CHAPTER 48: BASTION’S PARTY

Eric was also covetous of the fact that he’d receive a stat upgrade, or even a skill reward, for killing an intermediate beast for the first time. Another reward for killing a different type of beast for the first time.

So, as much as he cared for the team, part of him was itching to see these beasts ended—again, for his own selfish needs. Still, he’d decided. He was going to help, and reveal his secret for them after all.

He rose, his ribs screaming. The pain was a hot flare in his side. He opened his mouth wide, ready to pull the beast mana hovering above him into his body, to become a temporary, crazed fighter. A beast.

But he stopped as he gawked at the scene in front of him.

A small, dark figure was sprinting around the clearing’s edge, a black cloak whipping wildly behind him. It was Bastion. In one hand he held a katana, and the other hand dipped into his pocket and came out with a shuriken.

Little in size as he was, he jumped. He leaped higher than the lizards themselves, a blur of motion against the trees.

He threw the shuriken with terrible force. It sank into the skull of a Shade Stalker with a wet thunk. Bastion landed on the beast’s head, tapped lightly with his foot, and bounced away like a stone skipping water, already in the air again, and bounding for the nearest beast.

Another beast snapped at him, jaws wide. Bastion twisted in mid-air, a move that seemed to defy his bones, and dropped.

As he fell, he drove his katana deep into the beast’s scaled hide and dragged the blade down its length. He pulled the sword free and landed lightly. The wounded lizard swung its massive tail.

Bastion didn’t dodge. He jumped again, tapped a foot against the swinging tail to propel himself higher, now level with the beasts massive head again. His katana plunged through the beast’s left eye. He sat on its head as it crashed down, then leaped free as it died.

Eric stared, his pain forgotten.

’Bastion?’

The shy, painfully quiet boy? He moved with a silent, deadly grace Eric had never imagined. The group watched, stunned, as the tide of the fight shifted. Everyone couldn’t believe their eyes. But this was not the time to gawk for long.

With one Shade Stalker down and another wounded with a shuriken buried in its skull, the beasts were reduced to ten. Hope flickered. The group surged forward.

Mantra climbed a high branch and positioned herself to have a better target. As soon as she found a convenient spot, she started attacking the beasts right away, her arrows whistling down.

Bart roared, hacking at the limbs of one beast while dodging the crushing tail of another. He dealt a heavy blow to one limb and was about to further his attack, but was attacked by another free beast who slammed him away as he tumbled down the clearing. But he was on his feet again, swinging his massive weapon.

Gary was also locked on his target. Though small, he was dangerously fast. He became a blur of motion, dashing between the massive legs of the lizards, his old sword leaving shallow cuts that did little real damage but drove the beasts into a frenzy. His blade was just too weak to deal a fatal damage to the beast’s though skin but he continued attacking all the same, and he never got caught as he was quick to speed away at the last moments.

Silver was practically a dancer. He wove through snapping jaws and sweeping tails, his sword flicking out to leave thin lines on tough hides. His movements were beautiful, precise, but they lacked the raw power to finish the job. His damage stat must be extremely low.

An arrow from Mantra later struck a beast in the eye. Bastion was there in an instant, kicking the arrow deeper, burying a shuriken in its other eye. The beast shrieked. Bastion’s katana ended it, making it the second beast to die at the hands of Bastion.

Bart left his target and charged the beast with the shuriken still stuck in its skull. Distracted and in pain, it was easy prey. Bart’s sword, powered by his immense strength, crashed through its neck. The head dropped down, rolling and spilling blood all over.

The third beast was dead.

Opal moved with cold efficiency. Her advanced-tier sword—a privilege of her noble birth—sliced through the tough hide where others struggled. She severed the hind legs of one lizard, making it fall forward while rushing away from the impact, then drove her blade through the skull of the fallen beast.

The fight now seemed to be turning in their favour.

Eric watched from the tree line, satisfied. They could do it. He would keep his secret. He let the idea of consuming the beast mana fade.

Then he saw it.

One of the beasts, crafty and wounded, had slipped around the chaotic circle. It was not heading for Bart or Silver or Opal or Bastion.

It was heading for Kieran.

Kieran stood frozen in the center of the ranks, holding his sword clumsily, his face pale with terror. The others were locked in their own struggles with their backs turned. They were unaware.

Eric didn’t think.

The beast mana was there, twelve faint red auras now. Eight from the earlier Witch Bugs, four from the newly dead Shade Stalkers. He didn’t need much. He didn’t need to become a monster for long. He just needed enough to overturn this Kieran situation.

He reached out with his will and pulled.

Three of the Witch Bug mana streams shot into him.

He felt a brief pain course through him, then the world exploded into clarity almost immediately.

His senses sharpened to a painful edge. He could see the individual scales on the charging lizard, smell the iron of blood and the damp earth. The screaming pain in his ribs vanished, replaced by a surging, terrible heat. Power, raw and untamed, flooded his muscles.

His stats didn’t just increase, they multiplied.

He was on his feet, moving with a speed that felt unnatural.

He lunged into the clearing, a blur to his own eyes. He grabbed Kieran by the collar and threw him backwards, out of the beast’s path. The shove sent Kieran sprawling safely into a thick bush.

Eric turned, but he was too late to dodge.

The Shade Stalker’s tail, thick as a tree trunk, was already mid-swing. It caught him square in the chest.

The impact was different this time. It didn’t just hurt. It sounded wrong, like a deep, sickening crunch that echoed in the sudden silence of the fight. The force lifted him off his feet and sent him flying backwards. He crashed into the trunk of the same tree Silver had propped him against earlier, then slumped to the ground in a heap.

The beast mana’s heat evaporated. The super-sharp senses vanished. ’Oh. That’s broken for sure,’ he thought as his consciousness slipped.

Then the world went quiet, and the last thing he saw was the stunned, horrified face of Opal, staring right at him from across the clearing.