Chapter 59: Arrival of the survivors' convoy (4)

After being struck by the massive trunk, and flying away miserably, Ramie had lost his conscious for only short time, before waking up.

His entire right arm was no longer there; his shoulder was now frighteningly mingled. The entire right side of his torso was messed up, with many broken ribs and bone tips sticking out like spikes… yet, he did not die.

His bloodline's abnormal vitality had saved his life yet again.

Ramie regained his consciousness just in the time to witness the compound's leader failed attack, and the miserable state he landed in after receiving the enraged beast's retaliation.

After gazing at the beast and seeing his stats screen, he understood why they were suppressed to such a sorry state.

Tier-2 Beast

Name: Glacier bear

Innate Spells: none

Special notes: A descendent of the mountain king, known to have an extreme strength and defense. Beware of his charging attack.

Seeing these stats, Ramie understood that this beast was on a level beyond what the current compound could handle.

As such, he decided to resort to the use of his new ultimate trump card – Ghost glare spell!

After all, and even though this beast was on an entire tier higher than him, but this spell of his was a soul based spell that can directly attack the soul of the target, ignoring the physical defenses. More ever, the target was a beast! So he didn't believe that this beast can have a soul force higher than normal human. Also, the fact that his innate spell belonged to the soul path implied that his soul force should higher than average.

Although he wasn't sure of the concept that humans had stronger souls that beasts, but… what other choice was there!

He had to cast his spell and see if it affects the beast or not?

If it did, then hopefully the effect would last for a long time… long enough for someone to inflict some damage on the soft spots in the beast or something, assuming he had any at all.

And if its failed, then he and the others would carry out their emergency plan that they had agreed on days ago and flee the compound.

It had to be said, that after he got this spell, last night, he had casted it for the first time, so the artifact had already transmitted to him the particular casting method.

It was a rather simple one. As all he had to do, was to inject the required magic energy into the artifact to fuel the cast of the spell, and lock his eyes on the target. Apparently, this spell was to be casted using the eyes, and not the hands or anything else. Direct eye contact was not needed for the spell to work, but merely looking at the target would do. Also, he didn't need to keep locking at the target for the effect to last, but only for a brief time to cast the spell. Afterward, looking elsewhere would be fine.

Thus, locking his eyes at the beast, Ramie gave it try.

Ghost glare!

The moment he casted the spell, the beast went motionless almost instantly.

Ramie felt overjoyed at the fact that his spell actually worked on the beast. But instantly afterward, he remembered that this beast was much stronger than himself, and that the higher the tier of the beast, the more intelligent they become, which meant that this beast's soul force might not be very far off from normal humans… as such, the effect of his spell would be a short one.

"Attack the eyes! Attack the beast's eyes! Before the spell wears off! SOMEBODY, ATTACKS, THE DAMN, EYES!!!!!!!!!!"

Ramie immediately started shouting for the others to attack the beast while still on its trance-like state that was induced by the ghost glare spell.

To his dismay however, after he finished his shouts, the beast regained his senses, and was confused for a second, before starting to roar with a towering fury while scanning the area around to locate the culprit behind the attack.

Generally, all the beasts had the ability to sense the aura of other creatures. However, not all the beasts had the same degree of this perceptive ability.

Some beasts had a heightened sense that enables them to sense both strong and weak auras, while other beasts had a weak perceptive ability, only enabling them to sense the auras of beasts that were much stronger than themselves. As for the weak beasts, they had to depend on other senses such as sight, smell, and hearing to locate targets.

Now, it had to be mentioned that the aura generally reflects the strength of the beast that radiates it, or its level, whether it was the life energy aura or magic energy aura. And needlessly to say, the stronger the beast, the stronger the aura he emits, and the weaker the beast, the weaker the aura.

Anyway, when it comes to the beasts that had an average perceptive ability, they are able them to sense the strong auras, while also sensing the weak auras if they were close by.

Luckily for Ramie, this beast had a rather dull aura sensing ability, and thus was only able to detect auras of beast much higher than himself.

As such, and depending on his other senses, it was impossible for the beast to locate the attacker, as the spell was soul based, and needless to say, detecting that spell was far beyond the capabilities of normal senses.

Seeing that the chance has passed, ramie wanted to curse out in frustration.

The beast was motionless for a 3 full seconds, yet, no one dared to attack…!?

Ramie immediately picked himself up with great difficulty, he pushed his body to its limit and forced himself to run away from the scene, to create a safe distance between himself and the massive, raging monstrosity.

"Ramie…! You're actually still alive…! Wait… was that your new spell just now…?"

As Ramie ran over to the group, the half rejoicing-half shocked Reem welcomed him from a distant.

She was standing near the group of warriors that didn't want to retreat. Those warriors all have families hiding in their houses just few tenths of meters behind. So, if the beast got passed them here, the living area behind would be the next playground.

As Ramie saw Reem, an idea came to him. So, he decided to give it a try, to see if this gloomy situation was salvageable or not. And if it wasn't, then, he could only join the others in escaping.

"Yes! It was my spell…! Tell me, if I do that again, can your beast try and attack the eyes of the bear?"

"Eyes… um… Yes…probably… but, I have to say, we have already shoot him with lighting ball and fire ball at the same time. But it didn't do anything at all…!"

Hearing so, ramie was stunned.

Although he had regained his conscious in the time to see the compound's leader attack fail, which was the strongest attack here, but, it came as a shock for him to learn that even two explosions did nothing to this beast.

Shaking his head, Ramie spoke: "Then, we will make this one last attempt, if it didn't work, then we can just run away from here! Tell me, can your summon outrun this thing…?"

"Yes! Although this beast is strong, he's too heavy to catch up to whity." Reem answered, appearing to be certain in her assumption.

Hearing her answer, Ramie felt assured. After all, if this attack failed, then there was a chance that they face the retaliation of the beast.

Right now, the beast had killed one of the warriors that was trying to crawl away from him, and was busy in devouring the remains.

"Tell your summon to attack the moment I give the signal!'"

Saying so, ramie faced the direction of the beast, and prepared to cast his spell.

As the ghost glare spell requires 20 magic energy points to be casted, and as he had already used it once… this meant that he could cast only one more time, before his magic energy drops down to 9 points… meaning that before recovering his energy, this would be the last time he could cast it in this confrontation.

The beast was over 30 meters away from them now, devouring the warriors that he had killed earlier. The beast was ignoring their existence, as if he could just kill them whenever he wanted to.

The area where the beast stood was lettered with several warriors lying on the ground either dead or too weak to resist, the best seems to have stopped the killing spree and started eating his trophies.

Injecting his magic energy in the artifact, ramie commanded!

Ghost glare!

Immediately, his two golden eyes shone with a mysterious light, and in almost no time… The beast's eyes lost their glimmer and dulled, as if losing all signs of life within them. And immediately, the beast went immobile again.

"Attack!!!" Ramie shouted with urgency.

The moment his sound fell, the azure gazelle king charged ahead with high speed, toward the beast, and shortened the distance between him and the motionless beast in no time.

Then and standing at a distance that would allow him to retreat on time if his attack failed, flashy sparks of lightening flickered, dancing around the gazelles' two horns.

Bzzzttt!!!!!!

In a split second, and just like the lightening that streaks through stormy nights, a beam of lightening bounced from the crystal- like horns of the azure gazelle king and streaked through the distance, smashing right at the beast's face.

The lightening beam bombarded the beast's face, causing sparks of lightening to splash off wildly.

ROAAAAAARRRR!!!

ROARRRRR!!!

ROOOAAAARRRR!!!

The moment the beast regained his senses, a massive waves of pain assaulted his brain like a flood, causing him to unleash wretched cries of agony and pain.

The azure gazelle king retreated the exact moment the beast started moving, and moved away, next to Reem.

"Success…!"

Seeing the beast violent reaction, with two streams of blood gushing down from its eyes, Ramie was elated.

Both eyes of the beast were now burned, with smoke rising up for the beast's eye sockets!

It wasn't only Ramie, but everyone else was also overjoyed.

In the distance, the beast started moving in circles, while howling with agony. Occasionally, he would push his head against the ground, as if wanting to scratch his bloodied eyes.

Even though the beast had lost his eyes, but in the end, he was still mid tier-2 beast! And other than ramie's ghost glare spell, no one here has anything that can affect the beast.

The bitter fact was that even though they had incapacitated the beast, they still couldn't kill it, even though he had already lost his sight.

Not long afterward, the best stopped moving in circles, faced their direction, and roared at them with anger, while swinging his large paws at them threateningly.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the beast's next action.

Bears are thought to have the best sense of smell of any animal on earth. For example, the average dog's sense of smell is 100 times better than humans. A blood hound's is 300 times better.

As for bears'… their sense of smell is 7 times better than a blood hound's or 2,100 times better than a human!

Of course, that went for the normal bears, the animals. As for this beast, it was unknown if he possessed the same quality that average bears has or not. However, if it did, then it would explain why had this beast come here in the first place – the lingering blood smell from yesterday's battle.

Fearing that this beast might have a good sense of smell, no one dared to approach this hill of muscles. In the first place, aside from the severely injured leader, no one here was capable of even hurting the beast now.

After letting out few menacing roars at them, the beast turned back, picked one of the corpses on the ground with his mouth… and left the compound.

"..."

"..."

"Did the beast just… fled away…?" One of the warriors asked, in uncertain tone.

No one answered him.

The beasts' occasional roar grew fainter and fainter.

He was indeed retreating away.

Looking at his injury… Ramie's expression turned terrible.

After that, he looked backward…

The thick tree trunk that knocked him out had flown all the way to the other side, embedding itself into a house, and causing an entire side of that house to crumble apart.

Seeing the scene, Ramie's eyes twitched a bit.

'I actually survived that…!'

Immediately, the frustration in his heart vanished away, completely.

A moment afterward, and after feeling a sense of security, Ramie sensed his consciousness fading away…

'Not again…'

He immediately tried to sit down, to avoid falling down on the right side of his body, and worsening the injury. However… and before he manages so, he black out, standing.

Thud!

…