The blades clashed. The monster's strength sent Ellianor retreating for several steps, his blade shook from where it clashed against the monster's sword cannon, and it traveled from the base of the blade to the hilt, and his arms.
It was an intense experience as his whole arm shook from the impact.
His hand quivered alongside the blade, and the monster turned its back, to look at its fellow being slaughtered.
Ellianor took the opportunity and rushed to the monster's back and jumped as high as he could without hitting his head on the ceiling. Ellianor pushed his blade inside its chest,
The momentum of his fall, the blade, and the strength placed into it despite his shaking hand pierced the monster through the chest. It cried, and its knees weakened as its chest was punctured.
The blade's tip and the fall's strength were enough to pierce through the armor plates and end on its chest.
The monster coughed blood, filling its helmet as the red fluid fell through the cracks of it.
Without surprising strength, and with its remaining arm, the monster turned around without a single care in the world, so quickly that Ellianor was taken off his blade.
Its eyes were filled with rage and worry, and something else that made Ellianor almost see a human-like light inside its eyes.
The monster hit the pommel of its blade against him.
Ellianor felt the breath blow out of his lungs as his body was thrown several yards away, the monster possessed a strength that was not there before.
His chest reddened as blood stained his clothes, the damage was done, but it was not as intense, or bad, as the gruesome experience he underwent in the corrupted space station.
His eyes shone with recognition as the monster rushed towards Kissenn, who was cleaning her blade off blood from the Gragas.
Her red eyes filled with boredom, and devoid of amusement.
The monster raised its blade, ignoring the sword stuck through its chest. Kissenn stepped away from its attack, painfully slow as the monster crashed on the ground, a pool of blood formed beneath its body.
"I got it now." She whispered, the creature was already dead but had not realized until now, that the blade through its chest did a wonderful job. Ellianor got up, cleaning the dust off his body.
Besides the red mark on his chest, and the blood coming out of it, there was no damage on his body, besides a bruised ego. "From where that strength came from?"
Ellianor sighed, as Ellianor stared at the creatures, her eyes devoid of emotion. "We were chasing younglings.
That one was an adult." She opened its armor, cutting through the straps and locks.
The armor fell apart to reveal a Graga with far more feathers, and mass to its body, than the relatively human-sized ones they had killed, with fewer feathers.
Ellianor could see that it looked more mature than the ones they had just killed. Kissen smiled with introspection in her eyes, analyzing the situation carefully with a morbid interest.
"Have you stopped to think that we just agreed to kill those guys out of the blue? They are carnivores, given they were eating a jellyfish, they may be desperate."
Kissenn turned to where the bigger one came from, a full backpack of "goods" there, a passage to another route, or another tunnel entirely.
From there, she heard heavy footsteps coming near them at a steady pace.
Ellianor narrowed his eyes. She was right, they just agreed to kill the Gragas because it was convenient, and they were on the way, and it was convenient.
"So we were struck with an adult caring after it young?" He retrieved his sword, his mind not feeling much empathy or sadness, for his deed, most likely because of the Graga's physiology.
They were not like humans, not human enough to trigger the sense of empathy and kindness humans had for each other. "Most likely."
Kissen entered the passage and retrieved the back with the jellyfish's goods. She took one last time to stare down the Gragas.
That action was brought by a trait she took from Ellianor, and how he analyzed the corpses back then.
The black-haired man stared at the corpses too. "If they were humans, would you be able to strike them down?" He asked with some aloofness, a strange sentiment in his chest.
Kissenn laughed.
"I doubt either of those would be here if the Jellyfish asked us to kill humans or someone like Aur. Would we?" She answered with cleverness and a sharp sense of wit.
She was right on that. "It gave us a taste of how this place works, although. Dog eat dog. On a literal sense."
She waved her hand, as if signaling for them to retreat, but not before picking up one weapon from the young Gragas.
Ellianor was confused as she threw the weapon at him, which he grabbed.
She walked away and hid on a turn. She kneeled behind the turn. Ellianmor kneeled by her side. "Use the zoom on it, that thing that lets you see from afar, to see what will happen."
"The big one must have called for help." Kissenn chirped, as Ellianor held the gun, and saw more gragas appear out of the tunnel opened by the adult, they stared at the corpses for a moment.
They were also adults and took out their helmets. Without wasting time, the young were devoured, as many as they could devour, while the larger ones were chopped to pieces.
It was mildly disturbing to watch, as the gragas looked to their sides, prompting Ellianor to ride before he was spotted. Kissen held a finger over her lips, signaling to keep silent.
The silence lasted for a few moments before she heard the gragas retreat to the tunnels. "So, what you have seen?" She asked with a smile.
"They… eat the young and chop the body of the adult." It was disturbing, but birds were disturbing in their nature…
"That's why we would not be here if they were humans."