"Kill!" an evolver shouted as he cut his blade into the throat of the beast in front of him that seemed to be a variation of a wolf.
Soon as the first evolver spilled blood, roars of bloodlust and triumph came from the throats of rest of the human evolvers around me as they attacked with a renewed vigor. Just a few moments ago they had been struggling, some had even been on the verge of dying beneath the maws of a mutant beast or another.
When they heard Candice tell them to close their eyes if they didn't want to be blinded, they were skeptical.
Close your eyes in the middle of a battle? Wasn't that just being suicidal?
Some evolvers had stubbornly refused to close their eyes, now they were paying the price for it as they were blinded just the same as the mutated creatures. Fortunately, these stubborn evolvers were so few that it didn't even affect the fight in the slightest.
Blood spilled wildly, some flying into the air in wide arcs of red. The human evolvers held nothing back as they reaped the lives of the creatures that had come to attack their home. They were relentless and unforgiving.
One after another, evolvers broke past invisible barriers within their souls as they gathered enough soul essence to push them to the next level. They broke through to higher levels, gaining more strength and recovering their lost stamina.
Before this battle had begun most of them had been at either level 5 at the lowest and level 7 at the highest while a really small handful hadn't even broken through to the First Star Order as they had yet to reach level 5 and form their mana cores.
Now however, they were growing stronger.
While it was true that some were dying, there were many more who managed to kill their opponents and climbed higher and higher- levels rising steadily.
…
The bizarre sight of mutated beasts thrashing about wildly without any direction, or purpose, greeted me. The other surrounding evolvers were already on the attack, slaughtering as many of the beasts as they could manage, their auras were steadily rising.
I could feel it. They were levelling up and with each kill they were getting stronger and would continue to do so however…
Even as the blinded beasts were getting killed, a large number of them remained, on top of that their wild movements did very little to help the situation at all.
ROAR!
Less than a five meters to my right, a massive bear stood on its hind legs, it loomed to almost three meters from the ground, the three evolvers that surrounded it could only look up, frozen in terror. The bear released another roar this time the ground seemed to tremble as its mana stirred.
It front paws were raised above its head but then its body fell forward, and it slammed its paws into the ground with a force that seemed to shake the earth but that wasn't all…
The ground itself rippled. It cracked, a wave of mana going through the soil. The ground beneath it sank deeper, forming a crater around it while the rocks shifted and cracked, a solid ridge of hard stone rose above the soil as though a small hill, before it rolled forward as though it were a wave of water. Rocks and dust flew off.
The evolvers could only scream in pain and panic as they were hit and sent flying off into the distance.
The wave of earth continued its forward momentum, it crashed into each and everything that stood in its path, knocking over mutated beasts and evolvers all the same. Without slowing down the wave of earth headed right into our direction.
The trembling of the earth only increased as it got closer to me.
"Holy shit!" Jordan said to my right. He snaked his arm around Candice's waist before a purple aura surrounded his body. "[Power Boost]"
With a heavy stomp, he shot up into the air. The wind around me grew chaotic as it pushed Lydia up into the air too. The wave of earth was getting closer now.
Quads flexed and calves tensed as I prepared myself, then my legs coiled leaving two foot imprints in the ground as I shot up just as the wave of earth passed from beneath me. The wave of earth towered over two meters from the ground, a distance that at our current strength we could get over with ease.
At this height I could see the bear clearly as it rose on its hind legs once again. Paws raised and mana stirring.
I narrowed my eyes and crossed arms over my chest and bent my knees too, bending my body into a shape that resembled a ball slightly.
"Lydia! Launch me!" I felt the wind around me stir. It whipped around me, my coat shifting in the wind as what I can only describe as a small cyclone formed to my back. Then in a burst, I was launched forward so fast that my eyes watered slightly.
But I kept my sights locked firmly on the bear that was getting closer and closer in my field of vision. In a few blinks I appeared before the bear's head, sword swinging as I held it in two hands and used the momentum of the launch to my advantage. The strike was faster than the bear could even blink.
There was a flash of black light as my blade passed through its neck. It passed through it so smoothly that I hardly felt any resistance at all. For a second, I doubted if I had even managed to land the hit but was soon reassured. By the time I landed on the ground with a heavy roll and skidded to a stop, the bear's furry head fell off its body and hit the ground in a puddle of blood.
A flood of soul essence warmed my soul as it nourished it.
[You have acquired the soul essence of Level 16 First Star Order Earth Bear.
Mana +6. Strength +10. Stamina +9]
Boom.
The rest of the bear fell forward, a fountain of blood shooting out of its neck- where its head was severed. The ground shook under the weight and a cloud of dust shot upwards heavily.
A small smile touched my lips. I could feel it, the next level was approaching rapidly. I just needed to push just a little bit more.
Good thing there were rows of beasts standing over the edge of the crater I now stood in. These ones though were stronger than the previous ones. In fact I could feel several presences lock onto me, they weren't as strong as the 'Lurker' from the Woodlands… but they were painfully close.
'You know what maybe this isn't a good thing after all'
…
The Earth Bear's attack was indiscriminate and spread out in a radius of about 6 meters. As a result the entire landscape was changed. The ground was no longer flat as it had been before, cracks snaked into the ground- some shallow and small, others deep and equally large, there were some pillars of rock that crested over two meters making movements difficult.
As for the immediate area around the bear where I had killed it? Well, it had sunken down forming a crater that was over three meters deep. I looked up at the creatures that stood at the edge of the crater with a grim expression.
There were three different species that were looking down on me. Sixteen black panthers, fifteen apes and seven bears but what truly caught my attention were the three animals- one from each species.
One of the was a large bear- though I couldn't measure it properly from this distance, it was most certainly bigger than the Earth bear that I had just killed behind me. Its eyes weren't red and blood crazed like the rest of the beasts, on the contrary its outer eye was white and clear with a green irises staring right at me. There was a hint of intelligence in them and…greed?
'And it looks like its not the only one' I thought as I checked out the other two creatures as well.
A black panther with a red fiery mane around its neck like a crown and clear grey eyes as well as the large ape with purple fur and white mismatched pieces of bone attached to different parts of its body, the bones were placed over its large chest, a part of it protected its head and some covered its large arms and fists- almost as if…
'Its armor!' I could feel my heart pounding erratically in my chest, my legs trembling as a wave of panic threatened to overtake my body. The situation was bad really, really bad.
All three of these beasts that stood out bore menacing auras that held a familiar oppressive air to them.
Like that of the Dire Wolf that I killed two nights ago and the Lurker. These weren't just any ordinary beasts. Not anymore.
'They are all in the Second Star Order'