After killing the beetle, Coll levelled up and achieved level 20. He could feel the mana coursing through his veins and even began to feel like he was invincible and a cut above the rest.
Oh, how wrong he was. The beetle he killed was only the child of the one breaking through the entrance. It snarled and seemed to turn its head towards his general direction.
He could feel it scan his entire being before locking onto its child under his feet. It then roared out towards him. His face began to pale as he witnessed a ball of saliva being spat towards him.
He dived out of the way. They had a rough landing and rolled along the ground before ending up at Everette's feet. He then quickly got to his knees and begged him to help.
Coll knew even if he fought, his death would be guaranteed if his weapon didn't wake up at this very moment.
"Help me, please! If we work together, then we could—"
"Hold on there..." Everette stopped him from speaking anymore and pointed towards Ada with his thumb.
"This is the person you should be asking."
Coll's eyes widened before turning towards Ada, and he repeated what he had said to Everette. She then tilted his head to the sides with a thoughtful expression before turning back to everyone watching.
"What do you guys think we should do with this guy?!" She yelled towards the crowd and was met with yells.
"TOSS HIM BACK IN THERE!"
"YEAH! MAKE HIM SUFFER!"
Countless answers rang out, but they all had one thing in common. A punishment for all his misdeeds. A student for a university who has bullied and broken others down for his sadistic tendencies was now being judged by those he put down.
His already grim and paled expression got even worse as he heard the scorns and cheers for his punishment.
"Welp! You heard it here: Coll. Or should I call you Beetle food?" She picked him up by the collar before chucking him towards the beetle. He flew several metres, plummeting to the ground and rolling in front of the beetle.
He quickly sat up with a frightened expression and pushed himself back away from it. The beetle then began advancing towards him in a slow yet gloomy way.
"G-GET AWAY!" He flailed his greatsword towards it in hopes it would back away. Spoilers: It didn't work.
Using the dull side of its mandibles, it flung him several meters away from it before approaching him and repeating the process.
BAM!
"AGH!" Each time he would even try to get up, he would just be thrown around again. He could sense the beetle was enjoying his suffering with all the low-pitched screeches it made after hitting him.
BAM! CRACK!
"PUAHH...!" When it arrived and bashed him around again with its mandibles, he could feel his ribs cracking before fracturing. He flew and crashed into a wall.
He vomited blood before plummeting to the ground, followed by a muffled thump noise. His vision began to blur, and his mind was in turmoil. The pain caused him to be unable to think straight.
"F-Full... Recovery..."
He had already used one of his full recoveries before, so the one he had just gained was actually his last one. His body erupted in mana. Tethers of mana inside his body attached themselves to the broken-off ribs before reattaching them to their correct positions.
He got up shakily. Although it was able to heal his physical injuries, it wasn't able to help him calm down. Sweat began to pool on his forehead as he tried to rack his brain on what to do.
That was... until he heard the flapping of wings. Everyone looked up to see a giant bird with a wing span of several meters hovering high above in the air.
It had a rocky texture and colour of that of obsidian. Its eyes were a pure yellow. From on top of its back was a figure about 5ft11 in height draped with a black cloak.
Half of their face was covered in a black mask with the design of a demon's mouth. The canines were longer than the others, like that of tusks, but not overly broad like them.
They had black hair long enough to reach their neck, and their eyes were a deep red. The person waved his hand and commanded the bird to lower itself closer to the ground.
The bird did as it was told and dived towards the ground before gliding above it and landing safely. The person jumped off the bird and landed on the ground with their black boots.
The person then grasped the side of the bird before a strange scene happened before everyone's eyes. The bird's figure distorted and was then sucked into the person's hands. Ultimately, having a tattoo appear on the palm of their hand with the design of the bird's wings folded in on itself and having a deep blue colour.
The beetle sensed the presence of the bird and noticed its aura disappearing. It turned away from the human that killed its child and towards the newcomer.
The eyes on the side of its head locked in on the newcomer before spitting a ball of saliva towards them. The ball of saliva whistled through the air like an artillery shell.
The person then pulled out their arm from under their cloak before releasing mana from their body. The mana wrapped around their body before moving towards their arm. In their hand, a long black metal shaft manifested alongside a red hot axe head at its tip - it was a halberd.
The shaft was about 2-3 meters long, while the axe head was roughly 1 meter in height and 0.5m in length. Along the shaft was a handle made out of some kind of grey fur.
The person flexed their muscles and split the incoming projectile in a blink of an eye. The saliva that made contact with it sizzled before evaporating and then splitting. The axe head connected to the ground and caused the surrounding fire to spread before being put out by the falling saliva.
They then raised the halberd and swung it to the side to throw away any kind of filth touching it. The beetle looked confused and narrowed in on the weapon.
Its body brimmed with mana before allocating it to its several legs. With a BOOM, it blasted towards the newcomer. Time seemed to slow down as everyone watched the impending doom approaching the figure wielding the menacingly red hot halberd.
The person tightly gripped the fur handle before muttering something that not many could hear except for Everette, who seemed to be able to gather only the last half of the mutter.
"—Ignite... Obsiburn."
In the blink of an eye, the beetle was suddenly lifted off the ground. From its side was a massive crater with a diameter of about 5-6 metres, followed by burn marks. The blood leaking out from the cracks spreading throughout the crater was immediately cauterised due to how hot the strike was.
The halberd that was once in their hand was different. The axe head seemed to have morphed into a large pointed pick that resembled some sort of large talon. On the other side of it was a flat hammerhead surface about 1.5 metres in height and about 1 metre in width. The shaft also seemed to have changed; it was much thicker than before to accommodate the weight from its head and its rocky texture to a smoother one, as well as having lines etched into it in some sort of pattern. The halberd has mutated into a Pick Hammer.
The beetle flew and crashed into a wall before going limp. After that, the person seemed to have gotten tired, and the weapon immediately reverted back to its previous state.
They then waltzed over towards Coll before knocking him out and carrying him over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes. They stretched out their hand and summoned the bird. The tattoo began to fade, and the bird jumped out of it.
The person got onto the bird before looking back to the crowd and locking eyes with Everette. Their eyes widened, and they muttered the word, "An Attendant..."
Everette tries to use his skill on them to find out there but is met with—
["You have discovered another Attendant."]
He was shocked before noticing the sound of flapping reverberating in the air. The bird took off, and the person stared down at them before turning away. Coll has been kidnapped.
Everyone stared at the bird's fleeting figure before noticing the beetle staring awake. Around its body was the dark green energy wrapped around its shell.
Its previously broken shell seems to come off like it was moulting and dropped to the floor like some broken egg shells. It shook its body before spitting on the flames raging against the little green hairs decorating the ground.
"Seems like they didn't actually put it down. They could've at least done that if they're taking away our entertainment."
Ada, who was sitting beside him watching the show, stood up from her seated position before summoning her flail and began to approach with confident strides.
She then turned back with a smile, "What's with all the standing and sitting around? We've got a monster to kill, you guys."