Su'ong ran a hand through her hair and pulled a gleaming silver spear from out of midair. Noticing Alan staring, she gave him a tight smile. “Class Weapon.“ She said casually, brandishing it back and forth in a slow arc, loosening up in preparation of the coming attack. “This fuzzy horned rodent is an Almiraj.“ The tip of her spear pierced the dead beast she'd tossed on the floor with what seemed to be zero resistance and lifted it up above her head.
“It seems we are dealing with an entire hoard of these weaklings, so I would suggest you move your ass and draw a weapon of your own,” she said, awkwardly roaring in challenge while flinging the deceased Almiraj out into the grass as both an impressive display of disrespect and a message to the rest of its kin. Spear held out, and a hand on her armored hip, she struck a quick pose and gave Alan a goofy smile.
She… really enjoys this. Alan realized, having never seen this side of her put on display. It was honestly kind of sexy. All decked out in gleaming blue armor, her silver hair dancing on the wind. If not for the fact that she was suddenly making a weird face and shaking her empty fist in mock anger, she would've looked like a true and respectable general on the field.
“Was that really necessary?“ Alan asked, giving her his best innocent face as the Roc, now apparently named Teyr, screeched out in agreement and began to darken, losing definition as it activated its Core Skill. Alan couldn't be sure why, but he had a pretty strong feeling that damned bird wasn't agreeing with him.
For a moment, Alan considered pulling his daggers, yet as he stared down at his elongated, clawed hands, he realized that perhaps he could use this situation as a way to progress his Class Skills. He could feel [Light Weapon Mastery] tingling the pathways in the back of his mind, urging him to take advantage of the fact it had assimilated [Unarmed Combat Utilization].
An overwhelming urge to tear his foes limb from limb settled over Alan's shoulders like a comfortable cloak.
Following his instincts, Alan pushed back against the Skill's demands, took a defensive stance and made a quick withdrawal from inventory. He wasn't sure what was causing the hidden beasts to hesitate, but regardless of how eager he was to go hands on, he wasn't about to miss out on a perfect opportunity to break their spirits first.
Alan said seriously. With no time left to wait for a response, Alan threw the first of his remaining four Shadow Shurikens straight ahead, just passed the perimeter of the clearing. Alan grimaced as a chorus of high frequency screeching drowned out the sound of countless hidden bodies rustling the grass. The Shuriken worked like a charm. It halted the Almiraj on their left flank, but three sides were still open to attack. A one minute timer was already counting down on the Shadow Shurikens lifespan, he knew that if he were to keep himself and Su'ong from being overrun, there wasn't any time to gloat.
In a bid to minimize access to their small clearing-turned-ambush point and create four spaced out and easily defendable pathways, Alan threw another shuriken into the field on his left, and another to his right.
Alan turned around and threw the last of his Shadow Shurikens at the quivering wall of grass, almost hitting the exact spot where he first entered the clearing. As he surveyed his handiwork, Teyr zipped by overhead in a blur of darkness manifest that cut a path straight through the seething mass of misshapen shadow hands that were keeping the Almiraj on his left at bay.
What Alan first assumed to be a mistake on Teyr's part quickly turned to stunned silence on his. Something about the Roc's Core Skill seemed to harmonize with whatever Elemental material the shadow hands were cast from, allowing it to phase through any hand that it came into contact without damaging itself, or the many hands it would've otherwise tangled up or destroyed.
The plump horned rabbits clutched in their grasp weren't so lucky. In the midst of being repetitively lifted above the grass and then slammed to the ground, one fuzzy brown body after another disappeared in a cloud of red mist and pulped organs that the uncaring hands drove into the floor over and over. As Teyr turned to make a second pass, splatters of blood had already begun to fall across the clearing like rain.
It was far more effective than he imagined. When the first of the Almiraj hoard burst into the clearing through one of the four thin spaces that were still accessible, they did so while forced to dodge the unforgiving hands of death that flailed about in all directions. Many made it through, only to be grabbed from behind and dashed repeatedly to the floor.
Sighting the largest of the few that were either brave or stupid enough to make it through the deathtrap safely, Alan took the opportunity to activate [Appraise].
Level 7 Velvet Almiraj Hp: 138/138 (Highest Stat: 16 Agility)
Stunned by the growing chaos around him, Alan watched in awe as Su'ong sprinted back and forth, slaughtering anything that escaped the churning mouths of the narrow funnels that had already formed between shadow arm clouds. At some point she had dismissed her spear, instead choosing to wield the Tortoise Scale tower shield. She had a firm grip on the bottom edge and was clearly defying physics as she used her tiny arms to whip it around like a seven foot tall club.
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To Alan's eyes, she may as well have been wielding a bathtub.
It was immediately obvious that these creatures had shit for defence and were likely specialized in Agility or Perception. The only thing keeping them in the fight was that they were surprisingly quick to dodge. A few of the fatter ones even seemed to be able to manifest a small patch of soil midair that they used to leap out of the way at the last moment.
In spite of their determination, it seemed their tactics were only delaying the inevitable. For each Almiraj that managed to escape her wrath, three more weren't so fortunate. Each swing saw several beasts splattered across her shield like bugs on a windshield.
Less than a minute had gone by, and already notification after notification were pouring in. With Su'ong focused on the openings to his right and the one behind, and Teyr covering the widest channel on the clearings left side, Alan faced the pack of eight or so that had broken through the line directly ahead at the far side of his hastily erected, but remarkably effective defensive perimeter.
Energy flooded the node containing [Light Weapon Mastery], bringing it to life with a thought, filling his field of vision with slightly altered HUD-like display than the one he had previously experienced. Due to utilizing [Light Weapon Mastery] unarmed, the effects of [Unarmed Combat Utilization] were integrated into the activation and those of [Throw Weapon] remained dormant. Instead of seeing blue lines that indicated the enemies trajectories to allow for enhanced prediction and aiming capabilities, the area in front of him was suddenly filled with angry red lines that he immediately understood signified his enemies line of sight.
As if the tightly grouped cluster of unicorn-rabbits could feel Alan watching, they all turned to look right at him. A sudden twinge of danger from his left forced him to take a step backwards just in time for a gleaming blue spiraled horn, accompanied by the blurred shape of a fat brown body, to pass right by his exposed throat. The horn was so close to his face that Alan could see light glinting on the tip.
Guided by an arc of blue light streaking outward from his right hand, and a golden footprint materializing on the ground, Alan allowed his body to follow [Light Weapon Mastery]'s instructions. Pivoting his hips, Alan slammed his left foot down directly on the golden marker, placing himself in the perfect position to sweep his right arm, claws fully extended, in an uppercut that traced the blue line that was now passing through the ballsy Almiraj's abdomen.
Alan's target landed on a patch of dirt that materialized in midair and tried to leap to the left. The beast was putting its all into making a last ditch effort to escape the approaching attack. It was too late. The manifested earth exploded into a cloud of dust on impact. It was enough to slightly alter the the trajectory of his hand, yet it wasn't enough to stop him from tearing through the rabbits hindquarters. One spring-like rear leg was severed entirely, the other slashed so deep that it was rendered useless.
His first instinct was to do as [Light Weapon Mastery] demanded, and follow up with a decisive death-blow. All he needed to do was take four steps to his left where the crippled beast tumbled to a stop, and slam his foot down on the golden target that had just appeared on the back of its head. It was hard to restrain himself, but when taking into account that a simple mistiming would see his foot impaled in a vicious-looking pointed horn, he focused instead on the swarm of at least ten Almiraj that had followed their now-crippled companion in breaking through Teyr's defenses.
With ten pissed off rabbits on his left, more than that on his right, and who the fuck knew how many waiting in the grass, Alan knew that he needed to switch things up. Those Shadow Shurikens weren't going to last forever. A glance towards the fallen tree in the middle of the clearing revealed the reason for his sudden attacker. Teyr had apparently decided to take a break. Having already put its Core Skill to use, the bird had reverted to normal, and now ran the risk of getting pulled out of the air by one of the few remaining shadow hands.
Shit! Times up… It was nice while it lasted, but the Shadow Shurikens had reached the end of their duration.
More and more Almiraj were breaking through now that Teyr was no longer able to hold back the tide, leaving Alan to do as Su'ong had been doing over on her side this whole time; deal with his entire half of the clearing. It was time to pick up the pace. Right as the first of the rabbits were upon him, Alan Activated {Mirage Step} and reappeared in the midst of the rearmost beasts. So focused were they on Alan's afterimage that the distracted Almiraj didn't even notice him until they were already broken and bleeding out and it was too late to fight back.
Incoming notifications were dismissed with a thought as Alan once more utilized {Mirage Step} to avoid being surrounded. He was starting to feel woozy, and was forced to deactivate [Light Weapon Mastery] to conserve strength. Suddenly unable to see his enemies target lines, he was forced to rely on his fickle danger sense and his heightened Perception to avoid being taken out at the knees.
It didn't help that his next warning of imminent danger led Alan to avoid being impaled in the chest only to leap back and stumble over the writhing form of that legless Almiraj he had failed to finish off. Growing agitated, he did as he should've to begin with and drove his foot through the damned things spine, receiving a notification stating that the maimed beast had kicked the bucket at precisely the same time that an unexpected impact slammed into his lower back prompting another notification to pop up.
The beast's weight and momentum were both focused into its horn, and he failed to see the attack coming. While it was sufficient to knock him slightly off balance, not only did it fail to penetrate his Class Armor, but it hurt far less than he would've expected. Alan turned, whipping his tail at his attacker but was shocked when all he found was a plump furry body whose head was cocked to the side at an impossible angle. The single-minded Almiraj had struck him so hard that it's neck snapped in the collision.
Realizing that perhaps he was going about this the wrong way, Alan strode confidently across the clearing. He used his body as a meat-shield, not even bothering to avoid taking damage, letting attacks land just to get his enemies in close enough that he could land a counter. Blows landed from all sides, hitting him again and again. However, any rabbit that was foolish enough to approach met a swift, and messy end on the edges of his claws.
As far as Alan could tell, as long as he kept those horns out of his eyes, these overgrown rabbits posed no real danger to him.
A small screen appeared in Alan's vision as he activated [Left Eye of Echidna]. He selected [Pain] and closed his right eye, dropping his guard completely, instead choosing to focus on groups of clustered up Almiraj. The Racial Skill made it feel like his brain was boiling in his skull, but any enemy he laid eyes on collapsed into a fit of violent siezures so it was a worthwhile trade.
Head already pounding, Alan zigged and zagged, remorselessly driving his claws into one disabled foe after another.