Upon recovering her Qi, Tara decided to put her plan into motion.
The Pikeakes attempted to force her into a disadvantageous position, with them seeming to realise the danger of leaving themselves vulnerable if they made a frontal attack.
She realised as magical beasts, the fish were likely far more intelligent than they appeared to be, and she assumed they had experience coming up against Iron Salamanders and knew they were at their most dangerous when you allowed them to trade blow for blow with their sharp claws and teeth alongside their regeneration.
The Pikeakes lacked the confidence to avoid injury with just the two of them, so they waited either expecting reinforcements or until they eventually forced her to move into a more unfavourable position.
Either of these options would be a rational decision for any intelligent being; after all, the Pikeakes must have encountered plenty of Iron Salamanders, and they would know all about their strengths and weaknesses.
Unfortunately, Tara was not your typical Iron Salamander, and the Pikeakes will soon find this out.
It would not be advisable for her to wait for even more of the Pikeakes to appear, so she decides to act first since, with two, it would be a difficult battle but winnable if she utilised her skill set correctly.
Luring the Pikeakes, Tara wanted to use {Metal Manipulation} to attempt to defeat them from a safe distance.
To the Pikeakes, she would be unable to reach them unless she was close since your average Iron Salamander never attacks from range, even the stronger ones, and the Pikeakes have likely never encountered anything but a typical member of her species.
Though she gleaned this from the description of her species by the immortal and the way other magical beasts treated her, she was confident her assessment was correct with the way the Pikeakes circled at what they assumed to be a safe distance. However, they remained perfectly in range for {Metal Manipulation}.
She began preparing the trait covertly, using a particular murky and covered area at the bottom of the swamp that still provided a clear path for her to launch a projectile yet did not leave her exposed.
The Pikeakes seemed to notice something was amiss slightly, yet they remained so assured from their dealings with her species they did not react until it was too late.
Two sharp, gleaming metal spears shot towards them from out of nowhere. The Pikeakes were swift and agile, sensing the danger from detecting the movements in the water. They mustered an effort to evade, but this was not enough.
The overpowering Metal Qi that flowed from the metal spears made them travel like they were almost weightless in the water. Tara does not know this, but any Qi Gathering beast able to utilise Qi like this is the most feared and unpredictable in the Qi gathering stage.
Even the strongest Iron Salamanders cannot usually utilise their Qi externally like this, with them only boasting their traits passively or using their Qi to strengthen their bodies and attacks.
Magical beasts use Qi instinctively and channel it to supplement their species' advantages. Humans are experts at utilising Qi externally in ways similar to skills and techniques. With most magical beasts lacking a foundation, society, they mostly get by with their instincts alone. Still, even this is dangerous enough for most human cultivators to deal with.
Tara has no idea, but she would be considered a nightmare for newbie human cultivators already, from being unpredictable and having a variety of traits; Qi gathering cultivators are amateurs with little experience, so an opponent like her may be worrisome, yet too true geniuses she would still be very weak after all, many beasts with mighty bloodlines exist and Tara at the moment is far beneath them. Some human cultivators can match them, so currently, Tara would be nothing to them.
Yet, for a magical beast with a reputation for being simple, straightforward, and weak, she would be dangerous just based on the assumptions made about her by her species; underestimation is the biggest downfall for many, and the Pikeakes currently bear the brunt of this.
One of them got hooked up by the surprisingly swift and accurate spear; the other seemed wounded but had managed to just about escape the worst of it.
A bloodthirsty glean abruptly appeared in Tara's eyes, as now she had gone from being the hunted to being the hunter.
One of the fish was practically crippled, and the other was injured, and with her injuries mostly healed with how swift her {Regeneration} acted, she was confident to deal with them.
Rapidly approaching them, the Pikeakes seemed to panic. They looked at Tara like she was a monster. She thought she saw some fear and confusion in their red eyes for the first time.
'These fish are bright. Well, intelligent for fish,' Tara thought. Unlike the very few, most fish don't show intelligence like this on Earth. Yet, Tara felt this type of intelligence was the norm for beasts with a similar cultivation level, making the thought of a world filled with intelligent murder machines a chilling thought.
It made her think just how deadly the humans had to be to adapt themselves to fight monstrous beasts that were not only unusually large but far smarter, too.
The Pikeake caught by the spear was injured so severely that it could not resist, but the one who managed to get away with slight injuries remained dangerous. Yet Tara felt too determined to fail.
She instinctively felt it would be bad news if she let one of them get away, so she attacked the one who could still escape in a frenzy, who, luckily for her, was reluctant to leave its friend to the point it tried to fight her off fiercely.
By doing so, this only played in Tara's favour; despite the valiant effort, the Pikake fought a losing battle. Yet, the look of sadness and defiance never faded from its strangely expressive eyes.
Tara had never paid much attention to the Pikeakes before, yet she realised she had been looking past that they weren't just simple predatory fish.
She had no idea if it was the lizard or, should she say, salamander blood, but she found this did little to change her cold, apathetic attitude toward the fish; in fact, the desire to slaughter them remained as strong as ever.
'They dare to trample on my dignity? To treat me as their prey.' Tara thought, a raging hot rage filling her bones as she began hacking into the fish at an even angrier, frantic pace.
The Pikeake shrieked even louder as it seemed to gaze reluctantly at the other before trying to escape, but Tara refused to let it leave. Digging her claws deeply into the Pikeake, she began ripping into its soft innards. The fish shook in even more agony as it attempted to dissuade her by biting her back fiercely.
Yet Tara seemed to be under a haze of bloodlust at the moment and did not respond to the damaging, hurtful bite of the Pikeake at all as the fish put up its final futile resistance. With it finally breathing its last, the other fish, watching with a look of sadness, similarly soon met its end as a bloodied but triumphant Tara enjoyed the sound of the notifications.
[You have defeated {Swamp Pikeake}, gaining 20 EXP. You are now 67/1000 into progressing to Level 4.]
And the quick following of another.
[You have defeated {Swamp Pikeake}, gaining 20 EXP. You are now 87/1000 into progressing to Level 4.]
Tara felt extremely satisfied, but given how sensitive these fish were, she knew more would be coming and needed to act fast.
She had an idea after eating as much of the carcasses as possible.
Tara knew she could not remain still since, with the Pikeakes' intelligence, they would eventually recognise something was up. Yet, using this strategy, couldn't she effectively use the popular strategy in role-playing games of 'kiting' the fish using their weakness of long-range combat?
There seemed plenty of them around here, and as long as she did not get too greedy, the Pikeakes were a treasure trove of EXP.
With her {Metal Manipulation} and mobility, she could move around constantly, waiting for her Qi to recover before picking them off.
'It's not just because you want to commit a Pikeake massacre.' Tara mumbled, not entirely convinced in her thoughts.
She had no idea why she hated the things so much, yet the thought of them constantly threatening her seemed to hurt something deeper within her —her pride.
Feeling hot-tempered and needing to vent, she decided to commit to her plan. As such, she heard another notification after what felt like endless hours and dozens of dead Pikeakes later as she tore another Pikeake into pieces.
[You have defeated {Swamp Pikeake}, gaining 20 EXP. You are now 627/1000 into progressing to Level 4.]
After this, the Pikeake began to act strangely, as if they were responding to something and making odd movements.
'I should have known I would set off something eventually, with their obvious intelligence and apparent kinship…' Tara thought; however, even she did not realise the magnitude of what she set off in motion.
Instead of Tara, the real culprit, the Pikeakes, the undisputed rulers of this section of the swamp, had identified the group responsible: Iron Salamanders.
None dared to attack them in droves for a reason, as they would group on whichever species did so, and magical beasts were intelligent enough to back down against a superior force.
There was a fragile balance between the magical beasts here, with the Pikeake's extensive territory and aggressiveness towards the other species a significant cause of conflict, yet Tara's onesided massacre had provoked a response.
The Pikeakes needed to set an example for the daring magical beasts who had killed them in droves.
They have already been targeting Iron Salamander clutches to reduce the population of the highly territorial and aggressive species.
Pikeake considered Iron Salamanders weak, though they were numerous. Additionally, they showed a lack of submission and were irritatingly complex to kill. Thus, their hatchlings were frequent targets to keep their numbers in check.
Yet it was clear that the elder Iron Salamanders had made a move against them.
It was time to move out in force to remove them from their territory once and for all.
With the Pikeake horde moving towards the Iron Salamanders' den, Tara unwittingly drew closer to the location.
She does not realise that she will be reuniting with not only her kin but also a bunch of angry fish who are thinking of extermination.
Tara had already seen plenty of carcasses of Iron Salamanders half eaten by the Pikeakes, so her motion of Pikeake slaughter was already embedded in her mind, though maybe she did not realise the sheer scale of what she had unintentionally caused.