Chapter 261 Nightmares Attack
[Re-activating User's sense of hearing]
As Mako slowly regained his hearing, the excruciating pain from the screech began to recede. The attack was strong enough to make him bleed from his nose, mouth, and even his eyes, leaving him bloodied and battered. The mental attack had taken a toll on him, and he knew that it must have come from an incredibly powerful source.
Once his hearing was restored, Mako's first instinct was to stand up and assess the situation. He knew he had to be prepared for anything, especially considering that he had just survived a powerful attack that had just assaulted his senses, he knew whoever was behind this attack wanted him dead and now that he had survived, there was a high chance that they would try something else to finish him.
Just as Mako gathered his senses and recovered back to a stable state, the shadowy mist began to materialize from the forest nearby.
It resembled a dark, thick fog, but within it, was something that Mako wasn't prepared for.
Up until this point, the information that Mako and his friends had received was that the shadows would appear accompanied by strange eerie sounds which scared people away and disappear those who got too close, but right now, Mako took a big gulp of fear as he witnessed multiple piercing yellow glowing eyes emerging from the shadowy mist.
In the next moment, grotesque and nightmarish creatures emerged from within the shadowy mist and looked like they were an amalgamation of people's worst fears and nightmares.
These creatures had distorted, elongated limbs with sharp, claw-like appendages. Their faces were a twisted mess of grotesque features, with eyes that glowed with an eerie, yellow malevolent light.
One of the creatures had elongated, spindly limbs with razor-sharp claws at the end of each appendage. Its body was covered with sickly, pale skin stretched tightly over its skeletal frame. Its eyes were empty sockets with a single piercing yellow dot at the center, devoid of any discernible features, and it moved with an unsettling, jerky motion.
Another nightmarish entity had a face that was a contorted mass of eyes and mouths. Eyes of various shapes and sizes covered its grotesque visage, all glowing with the same yellow malevolent light. Multiple mouths opened and closed in a horrifying symphony of whispers and wails.
A third creature seemed to constantly shift and morph, making it difficult for Mako to focus on its true form. It appeared as if it were made of shadow itself, with tendrils of darkness swirling around it. It could elongate its limbs or condense into a nightmarish ball of darkness, with a creepy wide yellow smile and sinister yellow eyes.
There were flying eyeballs with bat wings and a long tail as well some kind of dog and pig hybrid beast that had its entire body covered in pustules.
Mako felt like he was in a nightmare with all of his worst fears amalgamating into physical forms to torment him, but he knew he wasn't dreaming and that all of this was very true and real.
Mako quickly activated his defensive stance and prepared himself for the coming battle. His temporarily increased mentality helped him to remain calm and maintain his cool so that he wouldn't give in to his fear which would spell his death, but rather appear calm and collected ready to face the dangers in front of him.
Mako had left his gauntlets back at the hotel as he couldn't conceal them while he was moving through the village which would otherwise raise suspicion.
However, he did bring one thing that would greatly help him in the battle, his storm caller staff.
Before, Mako always had a problem bringing the staff with him to a battle as it was so big and hard to handle, but during one of the training sessions, Commander Sable showed him a neat little trick that one could do with a certain type of Power weapons called "Convertable Power Weapons."
These power weapons were designed in such a way that they could retract or transform into everyday items so that nobody would be able to tell that they were power weapons.
The 6-foot-tall staff was apparently able to be compressed down into a regular pen which was a huge revelation for Mako, but it was now quite practical for him to carry his strongest power weapon with him at all times.
Commander Sable had taught him how to identify a Convertable Power Weapon so that in the future it would be really helpful for him to pick out weapons that had great practicality to them.
As the creatures charged toward Mako, he extended his staff back to his original height and began channeling his lightning aura into the crystal.
Some of the creatures were fast while others were slow, but before any of them could reach Mako, he was ready with his staff to launch one of his most favorite and practical skills.
[Electrcial Discharge has been activated]
A pulse of electricity erupted from the base of the staff as Mako struck it on the ground and quickly spread outward, paralyzing all of the creatures.
Mako quickly shifted to his fire ability and assaulted the creatures with a barrage of fireballs from the red fire variant.
Surprisingly, The creatures weren't tough at all, the big ones dissolved back into a shadowy mist before disappearing after only a couple of fireball strikes while the smaller creatures were getting one shot by the hot flames of the fireball.
The rotten bodies screeched as they were engulfed in flames moments before burning to a crisp and disappearing.
Mako dealt with all of them in under 20 seconds as they were quite easy to deal with them being paralyzed in place. However, before he could take a breather, he heard more sinister and eerie voices emerge from the shadowy mist.
Looking back toward it, Mako was left in utter shock and disbelief as more creatures started spawning out of the mist.
The creatures didn't hesitate as they rushed forward to end Mako once and for all. Mako quickly conjured a stone sword which he engulfed in red flames before dashing in himself hoping to kill them all quickly once again.
Now that Mako knew these things could be produced by the mist en masse, he resorted to using physical combat and avoided flashy moves like before as they weren't energy efficient and his energy would be the deciding factor which would determine whether he would be able to see the sunrise or not.
Mako's sword skills were still subpar but he had greatly improved as Commander Sable had been teaching him elementary techniques and moves which were a huge help. With those skills along with his melee mana skill set, he was now a decent fighter, not as great as Bill or Nathan who had much more experience in fighting but close.
Mako used a combination of his low energy costing regular and ability skills alongside his sword and staff to continuously engage and kill the nightmares that continued to spawn from the mist just as one got killed.
The sword slashed all the monsters with ease as they weren't resilient at all, but they were still quite persistent and agile as they kept on coming and coming. Mako had been able to defend himself against the monsters for a great while, but he wasn't perfect and was bound to get hit by one eventually, and once he did, he realized that these monsters were no joke.
It was the complete shadowy monster that weaved around Mako's sword dodging all the strikes and while Mako got distracted by another monster, it took the opportunity and slashed Mako from the back. The attack was deep and easily tore through Mako's fortitude leaving a giant wound on his back that began to bleed profusely.
[-50 HP]
The other nightmares took this opportunity to strike as well, but Mako was still in control of the battle as he quickly activated his Energy Manipulation ability and lasered down all the monsters with his Energy Stream skill at once.
[Energy Stream has been activated]
It took the mist a second to regenerate the monsters and Mako used this time to quickly consume a healing pill from his inventory.
The nightmares were revived again, and Mako was ready for another wave, but he did notice that it took the mist several seconds to reform all the creatures this time which meant that it was losing power as well.
With this realization, Mako knew that this mist would also eventually run out of energy to create more creatures and all he had to do was to run out the clock and hope his energy pool would overcome the shadow's.
The battle that ensued was intense and filled with chaos. Mako fought with all his might, using his elemental abilities and sword skills to counter the nightmarish creatures.
Fire engulfed some of the creatures, causing them to shriek in agony as they writhed in the flames. Lightning bolts struck others, electrifying them and causing them to convulse uncontrollably. Earth barriers protected Mako from their relentless attacks, providing a shield against their clawed assaults.
The battle seemed to last an eternity, and Mako's body bore the scars of the encounter, but eventually, Mako's theory turned out to be correct as the shadow didn't spawn more creatures and instead as the last of the nightmarish creatures fell, the shadowy mist quickly dissipated, leaving no trace behind.
Breathing heavily and nursing his injuries, Mako knew he couldn't let this go unresolved. He quickly activated his Energy Sensing skill to scan the surroundings for any energy signatures, hoping to find a clue about the source of this malevolent a sudden attack.
[Energy Sensing has been activated]
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