Lassen toppled aside as the six legged beast tried to ram into him. Standing at almost two metres tall, the monster was like a weird mixture between a bull, a lion and a scorpion.
Its black hide was thick and extremely muscular, it's every step leaving a deep print in the soaked soil. Its horns were massive, like a pair of scimitars and its teeth were jagged. It's tail was like a scythe instead of a stinger, gleaming with a malicious light.
Just like most mutants, its eyes were red. It stood on all of its six legs, bestial unlike the humanoid species that was rampant amongst mutants.
It was to be expected. Humanoid mutants were a tad bit more intelligent than bestial ones, hence, they would almost never move in groups. Only bestial mutants would form packs.
But just because it was bestial didn't mean it was any easier to deal with than humanoid mutant. In fact, due to the lack of weapons, it was hard to deal with this beast. Even Zandov and the active members among the youths were having a hard time pinning down the two underlings.
But Lassen alone was holding back the boss and he was doing a pretty good job.
Lassen rolled on the floor, getting up immediately and grabbing the mutant's tail, just above the blade at the end.
His fist clenched and his muscle flexed, his dark eyes which were of utmost seriousness narrowed as he pulled the monster to a stop.
From the beginning of the fight, Lassen had been jumping and dodging out of the monster's way, trying to make it angrier. And his plan seemed to have succeeded.
A few of the youths who weren't engaged in battle looked at Lassen with wide eyes, shocked at his inhuman strength. It was one thing to drag a monster that large and heavy, but to pull it to a halt mid charge, that was insane.
Lassen growled, a deep guttural bestial noise leaving his throat as his knees bent and his foot spun on his heels.
To the shock of everyone, even the monster itself, Lassen lifted the beast that couldn't have weighed less than a thousand pounds off the ground and using his body as the centre point, he began to spin.
Zandov's eyes widened, not because of the shock of seeing the insane feat that Lassen was pulling but because he knew what the latter was about to do next.
Zandov moved also, leaving the back of the ground and rushing towards the beasts who had also been stunned for a while at the sight of their leader being handled like a hammer.
"Their legs!! Immobilise them!" Zandov yelled in order. The beasts snapped out of their stupor, baring their jagged teeths and preparing to attack but they had reacted a bit too late.
Zandov had gotten too close.
He placed a leg forward, using it to stop his momentum, his body bent in an awkward angle and with a snap, he hammered his fist into the joint of one of the beast's legs.
Boom!
A dull thud resounded as the bone of the monster popped out of its leg, blood spurting all over Zandov's body.
The monster cried out, its screech deep and reverberated. The youths felt their heart squeeze at the sound but they didn't slow down.
The strange girl that always stuck to Lassen had also arrived before the same beast. She jumped up, arriving in front of the monster's face.
Schlock!!
Her hand penetrated into the monster's skull through its eye socket.
Zandov looked at the second beast to find that the youths had crippled four of its legs. He immediately signalled for them to fall back.
At that moment, Lassen seemed to have reached his limit. With a loud roar, he let go of the beast with deadly precision, sending it hurtling towards its counterparts who were now crippled beside each other. He immediately chased after the monster for a follow up attack.
The monster arrived headfirst, its macabre horns skewering its pack members. It was so long and sharp, even after penetrating both monsters, it still pierced almost two feets into the floor.
Zandov immediately followed up, arriving at the pack leader's side and pulling its tail taut like a rope.
The moment Zandov pulled the monster's tail to its limit, Lassen arrived. He lifted off the ground with shocking momentum, his hand on a blade style as he plunged down with force.
Splash!
Blood rose up like a fountain as the remaining stump of the monster's tail flailed around. The monster released a guttural roar but it couldn't move. Its horns were stuck in the wet grounds of the mountain path and the bodies of its pack members were weighing it down.
Zandov threw the tail like a javelin and it landed before the monster's head, right in front of the strange lady that blinded the now dead pack member.
Without hesitation, she picked it up, spinning it around like a spear. She didn't even seem to mind that blood was pouring all over her body.
At that moment, it looked like it was a true weapon that was on her hands and not a monster's tail. With amazing deftness and skill, she made a wild vertical slash, cleanly severing the head of the beast.
And just like that, the pack had been eradicated. The youths almost had the urge to yell in victory but they knew better than to make unnecessary noise in the enemy's territory.
"We did it."
"Wow, I never expected that we would actually survive this long in a grade three danger zone."
"It's all thanks to the black ribbons."
"Yeah. But we also played our parts well."
As the youths discussed, Zandov walked towards Lassen.
"Are you alright? You looked pretty strained."
"I'm fine." Lassen reassured him. Zandov nodded his head. He knew that Lassen wasn't the kind of person to pretend. If he said he was fine, then he really is fine.
"We've attracted attention, we have to move. I'll ask her to extract the horns and tails of the other beasts. We can use them as makeshift weapons."
"Forty minutes." Lassen said and Zandov nodded his head gravelly.
It took us twenty minutes to handle three monsters and it should take about twenty five minutes to get to the beacon. If we encounter one more pack, we might not make it to the top in time.