The monster leaped over the high walls with beauty and nimbleness, landing softly right in front of us, snarling with its piercing gaze. I could tell it was trying to intimidate us with its sheer size, but that wasn’t going to work on us. Sure, we were scared at first, but you have to overcome that feeling when you’re preparing to fight, or else your chances of dying skyrocket.
“Alright, Clifford! This place here will be your tomb!” I removed my crystal blade from the Inventory while glaring at the beast.
“Clifford? Did you name this guy Clifford? Like, the dog?” Sophie looked a bit bemused that I’d already given this thing a name.
“That’s not important right now. First off, are you going to fight that thing at close range? Aren’t you at a disadvantage?”
“W-Well, I figured that I should save my mana for later, just in case so… Yes I’m fighting in close-range,” she stammered.
Well, I don’t know how she’ll manage, but it should be fine since I’m here.
“Alright, so here’s the game pla-“
Before I could tell Sophie the strategy, the dog became too impatient while waiting for our move, so it decided to strike first. Instead of going after Sophie who was the closest, it went after me instead. It might be because of what Sophie mentioned before about it being attracted to mana and whatnot. I guess I’m sort of like a lighthouse shining brightly at the edge of an ocean.
“You want me, huh? Good luck catching me then!” I propelled myself upwards and hovered in the sky, safely out of the dog’s reach. At least, I thought I was safe until this behemoth jumped up to me and reached my height effortlessly. It opened its mouth wide, intent on swallowing me whole, but I just moved sideways to avoid becoming its dinner.
“Nice try! If you’re so hungry, then eat this!”
Five icicle spears materialized right over its head. I launched the five spears directly at the dog while it was still descending. Not even that dog will be able to leave unscathed at this height! Eat that you dumb mutt!
Contrary to what I thought, the beast did manage to leave unscathed. One of the monster's head's eyes glowed orange as the fur on its head stuck up like a spiky porcupine. It unhinged its jaw and released a loud bark that completely disintegrated my spears. Not only was my spear attack nullified, but the glass from the lights and the skybox around the stadium were shattered.
I stared at the dog, wide-eyed. “What the hell? Was that some kind of a supersonic attack?”
The dog was now back on Earth, this time its attention was not on me, but somewhere else. Knowing that it cannot reach me that easily, It decided to look for a new target: Sophie. Before, while the dog was falling, Sophie was dashing at it, waiting for it to come down so she could attack it.
“…!”
Clifford sped toward Sophie, a deep, guttural sound emitting out of it, as if showing its dominance against a creature much smaller than it is. Sophie stopped running at the beast and stayed put, ready to move at a moment’s notice.
"Hmph! If an icicle spear doesn’t work, then how about some lightning instead!"
After I descended and landed on the turf, I summoned a small cloud of lightning and struck each head. The left head cocked its head back and gave me an annoyed look while the other had its sights on Sophie.
Ice and lightning don’t work on this thing? It has an attack that negates my icicle spears, but it's also resistant to lightning. With that in mind, it's safe to assume that fire won’t work either. What else is this thing hiding… I should find that out soon. I’ll just use my sword for now.
As I ran toward the dog, Sophie was in the middle of dodging the beast’s attacks. With every swipe, she would either jump backward or use her fists to redirect its paw. Sophie was patiently defending while looking for a chance to counterattack with minimal injuries. In just a couple of seconds, I was right on the dog’s hind rear. I jumped on top of the black dog's back, its fur still spiky from the electricity. Its fur was smooth but prickly. It also smelled really bad, almost like sweaty, wet socks left out in the sun.
“GRRR!”
The left head noticed that I was on its back and alerted its other head which was focused on Sophie. It shook its body around rapidly, trying to forcefully toss me aside. I had a fistful of its fur in my hands, hanging on for dear life as I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“SOPHIE! IT’D BE GREAT IF YOU WOULD HELP, JUST SAYING!”
“Just give me a second, jeez…” I heard her grumble. Sophie gathered mana into her fists as she ran to the monster’s rightmost leg. The fighter cocked her arm back and threw a powerful punch at its leg.
“AWOOOOO!”
It howled in pain as it felt the full force of Sophie's punch. With even more strength, it managed to finally toss me aside. But as I was falling, I managed to inflict a wound on its skin just before I was out of reach with my sword. As for Sophie, just when she could unleash another blow to the same leg, the dog finally landed a hit on her, swiping her away with its other leg. Sophie was then sent flying in the opposite direction, tumbling across the grass for a second, and then regaining her balance by sticking her hands into the ground. She blew a lock of hair away from her eyes as the hair tie she had was gone.
“That was rude…”
The beast growled in frustration, probably mad that its food was putting up a fight. It paced around the stadium in a limp, keeping both of us in its sight, a head reserved for each of us. I quickly caught up to Sophie and gave her a hand to hoist her up.
“Notice that it's limping? The damage you dealt earlier worked. Let’s keep it up,” I reassured.
“I don’t think it’ll fall for the same trick twice. It’s an intelligent monster.”
“Even though it's intelligent, we’re smarter. As they say, two heads are better than one.”
Sophie squinted at me and said, “They have two heads too.”
“You know what I meant. We’ll attack from different angles. You ready?”
Sophie nodded her head while adjusting her gauntlets. The wolf sensed that we were getting to attack and proceeded to growl even louder, raising it by several decibels.
“Uh, what’s it doing?” asked Sophie.
“I have no idea.”
Whoosh…
A gentle breeze wafted through the air. Every time the dog barked, the breeze would grow stronger, transforming what seemed to be a simple breeze, into a gust, and so on and so forth. This thing was obviously causing this sudden change in wind speeds. For as long as I’ve been back on Earth (which is only an hour or two), there was no wind present.
“This dog can manipulate air pressure? Wonderful...” Sophie muttered.
So, it can release a supersonic attack that can shatter glass and ice, and it can manipulate air pressure? That’s a dangerous combination!
While I was deep in my thoughts, the dog monster let out one final bark toward us, releasing the air pressure it was building up. Sophie and I knew that it would be dangerous if we were hit by its air attack so instead of blocking it with our bodies, which is stupid, we just jumped out of its range. What we didn’t account for was how fast it actually was! I barely managed to dodge the blast as it ripped through some parts of my clothes, specifically my arm. Due to my masteries, I only felt a slight sting. When I glanced behind me, curious about how much damage that thing caused, there was a gaping hole where the stadium seats were usually at. The dog monster’s air attack was able to crush through metal and steel.
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“Yep, it was a good call to dodge that. Even though I have good durability, that would still hurt! You good over there Sop-” When I glanced over at Sophie, most of her armor was shredded, revealing skin that was light pink from the impact.
“I’m alright… It’s just a scratch.” The woman twirled her arm around, making sure it wasn’t damaged. “I activated [Muscle Strengthening] just in time so the damage was minimal. It still stings though…”
[Muscle Strengthening]? Judging from the name, I guess your durability and strength are increased. It works similarly to how I make my own body stronger using [Energy Manipulation]. Hold on… Shouldn’t I have that mastery if I do the same thing? Maybe it's already included in [Energy Manipulation] and it doesn’t need a new name.
“I’m glad you're fine. Don’t want you dying on me. Anyways, that dog is keeping its distance from us, which means it’ll probably spam that air pressure attack. Maybe it’ll add in its supersonic too.”
“I’ve noticed that too,” Sophie agreed. “We’ll just have to bring ourselves over there instead if it won’t come to us.”
Hmm… It’ll be bad if it relies on long-range attacks. I can’t beat it in that category since it’s resistant to my lightning and probably fire too. It can also use supersonic to nullify my ice so there’s that. What else can I do in this situation…
“Oh!” An idea just hit me. If this thing won’t come to us as Sophie said, then there’s one thing I can do…
“I got a plan. I want you to rush that thing and pummel it to your heart's content. While you do that, I’ll make sure it doesn’t use the supersonic and air pressure attack.”
Sophie tilted her head sideways. “And how will you pull that off, exactly?”
“With my magic of course. Trust me on this.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow at me for a moment and then sighed as she looked over to Clifford. “I’ll leave it up to you then. Don’t let me get hit now…”
With those last words, Sophie took a deep breath and sprinted toward the beast.
“Don’t worry about that…”
Alright, it's time to get to work. Stopping its air pressure attack is easy with [Energy Manipulation]. Air has weight, and the more pressure there is, the higher the mass. When pressure builds up, so does the temperature which would explain why Sophie's skin was a light pink color. If I follow that logic, that would mean there’s a build-up of energy, and that dog releases all that energy to us. As long as it's not stronger than I am, I can easily use that to my advantage.
The dog was preparing for another one of its air pressure attacks. Another thing I noticed is that the right head is the one that always releases the air pressure attack and not the left. It’s highly possible that the heads cannot use the same power interchangeably with each other.
“BARK!”
When Sophie was a few meters away, the dog released another one of its wind attacks. Sophie, placing her trust in me, didn’t look back and kept charging. I raised an arm and focused my mind. As I took control of the beast’s air pressure attack, all I would think of was spreading the energy. Since I could not create nor destroy energy itself, I had to relocate the energy elsewhere.
I tried creating and destroying energy before like the idiot I was and it led to intense headaches and a lot of blood being thrown up and coming out of places I thought were impossible. It was so bad I was bedridden for a few weeks as my sister nursed me back to health with an agitated expression most of the time. Truly one of my darkest moments, and most enlightening. It was a good thing Solgen teleported us to a place where I could get medical treatment.
My thought process worked as the air pressure decreased to only a small breeze, just barely enough for Sophie's hair to be swept away. Clifford let out a low whine, probably wondering why its attack was so weak. From back here, I could see Sophie smirking as she jumped high into the air, her body leveled with the dog’s head, and delivered a fierce punch to its jaw. Both heads cried out in pain as it was knocked to its side. Sophie calmly landed right in front of it, her body glowing with power. The dog tried to swipe the woman away as it struggled to get up, but Sophie easily jumped over its outstretched leg and landed another punch. A lot of fangs were spat out from its mouth as it yelped.
“…This is my chance now,” I thought. Now that it's distracted, it won’t be able to destroy my icicle spear!
While running toward the monster, I summoned two icicle spears reserved for each head and cast them downwards. The dog’s attention was still focused on Sophie, so it hadn’t noticed the ice spears hurtling toward them.
“Jackpot! And now they’re dead!”
Celebrating too early was one thing I shouldn’t have done. I thought it hadn’t realized the spears were about to impale their heads, but I was sorely mistaken. At the same time, both heads craned their heads to avoid the kill shot all while the right head released another air pressure attack, and it was at point-blank range to Sophie.
“The fuck? I didn’t know it was charging up!” Hastily, I tried my best to minimize the attack before it could hit Sophie, but I was a little late. I’ve only managed to halve it instead of completely nullifying it.
“...!”
Sophie was hit by the brunt of the attack as severe winds ravaged the surrounding area. A large cloud of dirt was formed, veiling both Sophie and the beast within. From my view, I couldn’t tell what the hell happened inside. So, instead of running with my legs, I decided it was faster to fly over to the scene instead.
“SOPHIE! Can you hear me?”
I yelled out her name repeatedly, listening closely for any signs of reply. Without thinking, I dove straight into the cloud, shielding my eyes from the flying particles. I searched around desperately for Sophie, hoping that she wasn’t eaten or killed by the dog monster. In the corner of my eyes, a small shadow appeared, showing the silhouette of a human that was standing. I ran over to the figure while shouting.
“Oh thank god you’re fine! I didn’t think it was charging its atta-“
My voice trailed as I saw black fur from beyond the dirt cloud. Thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me, I went ahead to get a closer look. As the dust cleared, I could hear shallow, ragged breathing coming from an animal. And then, I was greeted with Clifford laying on its side, one of the heads nowhere to be seen. There was a lot of blood in the area, with two basketball-sized eyeballs sitting on the pool of red liquid. The creature was whimpering as its tail drooped, its tongue sticking out of its mouth. I almost felt bad for the monster as it was experiencing tremendous pain.
“…Did you do this, Sophie?” I asked the woman. Her upper-body armor was beyond recognition, her black sports bra being the only piece of cloth on her chest.
“Who else would do this other than me?” She was breathing hard as the red glow around her body dimmed. “Thanks to you, my masteries, and my armor that can resist up to twenty psi of force, I was able to deliver the final blow to the monster just as it released its attack. I had to soldier through the pain since I couldn’t ignore this opportunity.”
“…”
I had to turn my head away from Sophie since I couldn’t stop staring at her well-toned body. Looks like this beast isn’t the only dangerous thing around these parts…
“W-Well first things first!” I stammered, hoping to hide my embarrassment. “We put Clifford out of its misery.”
I formed another icicle spear just above the beast’s eye. It made no attempt to escape as it stared down the spear with sadness.
“Nope. Not falling for those puppy-dog eyes!” I brought down the spear, puncturing through its eye and stabbing its brain. The dog let out one final yelp, and after a few moments, it was silent.
“Phew! Glad that’s over…” I wiped my forehead from the sweat that was piling up. “Well then! I think its ti-“
Beep!
“Hm?”
Suddenly, a blue screen emerged in front of my eyes showcasing a sentence I’d never read from it before.
[Congratulations on defeating the first ever C-Rank Monster!]
[Participants in the fight include: Isaac and Sophie.]
[Calculating rewards…]
…What the hell is this? This has never shown up ever!
As if that wasn't confusing enough, another screen showed up in front of my eyes. Instead of words, this time it was a holographic video feed. What was in the video showed a man with black, flowing hair that was curled. He had a handsome face that had an aquiline nose and stubble on his chin. He also had earring accessories that had the design of a teardrop that was half-black and white.
"Ahem... Greetings!" Even though he sounded excited, he had a blank expression, almost as if his enthusiasm was fake.
"I know you're all confused and in disarray after your planet is being overrun by monsters at the moment, but fear not! The portals will be closing soon! The red crystal is just about putting on the finishing touches!" He said proudly. While I didn't recognize this man- deep down I felt a sense of rage and sorrow swirling within my heart, threatening to burst forth...
"Isaac, are you seeing this right now?" Sophie asked beside me.
"Yea... even though I don't like this dude already, we should probably listen closely."
"Right..."
"I don't want to take up your time, so I'll make this quick. What's happening right now is the true conversion of Earth and Athiens. Both planets will be combined into one to create the perfect lab we have envisioned for centuries. Once the crystal has finished its job, that will be when the true purpose of these powers you mortals have gained will come into use for you!"
The true purpose of our powers? What the hell is he going on about? Wait a minute... How does he know about the combination of Earth and Athiens, and the crystal? Also, is he addressing everybody at the same time? The way he speaks and conducts himself... his smug smile... the information he presented... Is he who I think he is?!
"Ah, my time is up. I will give you a piece of info. If you thought what you're experiencing right now is hell, then this is only the beginning. Good luck to all of you mortals... and remember, we, the Pillars, are watching you..."
The man chuckled to himself as the screen in front of us disappeared. At the same time his speech was done, the red light coming from space grew even brighter. It was like watching an atomic bomb being detonated in space. The ground trembled as the portals that seemed to have been forming endlessly all vanished simultaneously. The red light was so glaring that I had to shut my eyes and curl into a ball or else my eyeballs would be fried.
"SOPHIE, GET DOWN," was all I could shout as the whole planet shook from its new transformation.
[Conversion of Earth and Athiens 99.9% complete!]