My heart continued to pound in my chest and I could hear it in my ears. Like giant drums being beaten directly into them. Blood rushed to my head, cold sweat meting my back. Several seconds had passed with neither side doing anything.
The three Second Star Order beasts stood beside their armies, all of them exerting their dominance and strength. Their full attention was on me and I could only stand with my sword raised. My knuckles were pale as I held on to [Black Salamander]. The familiar weight of its hilt acting as my only insurance.
'One Second Star Order beast I can manage but three of them at once?' I thought bitterly.
[Black Salamander] vibrated in my hold as though to give me encouragement. My mind worked in overdrive, thoughts flying off one by one as I tried to come up with something…anything.
My mind wondered to the system window.
[Name: Huey Coleman
Race: Human
Level: 17 (First Star Order)
Special trait: Anti-magic
Job class: None (required to reach level 20)
Unallocated stats: 6
Stats:
Strength: 153(+20)(30)
Stamina: 109(30)
Agility: 164(30)
Mana: 171(30)
Magic: 154(30)
Health: 188(30)
Shadow Art{UNIQUE}: 25(30)
[Skills:
Active Skills List:
[Break-Unclassified Active Skill Level 3]
[Charged Mind- First Star Order Active Skill Level 1]
[Murderous Intent-Second Star Order Active Skill Level 5]
[Aura Skin-First Star Order Active Skill Level 2]
[Metal Control First Star Order Active skill level 5]
Passive Skills List:
[Super soldier-First Star Order Passive Skill Level 5]
[Poison resistance-First Star Order Passive Skill Level 5]
Shadow skills List:
[Shadow slash]
[Shadow step 1st Form-Swift]
[Shadow veil]
Titles: [Against All Odds-When facing an enemy who surpasses you by 5 levels all stats get a boost of 40% for 2 hours and goes into cooldown for 3 hours]
[Splendid scholar-You are the first to achieve the feat of learning two active skills through your own efforts and comprehensions. The Spirit Record has taken note of you and has decided to reward you appropriately. Increases learning speed by 30%. Passively increases intelligence and perception by 10%]
]
…
Hope.
I could see some light at the end of the tunnel. There was still hope.
The problem was that it was small, extremely small and there was also the chance of it failing. All I needed to do was survive the first clash against any of these beasts.
Breath in. Breath out. Breath in. Breath out.
I took deep, slow breaths trying to slow down my heart beat and calm myself. I took a step and the shadows shifted around my feet. Immediately the familiar feeling of my feet getting weightless filled my senses. A flash of resolved filled my eyes.
[Shadow step 1st Form-Swift]
My body moved, flashing across the battlefield in a burst of speed. One moment I was at the center of the crater staring off at the three Second Star Order beasts and the next I was climbing up the wall with blazing speed.
The walls weren't nearly as smooth and had plenty of rocks jutting out from the ground. I used them to my advantage using them as footholds to propel myself forward adding more momentum to my speed. By the time I reached the top of the crater, I had burned through more than 20% of my Shadow Art stat but it was all but worth it.
I appeared in the air three meters above the army of bears.
The Second Star Order Bear, at the very rear of the group, looked at me with slightly wide eyes as though it was shocked by my appearance. It quickly recovered and released a roar that sent the rest of the bears into motion.
The bears moved, their blood crazed eyes looking up at me with blood lust. The bear that I was approaching stood on its hind legs and swiped a paw in my direction as I was going down but soon whimpered when an oppressive wave of danger and a heavy scent of death washed over it.
My [Murderous Intent] rolled out in waves hitting the bears in a three meter radius around me and causing them to cower in my presence. If [Murderous Intent] had not enter the Second Star Order I doubt if it would have affected them given the dense amount of bloodlust that they gave off.
Even now although the bears were being affected it wasn't by much. There was no decrease in their stats in anyway and the bears that were over three meters away from me didn't seem to be affected all.
'That's fine though I just need you to give me a little breathing space' I thought as my right foot landed on the bear's paw just as it was retreating and used it to push myself forward.
I landed onto the back of another bear and raced across it before jumping off to another one.
The bear's eyes trembled slightly as it realized that I was using its army as though they were stepping stones but soon there was a flash of rage that sparked in its eyes it opened it's large maws and released a body quaking sound.
ROAR!
Some blood dropped from my ears, the sound threatening to burst my eardrums. It felt like needles were being drilled into my brain and suddenly my sense of direction crumbled for a second. I lost some of my balance and fell of the back of the bear I running on.
I almost fell to the ground on my head but managed to rolled over my shoulder at the last second.
"Argh!" I grunted but didn't stay down for long, bouncing to my feet. "Does that count as its first attack?"
As though to answer my question the Spirit Record flashed in my retina and a smile played on my lips.
'About damn time' I thought as a familiar rush of power flooded my body and soul.
[Your opponent surpasses you by 5 levels. The title
My Strength, Agility, Mana, Magic and health all soared to over 200 points add that to some of the additional stats from my [Full Coat] and [Black Salamander], some stats spiked even closer to over 250 points.
Stamina reached all the way to 153. Add thirty to that and it reached 183, lower than the other points but all much higher than its previous value.
It was just a let down though that I had little Shadow Art stat points so they didn't reach as far as hundred. They did reach 35 points though and if you added 30 points from the [Full Coat] then it rose all the way up to 65 points.
Now with the extra stats…the battlefield had evened a little.
My [Murderous intent] cleared the area around me in a 3 meter radius and the Second Star Order- most likely the alpha of these bears approached in slow steps, its eyes blazing with fury and greed.
…
Jordan, Lydia and Candice, who had been lifted up by Jordan, managed to land on the ravaged ground. The ground was cracked and the pillars of rock now jutted out of the ground making it even more rough.
However, none of them were focused on such changes right now because they felt it. The overbearing auras coming from the distance where their friend Huey had been sent to deal with the bear that was the very cause of this destruction.
They all stood frozen.
Lydia felt her hands trembling slightly as the memory of the Monsoon Eagle was triggered in her mind. Back then she had been too weak to help much other than summoning her familiar beast Kalibre and that had even been for less than a minute before she ran out of mana.
Did it count as helping if she had run out of mana? She almost even been killed by the Monsoon Eagle and she would have been if Huey hadn't launched his variation spell of [Mana Bullet] and now here she was again.
Feeling the same oppressive pressure that was identical to the Monsoon Eagle and she was trembling?
Jordan felt cold sweat met his back and he felt a dry lump on his throat, he grit his teeth and so hard that some of them even cracked. He clenched his fist. That aura had to be coming from a Second Star Order.
Jordan remembered running for his life on that fateful day when the Second Star Order Monsoon Eagle had been after them. Back then he had been weak- helpless, and here he was again fighting his body with all his might against his instincts to run away as fast as he can.
But could he do that?
His brother was right there at the center of it all.
ROAR!
A loud roar echoed like thunder. It came from the very same direction and was the straw that broke the camel's back.
'As if I would abandon my brother' Jordan tightened his fists to the point that he could feel the bones creaking beneath his [Thunder Gauntlets].
'As if I would let that scoundrel get away from me that easily' Lydia inhaled sharply, her emerald eyes shining.
Jordan and Lydia shared a looked and when they felt the similar embers of determination blazing in each other's eyes they knew that neither of them were going to run away from this.