By the time that they had left the flattened area around the city, it was starting to get dark and a faint howl could he heard in the distance.

“Is that what we need?” Jeffrey asked. “We should check it out regardless.”

“Probably. As far as I know, only mammalians make noises like that. It’s worth a shot, even if it ends up only being a G Rank beast.”

They started running at full speed, with each step of Rax causing the earth to shake slightly. As the herpetopede built up momentum, his feet started to blur, which would have looked funny, if not for how intimidating his appearance was.

Ten minutes later, they were standing outside of a densely wooded area, in which faint glowing lights were visible. They looked vaguely like eyes, and Sam was sure that there would be at least something worthwhile in there. With a nod at Jeffrey, he entered. As soon as the trio made their way past the initial ring of trees, everything went dark and silent, as if a vast blanket had been dropped over the world. Sam raised his hand and summoned a light, banishing the darkness in their immediate vicinity. All that it really achieved was to create a drop of light in an ocean of darkness however. For the darkness to be so pervasive, even to their enhanced senses, its origin could not be natural. Something was creating this effect, and it was lurking within these woods. Jeffrey came to the same conclusion a moment later and he looked over at Sam with a worried expression on his face.

“Should we try to tangle with this creature? For its domain of darkness to be so large, it must be quite powerful.”

Sam looked off into the darkness, and then nodded.

“It is quite close to our headquarters, so we must try to defeat it so that it is not a problem later on. Besides, I recently ranked up. What kind of monster would be a serious issue for us to fight?”

“Well, the depths of the F Rank are much larger than that of G Rank. You might have been able to fight up a rank at the end of G Rank, but anyone who is near the end of F Rank would destroy you in an instance.”

“Perhaps, but is there really going to be a peak F Rank monster waiting in the center of these woods? We have never encountered one before, even in those mountains where we found Mjolnir. I doubt that there would be one here.”

“Yes, if there was a monster of that strength, I would have been able to sense it,” Rax added.

“See? Rax knows that he’s talking about. In the worst case, it will be about as strong as that Hammerwraith. I basically defeated it on my own, and that was before ranking up,” Sam said.

“Damn, way to make a man feel unwanted,” Jeffrey said, scowling in mock annoyance.

“Jeffrey, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m joking. We were all dead weight in that fight. You soloed an F Ranker while still at G Rank. None of us would have been able to do that. But yes, you have a point. We might as well take on this beast,” Jeffrey responded, in a more serious tone.

With a nod from Sam, they were off. The woods started to grow even darker and darker as they progressed, despite the fact that such a thing should have been impossible, as there was already no light at all. What was actually happening was that Sam's light was slowly being eroded by the darkness, and the area that it was illuminating was growing smaller and smaller.

Another howl came out of the woods a few minutes later, this time far louder than before. With it came a tiny burst of aura, and Sam quickly analyzed what he was feeling from it. The beast was quite powerful, but not as powerful as the Hammerwraith had been. He would put it at about the level of a slightly stronger than average cyclops.However this creature clearly had some sort of Dao as it was projecting this darkness effect on the area around it. It would be a tougher foe than any of the cyclops had been.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Sam started heading towards the source of the aura, with Jeffrey and Rax close behind. Jeffrey began to charge up both of his guns, holding one in each hand. His increased strength since acquiring the blood cannon allowed him to wield it with one hand, although the recoil was quite severe. Soon the speck of light that Sam was projecting was almost too dim to see, and he stopped. He had been hoping that his mana alone would be enough, but it was being overwhelmed. Sam had not wanted to have to use his Dao to dispel the effect around him, as it would likely alert the monster to their presence, but there was no alternative.

Sam raised his fist, and his Dao exploded outwards from it, bathing the area in red light. There was another howl as the lurking monster detected the intrusion, and the sound of breaking branches started to come from the left. It faded away into silence a moment later, and for a brief few seconds, everything was still. Then a shadowy figure lunged out of the darkness and into the field of Sam’s Dao. With a shout, he condensed his Dao into a point on the beast’s head, causing it to stumble as it hit the ground. Surprisingly enough however, it resisted his focused Dao, a Dao that would have instantly killed any normal human.

Jeffrey fired both of his weapons, and the twin projectiles sped towards the beast. The blood ball exploded in midair and bathed the creature in acidic blood. It merely hissed in rage and shook the liquid off. There were only a few red marks on its flesh, and it was otherwise unharmed. A split second later, the mana beam struck it dead on, and the creature reared backwards as its head shot up. When it came back down onto its feet, a chunk of its nose was missing.

It roared at Jeffrey and opened its mouth wide, sending out a blob of darkness towards him with the sound. Jeffrey dodged to the side, but it struck his blood cannon, tearing it out of his grip with the snapping noise of a few of his fingers breaking. Sam and Rax began to charge as this happened, but the beast melted away into the shadows as they neared its spot. Sam skidded to a halt and sent his hammer in an arc over his shoulder, relying on pure instinct.

The weapon went off with an explosion of lightning as it struck the jaws of the beast as it leapt for Sam, knocking it off course. The beast tumbled through the air and then landed on its feet, snarling. It opened its mouth wide, and dark mist poured out onto the ground. Sam’s vision began to close over as the mist touched him, and even though he ran out of the area of effect, his vision was still diminishing. Soon, he was left in utter darkness.

He felt an impact on his left leg, and he went flying backwards, his flight only broken by a large tree. If not for his armor, he would likely have broken multiple bones. Sam pushed himself off the tree and groaned, feeling a slight gust of wind on his left cheek. He dodged to the right on instinct, and heard the splintering nose of something breaking wood behind him. Sam reached out with his left hand and found fur there. He snarled and pulled the beast up and over his head, his muscles creaking under the strain. As it struck the ground, Sam imbued his hammer with as much energy as he could without it triggering his finisher, and brought it down on the beast. The light from the attack could be seen even through his darkened eyes, and Sam grinned as he felt bone and flesh being pulped beneath his hammer. He raised his hammer to attack again, but when he brought it down, there was nothing there. He was left holding a solitary scrap of fur, and had been tricked by the beast.

A moment later, a force tugged on his hammer, trying to wrest it from his grip. Sam tightened his grip, and pulled backwards. His strength was superior to this monster’s, even with its larger mass. As he held it in place, he heard a choking noise as Rax bit down on its arm. There was a spurt of blood, and a cry of pain from the monster as Rax used his weapon ability. However, it only was able to get past the surface layer of the beast’s skin, and Rax was quickly shaken off. There was a dull whump as Jeffrey fired off his blood cannon, having found it mere seconds before. The attack did not dissipate in the air this time, instead impacting the beast’s paw. Anyone who had ever tried to make water compress would have expected what came next. The ball of blood was even denser than water was, and when it hit, bones snapped under the impact. The monster finally let go, and by the sound of it, Sam realized that it was trying to get away.