Chapter 569 - Hunt continues

The third beast I was able to detect is the Stormscale Basilisk. It is serpentine, as mentioned, and the size of a building, yet impressively fast despite its mass.

It's immediately clear that it is much stronger than the beast I killed.

Its serpentine form carves through the forest, shimmering scales flashing with every movement. Every movement tears into the earth, splintering roots and crushing undergrowth beneath its weight. Trees bend and snap as its coiling body smashes through them, sending broken trunks crashing to the ground. Lightning crackles along its hide, leaping to nearby branches in sharp, blinding arcs. Even far away from it, leaves shrivel and blacken, their edges curling from the raw energy surging through the air.

The ground trembles, the forest collapsing around it as if nature itself were being torn apart. And the beast is currently fighting.

Explosions of fire, mana projectiles, trees bending and trying to hold it, ground around it moving to grab it. There is also a huge golem made of earth in its path, and around that golem black smoke surrounds it.

Sophie, Gareth, Savant, and Klara are there, fighting it, together with some guys I do not recognize, but judging by their mana signature they are Hell difficulty at least.

A burst of orange light suppresses the lightning and attempts to poison the beast. Sophie and Blackie controlling her golem. Gareth, with a silver crown over his head, enduring the incredible attacks of the beast. And Klara, in her armor and wielding a big ax with a sticky red light coating its surface, strikes the beast. Every time she cuts into the beast, some of that red light, smoke, or whatever it is, remains and lingers in the wound until the Basilisk releases a burst of lightning around its entire body and burns it away.

Sophie connects to me through the link and immediately shouts, (Don't look into its eyes!)

Just in time, I look away.

The Stormscale Basilisk destroys trees in its path, throws aside the golem, and charges at me only to be stopped by Gareth, who stands in its way with silver armor and a huge shield in his hand, blocking the lightning. The Basilisk tries to strike him, but a silver bubble surrounds Gareth. The beast crashes against it, and instead of breaking or pushing him away, the building sized beast bounces back.

It attacks again with the same result, and the barrier does not move at all even though it should. It should be torn from the ground and thrown away together with Gareth inside.

(It has something like mana poisoning, which it can use through its eyes to cause your own mana to paralyze you. It does the same with its domain, but to a lesser extent,) Sophie explains.

Klara jumps from the side onto the back of the beast and swings her ax. All the lightning crackling there channels through her armor, and some arcs of lightning crash against the blade of the ax, heating its surface and turning the metal red. The red-haired woman swings it down, only to make the huge beast coil and move through dozens of trees until it shakes her off.

Sophie's mana rises up and the trees around the bend, their branches extending and trying to grab the beast to slow it down. Her golem shrinks, the dirt falling to the ground, and changes from that rough humanoid shape into the form of a snake that slithers toward the Basilisk.

The golem coils around the Basilisk, which moves, tearing chunks of earth, and opens its mouth to release a powerful, stream-like barrage of lightning that sets the trees around on fire and carves chunks out of the ground.

Savant, with orange light surrounding his body, stands in the way of the beast and lifts his sword. The still partially missing blade glows in the same orange light and extends, radiating a lot more mana now. The light around Savant expands, forcing Klara, Gareth, and the others to move back as it collides with the beast's domain. Lightning crackles and fractures upon reaching deep into [Dawn].

I could join in and get the last attack. I could probably just hunt the other beasts in the meantime and let the others work just to try and killsteal this one later.

But at the same time, I know Lissandra is watching and this is not what she had in mind. Even if I did get the most points this way, she would not accept it.

I know because, in this, our thinking is the same.

Just as I'm about to leave, I detect a presence.

Tacita appears out of thin air, standing within Savant's [Dawn].

She smiles widely, untouched by the orange mana radiation that once seemed to poison everything. Her modified field shields her, countering its effects.

Savant detects her and shifts his body, moving with incredible speed for a moment—just fast enough to counter her.

But Tacita accelerates further, circling him with a playful grace that feels almost taunting. Her dagger flashes several times.

Savant loses one of his legs below the knee and is about to lose his arm at the shoulder, but he shifts and her dagger stabs into his forearm, unable to pass through the bone. I'm sure that bone is not the same as other pieces of his body.

[Dawn] shrinks and he changes frequency. Just a moment is enough for him to grasp Tacita's field, and with an incredible show of skill, he modifies his domain on the spot to counter her.

But Tacita knows it as well; as a final goodbye, she stabs her dagger with a green blade into his side and slaps him across the face before disappearing.

The Stormscale Basilisk uses the opportunity, and its lightning presses against the weakened [Dawn] and almost hits Savant, who barely absorbs part of that attack, and then the silver bubble surrounds him and deflects the rest.

Gareth groans and rushes against the beast at the same time as Sophie's golem, which grows in size.

I track the shifting air and glance to my left just in time as Tacita appears nearby.

Noticing that I’m looking exactly where she planned to appear, she falters briefly, then shakes her head and disappears.

Before leaving as well, I send a message to Sophie, (Jean is coming here from your right and will be here in a few minutes. On your left, there is that Chinese tournament winner, but she is further away than Jean.)

After delivering the message, I teleport away into the air and use kinetic energy to fly higher.

So Nightshade Stalker, Witherclaw, and Onyxscale Hydra, for which I have something prepared, remain. Killing two out of the Special grade beasts should get me first place combined with all the other kills. But there is also a chance someone will killsteal the Stormscale Basilisk and another beast and push for the 1st spot.

My decision not to killsteal the Basilisk only puts more pressure on me, but I'm just sure I know how Lissandra would look on it.

I boost myself to the ground where I estimate the first floating island will crash.

The first attendee I meet is some Hell difficulty guy; he turns his gun and points it at me. It reminds me of a sniper rifle, made out of materials I recognize as endurium and arcanadium. I also sense a bit of voidsteel, likely used for bullets.

I wonder what he has used to replace gunpowder. Or does he even need it? If he has telekinesis, he can make it bounce inside the rifle or store it to launch the bullet quickly. Maybe there is some inscription that does that. Kinetic energy could work here too, or even some fire skill that would create a small explosion.

I shake my head to put these thoughts away and say, "The floating island will fall soon. I would leave this area."

He follows my finger as I point at the island.

"It seems like it," he says. "I have noticed that fucked-up amount of mana up there. Someone pulled some crazy shit up there…"

Before he can finish, I teleport away.

Moving forward, I come across a pair who feel like they are from Easy difficulty. They don’t even notice me before I teleport them away.

I dash further to the right between the trees and boost myself onto a branch. A Hell difficulty, around 15 years old, notices my movement as I pass through the leaves. He shoots lightning at me and I swing my hand, deflecting the lightning with a barrier I quickly create around my hand, and make it hit the nearby tree.

Before he can do anything else, I punch his belly to make him lose concentration, and then teleport him away.

I continue doing so for the following 10 minutes, cleaning the area of everyone I can, and only then do I lift back up into the air.

Just then, the first floating island plummets, not gradually, but instantly, like a dropped stone. Whatever kept it aloft is gone, taking with it all support systems, fail safes, and backup mechanisms.

Even from here, I can see the monstrous pull on the surrounding mana from the island's center, the black spear already on the brink of destabilization.

The sky rumbles with the weight of what is coming. The floating island, vast enough to hold a city, begins to fall, not as a slow, drifting descent but as a sudden, violent plunge. The sheer pull distorts the wind, sending shockwaves outward and bending the clouds around it as if the sky itself were being torn open.

From below, it looks like the sky is collapsing.

The forest on top of the island writhes as the fall speeds up. Trees sway violently, some uprooted entirely, their massive trunks flung into the air like twigs caught in a storm. The ruins, weathered stone structures half-buried in moss, begin to fall apart, the force of the fall shaking them apart before they even reach the ground.

And then there are the beasts. Tens of thousands of them.

Some leap from the edges, trying to escape. Beasts of all kinds, including serpentine, winged, and phantom abominations, all desperately seek the sky. Others, either too stubborn or too oblivious, remain on the island, roaring, screeching, and howling.

The massive crystal embedded in the island’s underside pulses violently, its cracks spreading even further. Roots all around it, once stretching into the air, now lash wildly as the fall tears chunks of rock around them. Some roots snap under the strain, while others whip around like frenzied tendrils, slashing through the air.

As the island plummets closer, the pressure in the air changes, so intense that it feels as if the atmosphere itself is being crushed beneath its weight. The ground below begins to react, with tremors sent through the area even before the island reaches it.

Then there is the impact. The world doesn't just shake, it detonates. The ground erupts on contact, an explosion of dirt, stone, and raw energy blasting into the sky like a volcanic eruption. A shockwave, heavy with debris, erupts outward, leveling everything near the impact.

Trees obliterated, their remains scattered into the wind as splinters. The part of the forest is reshaped in an instant.

In addition to the beasts on top of the island, more of them are caught in the destruction and are vaporized, reduced to nothing as the sheer force of the impact tears through them. Those lucky or unlucky enough to survive are thrown through the air, their bodies broken, limbs twisted.

And at the center of it all, surrounded by a huge dust cloud, lie the remains of the floating island, half-buried in the ruined landscape.

It looks like it's all over, but deep within the shattered ruins, something stirs.

At the island's core, the black spear finally destabilizes.

For a brief moment, everything goes silent—even the screeches of the beasts around cut off.

Then it erupts. Blinding white light fills the ruins, followed by a massive mana disruption pulse tearing through the forest. Everything within a mile or more is affected. Magic flickers and dies. Inscriptions collapse.

Then the shockwave hits. A violent blast rips outward, sending debris in every direction. The nearby beasts that survived the impact are flung like ragdolls, their bodies crushed midair. Chunks of rock as big as buildings fly through the air, hitting and crashing into the trees of the forest and rolling much further. Some even fly through the air and fall into the sea, sending geysers of water into the air.

The heatwave follows, a wave of searing air that scorches the land and ignites parts of the forest.

The following implosion pulls everything into a vortex of crushing force. Dust, flames, even the very air twist and vanish, pulled into the vacuum.

For a moment, there is again nothing but silence. Then comes the final release, a concussive blast that carves out a deep, empty crater where the ruins once stood.

And the hunt continues.

***

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