’They’re locked in a standstill right now; for every two hits, the NightWalker recovers and prepares for the third and fourth. Unless I get back there to tip the scale in our favor, the fight will carry on for some time…’ As I thought that, I scanned the footage for any sign of Xilia and sighed heavily because I knew damn well she wasn’t there.
"Should I be surprised that you abandoned your post to check on me?" Suddenly speaking with a raspy voice, I tilted my head to the side and noticed a shimmer in the air as the girl in an emerald suit stepped away from the mountainside and crouched beside me on the ground.
’I needed to ensure your safety; you took a hard blow there…’ she said after I tapped my temple as a sign I was bringing up the telepathic connection.
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’Excuses, what is the real reason?’ I stated while rolling my eyes and allowing her to place my head in her lap.
’I ….was curious and wanted to see the energy core.’ With a sheepish expression, Xilia refused to look me in the eye and glanced up at the platform in the distance, nearly a quarter of a mile away.
’Too bad, it’s not coming out of my inventory until we get back home, especially since it’s the key ingredient for a NightWalker’s evolution to higher Ranks.’
’As a cannibalistic tribe, they kill each other and devour energy cores to strengthen their own.’ Thinking back to a few scenes in particular where I had stumbled upon such an incident, I opened my system display and looked at the item in question.
Sitting on a page, all alone, was the near-transparent, pitch-black dodecahedron. All along its surface were amethyst veins, which pulsed slowly as if it were a still beating heart.
I had held many of them in my hands before, but by far, this was the largest, mainly because this thing had clearly been supercharged thanks to the buffet of lives it reaped upon entering the Tower.
’It’s close to evolving too, but it’s strange; even the Gamma-Ranked NightWalkers I killed had Cores significantly smaller than this, maybe the size of a peach pit.’ Narrowing my eyes and resisting the urge to remove it from my inventory to run some tests, I ran through a few theories but came up empty.
CRASH boom boom CRASH
’Hm? That was pretty loud,’ being torn from my thoughts by two extremely loud thunderclaps; I brought up the live feeds just in time to witness a young man floating in the sky above the Western Gate NightWalker.
All around him were fearsome bolts of lightning, and as his hair fluttered in the wind, he raised his right arm toward the sky and swiftly brought it down in the direction of an Extra Crispy fried NightWalker, who had apparently eaten two similar massive bolts.
And it was this third which caused the monster to EXPLODE into black mist literally.
They had done it; the Western Gate was the first to clear their boss monster, and as those on that particular squad cheered, I noticed the young man in the sky suddenly lose all his energy and fall toward the ground, where a group of girls subsequently caught him.
’Tsk, bet he gets laid tonight,’ I grumbled, causing Xilia to give me a strange look and ask.
’Who?’
’One of the Players from the West Gate Squad, he just dropped the damn sky on the NightWalker and killed it.’
’Oh…and let me guess, all the ladies found him super handsome.’
’Yep, they’re tossing him in the air like they won a sports championship, so it’s better to put a stop to it.’
(West Gate Team, there is no time to celebrate; make haste to the northern gate, which needs immediate backup.)) Clearing my throat, I gave an order over the comms and caused the majority of the Returners to look around in confusion for me, as it was clear I had eyes on their situation.
After a moment to collect themselves, the West Team began moving north, dragging their tired bodies as fast as they could to go aid the other returners; meanwhile, I wasn’t kidding when I said the Northern Team was in serious need of assistance.
Half their members were on the ground, while the other half fought desperately…the reason being the NIghtWalker had Released a blast of Annihilation Aura, the exact thing I told them to be on the lookout for.
Although one of the Zap Squad members who was part of the team was able to bring up a lightning barrier at the last second, the aftermath of the Aura was destructive, to say the least.
Some people were missing limbs, others unconscious, and only 4 or 5 people were still fighting, of which it was mainly the two Zap members and, funny enough, Krak, who continuously unleashed a literal flamethrower’s worth of fire at the monster in a never-ending stream.
His tactic made sense, especially since he could hear me redeploying the Western Team, so he was doing all he could to keep the monster at bay before backup came.
’How bad is it out there?’ Xilia asked when she saw me going quiet.
’I wouldn’t say it’s bad yet, but it’s definitely not looking good. The Eastern and Southern teams are holding their own, barely, but the Northern team got battered by Annihilation Aura and paid the price for being caught unaware.’
’Idiots, that was the one thing you told everyone to look out for; I mean, our NightWalker is a bit different since it seemed to be able to channel its Aura into attacks, but for the rest, if they are standard monsters like you described, should have had a telltale sign they were charging.’ With a scoff, Xilia looked away from me and back up toward the platform.
’I just rewound the feed and saw what happened; basically, they thought the damn thing was weakened and completely forgot about my warning. Everyone rushed in to try and deal a finishing blow, and if it weren’t for Brisingar bringing up a barrier at the last second, almost their entire team would have been insta-killed.’
’Still, with one gate cleared completely, the other three will soon follow like dominos being toppled. The more bodies added into the battle, the faster the demise of the NightWalkers will become.’