Moments passed, but the Shriekers continued their strange behavior and none of the humans -- not even Quin -- dared to approach them.

Although Pei was completely surprised as well, he only let his focus to be gone for just a few seconds and started to issue various commands right after that. He was the leader of the forces that were stationed in Hounxi and knew how much of a responsibility he had. With just a couple of orders he managed to reorganize their group quite effectively.

The wounded and the ones that were not able to continue the fight anymore were brought to the center of the square, which was then surrounded by the others in multiple layers, with the strongest fighters positioned in the outermost circle.

Even though the most optimal choice would have been evacuating them, they had no such option. Most of the Shriekers were still flying crazily in a circle above the Tailed Shrieker, but there was no certainty that there would be no other groups of them hidden in other parts of the town.

Quin’s place was currently the closest to the strange phenomenon, he was standing there alone as the vanguard of their group. He was constantly thinking about what was happening and how he should react to it.

He instinctively knew that going closer to the Tailed Shrieker would be extremely dangerous now and had a truly bad premonition. Its body’s still glowing so intensely, but it looks like it’s changing continuously. Is it using some strange technique to make itself stronger? I can’t think of anything else other than that!

These damn sons of bitches! It’s been already difficult to fight them and when I thought that we were finally in the position to win, they pull something out of their asses!

But... What’s if it’ll be stronger than me? A hint of dread appeared in his eyes. We’ve got a true Spirit Forming expert, but would they interfere? The only time they did so was when the town’s center was directly attacked... Damn, there’s just too many variables.

He looked back to the place his mother and the others were a bit worriedly, but his mother’s only response was the same smile as before.

Does she trust me that much? Or is she just trying to encourage me? He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, calming himself down. Damn, I’m such a worrywart! I don’t even know how strong it’ll be, neither how strong I truly am. Though fighting the Tailed Shrieker was hard, it didn’t take me to my limit and besides I’ve got the homeground here. My energy reserves are about half, but it’s continuously recharging and worst case scenario I’ll just run to take a quick dip in the lake!

Time passed awfully slow and all of the people that were at the town’s center was filled with worry and fear.

A sound of thunderous creak could be heard suddenly and then was followed by an ear-piercing shriek soon. The Tailed Shrieker’s outer part that had been glowing in a purple color previously exploded, spraying a disgusting sticky liquid in every direction. The trees, the rocks, the structures, basically everything that it touched was reduced to nothing more than a black powder in an instant.

Then, a strange and terrifying creature emerged from where once the Tailed Shrieker stood. It was still mostly white with a few lines of purple running through its body. It was at least three times as high as Quin, as it was standing on its three, long three-jointed legs that ended in extremely sharp points. It no longer had a tail and Quin assumed that it was turned into its rear leg during the transformation.

It also had a pair of long arms, but its hands were nothing like a human’s. They ended in a sharp point just like its legs, but they were also symmetrically surrounded by six longer spikes. Some kind of purple gas was constantly emitted from its giant mouth that looked very similar to the Tailed Shrieker’s.

“Man, it’s one disgusting monster!” Quin exclaimed in a joking manner, but in truth he was fairly worried. The creature looked terrifying even in his eyes and he did have some reservations about engaging a beast like this in battle. However, there was no other path in front of him, so he swallowed his fear and worry and started to slowly walk toward it, his heart beating as fast as it had never before.

The remaining swarm of Shriekers that had been still circling around the creature started to suddenly shoot toward the group of people one after another and soon battle broke out once again.

The creature lowered its body so that it reached the ground and then shot upward, disappearing from their eyes in a mere moment. Damn, that’s too fast! Its three legs gave the beast an incredible amount of strength and Quin could barely follow its movements. Where did it go? He was constantly scanning the air to find a trace of his opponent.

Fuck!

Quin jumped to the side with all of his might as he could barely register the danger that was coming from above.

BOOM!

The Shrieker crashed into the ground where he was just a moment ago, with his three legs’ ends pointing toward each other. The air blew fiercely from the collision and even he could not keep himself from getting blown away a few meters. His face was pale white from the shock.

He had faced death multiple times and had been in numerous dangerous battles, but this was something else. The entire thing was so sudden that had he reacted even a tenth of a second later, he would be nothing more than a pulp of blood and gore or maybe even less than that. Furthermore there had been no time when he felt so inferior compared to his enemy as now -- except the first time he had encountered a Shrieker, but that was no battle.

Quin did not stay idle though, and thanks to his strong willpower got himself together in no time. Back on his feet, he started to run toward the creature right away. It may have looked like a foolish decision at first, but he realized that it was not the creature’s normal movements that were so freakishly fast. The reason behind its speed was that it used the strength of all three of its legs to catapult itself high in the air and then probably even used some kind of technique in addition to gravity to fall back. It would not have an opportunity to use all of the strength of its legs to jump straight at him or to get him by that much of a surprise under normal circumstances.

The Shrieker was still stuck in the crater it made and it seemed a great opportunity for attacking it. Its legs appeared to be covered in a strong armor, so Quin planned to jump up on the creature and threw a couple of punches at its neck. Despite it being difficult to get to, it was the creature’s only part that he could clearly see being weaker.

Its head was now only a meter above the ground due to it being sunk it the crater and that made it look like a perfect opportunity for him.

When he was close enough he jumped with all the power his legs could muster and left behind two smaller craters where his legs once stood. Although his speed could not be compared to his enemy’s previous attack, it was by no means slow.

Things did not go at all how Quin wanted to and as he was closing on his target, it opened its mouth that hid several dangerously looking tongues. They shot at him right away from all direction, most of them came from the front, but there were ones that did an arc and targeted his sides or back.

Quin felt more than just a hint of danger as he was surrounded from every direction and was rather angry at his mistake to leap at the Shrieker from so far away. He wanted to strike as fast as he could, but this impatience cause a dangerous situation for him as being in the air he lacked any means to effectively dodge or block the attacks. Those tongues looked sharp as a razor and were lightning fast thus he was at a complete loss to how to get out of this situation.

Damn!

He decided to try to strike the most dangerous one or two and bend his body in a more protective state.

BOOM!

Another sound of explosion could be heard after their exchange and blood flew in every direction. None of it was purple, however, and Quin was in a quite sorry state as he fell down to the ground. His body was painted in red and there were chunks of his body missing in various places, but despite all of this he jumped back to his feet right away.

Fuck! Its tongue actually pierced through my fist! Even though his fist had been injured when he directly struck at the Tailed Shrieker’s combined tongues, that was not anything serious. This time was completely different as he could barely move his right hand anymore. Naturally, the wild healing energy was already hard at work, but it was not something easy to restore due to the creature also injecting him with some kind of poison.

Quin thought that his current situation was rather bad.