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Chapter 29: At Which Fate Decides...

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From the clouds of mist, they heard a unified march.

One rhythm, like a giant army, their feet alternated in the same tempo.

There wasn’t any gong nor any war song but the marching feet of whoever’s army in front of them were getting close.

At first it sounded walking, around a hundred more meters off. Then it suddenly stopped. When Siva was about to ask, the ground suddenly shook and a loud roar of a monster echoed from afar with a BOOM.

Cries of men can be heard and the stomping feet roared like thunder. Metal hitting rocks, trembling grounds and sparks of spell flew over.

There was a battle against a Lapis Lazuli that was initiated far up front.

When Volt and Siva confirmed this, they nodded at each other. They were supposed to run away and hide but then the mist subsided.

A loud roar came and Volt and the rest froze.

Only Siva remained unfrozen and he was also the one who knew why.

Remembering the reason they were lost, perhaps those people can help them. As they were far superior in numbers than them, making them enemies for the sake of the hunt is not a wise choice.

So Siva opened his menu and accessed his inventory, into the equipment window, wearing a certain armor.

As he already did the initial sequence of wearing the armor in the Miranda, it only needed a confirmation for him to equip his flying gear.

“Help me later!” He shouted and dashed off.

On the disappearing thick mist, he reached where the Lapis was. Good thing it has a higher ego than a dragon as it savored the «Pose of the King» and roared again.

“Got ya!”

From behind the Lapis, Siva flipped.

Going 400km/hr in mid air wasn’t enough to get him to feel Vertigo so he renewed his will as he set his limit bar a bit higher than before.

He was aiming to stab the sword on its right eye but the Lapis saw him and slightly tilted his head to avoid the stabbing attack.

Instead of the eyes, the small soft hole behind his gold eyes were the place where he stabbed, and the monster roared in pain and agony, as it stomped its front legs like a hammer to the ground.

“Right ear huh?” A voice came from the lower side that made Siva gasp.

A swordsman in thick armor had jumped with a stab.

His sword pierced through the Lapis’ right shoulder wing and the swordsman quickly pulled it as he danced in mid air.

Siva couldn’t believe his eyes.

Four, seven, ten, twelve, fifteen slashes! With the stab as the first, fifteen slashes in five seconds were just too overly awesome and incredible.

While he slashed the right wing that disabled the Lapis’ flight attacks, he also gave the monster enough pain to actually pause from doing the same «Pose of the King» again.

Lapis Lazulis are known to execute «Pose of the King» one after another. But if the timing was right, one could also expose another weakness they have.

Just before the first «Pose» is released, if one is to activate a skill, especially one that could last ten seconds, then while his body is still paralyzed, the system assistance executes the skill.

It’s the weakness of the «Pose of the King».

But, even though it was an open secret to all, only a few select are actually skilled enough to pull it through.

One such skilled enough is in front of Siva and he just finished delivering a painful barrage of slashes to the fabled terror of the sky.

“Ah shit, I’m done.” But this line ruined the impression.

Like a stone statue, right after he gave the monster his fifteenth slash, the guy’s body froze in mid air as he fell down.

Siva kicked the air, expending stamina, though the push wasn’t as powerful when using his Aerial Stomp, it was still enough to push and make him move from his place.

He caught the man and secured his landing, into a tree where he made him lay on his back.

The monster who’s right ear continued to bleed made another «Pose» but Siva summoned his guns and jump towards the monster, releasing a barrage of bullets to its right ear’s direction.

With an irritated glare, the monster’s action paused, turned its head at Siva who passed through his eyes in a white line.

SNAP!

The monster’s jaws closed 3 meters away from Siva’s feet and the sound made by the jaws snapping together was enough to scare him off.

“Damn it.”

In his mind, he was thinking of Dragunov’s function of disintegration. He can’t use «Lightning Step» to escape.

Or in this case, his subconsciousness is stopping him.

To achieve such degree of high speed movement, the concept he thought when he was designing Dragunov was inspired by his fight with the Forest Dragon.

He needed something to evade attacks from behind, move quickly from place to place, and deliver an attack as fast as possible without sacrificing the power and the accuracy that his Cassius Clay once gave.

During the «Disintegration» function of the Dragunov, the small bits of nano particles are converted into a conductor, a channel, and a feeler.

With only the heart of Dragunov left to carry him, the grain-sized parts are scattered using Telekinesis.

With the power supply from the Electric Stun Grenade (or E-Grenade), he can traverse a maximum distance of 20m in any direction he wanted four times, or use the «Call of Thunder» once for every electric charge.

But using the «Lightning Step» has its price and that is the Vertigo that tortured him a few days ago.

High speed travel by someone who’s not trained to do such things almost caused him to die.

Using «Lightning Step» endlessly until he killed a Lapis pushed Siva to the limits that he ignored the feedback of the ability to his mind.

As a result, he learned to fear the touch of that power.

Yes, he knew that the «Call of Thunder» was an ability born by accident and that its name was something he just invented himself. But he also now learned to fear that power because of the news that his doctors said.

[The second time might kill you.]

He can’t die yet, not until he saved his brother.

So now he forcefully steeled his resolve and swallowed the fear of nearly dying by monster bite.

He kicked the air again, going up, until he was fifty meters high. Then pointed his guns to the monster who glared at him from below.

Siva released his barrage of bullets and although he knew that it’s not gonna work, what he actually aimed for was just to irritate the green-blue colored monster.

It growled angrily and tried to fly but the right wing was damaged and it looked at it dumbfounded.

When he realized that his wing was gone, the five seconds left of being paralyzed was gone and both Volt and the rest of the guy’s army was moving again.

As if realizing his fate, the battle that unfolded was a desperate fight from the Lapis.

From the three lapis in Siva’s memory that he had fought, this one is a lot bigger and fiercer than them.

Perhaps it was the grade of the monster, proving that this place is a lot dangerous than what he thought. The monster’s viciousness was proof that it had fought its way to survival time and time again.

With the rushing tackle, the Lapis ate two warriors on the swordsman’s side. Its tail swipe killed another and its stomp crushed one more.

It was a fierce 2-hours fight and until the beast wasn’t moving only did Siva and the Swordsman declared it was their victory.

After the fight, the two finally meet up face to face.

With a reached out right hand, the man greeted Siva.

“Thanks for the help. I didn’t know that there were others here. But if you weren’t there, we would have actually been wiped out.”

“Lapis Lazuli likes to attack from above. It was a nice choice to disable its wings in the first place. I learned a lot from you, including that one.”

The two men smiled and they shook hands.

“My name is Jack.” said the man.

Siva looked back to his companions with hesitation and then he sighed deeply and replied.

“I am called…The Destroyer.”