Activating stealth and gripping my sword, I run straight toward the light blue monster that's less than 200 meters away now.

My teammates have spread out on both sides of the circular sandy battlefield. High red stone walls surround the makeshift desert arena.

Fragments of golden sunlight glimmer off my fellow hunter's weapons as they charge forward. I watch the swaying monster before glowing blue and white with an ominous, slightly confusing aura. It stares straight ahead at the red rocky wall with its back facing me.

Each step closer I take, the cool and collected mana radiating off the beast invades my perception skill. At under 100 meters away, I can finally hear the ground shift under its feet as it moves back and forth.

Still, the monster hasn't noticed us at all.

Its shielding feels much different than anything I've faced before. Not strength wise though, that's not what perplexes me.

Usually, the shielding around monsters is thin and solid, like a skin-tight body suit fractions of a millimeter above their body's surface.

This monster's aura twists and swirls around, protruding multiple centimeters outwards on some portions of its body. Even so, there isn't a single area that I can detect a weakness.

The swirling energy makes for a much greater volume of shielding, but the amount of MP stored in it is incredibly high... Astronomically high actually. To put a rough estimate on it, over 50k MP is somehow swirling around this beast's body. This makes the density on par with the thinner shielding of other monsters I've faced at its equivalent level.

It is odd, but this is not the most important detail for me. I'm almost positive I can take its head off in a single blow, I'm more curious about how my teammates with fair against it. This will be a solid test monster what the trials ahead. I'll let each of them land a hit before I go in for the kill.

I watch the 3 of them veer in from my left and right side, beginning to glow with their respective skills.

We're less than 30 meters away now and the monster hasn't changed its movement patterns at all...

It really hasn't noticed us.

Arie's bow glows bright white while Maria and Abby glow blue and green with their weapons at the ready.

The archer is the first to release his shot.

A thin white spirit arrow glides towards the back side of the light blue Ogre's head timing the trajectory of the slowly swaying movements.

It... actually didn't notice....

The arrow pierces the outer layer of swirling mana shielding with ease. Then, everything changes.

On impact, the shielding beings to waver and ripple. I even see the white and blue edgy react with the sensation of a miniature splash. It pushes out a shock wave of light blue mana followed by an impressive explosion of light.

For the fraction of a second that we're blinded, I feel the odd wave of energy pass through me. Then hear a ferocious roar.

It doesn't hurt... but it's a very familiar sensation. One that I haven't felt in quite a while.

It feels like my All-See Eye. The wave of dense mana expands outwards in a dome shape, surrounding the entire arena for 50 meters in all directions with a light blue tint.

This monster is using some kind of mana-pulsing ability for a makeshift perception skill.

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I grin through a clenched jaw and keep running forward, now charging my sword up and watching Maria and Abby both release their attacks.

Two green crescents of energy come out of Abby's daggers while a royal blue shimmering light comes from Maria's sword.

The Orge is mid-turn as it's hit at point-blank range with these three attacks.

There's another loud bang and flash of white, blue, and green light as another dome-like shock wave is forced through all of us.

I run forward to make my move.

The shelling around the monster is still vibrating and rippling from its last barrage. It seems all 3 of my teammate's attacks made it through, but this monster recovers its footing quickly.

I see a chunk of flesh missing in the back of its head from Arie's arrow, and multiple gash wounds in its torso from the mages.

Not bad, but not good enough. It would take another 5 or so attacks from each of them to take this monster out. Those were cheap shots too, totally unguarded.

The monster is in full battle mode now, but its level of shielding hasn't changed at all. It seems its always on full blast.

The Blue Ogre begins to raise its heavy club as I run forward still using my stealth ability. I watch its eyes dart back and forth quickly, then lock onto my exact location.

The massive monster lifts its club to block even before I release my attack...

I charge up 1500 MP and let a dense wave of fire fly straight for its neck.

Even with this odd perception ability, it's a bit too slow, the black crescent of mana glides just half a meter over the rising club and approaches its unguarded neck.

On impact with its shielding, instead of gliding straight through, it ripples like water sending out another shock wave.

I hear a sharp and concise buzz as the blade moves all the way through its body.

As it comes out the other side, I hear a familiar ringing in my inner ear.

[Level Up]

"Instant Kill."

Just like that, it's dead.

All four of us land to the ground and the dust settles. We're left in the silence of night and the sun finally falls below the horizon like it was waiting for us to finish.

That wasn't a hard fight, but there are a lot of unanswered questions I'd like to figure out once we enter the real break.

What's with that thick shielding, and the shock waves...?

Maybe I'll have an easier time examining it once I face more. This was just the first one outside the dungeon, it's better to kill the first few quickly to make sure they don't have any more hidden moves or special lethal abilities.

In mid-thought, the corpse of the massive Blue Ogre falls backward with a thud and its head rolls to my feet.

Maria is the first to shout out, staring to me.

"I didn't know that thing was so strong! Let me face one alone next round! Will ya?"

I place my sword into my storage and cross my arms.

"As a team, they'll be no problem. Solo, they will be tougher, but worth it for the levels and data we can collect. I'm really curious about these beasts, to be honest. I'd like to see each of you fight one."

Arie nods and butts in.

"Yeah that monster took a direct hit the other back of the head from me and survived. I'd like to watch them in action to find a weak spot too."

Abby powers down her skills.

"Yeah, but we should face them in the dungeon. The more of these we can actually get item drops from the better. Those rare crafting items I read about, the Association paid multiple gold for every one of them. They must be really valuable. I'd... like to see what exactly they are."

I nod.

"Me too.... So let's conserve our energy for the real fights in the break. We'll avoid any that are lurking in the mountains. There aren't any villages out here to protect, so it doesn't really matter if they roam free. All of them will dissolve once we take out the Boss."

There's a unanimous agreement, and we leave the dead Ogre corpse to rot out in the desert. It'll also dissolve instantly once the break is taken care of, so there's no point in lugging it around if we don't have to.

The 4 of us get back on our camels and continue into the night.

I keep a small flame ignited to light up the night as we move forward and Arie points a half-charged arrow to light up the path before him as well. The stars are beginning to shine from the black sky and the moon lets off a low white glow, but extra light is more comfortable for our travels right now.

I expand my All-Seeing Eye out to a much greater range to find exactly what we're looking for.

The further into this portion of mountains we travel, the more common these Blue Ogres become. They are rather spread out though, over the next few kilometers only half a dozen of them show up. Each one of them is level 435-445. So, either these are all mutants or this break is much higher level than any of us first expected it to be.

Every mob we pass is calmly minding their own business in the cool night, swaying back and forth while emanating an odd blue glow.

About 45 more minutes of quick-paced riding passes, and we successfully weave our way through a portion of mountains to avoid every monster.

Using my perception and enemy detection skills, I locate the final mountain we've been looking for. Pointing forward with a flaming hand, I speak up.

"The dungeon is less than a kilometer ahead now, it's just up this last mountain path. We have a clear shot, there's no monsters in sight... It may sound too good to be true, but we've made it to the break."