Four of the hyenas manage to pull themselves out of Sophia’s ice spikes and tear through Camille’s vines, leaving only two still trapped. Sophia, in haste, tries to pierce them again, but this time they evade the attack with ease, as if they had regained their full mobility.

‘Enhanced healing?’

Camille jumps back, gripping her sharpsong with both of her hands, ready to defend herself. If we follow the plan and stick to our formation, the beasts should never get to her, but she knows it’s better to be safe than sorry. Nervously, she speaks through the communicator.

[I’ve got nothing. Should we move forward with the next formation?]

Sophia answers swiftly. [No, the frontline will handle this with support from Ray, conserve your flow Camille.]

Sophia, for her part, manifests a chain made of ice that she holds with her left hand while her sharpsong rests on her right. She begins swinging the chain in the air, ready to throw it at her opponents. However, I also have something to say. I approach Sophia while the hyenas are still sizing us up, and whisper into her ear.

“Let me handle this, remember what we discussed, you also need to conserve your strength.” I say.

She hesitates for a moment, unsure if she’s willing to let me fight by myself, but eventually dissolves her chain and takes a step back. “... Right, but I’lll jump in if it gets too dangerous.”

[Ray, provide support. Ugo, are they still watching?] Sophia utters through our communicators.

[Aye aye captain.] Ray answers.

[They’ve approached ever so slightly, but not to an alarming level] Ugo states.

‘Good, that’s good.’

Faced with the four [Echoed] in front of me, I raise my sharpsong, speed up my aegis’ rotation, and ready my stance. As I anchor my feet to the ground, I breathe in deeply and let out a battle cry,

“AAAAAHHHHH”

It serves no real purpose besides drawing the hyenas’ attention, and it works. All four of them now look towards me while the further two still struggle to release themselves from Sophia’s spikes. With a steady step, I advance towards the hyena, intentionally giving them the chance to surround me. Eventually, I am on the edge of Sophia’s mist, and am surrounded by the [Echoed]. In a synchronized fashion, they all jump towards me, their fangs protruding from their gums and dripping with saliva. In response, when they’re close enough, my shield, now spinning at deadly speeds, performs one revolution around me.

I specifically aim for the open areas of the joints in their forelegs. I do not think that my aegis would fail to pierce their bone plating, but I’m not stupid enough to bet on it. As I expected, two of the four lose both of their forelegs upon contact with my aegis, while the other two manage to twist their body just in time to avoid the same result. This still leaves them with deep wounds, but I imagine it’s preferable to severed legs. Pulled by gravity, all of the beasts fall to the ground, writhing in pain.

Without missing a beat, Ray shoots each of them. For the ones missing their front longs, the bullet finds its way into their skull, a small explosion ensues, and they die immediately. He tries to do the same to the other two, but even with their injuries, they’re mobile enough to barely dodge it. Expecting it, I dash towards one of them. Swiftly, I plant my sharpsong in its neck, only removing it when it stops moving. When the last one, who managed to only suffer injury to its right foreleg during my initial attack, finally comes to its senses and tries to run away with its three remaining good legs, I direct pureflow to my legs, making my quads, calves, glutes, and hamstrings vibrate which fills them with power. In a moment, I find myself right in front of it, and with a simple swing of my arm and a pureflow enhanced sharpsong, I pierce its neck. It lets out a soft whimper as it draws its last breath.

‘To think I struggled against a single beast of this level only eight months ago…Time flies’

[The two flying enemies have left, I cannot see them anymore] Ugo says through his communicator.

[That’s okay, you can come down now, the battle’s over] Sophia says.

In fact, Ray had already taken care of one of the remaining two, leaving only one of the hyenas alive, still impaled by one of the ice spikes.

When we’ve all regrouped in front of the [Echoed], we decide what to do with it.

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“We’re lucky, hyenas live in large packs, sometimes of ten, twenty, or even one hundred individuals. Of course, this could be all of them for this stage, but with a bit of luck, they were just the advance party of a much larger group.” I say, a grin on my face.

“So what do we do now? I-I don’t mean to put any pressure on you, but I’m just curious. I’m really sorry if I ask too many questions, should I shut up now? If you want me to-” Camille asks.

I raise my hand in the air, signaling her to stop. Sophia then signals to Ray.

Using his perk as the long-range specialist, a small drone, which had been attached to Ray’s back in a fashion akin to a turtle’s shell, attaches itself to the hyena. Swiftly, it injects a tracking chip into its bloodstream which causes a new red dot to appear on Ugo’s map.

“Now, we patch up its injuries and let it lead us to its pack.” I state confidently.

“When I remove the spike, you’ll placate it to the ground with your vines Camille, understood?” Sophia says

“Y-yes!”

They execute the action perfectly, which gives us the chance to administer first aid, using leaves and wood as makeshift supplies. We don’t really want it to get better, just enough to walk back to its group.

Finally, without undoing the aftermath of the battle, which means leaving the ice spikes and the ice pillar for everyone to see, we all climb onto the Bassline and prepare to drive to our next location. Ray gets behind the wheel and departs without wasting a moment. When we’re out of sight, the vines will disappear on their own, allowing us to reap the rewards later. As the vehicle travels the grasslands, I wonder what the announcer, Maestro Palazio thought of our battle.

***At home***

[Amazing performance from Team Zeta with great results for their first encounter with the [Echoed]! I was holding my breath all throughout the encounter! Especially the one with the shield, Alden, what a performance! To think that together they’d take on seven echoborne beasts in such a quick and efficient manner. Though they let one of them slip away, this still earned them a whopping 30 points in less than twenty minutes! I guess I’ll know where to look in the future if I want to see something fun!]

“Did you see that?! Big brother is so strong!! Replay it! Can we replay it?!” Calliope shouts.

Asher who now has his face a mere inch away from the display simply nods his head in agreement, not even having heard Calliope’s plea for a replay.

Aurora is similarly stunned. “Wow, is this normal for [enlightened]...?That’s scary…”

***At home***

“That wasn’t bad, team!” Sophia says with a beam.

“Hmph, I wasn’t even allowed to fight.” Ugo replies.

I pat him on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry, your time will come.”

He swats my hand away. “Tsk. I’m participating in the next battle if there are no airborne enemies.”

“That’s a big if.” I say with a shrug.

For the next few hours, we repeat this strategy a. We find a suitable place, spread the aroma of the carrion flower, subjugate the enemies we attract, rinse, and repeat. This earns us between 30-50 points each time, and more than a few [echoed] corpses. These corpses are kept very cold by Sophia’s ice and will come in handy later.

Fortunately, Ugo does get to show off his skills more than a few times during our skirmishes. When echoborne vultures join the fray, and even when there were no flying enemies, he is able to fight. His flames rage throughout the battlefield, turning his opponents to ash or leaving them with terrible burns.

At first, he was forced to stay in the sky. That is because each time we fought, the two flying entities would come and observe our battles without doing anything, but at one point we decided to stop paying attention to them. If they want to fight, they’ll come, or so we think.

After a full day of fighting the [echoed], we find an area near the valley I identified earlier and decide to set up camp there. Well, saying that we set up camp might be a bit much since we’re all planning to sleep under stars for the duration of the event. We just park the Bassline not too far from us, and sit down on the grass. My stomach growls as I walk back to the camp from relieving myself.

“So, what are we eating, chefs?”

At the academy we all learn basic survival skills, such as how to skin and prepare animals for consumption, how to find water, how to identify edible and non-edible foods, and the such. Because of that, we all could have cooked our kills today, but Ray insisted that he wanted to surprise us, and Camille insisted that she helped. She could not bear the thought of doing nothing while Ray prepared food for all of us. Sophia, Ugo, and I on the other hand gladly let them prepare the food. I mean, being served without having to raise a finger? Who would ever say no to that!?

“W-we just need a couple things from you guys.” Camille replies.

She asks Ugo to light wood that she has produced on fire and to use my aegis as a frying pan to cook the meat.

‘To think my mighty aegis would be used as a frying pan one day…’

I feel a tad bit mischievous as the process starts. “My aegis is quite sturdy you know, it might be hard to heat up… Especially with Ugo’s flames.”

Ugo snaps, and turns to look at me. “My flames could burn it to a crisp if I wished for it!”

“I don’t know… I don’t see the meat frying, do you?.” I say with a grin.

His frown grows deeper, he grits his teeth and expands a considerable amount of flow to make his flames burn with more fervor.

“W-wait, that’s too hot! The meat will burn too!” Camille shouts

Ice encases the fire . “Are you boys not hungry? Well, I am, so stop playing around and do it right!”

As this is one of the rare instances where Sophia speaks sternly, we both feel no other option but to comply, although Ugo does so reluctantly.

The smell of cooked meat slowly fills our nostrils.

Team

Zeta

Purchases

* The Bassline - 70 points

* 4L filtered water container - 5 points

* 2x booster vials with injection apparatus- 10 points

Special events conquered

*

Current zone

Grasslands

Active members

* Sophia Thunderbalde

* Alden Thorne

* Ugo Brightscar

* Camille Starforge

* Ray Burst

Eliminated members

*

Points

270