Before anyone could comment, a terrible noise ripped through the surroundings. Everyone looked in the direction it came from and rushing out of the forest battering large trees out of the way like they were twigs. The Crystalline Gigant Bear had noticed the fight and was angrily making its way towards them.

“Incoming!” Damon yelled, helpful as always Tisha could not help ruminate on the man’s tendency to state the obvious. Though that trait of his could be useful at times.

“Don’t worry, chicks, I’ll handle it.” Olga was clearly itching to test out the strength she gained in the last fight.

The bear roared ferociously once more as it broke out of the tree line in a rage. They were not going to be able to avoid combat this time, the creature had clearly deemed them a danger that needed eliminating.

Damon gulped as the monster closed in on them, it was too fast and he was not going to be able to get away in time. An enlarged nail sailed above him straight at the creature at incredible speeds point first, the bear smashed it aside with considerable force causing it to drill into the ground for a few meters before coming to a stop.

“Hahahahaha.” Moments later Olga ran at it with blazing speeds.

The bear turned towards her all eyes focusing on the large woman. As she closed the distance the monster rose to its hind legs lifting its front paws in the air before slamming down with incredible power. Olga did not dodge.

She took the attack head on, arms up to intercept the car sized arms of the creature. A boom rocked the surroundings like multiple bombs had gone off in unison. The debris strewn everywhere causing Tisha and the others to cover their eyes.

“GRRRRRRRRR!” It growled in irritation as its prey was in fact not smashed to a pulp, instead glancing up at it a manic grin on her face.

Olga threw its arms aside forcing the monster to briefly lose it footing as it spun around before going through a ferocious set of swipes. Olga was forced on the back foot as this time she respected the danger those ridiculous large and sharp claws represented and took to dodging and parrying away its arms.

The sharp claws turned trees into sushi and carved out the ground, on occasion putting nicks into Olga’s body. Tisha wondered why the woman had not used her Artifact yet again it would make her far more lethal in this fight. That was until she took the time to study her expression. In the little time they had known each other Tisha had learned to recognize some of the moods of the others journeying with her. And Olga had the same look she did when fighting the giant. She was looking for another breakthrough in her attributes.

The fight went on like this for a while, Olga was careful to lead the creature away from the others as she fought defensively. It was not easy however; she was continuously taking more and more cuts to her body and Tisha was actually worried that she could start losing a significant amount of blood.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

But for now, it looked like everything was under control, that was until Tisha felt something was off. Her senses were going off as she watched the bear get more and more enraged in its inability to take down the tiny being running around. The Varos she could sense from it was going haywire and she could feel it leaking into the surroundings.

“Olga! Watch out! Something is happening!” Unfortunately, she could not tell what.

The woman thankfully, took her warning seriously and immediately took distance from the monster. Its eyes were positively glowing and its claws and the crystal spikes on its back took on a purple sheen.

The surroundings seemed to darken slightly in a radius of fifty meters around the creature as if the Varos was contaminating the area around it she noticed smaller creatures getting knocked out from the pressure and took a moment to glance around making sure the others were okay.

Suddenly giant Crystal spikes of the same colour erupted from the ground spreading from the monster in a conical pattern. The further from the creature, the bigger the spikes and there were more of them. The target was of course Olga who was already moving out of the way. Boulders and trees along the way were flung around and obliterated.

They clearly were not the only people capable of gaining sudden increased power within the system, something else that should be kept in mind.

The bear had gone from trying to target Olga to just causing mass destruction as the spike ripped out of the ground in all directions. Olga could not dodge in time and ended taking a few on the sides of her legs and across her body. This was looking dangerous.

That was until she grinned, Tisha figured she had gained what she wanted. And the effect was immediate, the spikes that were formerly damaging to the large woman were now barely making cuts on her skin. She was looking even more unstoppable than before.

“Time to end this shit!” She roared as she charged, spikes that shot out of the ground were knocked aside and destroyed with wild abandon.

She had two Nails in her had as she quickly closed the distance, dodging a swipe, she slid underneath the monster and stabbed its right leg through with one of them, sticking it to the ground. The bear fell as it lost its footing and she quickly did the same to its other foot.

With callous precision and efficiency, she stuck the front paws to the ground as well, a completely different fighting style to her usual. This was Olga when she was serious. Spikes were continuously striking at her from the ground but she was nimble despite her size and its inability to gain its footing meant that it was unable to track her properly for any clean hits.

She made her way to its head summoning a Nail that then enlarged itself to the size of a small torpedo before bringing the point down on its head for a bloody and messy finish.

The forest looked like two armies had just battled it out without including all the out of place gigantic crystals that appeared to be ripping through everything.

“Phew, had ta sweat a little for that one.” The bloodied berserker shook her head with a satisfied sigh.

“Good work.” Tisha said her Claw Morph had run out, the others nodding in agreement.

“Thanks…wait did ya always have that?” Olga asked Tisha, two fingers on her own forehead to indicate what she was talking about.

“Hmm?” Tisha mirrored her pose.

She could feel two long forward-facing protrusions just above her eyebrows feather-like in texture and weirdly enough she could feel her fingers on them.

She had antennae.