Chapter twenty-nine - Splitting up Is Never a Good Idea!
"Do you have any idea how many there are?" Locke asked as he camouflaged himself.
"At least ten of them!" Tia replied.
"Um… maybe this is gonna be a little difficult, but with so many of them, I can certainly evolve! So let's face it!"
The Raijūs were soon over the area where Locke was hiding, there were ten in total, Tia had nailed it, their colors varied slightly, none of them had silver scales as Locke first target, they also had less metal rings surrounding theirs bodies, the metal was silver too, and the mana they emitted was slightly less than the first, they looked around as if looking for something.
"They must be after the fragment of sin, it seems to be something very important to them!" Tia commented.
Locke remained hidden, he was analyzing whether he should go after everyone of them or wait for a best chance, when he saw something that cheered him up.
"Ah! I don't believe it! Haven't you guys never seen a horror movie? splitting up is never a good Idea!"
The Raijūs were splitting up in pairs, going in various directions, searching, Locke was more excited than a dog in a sausage factory, he was trying to decide who would attack first when he realized that one of the pairs came down down to earth, analyzing the surroundings, the other Raijūs began to fly away, in their own search, the pair that stayed was interesting, one of them was a big Raijū with red scales, his mana was almost as big as Locke first target, his horns were also bigger and thicker, his partner was the smallest of all of them, with green scales and delicate horns, his mana was also the smallest of them all.
Locke approached slowly, the biggest one barely looking around, the impression Locke had was that he was irritated, as if his time was being wasted on a stupid activity, the other was more proactive, jumping from side to side analyzing the battle signs.
'Let's be quick! It worked well that time at the bar, I hope it works well now! 'Loque created two huge shadow spears, the magic made his camouflage disappear, Locke wasted no time and grabbed the spears, launching them with all his strength.
If the first time he used this movement the spear flew like a missile, this time the spears became nothing more than a flash of black, even Locke didn't imagine the damage they would do, the spear hit the green right in the middle of his body, leaving a perfect hole in his torso and killing him on the spot, the spear continued on its way lost on the horizon, the red seemed more agile than the silver, he tried to defend himself with the horns but the spear burst right into his horn, the creature was thrown away, one of its horns had been destroyed, along with half of its face, the creature screamed and began to create a sphere of golden lightning, but another spear hit its open mouth, destroying its head.
Locke ran and stored the bodies in the inventory, 'two are gone, eight to go!'
"The others are coming back!" Tia warned.
"Aye, aye, captain!" Locke joked. "So they can felt the death of their two little friends, which direction are the two closest ones coming from?"
"There!" Tia showed the way.
"Time to test the new movement!" Locke put both hands on his side, he created a powerful flame from his palms and soles, his body went up to the sky like a rocket, it was more difficult to control than Locke expected but it was enough for a improvised flight, from the sky he saw the two closest targets, the two were practically the same, both with scales of golden color and equivalent size.
Locke created a unidirectional shield in the air and stepped on it, using it like a platform, he created yet another spear.
"This whole fight will gona take a toll on my mana... i need to be more economical" Locke gave up on continuing the attack with the shadows spears, he couldn't spend a all that mana on each attack, he divided the spear into two shadows and prepared himself for a new approach, the two Raijūs are flying close enough for him put a new idea to work, death from above.
Locke calculated the exact moment and used the flames as a propelling force, he descended on them like a bird of prey with his arms crossed on his chest, holding the blades in both hands, Locke passed both creatures at the exact moment, moving his arms in an arc, decapitating both of them at the same time, the creatures did not even notice his attack.
Locke however did not calculate well the consequences of his new intricate technique, Newton's first law: a moving body tends to stay in motion, even though Locke tried to stop after hitting the creatures he didn't have much space left until the ground, the only thing he could do was to get involved in a shadow sphere.
The sphere crashed to the ground with force, lifting stones and dirt, forming a small crater. The damage was not serious but Locke did not come out unscathed, his body was all sore.
"Mental note: Don't do this again..." Locke spit some blood.
"Look out!" Tia screamed as she clung to Locke's hair.
Locke realized almost at the same time as she, he disappeared from the place using ethereal steps, a quarter of a second later a lightning bolt struck the place he was previously.
A second pair of Raijus, one blue and one orange were in sky, his appearance seemed infuriated.
"Sh*t! They arrived fast! I need to get this over with before it gets out of hand!" Locke kept moving, he was running towards the two corpses, ready to store them if he had to run away in a hurry, luckily both bodies didn't fall that far, but he didn't have time to search for they heads.
Locke appeared and disappeared during his run, each time his figure became visible the blue Raijū hit a lightning bolt in place, Locke tried to counter with a fireball but the orange Raijū raised an electric shield in defense of both.
"These two f*ckers are smart! One defends while the other attacks! It will not be easy to deal with these two!" Tia shouted.
'Damn it, I need a way to get these two assholes out of the sky!' An idea came to Locke's mind, he took the sphere with the glutton fragment from the inventory and held it up while shouting.
"HEY B*TCHES! ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THIS?" Locke sped towards the forest.
The sight of the sphere made the two monsters go berserks, the two began to scream while the frequency of attacks tripled.
Locke entered the forest at that moment, the two monsters were forced to give chase, the sight of the fragment had made them worried, If the human absorb the fragment their master would kill them.
It is clear that the two creatures did not lose their intelligence, they realized that Locke wanted to attract them to the forest, but both did not plan to be deceived so easily, both started to uproot the trees hitting them with lightning strikes.
The trees exploded with the attack barrade, throwing burnt wood, earth and rocks in all directions, both wanted to bring the forest down.
Locke took advantage of the creature's fury and used the wreckage in the air to hide, launching another shadow spear through the flying burned trees.
Just as he expected the orange to form a shield, Locke smiled.
The spear went through the shield and tore the creature, killing it on the spot.
"I spent half of my remaining mana on that blow, S*cker!" Locke scoffed. "Time to recharge!" He jumped towards the blue.
The blue Raijū noticed him and moving forward covered in electricity, trying to end Locke in this exchange.
Locke gritted his teeth in preparation for the pain that was to come, his eyes flashed gold as he activated Dragon Force.
Locke and the creature hit each other head on, Locke grabbed the Raijū knocking him down from the sky, electrical energy flowed through his body injuring him, but he didn't let go, he activated the spirit drain, Locke felt his mana increasing at the same time the energy running through his body.
"F**********CK! I HATE ELECTRIC SHOCKS! THIS SH*T HURTS, MOTHERF*CKER!" Locke remained clinging to the Raijū while the two fell, he used his superior strength to turn the creature's body over him, making the beast take all the damage from the fall, while draining the creature's mana with one hand Locke started punching the creature's face with the other, the Raijū tried to escape but Locke was too strong, his punches was breaking the monster's face, the monster tried to increase the force of the shock, but he realized that his mana was decreasing at an absurd speed and the force of his shock was getting weaker, he tried to condense the energy remaining in a sphere of lightning.
"Thanks but no thanks!" Locke realized the creature's intent, he was not in the mood to taste one of those golden lightning spheres right on his chest, he grabbed the creature by the horns and turned its head, breaking its neck.
Blood escaped from the creature's mouth as it tried to breathe with a broken neck, but Locke ended his suffering with one more twist.
"Four more to go!"
Locke kept the two new bodies in the inventory, he could feel that the others were on their way.
"You have about eighty percent of your mana right now! Make it worth it! I'm looking forward to the barbecue!" Tia commented.
Locke beggins to running into the middle of the forest, he felt that the other four Raijūs had reached the edge.
Camouflaged among the trees Locke smiled. "Come play children!"
The remaining four, one white, two green and one orange, did not enter the forest, it seems that the death of their brothers had worried them.
"What, are you guys going to back off now?" Locke was worried, are they going to run?
Then, suddenly, Locke had a bad premonition.
The four Raiju faced each other, all opened their mouths at the same time, each creating a golden sphere of energy.
"This is bad!" Tia screams, Locke jumped to the forest floor.
The four spheres beggins to merge in the air, growing, the four Raiju kept inserting magic, the sphere kept growing more and more.
"Fast! They are going to launch that thing!" Tia screamed, grabbing Locke's hair.
"Sh*t! Sh*t! Sh*t! Hold on! I had an idea!" Locke started to gather his shadows in his arms.
The massive sphere of golden electric energy was launched on the ground, exploding with extreme power, for an instant the world was painted in pure white.
Electricity swept the forest violently, spraying everything along the way, no trees remained standing.
Where there used to be a forest, now there was nothing, everything had been consumed. The four Raijūs descended from the sky at the same time, they had used up all the mana in this attack, they started looking around.
When the last of them touched the ground, the earth exploded beneath them.
Locke rose from the ground, covered with dirty, he had used a shadow drill to bury himself on the ground, covering himself with shadow armor and stacking unidirectional shields on top of the hole.
His defenses did not completely nullify the damage, but they were more than enough for him to survive.
He grabbed the creature in a sleep hold and crushed its neck.
The other three Raijus looked shaken, they refused to believe that their combined technique was not enough to kill a single human.
Locke wasted no time and used the creature's confusion, he launched the one he had just killed over the others, jumping at the same moment, he formed a single blade with the little mana that was left.
The blade was long and thinner, and Locke knew it would break if it hit the horns of one of the creatures, so he aimed it in the eyes.
He managed to complete the attack, deeply piercing the eye of the close one, he felt the blade break inside the creature's skull, Locke did not know if he was alive or not, the beast fell to the ground convulsing.
The other two invested in Locke with their horns, it seems that everyone was out of mana and the fight was reduced to pure violence.
Locke escaped the horns sharpened by a hair, he kicked the side of his body hard, throwing it into the distance. Taking advantage of the impulse Locke went straight to the other, he started to punch without stopping.
His fists hit the creature hard, Locke used all his agility to aim at the same point, crushing the creature's ribs, his hands dripped with blood, but he continued to attack, until his fist sank into the creature's chest.
The last Raiju, the one he had thrown away attacked him at that moment, knocking him to the ground, Locke managed to grab him by the horns, barely preventing them from drilling deep into his chest.
The creature was now on top of Locke, trying to pierce deeper and hit his heart with the middle horn while Locke was lying trying to push the beast for his lateral horns, he could feel the tip of the creature middle horn brushing against his heart.
Locke screamed with the full force of his lung, while squeezing the creature's head, he crushed the beast's skull into a mass of brain, blood and bones.
Locke lay for a few seconds, breathing deeply, he came close to dying this time, he felt that his heart was the most vulnerable part of his body, and a wound in his heart would be more dangerous than in any other part of his body.
He sat and looked around, only the Raijū who had had his eye pierced was still struggling, but it didn't seem to offer any danger, Locke stood up, he stepped on the neck of the dying creature and grabbed him by the horns, with a twist the beast gave goodbye to his suffering.
[Congratulations! The secret achievement: One man army has been completed! Please evolve to receive the rewards!]
"Look, there are even achievements now!" Locke scoffed.
Locke looked around, he was tired, sore and injured, but his harvest had been huge, he kept the bodies in the inventory, he took a piece of the previous meat and stuck it in his mouth, trying to recover at least some energy.
Locke didn't have the energy to run, so he walked towards the entrance to the rift, chewing the meat along the way.
"Dude, that was close, one more inch and you would die!" Tia commented.
The old ruined village had been completely destroyed, but Locke could feel the exit of the rift in the distance, Locke was just a few steps away from leaving when a white ray hit the exit, the force of the impact sent him flying into the distance.
Locke stood up and spat out a bit of dirt. "What the f*ck was that?"