Novel Full Chapter 474: Behemoth Of A Beast!
Chapter 474: Behemoth Of A Beast!
Klein studied the young man stretching calmly below him.
’This kid is something else. As expected of someone who cleared the first S-Rank gate.’ His gaze drifted briefly toward the horizon.
Selene’s eyes widened as the beast came fully into view. The pressure rolling off it landed on her, and her breath caught in her throat.
"This aura. It’s a Fourth Star beast." Selene muttered, staring at the creature approaching alongside the Surpasser.
The realization struck her, and she turned to Moon, her eyes filled with disbelief.
"You knew about this?"
Moon’s only response was a smile.
Selene turned back to the beast, and everything clicked into place. The reason Moon had thrown away an entire hour of time. The reason he had been so confident, so patient, so unbothered by their dead-last ranking.
He had been waiting for this.
"By killing this beast." Selene said slowly, the math forming in her mind. "We’ll gain a thousand points total."
A Fourth Star beast was worth one thousand points under normal scoring. But this wasn’t a normal beast. The way Klein had orchestrated its arrival, the timing, the singular nature of it, told her this was an important piece of this stage. A reward designed to reshape the entire leaderboard for whoever was bold enough, or strong enough, to claim it.
The highest-ranked competitor currently sat at seventy points after a full hour of fighting and racing. The examination was going to last a total of twenty four hours, so by arriving first at every hourly assigned location, the total would only sum up to 240 points. This was less than a quarter of what the beast provided.
If she and Moon killed this beast and split the reward, they would each walk away with five hundred points. It would launch them from the very bottom of the rankings to the very top in a single moment.
Placing them within the top 10 competitors even if they did nothing but hide for the rest of the stage.
And the beauty of it was the scarcity. Klein had stated plainly that beasts were rare in the zone, and the stronger the beast, the rarer it would be. A Fourth Star creature offering this kind of reward almost certainly meant that the likelihood of having more than one was very negligible.
A single opportunity that the top competitors in the tournament would have killed for, sitting right in front of the two people who had remained behind doing nothing.
While everyone else scattered across the map chasing scraps of three, five, and ten points, Moon had bet everything on the one prize that dwarfed them all.
Klein watched the two competitors settle into battle-ready stances. Selene with her staff raised and her wolf crouched low beside her. Moon with his weapon drawn, his body loose and prepared, his eyes locked on the approaching beast like a predator.
’These two evolved only recently.’ Klein thought, his interest deepening by the second. Naturally, he knew Selene’s identity, alongside Moon’s. ’And yet they’re preparing to fight a Fourth Star beast. A creature that even the most talented Evolvers spend a year or two building up the courage and strength to even attempt.’
The Surpasser brought the beast to the centre of the starting site, then stepped back, retreating to a safe distance to observe.
~ROAR~
The beast released a thunderous shriek that scattered the birds nestled in the distant trees, sending them fleeing into the sky.
It was massive. A rare body-refiner type beast known as an Elephantos, the evolved descendant of the African Bush Elephant, an ancient animal that had gone extinct after the Great Collapse. Where its ancestor had been merely large, the Elephantos was monstrous.
It stood on four colossal limbs, towering nearly six meters high. Its tough, leathery hide rippled over slabs of dense muscle, and its body weighed well over ten thousand pounds. Each step it took sent tremors rolling through the ground beneath it.
But its size wasn’t what made it dangerous.
It was the speed. For a creature so enormous, the Elephantos moved like beasts that were a fifth of its weight. A single kick from one of its hind legs carried enough force to shatter bones on impact. Surviving such a blow with only broken bones would be considered lucky. Anyone lacking serious physical conditioning would simply die from one hit.
Moon studied the creature, of all the beasts that could have appeared, this was the ideal matchup for them.
He and Selene were both mages. They had no need to engage the Elephantos in close range, where its strength and speed were most lethal. As long as they kept their distance and bombarded it from afar, the beast’s greatest weapon, its devastating physical power, became almost useless.
"Are you ready?" Moon glanced at Selene. "Let’s bring this big thing down together."
Selene’s lips stretched into a grin, excitement flashing across her face. "Just like the old days."
The incoming battle reminded her of when they had faced the Winter Beast back in the early days. Back then, she had been too weak to contribute anything meaningful. Moon had done everything, slaying the beast and the arctic wolves under its command entirely on his own while she watched.
This time was different.
This time, she was strong enough to fight beside him.
"Let’s keep it simple." Moon said, his eyes never leaving the Elephantos that began to walk towards them. "Mid-range attacking strategy. Always maintain your distance. It doesn’t matter how hard it hits. As long as it never lands a blow, we win. Stay mobile, keep punishing it from afar, and don’t get greedy."
Selene nodded, her aura rising in an attempt to retalaite against the beast’s own aura. Her wolf crouched low, ready to spring.
"Let’s go."
Moon opened the fight. Blue Fire began to form above his staff, crackling fiercely.
At the same time, Selene began to cast out her own Dragon’s Breath skill.
Feeling the danger from the two brewing attacks, the Elephantos seized its slow walk, charging towards them, ready to impale.
Klein looked at them from above with a curious gaze. ’Entertain me...Moon...Selene.’