[NR] The Beastly Puppeteer - Chapter 542

Once it was pointed out, Jason was able to notice the pattern. Yes, each individual monster was attacking wildly. However, when they moved, it was too ordered. Which might have made the fight drag on, except Jason was willing to bet it wasn’t the Deep Wilds doing this, so one of the monsters that arrived with the group was the cause.

Now, none of the monsters had really stood out in the manner most would expect with a puppeteer style monster. No enlarged heads were visible and there was a distinct lack of glowing eyes or pulsing aura. And sure, if they let the fight drag on long enough, whichever monster avoided injuries the longest was the likely culprit. Except none of them wanted to wait that long and tempt getting the next wave before they finished this one.

Not just because there would be more monsters, but because they don’t know how many the hidden threat can control. Jason, being maybe a little cocky, believed that he could spot the enemy, except for being in the thick of things. So instead, he had to trust in Rosha.

Though he was going to give her a bit of a hand in the matter. Before they didn’t notice because whatever monster was doing this, knew enough to include itself in the swarm. Sure, it likely held back so as to not grow tired or injured, but it still fought. Now that Jason knows it is out there, he can break the patterns and rend the deception so that Rosha can find them.

How? Well, as usual, you just needed to apply enough power to the situation. Of course, if Jason had enough power, then such tricks wouldn’t matter in the first place. Who cares if there is a monster controlling the group if you can just kill the group? Instead, he had to settle for a nice old-fashioned ground pound.

Jason intensified the Energy around his fists and slammed them into the ground, releasing a double burst. Now, this isn’t some superhero VR experience and so this doesn’t cause a literal wave of dirt to knock everything away. However, it does raise a cloud of dust and the burst of Energy staggers the closest monsters.

Though those things were secondary. The more important part was the fact that the puppeteer was using external methods. More like puppetry over more invasive methods. How did Jason know this? Well, he didn’t, but he guessed this was the case as the monster didn’t exactly have all that much time to control them.

Anyway, that control was interrupted by the burst of Energy. Now, normally such a burst wouldn’t work quite like an emp, but the control over the monsters wasn’t stable enough to survive. To be honest, probably about any aoe effect would have worked, even a simple gust of wind, as long as it had some sort of power infused.

Still, what matters is that it worked and the well-oiled machine that this deadly dance had been, ground to a halt. Not that the monsters stopped trying to attack, they were all for that. Rather, they started getting in each other’s way.

It was at this point that Rosha spotted the puppeteer. See, none of the other monsters hesitated when the control was disrupted. None except the puppeteer, that is. With the technique suddenly broken, the puppeteer couldn’t help but pause. Whether this was because of feedback, confusion, or something else, it happened.

Now with a target, Rosha turns her full attention on the monster trying to hide itself at the back. The thing is smaller than the rest and so no one had noticed its reluctance to enter the fray. That was no longer the case, as Rosha sends a barrage of arrows its way.

This wild stream of arrows isn’t the most accurate, but it reveals the weakness common in most lower forms of puppetry. Without the puppet master, the puppets will just hang there on their strings. A fact that Jason and Lily are more than happy to take advantage

The duo only have a handful of seconds free rein on the monsters. After that, the puppeteer releases them, but that is more than enough. With the two working together combined with the fact most of the monsters were already injured, they managed to take out a good two-thirds of the remaining monsters.

Though I’m releasing the other monsters, the puppeteer shows another side of its ability, that of self-control. Without the need to focus on the others and all that power concentrated on itself, the monster can jerk its body this way and that. Not enough to do something like fly, but more than enough to avoid Rosha’s arrows.

Of course, now Jason finally has his eyes on the beast. While it doesn’t really match any monster known to him, it reminds him of the six-legged panthers he had fought way back when. There was a certain feline look to the thing and a third pair of legs, though this beast didn’t seem like the type to rear up and reveal the front pair had weird joints hidden in the fluff. Outside of those features, the rest of the thing took more after the more recent conceptualization of velociraptors.

And well, now that Jason could see it, the beast wasn’t long for this world. That ability to jerk itself out of harm’s way was useful. Without the need to move a muscle, Jason doesn’t have any clear idea how it is going to dodge. Except he does know it is going to dodge as the beast still tenses up beforehand. So instead of trying to get a predictive strike in, Jason holds back until it has finished the dodge and then wades back in.

In the end, the fight was easy enough, if a little long. While early on, Jason managed to get a crippling strike on one leg, the beast had six and didn’t fully depend on them, anyway. In fact, by the time Jason could finish the thing; Rosha, Lily, and Courtney were able to clear the rest of the wave.