A whole month had passed since Stanis had begun his work on the second task. Every single Jaguar had been trained up to a suitable standard, each one now at least able to kill several tier-ones with ease.
Quite a few had crossed the bridge from tier-two to tier-three, about 40 Jaguars now donning white furs with black spots and about 20 more currently crossing that bridge right now, their furs half way between pure-black and white with black spots. None of the newly-transformed Jaguars were as grand as their 2.5m tall leader though, but some were beginning to close in on him. Not that it mattered though, after all, Serb hadn't become the leader due to his size, rather due to the ferocity he showed in battle and the intelligence he showed out of.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that the Jaguar camp of today was as different to the Jaguar camp of last month as night was to day. They were not only physically stronger but also far more ferocious and confident, all of them now wholeheartedly believing that today was the day of reckoning for the Spectres. And they owed all of this to the Human that had made this change possible.
Not that Stanis didn't make any progress himself during this time, rather the opposite. He had ample time to train himself in peace and also enough test-subjects to try his theories on. His stat page now looked more impressive than ever before:
Stanis Volkov
Age: 18 years
Mana capacity: 217(regeneration is capacity/4 per hour)
Level 40 (Progress to the next level is 43%)
Class: Origin
Strength: 75 [35 -> 49]
Dexterity: 74 [33 -> 48]
Constitution: 76[34 -> 51]
Intelligence: 71 [26 -> 35]
Wisdom: 70+5[26 -> 33]
Tenacity: 83[31 -> 49]
Skills: Layman's Rush, Scout and Sense, Light Healing, Destructive Mana Recharge, Ice shot, Blueshot spitfire
He had gone up by 11 levels during the whole period and had also increased the lead over the average Human in terms of stat points. This was boiled down to two reasons: one being the fact that he used the circulation of mana to train himself. In fact, Orena, Caleb and Sil had had explosive growth ever since discovering the proper way to circulate mana, their stats also far above the average.
As for the second reason, the real root reason, it was due to the accompanying movements to the mana circuits that Yils had given him. This was the reason why his stats were still much higher than even Orena's, Caleb's and Sil's as he had kept the special circuits with their accompanying movements a secret only for himself.
He had fought against Caleb, Sil and Orena every day for the past 10 or so days. Through this, he had managed to sharpen up their battle-ability, the new scars over his body proof of their improvement.
All this progress that everyone had undertaken made Stanis believe that they were ready, a feeling shared with Serb. They had chosen a date together, and today was that day!
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All 361 Jaguars were grouped around Serb's cave, howling and roaring as Serb jumped onto the rock podium.
"When we first came here, we were massacred without mercy, hundreds of us becoming nothing but dirt that day. Today we pay back our debt with added interest. Today we will not leave until the Spectres exist no longer. Today we fight, and we win!" roared Serb, a cacophony of cheering in response.
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Stanis and the other three jumped onto a few Jaguars as the whole camp began charging, their target the Spectre base. With how much more powerful the Jaguars now were in every sense, it was only a few minutes until the first Spectres were in sight, a few eager Jaguars breaking out into a sprint, totally lost in battle-lust.
Stanis felt pride blossom in his heart as he saw the Jaguars attack with a short film of mana covering their claws; they had learnt well from him.
The Jaguars weren't prowling into the Spectre base, not stealthily sneaking in, rather they were roaring and crying as they broke in, their raid as conspicuous as could be. Due to this, it wasn't a long wait till larger parties of Spectres began jumping out, although to no avail as they too were cut down with ease.
It was about 20 minutes into the raid that competition started to pop up, the Jaguars having already covered a lot of the woodland. These Spectres wore ragged shrouds, barely managing to hide the disproportional claws they hid inside. They glowed bright green and gave feelings of great danger, each green Spectre shrieking with a mix of anger and joy as they shot towards the Jaguars.
These were the tier-two Spectres, the real competitors to the Jaguars. Stanis had worked them hard not so that they could slice through the tier-ones like butter, but rather so that they could actually stand a fighting chance against these monstrosities.
The Spectres ripped and screamed, drank blood and shrieked, cried and wept as they sliced through flesh. It was obvious a tier-two Jaguar wouldn't be able to solo a tier-two Spectre but that was fine, after all the Jaguars had enough numbers so that they could send two or three against one.
When they were killed, the Spectres would scream one final heart-clenching cry before exploding, releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Tier-ones merely disintegrated and released acrid smells, whereas the tier-twos actually released dangerous fumes into the atmosphere after death. It was lucky that all the Jaguars had high enough Constitution, otherwise a Spectre death could single-handedly take out tens of them!
The charge continued like this, Stanis nor the others dismounting as they enjoyed the ghastly ride, Spectre after Spectre being struck down. The woodland, which had been filled with healthy, thick trees, became closer to barren the deeper you went into the Spectre's territory. The trees had slimmed down at first, then the leaves beginning to die, leaving harrowing tree-skeletons behind, and then they had started to die out altogether. In fact, it was to the point that Stanis could only describe this place as lifeless and deathly, even the mud below without life.
Quite a few minutes had passed since the Jaguars had encountered the first tier-two Spectre, and their opponents had only risen in number. The Jaguars were fighting about 60 tier-twos right now, the air thick with poisonous fumes as it was becoming difficult to even see.
The casualties had begun to build up but no Jaguars had died yet. Stanis, Sil and a few other Jaguars with healing spells also healed the injuries, meaning most of the injured would go back into battle moments after their dance with the reaper, just as eager as before to tear apart the Spectres.
Stanis watched the incoming group of Spectres with worry. This group was larger than before, about 80 tier-twos shrieking together a blood-curdling song. However it wasn't the singing that put him on edge, well, slightly anyway. It was instead the fact that he was still seated on a Jaguar and not fighting, just like the other powerhouses as none of them were participating in these battles. The 70 or so powerhouses were to fight the strongest enemies and thus were leaving the weaker enemies to their weaker brothers and sisters.
But how strong were the strongest enemies? This was what worried Stanis. He had been confident at first, after all, he was without a doubt the strongest within the Jaguar camp. He had believed that the strongest Spectre, their boss, would be as strong as Serb and thus quite easy to beat with all the other powerhouses. But what he was seeing right now made him re-evaluate; the boss Spectre was definitely stronger than Serb, but how much stronger?
He had spent far too much time and effort on these Jaguars for all his energy to be just wasted due to a bad raid, but he also knew that the Jaguars wouldn't come under his wing until the Spectres were no more. This meant that he would have to most likely push himself to the limit on the battlefield if he wanted to keep causalities to the minimum. This also meant he would have to dance a very long tango with the reaper…
Stanis smiled at this thought; pain and struggling had become second nature to him ever since the apocalypse had begun and he now felt he was qualified enough to say that he was a professional at both of them.
It was while Stanis was still musing that a screech tore through the air. The only way to describe it would be akin to a gun being shot, you can feel the sound travel through your body during it. This was the only thing Stanis could relate this alien sound to as he momentarily felt his body being torn in two, the sound breaking more than just his eardrums.
Blood was gushing out of his ears in the next second but Stanis found that he couldn't care less, instead all his attention forced towards the sight in front of him. The toxic fumes the Spectres had released had thickened the air, but the light still made it through: 100 tier-two Spectres flying towards them. But no one was looking at this terrifying sight, instead they were all looking towards the centre of it where floated a single Spectre.
It was wearing a flawless shroud over itself, without crease or blemish. It was about 2 metres tall and 1 metre wide with feminine hands sticking out of the bottom of the shroud. It had a bony face with a gracious smile on top, its whole body shining bright blue. Its eyes stay shut but its lips parted, revealing a perfect set of teeth underneath. There was blood leaking out…