Chapter 44 - Under Attack

The panthers were definitely different now. Max couldn’t tell if they had ever been the same at all, or if the ICCB had just changed the spawns or whatever completely.

These cats were a different beast entirely.

They were larger than a tiger, their heads hanging in a relaxed hunch at the height of the men fighting the great beasts, jaws wide, ready to snap heads off necks whole. Their black sleek bodies rippled with muscle as they prowled and pounced around, arousing great panicked yelps and screams of pain around the camp. Protecting their necks was a silver collar that extended along their spine for half a foot.

Their roars filled the night and as one noticed Max and approached, Max felt a lurch of fear in his stomach. He mastered it fast. He had seen worse than overgrown cats.

The panther that had noticed Max lunged at him, two-inch claws extended. Max instinctually tethered himself against the oak-like tree and he slid backwards enough to dodge. Another tethering between the panther and the tree, but a repulsive kind. The beast was strong, but it was as if it was fighting the hardest wind ever to exist to get closer to Max. Max shot at the creature, and it yowled in anger. Then another cat lunged at him. This one got on top of him and bit Max in the face.

It was a harrowing experience, being chewed on by a giant panther. Max’s whole head could fit in its mouth. Max’s vision flashed red and he lost over 60 Health. There was more shock than pain, but Max still yelled, as adrenaline flushed his blood.

An emergency [Gravity Well] was conjured behind the cat, and a repulsive [Tether] between Max and the face-eating cat propelled the cat into the swirling mass of gravity.

Max released the other tether keeping the first cat struggling. It was as dumb a beast as Max suspected, and when it pounced, the [Gravity Well] pulled it in from mid-air.

Both of the cats got tangled together and they yowled in anger, fear and confusion when Max blasted the life out of them with [The Maverick].

Defeated level 11 [Mutated Panther (???)]

You gained 240 experience points.

Defeated level 10 [Mutated Panther (???)]

You gained 210 experience points.

What a crummy amount of experience for fighting such powerhouses. They’re nasty for their level. What is that question mark business?

Max heard a nasty rip of flesh and a gasp somewhere nearby.

Who cares about the experience? I need to help these people, these beasts are dangerous.

Max went and killed a third panther. He had come too late. The mutated cat fell next to its prey, a young guy in his twenties like Max, throat a fountain of red.

Max gave a sigh and a regretful shake of the head, but that was all the time he could spare. The dreams and sounds of fighting were only increasing.

Max ran around, having used [Alter Gravity] on himself and his weapon. He moved with a deft purpose, pulling panthers away from the hapless people and peppering them with bullets.

As fast as they were and as violent the damage caused by their claws and fangs was, they died fast. Max’s Intelligence was getting into realms of packing a serious punch. The [Tethers] yanked the enemies off their prey and only a few bullets was enough for most of the beasts.

Maverick laughed maniacally and taunted the panthers as their attention veered from their prey to their hunter. Max was focused in a death trance. He could barely hear the screams or the taunts of his companion.

He bobbed, weaved, tethered, pushed and pulled, created space and killed. It was a berserk born of need. The need to protect. The need to smite anything daring to hurt the beautiful things happening in this camp.

Max passed Brian and two of his men struggling with two panthers. One of them had a deep gash in their arm. When Max came as a whirlwind of magical bullets, their hard faces yielded in relief. Max had the presence to nod before he continued.

Defeated level 11 [Mutated Panther (???)]

You gained 221 experience points.

Defeated level 11 [Mutated Panther (???)]

You gained 218 experience points.

Defeated level 10 [Mutated Panther (???)]

You gained 196 experience points.

Defeated level 12 [Mutated Panther (???)]

You gained 271 experience points.

And so on, and so on. Somewhere in the blur of battle, Max had consumed a [Potion of Greater Mana Regeneration]. How many did he have left? Wrong question. How many panthers were left? Right question.

The last stragglers were prowling by the black bunkers. People had wisely gone inside and the bravest and strongest fought at the doors. Few people lay on the ground, eyes fixed somewhere the living could not see. Their ripped throats and bloodied clothes only deepened Max’s berserk. He shot every single panther, until the sounds of battle stopped.

The only sounds left were soft whimpers, calls for help, rattle of torchfire and the distant howl of the wind. Max looked at the bodies on the ground. He only hoped that he wouldn’t recognize any of the faces.

This was a victory, and a big one at that. There had been a great true pack of these beasts. There was no way the previous attacks had been this vicious, or Max would have only had a graveyard to return to.

Max went around and looted a good deal of the panthers for their Cosmic Coins. He got a little over 3000 in total. There was more to be looted, but he figured some should be left for the others. Who got them wasn’t his business though. He wanted to find Joshua to see if he needed help. Or Elena, since she had some healing ability.

Most of all, Max wanted to find out what was behind these panther attacks. Was this something cooked up by the ICCB to propel their growth? Or was this an attack by some enemy species?

It felt more like the latter. Could someone have a class to control beasts? Having control over so many beasts of relatively high level sounded unlikely, but maybe there were roundabout ways of getting these results. Max was sure there were classes and Cultivation paths to provide just the means for an attack like this.

But if this was an attack by the enemy, why didn’t they join the panthers in the attack? While the casualties were clearly over a dozen, maybe even as high as twenty, this had only made the rest of the camp stronger and resulted in plenty of resources.

If I hadn’t been here, they would have been all dead. Joshua, Elena, Sid, Marie… All of them would be on the ground.

This had been an attack to destroy them. It was just lucky that Max had been here. It cannot have been a machination of the ICCB. They wouldn’t try to obliterate a community like this.

Of course there was a third option. It could just be pure chance.

Max looked at the dead and the people weeping next to those they had cared, maybe even loved already. Max could only hope nobody he had known had been killed. But it did not placate him. He didn’t feel sorrow or despair like the people crying on their knees. What Max felt was something akin to anger. It was something that was spurring him into action.

I will NOT let this happen again. I will protect these people.

Tricks of the ICCB? An enemy attack? Goddamned pure bad luck?

Regardless of what was the origin of these panthers and their aggression, one thing was sure. Max needed to go back into the forest and find out what was going on.