Chapter 349: Chapter 348 - “I’m turning into Raven.”
While Clara and Selena killed their opponents, a situation quite similar yet different played out on multiple fronts.
.........
Jessy, hit by the winged beast, was injured.
Metal shrieked as her iron surfboard skidded across blackened stone, sparks spraying like dying stars.
Her body slammed into the ground a heartbeat later, blood streaking across the air before splattering onto her cheek.
Her ribs screamed, but she rolled, boots scraping, and forced herself to her feet.
It would’ve been impossible for someone else to get up right after being hit by a tenth-level beast, but Jessy was different.
After all, Jessy was the tank of the group, though not the only one after Graye joined the group.
The dragon-winged beast, on the other hand, landed with a quake, molten eyes narrowing as Graye’s laughter carried across the storm.
A deep, contemptuous chuckle rumbled from its throat.
"At least one of you pests is competent," it sneered, wings snapping open with a gust of sulfur. "No matter. I’ll kill the laughing woman after I finish you."
Jessy wiped the blood from her lips with the back of her hand, the smear glinting against the iron dust that shimmered around her fingers.
"Oh, yeah?" She said, her teeth flashing in a reckless grin.
The next instant, her palm swept upward, and metal answered.
A massive iron spike, as thick as a tree trunk, rose from the scorched ground and hovered behind her, humming with magnetic tension.
"Dodge this if you dare."
The beast barked a laugh, its voice scraping like stone on steel. "Foolish human. You think that will touch me?"
It lunged aside as the spike fired forward like a railgun blast.
The projectile carved through the air, slicing the sky in half—
—But the dragon-beast blurred, wings beating once, body twisting with practiced ease.
"Too slow," it taunted, molten grin wide. "You could never—"
A shrill whistle cut through its gloating.
The spike, which should have buried itself in the distance, curved mid-flight and screamed back faster than before.
Before the beast could react, the iron shaft punched clean through its back, bursting from its chest in a spray of molten blood.
Its eyes widened in pure disbelief.
"H-How—?" It rasped as its body sagged.
Jessy tilted her head, deadpan.
"...Seriously? I even prepared a net in case you dodged. Didn’t think you’d go down with the first one."
The beast staggered, falling to the ground with a thud, its molten light flickering.
Jessy stepped closer, her voice calm as if lecturing a classroom, answering the beast’s question.
"Well, you see, I bled on you earlier. Iron in my blood became the spike’s homing point. Magnetic pull—no mana trail. So, you couldn’t sense it."
The dragon-beast, however, was already dead, its eyes blank as it stared at Jessy with incredulity even in its last moments.
Jessy stared at the corpse, blinking.
"Why am I explaining this to a dead thing?" She muttered to herself before her face scrunched up. "...Ugh. I’m turning into Raven."
She shook her head and flicked a smear of blood from her knuckles.
.........
At the same time, on the quake-ridden plain, where Rufus stood a few instants ago, a shadow the size of a fortress stamped down with enough force to shatter mountains.
The elephant-like beast raised its foot from a crater slick with blood, tusks gleaming with cruel satisfaction.
"Hmph," it rumbled, hearing Graye’s echoing laugh. "The drake, undeserving of his second strongest position, falls, and now I shall kill the woman who felled it. But first..."
It pressed its massive foot harder into the ground, grinding bone and stone alike.
"...I ensure the insect beneath me is dead."
The beast finally lifted its foot, expecting mangled flesh.
Instead, the blood shimmered strangely in the ash.
"Are you dumb," a calm voice asked from above, "or do you just not feel pain?"
The beast jerked its head up.
Rufus floated in the air, bare skin gleaming faintly in the moonlit ash.
His nanoparticle armor was gone.
His clothes were gone.
He was floating in the air because of the boosters left on his feet, while his body remained on full display for the beast, who didn’t like it even a bit.
Its molten eyes widened as it roared.
"Do you have no manners?! To bare yourself before a lady?!"
Rufus froze mid-hover, blinking. "Wait, you are female?!"
But before the beast could speak, Rufus’s eyes widened in realization.
"...Wait. Does this mean that the first woman to see me naked is a corrupted elephant?"
A beat of awkward silence.
Then he shrugged, trying not to think of a corrupt beast as a woman.
"It’s all your fault. You stomped me so hard I had to eject the suit. It... took my clothes with it."
The beast’s tusks scraped together as it snarled.
"I’ll kill you. After all, armorless, you are nothing—"
Rufus cut in, tilting his head.
"Again, are you sure you don’t feel any pain?"
The beast’s ears twitched.
A strange warmth pulsed inside its own chest.
The blood beneath its foot—its blood—still shimmered as it realized that there was a hole below its feet.
Right now, something was moving inside its body, crawling upward like a living storm.
"What did you—"
Before it could complete its words, Rufus snapped his fingers.
"Boom," he said softly.
The next instant, the elephant-beast convulsed.
A white-hot detonation ripped through its core as Rufus’s nanoparticle suit—now a swarm of microscopic blades—burst outward from within.
Armor fragments speared through flesh, tearing organs apart from the inside.
The creature let out one strangled trumpet before collapsing, its massive body sinking into the ash like a dying sun.
Rufus exhaled, shaking his head at the steaming remains.
"Goodbye, precious nanoparticles," he muttered, then added dryly, "...and goodbye to the first woman who saw me naked."
.........
Meanwhile, on another side of the battlefield, ash spiraled as Alex dangled midair, his body straining against an invisible force.
The dragon-horned wolf floated him closer with a lazy flick of its claw, its molten fangs glinting like a row of suns.
Blargh’s molten-lava voice bubbled in Alex’s mind. "Okay, buddy, ideas. Any ideas? Literally ANY—"
"Working on it!" Alex snapped, sweat dripping despite the freezing air.
The wolf’s telekinesis tightened, bones creaking.
And that was when Graye’s triumphant laugh rolled across the plain.
The beast paused, its ears twitching, and a low growl rumbled through its chest—then it dismissed the sound and drew Alex closer to its waiting jaws.
Unlike other beasts, it didn’t care about its kin. For this wolf, even its kin were merely someone he had to stay with to defend against enemies it couldn’t win against.
But before it could drop Alex in its mouth, two streaks of burning light slashed in from the side.
Twin breath attacks hammered the wolf’s flank, heat scorching its fur and scorching the ash beneath.
The monster howled, staggering as the telekinetic grip faltered.
Alex crashed to the ground in a spray of dust, coughing as he rolled to his knees.
The wolf whipped around, molten eyes narrowing at the source of the attack—
—Nibbles, standing proud atop their corrupted panther ally, tail flicking like a commander’s banner.
Beside them loomed the panther’s towering mother, smoke still curling from her fangs.
The wolf’s wounds healed in seconds, fury replacing surprise.
With a snarl, it flung its power outward, lifting all three—Nibbles and both panthers—high into the air, crushing gravity around them.
But as the beast’s focus wavered from Alex, he moved.
The next second, the wolf felt a sudden weight land on its back.
Alex stood there like a defiant rider, boots sinking into bristling fur.
"Hey, ugly," he said, locking his arms around the creature’s massive neck.
Instantly, Blargh tore free of Alex’s body in a molten surge, slamming over the wolf’s head like a living mask, sealing its eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
"NO ONE messes with our squirrel buddy!" Alex and Blargh shouted together.
The moment four of its senses stopped working, the beast panicked, thrashing wildly, and its telekinesis stopped.
Trying to get Alex and Blargh off its body, it rolled, leaped, and even tried to crush its own back against jagged stone.
But Alex gritted his teeth, refusing to loosen his chokehold despite the punishing blows.
Because he knew that if he could endure it, they would win.
That was when a scorching breath attack burst from the wolf’s burning throat, scorching Blargh’s molten shell.
The symbiote screeched, flesh sizzling—
—But the instant the flames faded, Blargh regenerated, snarling, "That hurt... but I heal!"
The beast wheezed, lungs emptied because of the breath attack, the suffocating seal unbroken.
Its frantic leaps slowed... slowed... until its massive body finally collapsed, trembling once before going still.
Alex slumped on the corpse, chest heaving.
Blargh slid back into his body with a warm hiss.
That was when a small shadow hopped onto his chest.
It was Nibbles, and the squirrel struck a triumphant pose the moment Alex noticed his presence, his nose pointed skyward, whiskers twitching expectantly.
Alex chuckled hoarsely. "Yeah, yeah. You’re amazing, General Nibbles."
Before he could sit up, the young panther bounded onto him, licking his face with sandpaper enthusiasm.
Alex’s laughter echoed through the ash as the panther’s mother watched with regal calm, tail flicking like an approving nod.
.........
On another side of the battlefield, across the ravaged plain, Jake’s crushed body twitched in the grip of a humanoid beast, its arms scaled like a dragon’s.
Bones creaked as the creature hauled him upward, eyes flaring crimson at the sound of Graye’s distant laughter.
"The drake... dead?" It growled, fury igniting its molten gaze.
It flung Jake aside like a broken toy, intent on avenging its fallen friend.
But it realized that Jake was still in its palm.
However, the moment it looked at its palm, it saw not Jake but a smear of black shadow.
The beast frowned, shaking its hand. "What is this?"
The shadow pulsed, alive, crawling toward its wrist.
It brought its other hand to scrape it off—
—And the moment it did, the blackness leaped, forming jagged shackles that snapped tight around both wrists.
The beast sneered. "Pathetic. Chains cannot hold—"
A voice cut in from above its shoulder.
"They don’t have to hold forever."
The creature jerked its head up.
Jake stood balanced on its shoulder, cloak of darkness fluttering in the burning wind.
One arm was missing below the elbow—sacrificed for power—but his remaining hand gripped a gleaming black scythe.
He swung once.
The blade whispered through the air and kissed the beast’s throat, carving deep across its windpipe before he vanished back into shadow.
The creature clutched its bleeding neck, gurgling.
"Fool... You should have gone for the head. I’ll—"
Its taunt died as a spear of darkness erupted from its own shadow, impaling its skull with brutal finality.
The beast, too focused on clutching its neck, couldn’t even notice it as its body, now dead, collapsed like a felled mountain.
It was then that Jake emerged silently from the fading darkness, scythe dissolving into mist.
His severed arm knit together slowly, shadow flesh crawling over bone as the penalty for his sacrifice faded because the battle was over.