Unlike most sound attacks, the soft melodies coming from the gentle ringing of the Charming Slate Boar were not cacophonous or destructive in volume. Most beasts using sound attacks would roar ferociously, release haunting howls, or violently smash the ground. Only the most lovely of birds might be using a similarly sweet set of sounds like this. It was quite the juxtaposition for this huge boar with stone-like skin and such vicious looking tusks to be creating soft charming tones. The huge boar shaking his head back and forth looked terrible, yet it created a pleasing set of sounds like a wind chime.
In the cage on their ‘side’, only Sage and the Discipline Keeper were Nascent Souls. Teacher Zhou and Teacher Gray were in the 5th rank while the Librarian was in the 4th. The Charming Slate Boar on the other hand was a peak tier 5 Demonic Beast and known to be quite deadly due to its sound based attacks. Keeper Deng outside the cage should be aware that the Charming Slate Boar wouldn’t be enough to kill the pair of Nascent Souls, but the indiscriminate sound attacks would be a very good weapon against the four students and even the two fifth rank teachers.
Rather than let Keeper Deng have his way, Sage stepped in to defend the weaker people. He already had a good sound defense technique that had proven itself useful against the leader of the Chong Clan. The two teachers had already stepped forward to defend the students, but Sage wasn’t sure they’d be strong enough. With the Soundshield in place, those inside could only hear a very faint tinkling. They felt their bodies weaken from the insidious energy carried by the soft sounds, but it wasn’t enough to do them true harm.
Sage leaned out of the bubble, “Focus on the Beast, I’ll handle the defense.”
Hearing his declaration, the Discipline Keeper took a second look at the condition of the weak students and finally seemed to relax. He rushed forward towards the huge boar, putting the club away and drawing out a sword sized cleaver. As they started to clash, tusk against cleaver, Sage turned away from Keeper Deng to prevent any reading of lips as he spoke, “Teachers, please keep watch of Beast Keeper Deng. I need to focus on protecting everyone, so please call out a warning if that villain does anything.”
The Timeless Eyes were powerful, but they could only be as powerful as his own eyesight. In a human form he could only look towards the Charming Slate Boar, or the Beast Keeper Deng. Whichever one he focused on would leave an opening for the other to act without restraint. Sage glanced back and forth between the boar and the bad guy who’d trapped them here, but that meant there were some gaps in his view of the future. Instead of seeing the full series of events that results from his actions, he could only glance back and forth, peeking at their future actions. He didn’t trust the vision of these two people who were a rank weaker than Beast Keeper Deng, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a few extra eyes. At the very least the gaze of the two would make the Beast Keeper a little more restrained.
The Discipline Keeper held the giant cleaver with two hands and attacked with two handed chopping attacks. He lifted the blade up over his head and then snapped it down in front of himself. The boar’s rhythmic chiming was interrupted by the chops of the huge cleaver. The blade knocked against the Boar’s tusks, sending small chunks of stone dust into the air. The Charming Slate Boar battled with him for a few rounds before realizing it was at a disadvantage in a direct confrontation. The big pig turned its tail and ran away. The Discipline Keeper wasn’t letting up on the assault so he hefted his huge blade onto a shoulder and chased after it. In the center of the area the group of eight watched as the stone fleshed boar was chased around by the man with a huge chopper.
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Sage looked over to Beast Keeper Deng, who was now furious. The Demonic Beast he released was simply running around in circles, chased by the Discipline Keeper over and over around the pen. These people were supposed to die, yet most of them were completely
untouched while the beast that should kill them was just running around in circles uselessly.
“Look out!”
Teacher Gray called out just as Beast Keeper Deng was reaching into the cage once again. Sage had already got a glimpse of what was coming, but he had still not reacted even when another beast appeared from the Keeper’s hand. A ten foot long scaly monster appeared in front of them. Beast Keeper Deng yelled and pointed as the monster appeared. It slowly spun around after receiving its instructions and upon turning to face them they could get a better look at what it was.
Its scaled body seemed crafted of soft white porcelain, yet each of the small scales were capped with a sharp spine and those spines were shiny and gold. The same could be said of the monster's teeth, each of them bearing a shiny golden point like they’d been capped with metal. Other than the unusual material, the body of this beast was shaped like a normal crocodile with only one exception. Its legs were at least fifty percent longer than normal and they were in an upright position instead of a horizontal one like other crocodiles or lizards. Instead of dragging its belly on the ground it supported its weight upon four thick legs.
Just then, a bundle appeared in Sage’s hand and he threw it out towards the big gator just as it started to run towards their group at the center of the pen. The bundle spread outwards from the spin he added to the throw and showed itself to be a huge net. This net fell over the scaly beast and tangled it up, causing it to stumble and roll onto the ground. Its huge jaws snapped a few times and the Steelsilk cables of the net were snipped apart. From how quickly the cables were breaking, the net wouldn’t last very long at all.
After throwing out the net, Sage stomped the ground, taking off at high speed towards the Charming Slate Boar. He’d waited a few moments for the crocodile to approach them just so he could reduce the distance between himself and the boar. The Soundshield following along with him and even the short moment of time when he moved from the center of the pen out to the Boar was enough to make the four students' ears bleed. Fortunately, they weren’t exposed to the chimes for long because the Soundshield isolated the attack within its area of effect. On the downside, that meant the full force of the sound attack was trapped inside with Sage.
The Discipline Keeper immediately understood Sage’s intentions and he altered his path to stop chasing the boar. Instead he leapt into the air and brought his big cleaver down on top of the croc before it finished escaping the net. There was a loud cracking noise like pottery being shattered combined with the painful scratching screech of metal on ceramic. The group of seven still at the center of the arena fell to their knees from the sudden ‘nails on chalkboard’ sound. None of them were injured, but it was jarring enough to make the knees of even a Core Formation Cultivator buckle momentarily.
The big croc broke free of the net, but only after sustaining a big hit from the Discipline Keeper. At the same time, Sage had engaged with the boar and blocked its sound attacks from hitting the others. The swap in foes had gone off quite smoothly.