Capítulo 27: All out battle
This was the first time since Alex had bought his dagger that he got to put it to use, and it was against a beast a whole major level above him as well!
Due to his unique talent and the few soul orbs he had absorbed so far, although he was an F rank adventurer, he possessed physical strength near that of an F+ rank.
But it was unfortunate to say that it didn't make much difference whether he was F or F+ rank in front of the tyrant like E rank Flaming Lion.
The moment he neared the beast while it was distracted by the other 6 adventurers on his team, his dagger drew near to its hind, with the sizzling atmosphere surrounding the beast causing burns on the skin of his hand.
But he didn't let that stop him and with the full force of his entire body, slashed diagonally across the ankle of the lion's rear left leg. However the disparity in their strength was clear and Alex's full force attack barely left an inch deep mark, which compared to the size of the lion it was just a scratch.
"Keep attacking! Your attacks are wearing the lion down, if this keeps up long enough I might be able to slip in an attack strong enough to do some major damage!" Raymond shouted from the side lines. Alex gritted his teeth when he realised that Raymond and Joanne hadn't even joined in on the fight yet even though they were the two strongest combatants they had, with Joanne being the only F+ rank after Raymond murdered Brutus.
Moments after Raymond shouted his order, the lion lifted one of its huge paws and performed a slashing motion through the air towards an adventurer who slipped out of formation.
Instantly, the man was barely able to defend against the attack of a beast a whole major level above himself and when the flaming claw reached his sabre, it melted instantly before the fire continued through it with little interference and burned a deep gash through the man's thin layer of armor.
The man was sent flying when he took the full brunt of the attack, as he travelled through the air for quite a distance until the light of the lion no longer reached him. Whether he was dead or alive was unknown, with only a few pieces of unmoving molten metal lighting up the area where he had landed.
'This is an impossible fight, Raymond is just setting us up for death!'
After seeing what happened to the poor sod who just got hit, Alex increased his caution another level.
No way did he want to end up like that guy!
The lion, completely oblivious to the thoughts of the annoying humans surrounding it, continued to hound more and more attacks in their direction. It seemed performing such flaming slash attacks took quite a lot of energy out of it as it never launched another one.
It was only after 10 minutes passed of excruciating and exhausting guerrilla tactics against the lion that Raymond made his first move.
From seemingly nowhere, he brandished a sword with a faint white glow surrounding it as he leaped forwards with incredible speed nearly matching that of the lion and stabbed his sword into its side, penetrating so deep only the hilt of his sword remained visible. The blow instantly made the lion shift its focus to Raymond as it let out a miserable howl.
With a fast swipe of its head, it smashed its thick skull against Raymond and his silver shining armor, sending him flying a few metres before he landed with a dull thud back on his feet.
"Joanne!" Raymond called Joanne's name and as if everything was pre-planned, she equipped her bow and took out some ominous looking arrows.
These arrows had some sort of purple goo covering the tip, with a similarly faint white glow surrounding them just like Raymond's sword.
'It seems all awakened do in fact get an inventory.' Alex was more focused on the fact that both Raymond and Joanne summoned their weapons out of thin air, just like when he summoned his Soul orbs.
However if he spent more time gathering information in the city he would have known a rather interesting fact.
The concept of an inventory was completely unknown to everyone. Raymond and Joanne had artifacts that housed a separate space where they could store non-living objects.
Ignoring these side tracked thoughts, Alex turned his attention back to Joanne. She had already nocked one of those new unknown arrows and aimed it at the lion, looking for the perfect timing to strike.
Boom!
Yet another adventurer was hit by the lion as the original formation had long broken down and everyone was just following their own instincts. This adventurer ended up getting crushed under the foot of the lion as it stamped down on the man when he tripped up and fell onto his back.
The fate of this man was certain.
However even while the lion was actively succeeding in hunting members of her team, Joanne's expression didn't even falter once and she kept her aim up, until finally the moment came where she let loose her arrow.
Fwoosh!
It flew through the air at even faster speeds than Raymond threw his dagger. In less than a second it reached the lion, specifically in the exact same spot Raymond had penetrated it with his sword less than 10 seconds prior.
The effects of her attack were immediate.
The arrow entered the still open wound and disappeared inside the lion's body, with the flesh around its organs and wound quickly taking on a blackish, purple colour.
This enraged the lion to a level it hadn't shown yet as it finally moved from its spot and started trampling in the direction of the 4 remaining adventurers.
With the speed the lion was barrelling towards them, they had no time to even react before they were trampled down and splattered across the cave floor like mince meat. They couldn't even put up a fight.
Alex, the lucky soul he was, was spared from this slaughter as from the beginning he kept his distance from the formation Raymond had set up for the F ranks to follow.
This instinctive decision to not follow Raymond's orders had spared his life.
But whether that still remained the case in a few moments would remain to be seen…
Capítulo 28: Law of the jungle
Immediately after Joanne fired her arrow at the huge flaming lion, both her and Raymond retreated onto a nearby elevation in the cave.
Alex saw this and knew they weren't planning on fighting the lion while it was in its enraged state, so he followed along and retreated just like them, only he chose a small pocket in the wall of the cave near where they entered.
"We finally did it! I can't believe it, I can finally reach Mid E rank after so many long years of toiling away!" Raymond couldn't keep his excitement at bay as he exclaimed to Joanne.
"I can feel I'm on the precipice of advancing my soul core to E-! Maybe we can try our luck with even E+ rank beasts when we both advance." Joannes usual cold and apathetic tone had been replaced with greed when the duo's scheme had been revealed.
'Heartless. You just caused the death of 5 people and even killed one yourselves, yet you haven't even shown a shred of remorse.'
Alex listened in on Raymond and Joanne's conversation from a distance while simultaneously keeping an eye on the lion's actions.
It wasn't like they were trying to hide anything they were saying either, since they were speaking loudly enough that Alex could hear them from 30 or so metres away.
However he noticed that they were speaking as if the fight was already won and the lion was already dead. Alex was confused about this at first but then the realisation struck him when he noticed the lion started acting more sluggish.
'Poison! That's what that purple slimy substance was on the end of Joanne's arrow.'
'It all makes sense now.'
It only took another 5 minutes for the lion to come to a complete stop and fall over on its side, heaving deep and heavy breaths and its flaming aura diminishing.
Seeing such a scene, Raymond and Joanne jumped down from their elevated position and approached the lion with huge grins on their faces.
If this were a cartoon, they would have huge dollar signs for eyes.
Raymond approached the lion's thick head and he locked eyes with the huge and intimidating eyes of the beast.
Rage filled the lion's gaze, beasts had their own pride and one of the things they hated the most were attacks laced with poison.
But the lion could do nothing about its situation now and only lay there helplessly as Raymond drew his sword and stabbed it deep through the lion's skull, penetrating its brain before it was stopped by something incredibly dense and hard.
"Jackpot." Raymond didn't even show much more excitement when he dug out the E rank beast core that the lion had buried deep in its skull.
'They somehow knew about its beast core beforehand, but how?'
As far as Alex knew, it was impossible to tell if a beast had a beast core or not until you had already killed it and dug through its skull to see if it had one.
When Alex saw the beast core Raymond held in his hand, a small part of him understood why these two had come to such lengths to slay this one lion.
This beast core wasn't like any Alex had seen or heard of. Instead of the milky white small stones he had seen many times, this one was around the size of a fist, with an orange hue surrounding it and even the occasional flame spurting off it every now and then.
This beast core was clearly special, but Alex was in no mood to stick around any longer to find out why.
As soon as he saw the core disappear into thin air in Raymond's hand, he knew he had to escape immediately. Thankfully he chose a spot to hide near the entrance earlier so there was only a dozen metres between him and the exit.
'I need to get out of here, these two definitely won't let me leave this place alive.'
He had no hope in reasoning with the two after they had essentially killed his whole team without batting an eye.
With a leap, he exited his small pocket in the cave wall and sprinted with his full power towards the exit, shifting his eyes back to see if Raymond and Joanne had noticed, but when he did, Raymond was no longer by the side of the lion's corpse.
'Shit!'
Instead, when Alex turned back towards the exit, Raymond was already there waiting for him.
'I didn't even see him move! Is the difference in ability between F and E rank really so huge!?'
Despair started filling Alex as the hope of making it out alive diminished drastically every second that passed.
"Tsk, you know I really did like you at first Alex." Raymond spoke to Alex with annoyance.
"I'm sure in another timeline we could have been great friends, but you know that can never happen now." Raymond continued speaking, ignoring any of Alex's attempts to find another escape route.
He knew the only escape from this place was the one he was currently blocking.
"You just know too much. Unfortunately, I'm just gonna have to kill you." Raymond sighed as if it pained him to say it, but Alex knew it was all fake.
"Why did you do it?" With nowhere else to go, Alex's shoulders slumped as he was forced to accept his grim reality. Instead he just wanted answers.
"Do what? You realise I have done many things in my life, you're going to have to be more specific, little Alex."
Alex didn't like the way Raymond called him 'little Alex' but what could he do about it? Who would he complain to?
"Why did you lead us all here just to be killed? If you'd have just told us the truth of this mission from the beginning then all these deaths could have been avoided." This was one of the few things Alex was still curious about, even though he was about to die.
"Oh come on, you've spent over a month in this world and you still haven't realised how fucked up it is? You really are the stupidest outsider I've ever met." Raymond laughed at Alex's stupidity for a few moments, not bothering to hide his mocking tone.
"Everything about this place is purely for selfish and personal gain. There is only one law that dictates the entire Primordial Expanse. I'm sure you can guess what law that is." Raymond threw a question back at Alex instead of answering.
'If you can't even answer this then I may as well skip all this talk and kill you now.'
"The law of the jungle." Alex said.
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