymore. His whole life he had been living in the slums on a random no name mining colony. Humans over there were much more cooperative and worked together to survive. Yet the whole time he had been in the Primordial Expanse, all he had seen was senseless slaughter and bloodshed.
He only truly understood now why that policeman told him to be so wary of other people.
Alex shifted his shocked eyes towards Raymond, who was currently dodging the lion with an apathetic look. Joanne stood far back, firing an arrow from time to time with her bow, causing some minor annoyance for the lion whenever one left a scratch on its skin.
On the other end, Raymond looked back at the only uncooperative person left in the team.
"Alex, If you don't want to end up like him then I suggest you get over here and help." He said while he shifted his eyes towards Brute.
His previous facade of being like an elder 'brother' was abandoned.
It seemed his true face had been revealed.
'He's been lying to us this whole time! I was right to suspect him!'
Alex gritted his teeth at the threat but took a deep breath to calm his raging emotions.
Right now there was an even bigger threat to his life, to all of their lives including even Raymond.
'First I deal with you!'
Alex dashed over to the side of the lion and launched his first attack.