“Arr, what the fuck is that, it's so fucken hideous, kill it with fire.” Five shouted as Jake dashed out of the way of one attack but into the path of the second. The king was the first to attack, followed by the queen; she came out of nowhere, striking at Jake's dashing form.
“Left,” Five shouted, followed by a too late warning as the drop bear's claw slammed into Jake's reactive mana barrier. This was another thing Jake had thought of, by using his alchemy skill to create a barrier that can move in an instant to whatever place it is needed and do it all without any conscious thought needed by its caster. “Wow, that was lucky; on your right, there's a small one coming in.” Jake looked to his right just in time to see one of the juveniles coming in, its arms flailing in the wind as it ran towards Jake, stepping to the left with a fireball in his hand as the drop bear approached. The sound of the impact was tremendous, and the explosion that followed blew apart the little juvenile. The only part remaining of the juvenile was its flaming torso. “Nicely done, now just three more to go.” Roars of anger ripped through the air as both the king and the queen lost all sense of logic, attacking wildly. “Oh ho ho, you've really pissed them off now. If only we didn't just leave the others back there.” Jake's face contorted as he couldn't help but listen to the little fox.
“You know you could help,” Jake said back to the fox.
“Me? I'd be as dead as that little baby you just murdered if I tried to help, not to mention I don't have a class, so what would be the point in that.”
“Fine then, don't help, but at least shut up so I can fight.” Just as Jake said that, the queen hit him hard to the point it shattered his mana barrier and sent him flying backwards, slamming into a tree fifty metres away. Coughing up blood, Jake heard a voice from beside him.
“You know, I actually saw that coming. But you did say I wasn't allowed to tell you.”
“Fine, just do what you want. We need to win this fight or we're both dead.”
“That's more like it; listen to my many years of wisdom.”
“What many years? You're still a child.”
“Yeah, but at least I don't go around killing babies. That poor thing didn't even have any memories yet.”
“Really? Just going to keep going on about that? It tried to kill us.”
“On your right.” The other juvenile popped its head out of the bushes beside Jake only to be impaled on Jake's fist. Screams of horror escaped its mouth as it looked down at what had happened to its chest. “Why?” was the last and only word Jake had ever heard from the juvenile drop bear.
“Interesting, did you know that one was actually a crossbreed?”
“What was it crossbred with, fuck.” The queen came down from one of the branches, slashing towards Jake's neck—or to be more precise, the fox that was sitting there. Jake dashed to the side, followed directly by a quick teleport and a couple of sharp stabs toward the bewildered queen’s back before she noticed. Jake's stats were dropping faster than he had thought possible. It wasn't enough to hinder him yet, but if this fight continued at this pace for much longer, Jake would run out, and without any more potions, there would be no way to recover enough. Even his race skill, Eyes of the Lost, which gives him 100 points to all stats every minute, felt lacking. The real problem Jake was having was the fact he hadn't actually been in a drawn-out fight since he became his own system. One could say since that moment, the only real fight he had been in was the one with that dragon, and in that one, Jake burnt through his stats so quickly that he didn't notice this issue. All of his skills were costing more to activate or keep activated. He did have a skill that could, in a pinch, give him a 30-minute break, but that too would cost him. At least the cost was a known quantity, but using it would only leave him with one course of action left, and that would be to run, escape, flee while his four lost servants distracted the two dropbears. Jake sighed as he gave it one more shot; this time he pulled out his pistol as the king was about to attack,firing round after round at the monster, only to watch them bounce off the king's large grasping hand. He activated his teleportation skill to escape.
“So, have you decided what to do yet? Are we going to scarper or what?”
“I can't kill them, and my only other option is to escape, but which way should we go?”
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“Does it matter? As long as we're safe, we can fight another day.”
“But if we leave, Eric will end up fighting them instead.”
Five didn't reply to this last statement; instead, he shouted for Jake to dodge seconds before the ground exploded underneath his feet. Jake flew through the air, being pushed forward by the shock wave.
“What the fuck was that? Can they use magic now?” Jake asked the only creature willing to talk to him right now.
“How the hell do I know? It's not like I know everything about these monsters. These are the first ones I've seen, and all I got out of the ones you killed was that one was a crossbreed and the other was way too young to even form a coherent set of memories. The only thing I got from him was that his pseudo mana core would grow to a point in F grade where it would take over as his source of power. Wait a minute, if that is the case, then those two can use mana to explode the terrain wherever they want, right?”
“I don't think that's all they can do,” Jake said, watching the queen fly through the air towards him. Beside her, there was a flame unlike any Jake had seen before.
“The mana she must be spending to maintain that must be enormous,” Five exclaimed.
“Yeah, I’m thinking these cores are going to be a problem.”
The queen slashed down with what looked to be a gigantic hand made of pure mana; even the air ripped apart as it approached. Jake first tried teleporting away, but it seemed the skill had been restricted by the King himself; he was holding a staff and chanting some kind of incantation. “Oh no, we're fucked now,” Five exclaimed upon seeing the situation the two of them were in.
“It’s okay, Five; he’s only restricting some movement skills.” Jake dashed forward in hopes of closing the distance to the queen, but just as he thought he was about to reach her, his mind went blurry as he found himself in the same location as where he began his attack.
“Oh, fuck,” Jake said as he looked up, the gigantic hand inches away from him.
The earth shook as the hand pressed down, creating a deep hole that instantly began to fill with water from the adjacent river.
Minutes earlier, Eric and his people were trying to catch up after their stupid mistakes.
“Why did we all stop? How stupid are we? Of course a companion of Jake would be a bit strange; after all, his wife is a snake,” one of Eric's people said as he hit a rock mid-stride, sending him hurtling to the ground, his face bouncing up and down as his body slowly came to a halt at the base of a massive gumtree.
“Can you not be an idiot? Get up, you fool; we don't have time for your games,” Eric said as he reached down to give the man a hand.
Bang!
The air around the group trembled as shock wave after shock wave advanced from the epicentre of some kind of battle not too far from them.
“What was that? Did you all feel the power in that?” the man on the ground asked.
“Of course we did! Do you think we are that stupid not to notice the giant fucken explosions going off? Now, are you done, or would you like to waste more fucken time?” Eric said as he helped the man up.
“Sir, do you think that was Jake?” one of the other people in the group asked.
“Probably; that little fox was right about one thing: wherever Jake goes, death always seems to follow close behind.”
The group set off in the direction of the explosion with a fair amount of haste in each step. Shortly after setting off, Eric started to get a lead on the rest of his group; he didn't slow his pace, not even when his group was out of sight. He had a goal to complete, one that Jake gave him personally, and that goal was to protect a little creature from Jake's bad luck. But it seemed he was going to be late and unable to complete this task; the feeling of failure was creeping up on him with every passing second. It was not because Jake asked him to do this job, but that Jake realised his impact on those around him that made Eric push so hard. As he was running faster than ever before, he received his first notification, and one that threw him for a loop.
Notification
Race evolution king of the beasts (unique)
As the king, you hold limited sway over the actions of any evolved beast below your grade. Protect your children from harm and bring about the new order.
Notification
Race skill
Restricted movement (unique)
Once activated, any hostile beast within the affected area will feel as though they are fighting in quicksand. The effect can be nullified by the hostile using large amounts of mana.
Notification
Title
Fight above (common)
Fighting enemies above your level gives you a twenty percent chance of forming a temporary pseudo core of ether mana or arcane. The temporary core will last for the duration of the fight.
Notification
Profession changed Protector (common)
Protect the weak from those that would do them harm; atone for your past.
Profession skill
Skill
Hands of hope (common)
Form hands made of pure mana from the surrounding environment to shield your target for three seconds.
Warning: overuse will permanently weaken the caster's ability to cultivate mana.
“I suppose that makes sense. I should never have killed you. If this is how you have chosen for me to atone for that, I will accept that for you.”
Eric smashed through a bush as he spear-tackled a large bear-like creature with a staff just before attempting his first activation of the hands of hope on what looked to be Jake. In his mind, a prize wheel spun slowly, ticking away as he activated restricted movement in the area around him, capturing the staff-wielding bear-like creature within it.
“Fuck you, ugly,” Eric said just as the gigantic hand smashed into the ground, sending chunks of earth flying for tens of kilometres, ripping apart every tree they hit.