Chapter 469 - First Strike

Chapter 469: 469 - First Strike

Lisa opened her mouth behind the armor mask.

The fireball was born in the dark nook like a second moon, hot, white with small traces of gold, growing between her fangs in a matter of seconds until it was the size of a window.

And Lohan didn’t just watch, he also helped feed it from the inside.

The armor covering Lisa wasn’t just protection, it was a channel, and the Sacred Light running through his veins flowed through it like honey off a spoon, entering the spirit fire and tinting the flame a gold that, although subtle, made it insanely hotter.

Then Lisa released the sphere.

That bright thing suddenly appearing in the darkness caught the attention of half a dozen Players, but before they could react, it crossed the chamber with a sharp hiss, streaking the air with a tail of sparks, and struck the center of the group exactly where the largest number of Players had gathered around the offspring.

KABOOOM!!

The explosion that followed shook the entire cave.

A wave of heat and light swept across the platform, throwing bodies in every direction, and the screams that followed were so loud that for a moment they drowned out even the mental hum of the offspring.

Nine of them didn’t even have time to scream. The leather armor and wooden shields melted or fell apart almost instantly, and what remained lay scattered in smoking pieces across the dark stone.

Lohan didn’t wait for the smoke to settle.

He let Lisa’s armor come apart just enough to free a clone, with the camouflage still active both on him, covering Lisa, and on the clone that broke off, and he controlled it to leap into the middle of the chamber in two long bounces.

In the air, it struck a rock hard, once, twice, and the air around the surviving Players vanished.

That was how it seemed.

A violent suction appeared out of nowhere, bringing an insane pressure that made everyone’s ears pop, and suddenly at least twenty people, completely unprepared for something like that, were being pulled toward the center of the platform, feet sliding across the stone, weapons slipping from their hands, trying to grab onto anything within reach.

It was three seconds of pure chaos, three seconds in which none of them could do anything but scream.

Then, on the third second, Lohan spat.

A thick jet of yellowish fluid crossed the air and landed right in the middle of that cluster, and before anyone understood what it was, the pool started to bubble, to boil, to swell like a bubble about to burst.

The detonation came with an intense roar, creating a shockwave that hurled bodies against the walls, and a rain of acid spreading in arcs across the chamber.

The Players closest had no chance, while those a little farther away screamed in pain as skin, leather and metal began to hiss and melt.

[You killed...]

[You killed...]

[You killed...]

[You killed...]

[...]

The notifications flashed by quickly in Lohan’s vision, almost ignored because the battle was far from over.

"MONSTERS!" someone bellowed, amid the chaos. "HOLY SHIT, ARE THESE MONSTERS BOSSES?!?!"

For those Players, it made no sense that a creature so powerful would appear out of nowhere. They had only ever seen power that great when they saw bosses in the open world, or videos of big guilds fighting bosses.

At that point, if someone told them that the blue Slime causing such massive chaos was a Player just like them, that group would probably skin that person alive.

A power like that, seen from the angle of Players with Common and Uncommon bases, was completely out of touch with reality.

And Lohan wasn’t alone. From the middle of the smoke, Lisa emerged like a white and gold bolt.

She was amplified by everything Lohan had given her.

The Sacred Light pulsed in every muscle of hers, in her paws, in her tail, and the fire surrounding her now burned stronger than she had ever managed alone.

She crossed the first group of Players as if they were standing still, vanishing on one side and reappearing on the other before anyone could follow the movement, and wherever she passed, her claws cut through armor and flesh in the same stroke.

Two swordsmen tried to block her path, but neither of them managed to raise a weapon.

But Lisa didn’t close in on everyone.

At the back of the chamber, near the corridor entrance, a group of archers and mages had started to regroup, arrows being nocked onto bows and spells beginning to be murmured.

To reach them, she would have to cross the pool of acid Lohan had left behind, and she had no desire whatsoever to test her paw on that.

Even with Lohan’s coverage, not even he knew whether he was resistant to his own acid after so long outside the body.

So she stopped, about thirty meters from them, and opened her mouth.

A crescent shaped blade of golden fire shot out in a wide arc, tearing through the air in silence. Then another, and another, each one faster than the last, sweeping across the line of archers like scythes.

Some tried to raise shields, and the shields shattered. Others tried to run, and were caught by the fire.

The mages reacted first, at least the ones who had survived. A shimmering barrier formed in front of them, like a bluish magic glass that absorbed the first three blades, but Lohan had already seen the formation.

’I’ll take care of them,’ he said over the link.

From the ground, beneath the mages’ feet, ice spikes rose up, smooth and sharp, breaking through the stone and the barrier at the same time and impaling those closest. A wind blade cut through what was left of one of their staffs, and then a quick clone rolled in behind them and a thick web of translucent filaments spread across the corridor behind the group, sealing the exit.

Those who tried to retreat got stuck, and those who got stuck began to lose mana, drained by the threads until their legs gave out.

Lohan felt a new aura spread through the chamber, and realized it was his own.

He had let his killing intent seep out without noticing, a cold, heavy pressure that spread over the Players like a fog, and the weakest ones, those of lower level or weaker mind, simply froze, letting their weapons fall from their hands, their eyes wide, fixed on him.

In less than a minute, twenty eight Players were dead, and almost all the others had some serious wound.

What was left of the group, twenty two, fell back to the center of the chamber, panic gradually giving way to a heavy, tense silence.

When the smoke cleared, the screams were dying down, and then they saw.

In the middle of the platform, next to a still smoking pool of acid, a blue slime with white eyes and a fox in black scale armor covered in golden flames, both standing still, looking at them.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"It’s them," the vice leader said, her voice shaking with rage and disbelief. "It’s really them."

"Impossible," someone murmured. "There were only two."

"They were two monsters that killed seven of ours," Kaldur roared, his war hammer raised, his deep voice echoing across the whole cave. "And now they’ve killed almost thirty. FORMATION! NOW!"

The shock lasted less than three seconds.

With so much adrenaline in their blood from such a bloody scene, even though everything indicated this was a practically lost battle, the Players still standing moved with great efficiency, shields rising in a line at the front, archers and mages falling back behind it, and healers beginning to murmur prayers as the worst wounds slowly closed.

’How ironic that even monsters like these can pray and receive divine healing despite the atrocities they’ve committed,’ Lohan thought with curiosity. ’Come to think of it, I’ve never digested a cleric, right?’

On the leaders’ faces there was a hatred Lohan recognized as anger over having lost people, lost time and lost money, and wanting someone to pay for it.

On the faces of the ordinary members, there was something different, and that bothered him more.

They didn’t just look furious, they looked like cornered beasts.

"This is our spot!" one of them shouted, his voice cracking with fervor. "It took weeks to get here! We’re not going to let two monsters take it from us!"

"Whoever kills them gets the first horn of the next batch!" a low ranking officer bellowed. "And part of whatever’s left!"

"KILL THEM!" the leader roared, and the line of shields advanced all at once.

Lohan felt the smile form behind his own consciousness, that hungry glint he already knew, while Lisa positioned herself beside him, her golden flames growing again.

"Twenty two," she murmured, counting. "Still plenty to work with."

"Yeah," Lohan replied, with a calm satisfaction. "Let’s make the most of it."