CHPT 235: A Door left Ajar at all Times.....

The shelled carcasses of many circled the rocky clearing, forming a ring of a death. An ever-changing ring, forced smaller and smaller by the starving offspring of the fallen that ate at the brutalized remains of their parents-- showing no signs of ever being satisfied.

Within the shrinking ring, blood spilled. The blood of Hero and Monster mixed and intertwined as the heat of battle climbed to levels that matched the sweltering sun hanging above them within the canyon clearing.

It was so lonely, yet so cluttered and violent. Blood stained the rocky floor. Sounds of pain bounced off the cavernous walls and death loomed-- hovering over the students who seemed to have no hope of overcoming their own version of insectoid adversity.

***

"Hey! Icepick! Have you done anything to that big bastard worth celebrating over yet?!" Chase yelled to his swordweilding teammate behind him while he faced off against the oncoming horde of nightmarish bugs.

WoooSH!

ShshhSHSH!

"AAAARCKCKCK!"

The sounds of wind, lightning and inhuman wails of pain was all he was met with for a second before his teammate finally spoke in an exhausted tone.

"Landing critical strikes has proven to be rather difficult due to its armor...a heavy blade would probably be more suitable!...." Conroy replied through a voice disrupted by movements as he dashed around his incredibly dangerous opponent.

"Thanks for the battle analysis, genius! Do you have any plans on how to defeat it instead of why you aren't?!" Chase replied with a question before firing off two arrows at an oncoming Nightmare Beetle and using his incredible leaping power to jump over another approaching bug before stomping it into a green mess.

[+120 EXP]

"Ice. Bugs aren't fans of the cold....Urg!....if I can reduce its internal temperature to a low enough level...it'll die on its own. In theory at least." Conroy replied while he ducked and dashed around the Chitinous Nightmare's attacks.

BOOM!...BOOM!

The Boss slammed its weaponized arm against the ground in anger causing a small earthquake to take place over the ground as it split with hairline fractures that the approaching Beetles got caught in.

"Alright. Ice.....perfect. You get on that, me and Brunson will protect Stacy." Chase replied before his cloven footed God Shroud swept over with him with the calming ebb and flow of a morning breeze.

In a flash, he leapt and bound across the clearing, towards the edge of the shrinking circle of corpses--- towards Brunson, the Tank of their group fighting valiantly to protect Stacy who lay on the floor in a growing pool of blood with her Feline companion hissing menacingly at the horde.

They were being overwhelmed, and with Goren missing, their chances of survival were slim. All that did was make Chase move faster...leap further...hunt more effectively. As Cernunnos told him, everything under the morning sun is prey to the ultimate Hunter.

During his run towards the rest of his team, smaller Nightmare Beetles attacked and moved to thwart his approach, only to be kicked across the clearing with so much blunt force that dents as big as cannon balls shown on their bludgeoned corpses as they rolled to a stop near the far wall of the clearing.

They continued. Lunging, biting and swiping.

"Too many..." He told himself before speeding up leaping over everything. The sound of hooves crashing into stone suddenly disappeared as he took to the skies.

While he soared, he loaded three arrows into his bladed recurve bow in seconds. The sound of the bowstring being pulled taut was drowned out by the chaotic gusts of wind he aimed at each of his targets.

TWIP!.....TWIP!...TWIP!

SPLCH!

[+220 EXP]

Each shot hit its mark. And due to the downward gusts of wind he focused on each target, the arrows descended at even faster speeds, causing each hit against their chitinous shells to be almost explosive.

"You feelin that breeze, Brunson?!" Chase joked as he landed at his side, stomping two Beetles beneath him in the process.

[+110 EXP]

"There's so many, Chase..." Brunson replied fearfully with his shield held high while he hacked away at the Beetles attempting to feed on Stacy.

"Ahh stop being a crybaby Dunceon. They're just bugs." Chase replied before shooting down a trio of Beetles to busy eating another dead one.

"You are so annoying.....how are you making jokes right now?!" Stacy yelled from behind them, ending her sentence with an inhuman hiss of pain and anger.

Chase spun around with his bow raised at her,

TWIP!

SQLCH!

[+50 EXP]

The arrow flew passed Stacy's face and sunk into a stray Nightmare Beetle behind her, "Coping mechanism...." He said, seeming to look incredibly serious for the first time ever, then, the dorky smile returned, "Now, relax and pet your anorexic rat or something while we protect you."

Then he was off, bounding along the edge of the ring, cursing and firing off witty jokes while he kicked and shot at the Beetles with a power made greater by the gift of a god.

"Idiot.."

***

BOOM!....BOOM!

"Urgh!..." Conroy skidded across the dry ground after the Boss sent him away with another ground pound.

He staggered under the sun for a moment and spit blood onto the tawny rock floor before raising his sword to the Monster. Lightning danced along the silvery edge along with the rest of his body.

"Incomplete...but functional. Keep fighting despite what our future holds, thats what Chase wants..." He thought with a chuckle before his lightning charged limbs carried him back into battle.

While he fought, his mind couldn't help but roam....roam into dark territories. He was a realist-- most people took that as pessimism. The most notable were the two-- physical, polar opposites of his Training class. Chase and Claude. It was one of the reasons he locked horns with Chase so often....Claude was an entirely different story.

Either way, this realism he practiced made him a less than ideal leader in moments like these. Moments when deaths door creaked and roared as it swung open inch by inch to welcome its newest entrants.

You see, where he understood their demise and fought against his better nature to accept it. People like Chase and Claude continually got up-- ignorant of everything, continually fought.....one like a wild animal, and the other like a wild man.

Even now, Chase did so. He saw it for a moment while he fought the Boss. A moment of severity on his pale-skinned face. He knew Chase was just as aware of their demise as he was. And yet, the wild Archer continued his usual stupid banter and jokey nature as if nothing changed. Because he wanted the rest of his team to feel as if nothing changed.

He was essentially forcing himself to be the light within their clearing of darkness, something none of them could do as effectively as him. Even though death came to any Hero-in-training as a part of life, it was never welcomed. Yet, Chase grinned in the face of their demise.

WOOM!

Another wooping swing from the Chitinous Nightmare almost caught him as he ducked and slid behind the creature.

From where he stood, he could see Chase running down the beetles while he hooted and hollered as if he was running through a field of flowers instead of corpses.

"I'm sorry, Chase. I've got enough Mana for one more go. But if we don't make it. I hope you can forgive me for not being strong enough." He thought before the tide of battle pulled him out of his emotions.

***

They continued to put up a fight for another few minutes, slowly shrinking their numbers-- along with their own Stamina and Mana.

TWIP!....TWIP!

"FUCK!.....No more arrows!" Chase announced angrily before swinging his bladed bow and cutting through the Beetles. "Icepicck! Why isn't the damn thing frozen solid yet?!"

"Sorry, to bring that....ergh..... level of temperatures I need time and f.....focus. Something I can't muster while i'm fighting this thing. The only person with Ice that rampant is that Berserker woman!" Conroy yelled back, sounding more tired than before.

"Perfect.....just perfect!" Chase announced.

SHHSSHWZZ!!!!

AARckckk!

His thoughts were interrupted as singular lines of Lightning flew like cords from behind him and wrapped around a nearby Beetle, cooking it from the inside before its eyes popped out of its head gruesomly.

He turned around and found Stacy's glowing slitted eyes on him with her usual look of irritation, "Aren't you supposed to be connected to a God of the Hunt? Where is your patience?" Her eyes were low due to the loss of blood, but the fight hadn't left her.

"Fair point....hehe." Chase replied with a caught smile before turning to rejoin the fight.

With that, the fight waged on. Beetles fell, but so did their will to continue. The Boss continued to slowly beat the life out of Conroy and the ring was now right at Stacy's back. The fight felt never ending. An odd choice of words to assign to a dwindling group of young students.

"Come on.....Come on!" Chase muttered with every chop and swing of his bow.

Shk--!

"Ack!"

Chase spun around in response to the sound of pain and found Brunson-- with a bloody hand and no weapon.

"I-It's just a graze, but my sword is gone...." He said fearfully while the Beetles bladed limbs sliced at his shield.

Slck!

"ACK!" In a flash, a sharp sting fell on his leg. One of the beetles behind him cut into his calf muscle, causing him to fall to his knee.

He got up swinging and in pain, but the understanding of their fate was settling in. More beetles spilled in from one of the pathways. Their Tank was unarmed, their Healer was lost and their source of information was being beaten to death.

"Dammit!....Dammit!" Chase thought before muttering an apology for his own part he played in their demise, "I'm so--"

Before he could finish his sentence, an odd sensation washed over him. His sweat.

The beads of sweat that ran down his face arms and legs were moving with a new found speed.....upwards.

The shimmering droplets of his sweat ran up his arms and legs to collect at his forehead. In an instant, they departed from him and changed in form as they floated in the air.

Under the light of the sun, the shimmering sweat straightened and developed a deadly point-- like a liquid spike.

FWOOO!

The spike of collected sweat and moisture flew through the air, ripping its way through the ring of Beetles in a liquid path of destruction.

The pressure of the horde lessened as the liquid spike landed in its final beetle and shredded it from the inside.

"What the hell was that?" Stacy questioned.

Chase shrugged, "I do--"

Fwoo!

Thunk!

His response was interrupted as an axe flew from the back entrance of the shadowy clearing and sunk into a nearby beetle, causing it to freeze, fall and shatter like glass in seconds.

The next source of offense from the entrance came in the form of a volley of arrows that flew over the raised hackles of a PitWolf with white-tipped fur along its haunches.

A wide smile appeared on Chase's once crestfallen face, "Wolfboy!!"

Claude ignored his greeting as him and the rest of his team emerged from the shadowy path and unleashed their own brand of violence on the rest of the horde.

"D-on't run.....Don't run....Don't run..." Warren mumbled at the back while he fired off arrows at the beetles and tried not to look at the Boss.

"You guys look like you needed some help." Isaac said before (Shoulder Charging) a clutter of living and dead beetles to retrieve Brunson's sword and throw it to him.

Claude and Ursula seemed to abandon english sometime on their way to him, instead letting their weapons, growls and feminine rage-filled roars fill the silence.

While they fought, Chase and Brunson found themselves slightly less panicked than before.

"Why are you all here?" Stacy asked from her spot on the ground.

"We heard you." Claude replied before lunging at a beetle and running it through with his sword and looking back at Chase, "Where is your Healer?"

Stacy suddenly looked ashamed, "Goren was running with me, we got split up by the Nightmare beetles on our way here and before I could leave to get him, we found....that." she replied while pointing a clawed finger at the Boss.

"Which way?" Claude asked with a stony expression.

The way all the Beetles are coming from...." She replied, pointing to the right side of the cave.

Claude growled, "Shit...Do you have anything that belongs to him?"

"Wha--"

"Any objects or things that he touches or is around often? If you have something that smells like him, I can track it." Claude interrupted with the a focused urgency.

Stacy racked her brain before painfully pulling out an extra wad of bandages, "These are his....."

In a rush, Chase grabbed them from her and tossed the bandages to Claude.

"Thanks..." He mumbled before using his sharpened canines to rip and strip off and save the rest for the group.

"Ok, we'll find him." He asserted while Frosty snorted in agreement next to him before they took off.

Chase was so taken by surprise that all he could do was smile-- seriously this time. The moment only lasted milliseconds before turning into a look of worry.

"Wait....what about the Boss rule?"

A feminine figure flew across his vision like a rushing wave of violence that crashed into a trio of Beetles ahead of him.

SHLCK!....SHNK!...SWIP!...

"The rule doesn't make any sense, so we're not following it." Maris said flatly as she rose from the freshly killed beetles.

Chase rolled his shoulders, now content with their situation, "Well, welcome to this Tangent's Boss battle then. Let's kill this shell wearing bastard."