Drake and Eve stood back to back, holding up their chipped and corroded swords. Tremors ran through their arms, having defended the continuous onslaught full-on.

The first four gators they had killed earlier were dwarves compared to the second wave of monsters that surrounded them.

Somehow the duo had incapacitated five more gandr-gators.

The fight had taken a toll on both level 50+ players. Their HP and MP had been halved. The legendary-tier swords, Almace and Heartspan, were on the verge of fracturing through the spines. Yet, the gandr-gator numbers kept getting replenished.

The smart thing to do was to escape. To survive. However, the team was enveloped. The reptilian monsters were fast enough to catch fleeing targets. That was a risk Drake was not willing to take.

Eve and the Ace could find an exit route if they pushed themselves. However, that would mean leaving Rin, Nadja, and Chad behind.

The young trio sat in a huddle at the center of the battlefield.

A translucent, glowing orb surrounded them. It was a magical barrier conjured by Rin, the mid-level mage. While she was not capable of legendary spells, the rookie had merely followed the instruction of her Ace. Drake had shared WhiteForce x1, a legendary-tier item, through the Trinity party system. It enveloped the caster in an impenetrable seven-foot radius sphere for fifteen minutes.

That did not discourage the gandr-gators. They were adamant. The creatures kept crashing into the barrier, landing heavy attacks on and on. Rin feared it was only a matter of time until they broke in.

The trio could fire attacks and spells at their assailants from within the circle. Their best attempts, however, barely landed scratches on the formidable gandr-gators.

Therefore, Rin, Nadja, and Chad focused on healing and passing on buffs to Drake and Eve while the duo fought.

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Krllllll!

One of the more giant gators sprinted at the sphere, jumped high into the air, and smashed into the WhiteForce.

Crack!

A fissure appeared on the surface of the barrier. "Oh, shit!" Rin exclaimed. She had fortified the magical barrier, but the gators were too strong. Chad and Nadja cowered in their positions, hoping that their seniors would rescue them soon.

"You know what we have to do now, right, Eve? There is no alternative," Drake declared, pausing to catch his breath. A trickle of blood ran down his face and dripped to the ground.

Still, the Ace had a devilish smile plastered across his mug. Perhaps he enjoyed himself when the odds were not in favor? He was, after all, a warrior, through and through.

"Remove our hybrid limiters?" Eve asked, parrying a gator claw. "What if we don't return to our normal selves after turning?"

"We will have to take that risk, sweetheart!" Drake fired an icicle bolt at an advancing gator. "At this rate, we may end up dead or worse, escape, leaving the kids behind!"

"I don't think the second option is acceptable to you, Drake! I know you would rather die than leave your team behind!"

Drake chuckled, swinging his sword and cutting through the scales of the icicle-riddled gator. The monster let out a shrill cry and collapsed. "It seems you know me very well, Eve!"

The girl let out a sarcastic laugh while shooting a frost attack at a prowling monster. "The rookies see you as an unforgiving and brutal man! But you have a soft core!"

"Well, if I eradicate these vermin, I'd like to show you my hard core tonight in bed!"

Eve giggled. "I never imagined I would say this, but I am actually looking forward to that! Let's crack open our limiters!"

Hyper-hybridization (Hh) of humans differed from regular race change into hybrids. The latter was simply to gain a few attributes and prolong life. Hh was a path-breaking advancement in gene transfer technology. It involved expensive and risky experiments carried out at Providence labs to breed super soldiers. Most subjects ended up dead. A few individuals with superior genes survived. Among them, only one or two retained their sanity. The subjects turned into feral beasts in exchange for overwhelming power, often losing their humanity. Drake and Eve, lucky survivors of such forbidden experiments, were instilled with gene limiters. It was to prevent them from spiraling into monsters.

"Let's show these fuckers who the real monsters are," Drake growled.