Chapter 8: Slaying an Avallion Class Entity
[Warning: Avallion Class entity detected.]
[Objective: Slay the beast.]
[Survival probability: 38%]
Iris stared long and hard at the notification... "Holy shit, you were right."
"Huh?"
"There’s a beast right now."
Lucas’ eyes widened. "There is?"
Iris raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Didn’t you see the notification?"
"Notifica— shit." He facepalmed...
Of course. He had a bootleg system... How did he forget that?
The leaves started to rustle then a faint growl was heard...
The moment they heard the growl, Lucas grit his teeth.
"SCATTER!"
**WHOOSH**
**BOOM**
Something crash-landed in the center of the camp blowing dust and debri everywhere.
His system flickered, words started forming on its stuttering screen...
[Avallion Class Entity Detected]
[Objective: Slay the beast]
[Survival probability: 38%]
"Wow. Great timing." He turned to the group. By this time he was sprinting across the field.
"Don’t let it get too close! Iris! Aim for the wings!"
Iris said nothing about how oddly specific and confident Lucas’s instructions sounded for someone who supposedly didn’t know what they were facing.
"How do you know all this?!" she yelled. "You talk like you’ve fought it already!"
Lucas ran towards her, took the arrow from her hand and used [Ignition] to light the tip on fire.
"I have... More than once actually."
Iris didn’t push. But something about the way she nodded slow and deliberate this wasn’t the time to ask questions.
"Now, on my count, aim for the wings." He pointed at the thrashing beast.
The plan was simple: lure the creature out and keep it distracted long enough for someone to deal the final blow.
Lucas volunteered to be the one to do this. After all he didn’t have anything to lose.
He rushed at the beast and his knuckles caught fire.
[You have activated the skill: Ignition]
He ran, fists blazing and landing a clean hit to the beast’s jaw.
It screeched in pain and swatted. It’s arm slamming Lucas in his side sending him flying. He used his hands to steady himself but it set the surrounding bushes on fire.
The beast stepped into the light and Lucas was able to see it’s form clearly...
Up close, in full light, the Avalion was worse than his half-glimpsed memory of it. Limbs too long for its body, clawed hands and a hulking form of about 7 feet.
Joints bending the wrong direction and a mouth that unhinged wider than any skull had a right to allow.
It’s wings alone were wide enough to produce wind that could knock you off your feet.
The creature leaped into the air and dashed towards Lucas grabbing him and soaring upwards.
"NOW!"
Iris’s arrow hit it in the back before it had fully cleared the treeline, and the creature shrieked —a sound like two metal roda grinding against each other, nothing that should have come from something with a throat.
It spun, hurdling toward the ground.
The impact sending Lucas flying.
"What the hell—" Callum’s voice, thin with horror choked as he was finally able to see the beast.
Lucas didn’t blame him he staggered to his feet and dashed forward.
"Don’t let it get close!" Lucas scrambled backward, flame already roaring to life around his fist again, unstable the way it always was.
"It’s fast and it goes for whoever’s isolated—"
"How do you know that?" Bertram, swinging his machete in a wide defensive arc as the creature lunged past Iris toward him instead, stone plates grinding up his forearm just in time to catch a strike that would have opened him to the bone.
"Nevermind that, just don’t split up!"
The creature recoiled off Bertram’s Stoneskin with a furious shriek, twisting mid-air in a way that defied every rule of anatomy Lucas studied.
It’s wings were bruised but it seemed that wasn’t enough to ground the abomination.
It came down toward Callum time — clearly hunting the weakest link, exactly like it had the second time, exactly like it always would.
"MOVE!"
Lucas didn’t think. He threw himself into the gap, burning fist connecting with the creature’s flank moments before its claws would have found Callum’s throat.
**BANG**
The impact screamed up his arm as flame caught and spread across something that felt less like flesh and more like wet leather.
The creature’s shriek this time was pure fury, and it turned on him fully.
Lucas didn’t wait. He slid under it’s legs and ran towards Iris.
"Arrows!"
She didn’t hesitate. She tossed two arrows toward him and he caught them before tumbling to the ground.
Igniting them, he rushed towards the beast.
"Iris the eyes!"
In a split second, an arrow jabbed it’s way into the creature’s right eye and it earned another shriek of pain.
Lucas ran faster and jumped into its back the moment the beast doubled down, clutching it’s bleeding eyehole.
He plunged the two in the joint between it’s wings and intensified the flames.
The arrows burnt fiercely burning parts of the beast’s back.
He jumped down and turned to Bertram.
"It’s blind on that side!" Lucas shouted, pointing to its right side.
Bertram nodded and raced towards the beast.
He brandished his blade and sliced off the wing on the right side of its back.
Blood sprayed everywhere as the creature roared louder in agonizing pain and suffering.
"You’re giving orders like you’ve done this a hundred times!" Bertram stated as he landed beside Lucas.
"Twice, actually..." Lucas muttered, and lunged.
The Avalion twisted toward him, favoring its remaining eye, claws raking down in a strike aimed to open him the way it had opened Iris in the memory still burning in his mind.
However, this time would be different.
He was sprinting, ready to drive his flaming fist up into the soft unguarded underside of its jaw with everything his body had left.
**WHAM**
The creature’s shriek cut off entirely.
For one suspended second it simply hung there, fire spreading fast and merciless across its ruined jaw.
Soon, the fire engulfed it’s head and the creature fell to the ground as the fire gradually spread to its body, leaving nothing but the sound of burning flesh...
[Avalion Class entity defeated.]
[Survival probability recalibrated: 82%]
Lucas sank to his knees in the ashen ground, hands shaking again, but this time it was relief instead of the horror he had been experiencing.
"Okay," Bertram said finally, chest heaving, staring down at the smoking corpse with something between awe and suspicion. "Somebody explain. Right now. How the hell did you know how that thing moves, what it goes for, where it’s weak—"
Lucas looked up at the three of them.
They were alive, all three of them, blood-spattered and shaking but alive.
The rest of the camp hadn’t been so fortunate. In the chaos of the ambush, the others further out along the perimeter — the ones Lucas had never gotten close enough to name in any version of that night hadn’t made it.
He felt the weight of that more than he let on but he’d only ever had the strength to save the three of them.
Bertram... Callum.... Iris.
It wasn’t everyone, it wasn’t even close to everyone.
But it was more than the last two rounds had given him. That in itself was a miracle.
"So," Iris said, falling into step beside him as the four of them finally turned, ready to leave.
"Start talking."
Lucas kept walking, kept his voice easy, like the question was smaller than it was.
"Lucky guess. Ignition comes with some passive tracking stuff. I get to see imprints of certain heat signatures sometimes.... Other times, nothing at all."
Of course, he was lying through his teeth... but he spoke again. "We’re incredibly lucky..."
"Imprints," Bertram repeated flatly.
"Imprints." Lucas repeated, working hard to make it look convincing. "Honestly, half the time I don’t know why it works either. I just go with it."
Callum opened his mouth like he wanted to push further, and Iris glanced at him. A look that closed it again.
"Whatever it is," she said instead, falling into step beside him, "keep having it. It’s the only reason three of us are walking away from...that.."
Lucas scoffed. "Tell that to the system I got from Temu." He glanced at the glitching window in frustration.
Iris raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean."
Lucas sighed, closing the system. "Okay.... It starts with a system that doesn’t work right. Or at least, doesn’t work the way it pretends to...."
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