Though it could barely keep up with that sword, it had to deal with the attacks of the other three at the same time, something it could barely achieve at full power, much less in its weakened state.
Be it the swirling mass of red ice that made it feel pain in its very soul, or the white flames that cut through its scales like butter, the huge great sword that seemed to increase in force with each consecutive hit, or the spear that sent out sharp waves of greenish energy, none of the four's attacks were things the monster could handle.
What's more, the party of four also aimed their attacks in ways that even though they missed the Ape, they still mowed down dozens of monsters in its army.
The Cobalt Bone Ape tried running, but the gaping slash wound it received the instant it turned its back showed that running was not exactly an option for it.
The suit-clad great sword wielder closed in the distance, stomping on the monster's foot with a ridiculous amount of strength, before spinning around in a full circle and slamming the front of the monster's knee with the flat side of his blade.
Its knee bones shattered and the other nearby bones bent in disconcerting angles, eliciting a scream of anguish from the monster's lips.
Its other leg was attacked from behind with a singular horizontal slash that severed the limb in two, with its knee acting as the divisor.
While saying something about how the other two aimed at its knees, the spear wielder thrust out her weapon straight through the back of the monster's chest with a strike so powerful that it emerged from the other side.
She then created a four-pronged grapple with ice before pulling the polearm out of the monster's body, the grapple tearing through flesh and bone alike.
And then to end the monster's misery, the fourth member of the party leapt into the air and thrust his sword coated in a whirling spiral-shaped mass of reddish gold magic power that shredded its head to a bloodied chunk of meat and bone.
This was the scene met by the C & B rank fighters who had succeeded in chasing the monster that had been relieved from the control of the Cobalt Blue Apes back to the forest.
Upon getting closer to the party, they were able to identify them as the 'Anomalies' a fairly famous party they had seen a couple of times in the 'Foreign News' sections of their newspapers starting from an Undead Crisis that had apparently occurred in the Western part of the Alpha continent last year.
They were known to be a party with both humans and spirits in it, and each one of them was a 'Titled' adventurer and was far more famous than some more powerful S rankers on the Continent.
"That kid's the one they call 'Irregular'?"
"Yeah…it's definitely him…he has those strange eyes after all."
"So, he's the human hero who became popular recently, huh?"
"They say he's the youngest A-rank adventurer in the world."
"For real?"
"Yeah…didn't you just see him kill that rare monster? So strong, and he's not even in his mid-teens yet."
"Nah. I know he's young but he's not THAT young."
The Adventurer's guild monster handlers chatted among themselves as they dismantled the corpses of the monsters that had just been defeated whilst the teenager whose power they were discussing was standing atop the Cobalt Blue monster's torso in silence.
Seeing this, his girlfriend who was nearby had her eyes flash with realisation, prompting her to activate her barrier skill instantly and imbue a sound isolation effect into it.
A translucent cube-shaped barrier of light surrounded the boy's body, a second before he screamed out in annoyance.
"WHY AM I NOT GRANMASTER YET!"
The truth of the matter was that the teenager was not the 'Youngest Grandmaster' that people believed he was.
On this day that marked exactly one year after the Cheverton Undead Crisis, the 'Second' of the New Generation Seven Heroes, known widely as the 'Irregular' Evan: was still Level 299.
And it was something he certainly wasn't happy about.
"Didn't you say you needed some evolution catalyst?"
"Yes. A Freakin' Dragon's Heart! And not from any run-of-the-mill dragon either!"
Evan hunched over, burying his face in his hands, all the while persisting in his complaints.
"At this rate, we're definitely gonna meet the Hidden Boss."
Though Eliza didn't know what this 'Hidden Boss' that he spoke of was, she silently walked over to him and patted his back to console him a bit.
And when the reoriented Guild Master and the other A rankers came over, Evan quickly adjusted his bearing, jumping down from the corpse and speaking to them with his usual casual attitude.
He informed them of a few of the Iron Scaled Cobalt Bone Ape's characteristics for future purposes, before taking his party and venturing into the forest that the monsters emerged from.
Sadly, he did not find the hidden cave he was after and neither did he find the artifact that was supposed to be within it, making his mood sour as he left the forest with no hauls.
And in the same manner that they arrived, they left Damerel and headed to the nearest big city, using the teleportation waypoints to get over to the closest Station City and took a direct train to Slosbert.
From Slosbert, they were to take another train and drop off mid-way near Lacertilia.
Unfortunately, that train was delayed by two days due to the sudden harsh weather conditions and a little bit of rail damage it caused.
They managed to get on the train on the 4th of May, but contrary to their expectations, their trip did not turn out to be as smooth as they would have wanted.
◇ ◇ ◇
Train SC-05052
Slosbert-Lacertilia Rail Route
Beast Kingdom
May 5th
Year 1053
"Among you seven, who's she the closest to?"
Evan posed that question to Greed while gesturing towards Pride who was cooped up in one corner of the cabin, buried in a pile of books as always.
He, Greed, and Eliza were chatting after breakfast and their conversation somehow entered the topic of siblings, which then led to Evan asking this question.
Although the siblings were quite close, he felt that each of them should still have that one person that they favoured more than the others.
Eliza concurred with this, stating that she was closer with her immediate younger sister than she was with the rest of her siblings.
And so with the ball in the Deadly Sin Siblings' court, Greed gave a short rundown on how the Seven of them related to one another.
"It's quite simple really. A Trio and two Duos.
Sloth, Wrath and I make up the Trio."
"Huh? Wrath?"
Unlike Evan who had memories of a thousand years ago, or Greed who was his sibling, Eliza could only imagine what Wrath looked like, based on her impressions of Pride and Greed, and her imagination of Wrath was someone who'd seem like he was about to blow his top 24/7.
That didn't seem to be the kind of person she could see Greed being close to.
And when she explained this to Greed, the High demon only chuckled lightly before replying.
"I get. But Wrath's a pretty chill guy. Normally, he can be as calm as Pride.
However, when he starts using his power and goes into Berserker state…you can pretty much imagine the rest."
"That so…"
"That is so. Anyway, Sloth, Wrath and I make up 'the three', Envy and Gluttony are like two peas in a pod."
Evan remembered the memory gem that Gavin showed him sometime last year and nodded to himself in affirmation as he could see that those two were close from the way the two interacted with each other.
"And then Miss Bookworm over there is best friends with Lust."
The second duo was a bit surprising as when one thought about the incarnations of the sins of 'Lust' and 'Pride' on a normal basis, they would most certainly expect that Pride might hate Lust or something of the sort.
But in these siblings' case, Pride and Lust were like two halves of a whole. Same likes and dislikes, the same hobbies, a lot of similar habits and so on.
One of the very few differences was while Pride was the 'serious' and 'no-nonsense' type, Lust was more of the 'playful' and 'laid-back' type.
Just as Evan was about to open his mouth to speak, he, along with the other three in the room suddenly turned their gazes to the side, and in the moment that followed, Evan sensed three different things.
The first was through his connection with Kayla, a wave of annoyance that instantly changed to anger.
Second was a mass of magic power building up in one of the train's cars, and lastly—
**BOOMM!!
A sudden explosion rang out, sending shockwaves reverberating through the train's metal structure, making it shudder violently.
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