Divine Beast Ascension

586 First One Down

Zrrip!! Crack-Crunch!!

While the drake attacked and distracted the assassins to the north of the camp, the other two beasts each launched an assault in a different direction.

Sarpo shot himself and a barrage of lightning bolts to the west. Compared to Oli, who targeted two peak-elders, the Thunder Jaguar tackled one of the low-perennials in the crowd of attackers.

Hurdo leaped to the east. Charging through a tree, unfazed by the debris, Hurdo landed in the center of those ambushers. His fists pummeled the ground before anyone could counterattack, ripping and tilling the ground apart as pulses of earth essence flooded the ground around Hurdo. A sinkhole suddenly formed and forced all assassins near him to rethink their reactions.

“Team up against the perennials and beasts!” the assassin facing Marsel yelled his orders.

Without batting any eyes, the assassins began to separate into two forces, elders and perennials. That made it far easier for the defenders to recognize who was who.

Twelve peak-elders did their best to avoid the beasts while rushing into the camp. Some made the advance easier than others, while some were caught in the crossfire of the beasts and needed a bit more time to push forward.

To holdfast, there were only six elder mercenaries of varying realms. But adding Trantor, Freele, and Fulkar was a great boost to the mercenaries’ morale and power.

What pissed Hurman off was how many perennials had been summoned by Blood Moon Order, likely with the additional support of Prodson.

.....

The perennials from both sides scattered along the outskirts of the camp to fight, mutually acting to not involve elders in perennial battles. At least, not until one side’s perennials could win and slaughter the remaining elders in turn.

“Four on Hurman!” shouted the assassin boss facing Lambier, still focusing on evasion in order to make sure his underlings were in proper positions. “Don’t underestimate him!”

Four low-perennials surrounded the Practor Patriarch instantly.

Of course, Hurman only stared them down while raising his swords. Hurman gave a succinct, bold order, “Kill them all!”

Hurdo had already targeted one low-perennial. And one more rushed to his comrade’s aid against the defense-heavy beast.

Ceela and Opal fought as a tag team. Together, they were keeping three early-perennials at bay.

An early-perennial joined the low-perennial assassin against Sarpo, making sure to keep the beast from getting any advantage.

Reuben and Tranton ended up together. They had gotten swarmed by five early-perennials but they kept level heads. Though they weren’t close friends, the Mottz Patriarch and Leader Tranton were both familiar with each other’s reputations, essence types, and notable abilities. Even if it was a makeshift duo, the assassins needed to respect them as opponents or face the consequences.

Amidst all the clashing attacks and sectioned battles, Hurman was only focused on one fight. And it wasn’t his own.

In response to Oli’s sneak attack and their boss’s orders, two early-perennials charged on the drake before Oli could pick off more elders. Instantly, Oli switched tactics. There was no way he was going to charge on two perennials the same way he would against elders.

“It uses death essence,” stated one of the perennials.

The perennial duo kept a short distance between them and the drake, at first. They were also using that time to separate and walk to opposite sides of the mysterious, draconic beast.

Before they could get comfortable, Oli hastily recognized their essence types and acted accordingly.

*Water and fire,* Oli’s mind was racing at a thousand krin a second. *Not the best combo against me, but not the worst. We’ll try to get this one first.*

Dense shadow tendrils constructed from murky dark-death essence appeared behind each perennial. Within the darkness of the night, the black mist they gave off was only visible from up close and under light.

Neither perennial fell for it. They turned around to attack and crush the tendrils formed from mortal essence.

But the tendrils kept coming. Oli used the battle art over and over without delay or hesitation. Against perennials, he knew holding back by any margin was inviting death. And since his dark-death essence was drastically boosted in his drake form, further buffed within the blackness of the late night, Oli prepared to unleash hell.

The perennials weren’t struggling with the tendrils. One even threw a fireball at the drake while fending off the onslaught of dark tentacles.

Oli evaded narrowly. At the same time, Oli opened his mouth and activated an instinctive ability he had rarely tested.

Purple flames sprayed out of the drake’s mouth in retaliation, forcing the fire perennial to defend himself from both sides. It wasn’t too difficult for the early-perennial but it wasn’t as easy as the assassin had hoped.

So the water perennial attacked next. An icy lance was hurled at the fire-breathing drake, aiming for the upper torso of the huge beast.

Suddenly, the drake flapped his wings and closed his mouth.

A rush of air cued the perennials into what was happening. Yet they were still baffled by the speed of a beast they now knew was a mortal.

Oli took off from where he stood, propelling himself forward. He turned and whirled through the air to appear on the other side of the tree that Oli had used for cover. More flames spewed from his gullet as Oli focused on the flame perennial. The shadow tendrils were increasing even faster now as well.

“He’s only an elder, let’s finish this fast!” shouted the fire perennial, safely pinned down between the purple flames and the never-ending shadow tendrils.

The water perennial understood that his comrade was still uninjured. The vast chasm between mortal and divine essence wasn’t so easily crossed, after all. But the water perennial agreed that delaying the fight wouldn’t be ideal for the overall situation. There were far more people than the assassins had planned to fight, and perennial beasts as well. The faster they could finish off the mortal drake, the faster they could overwhelm the other defenders and kill Leader Tranton.

Allowing the shadow tendrils to latch on to him, the water perennial gave his full focus to the flying drake evading fireball after fireball.

Suddenly, a dozen icy needles appeared in the water perennial’s hands. They were thrown immediately with blinding speed and terrifying accuracy.

Despite his draconic scales and tough body, Oli didn’t dare to let a single needle touch him without a fight. He halted his flame breath and flapped away to evade the entire barrage. And he kept his eyes on the water perennial now while redirecting his flight path and watching every needle the perennial continued to throw.

The drake fire resumed, now aimed at the water perennial to slow and weaken the needles.

It seemed useless to the water perennial. “Mortal flames can’t extinguish my ice!”

“Look out!”

The fire perennial’s shout rang out as the purple flames flooded the water perennial’s field of view. But the water perennial wasn’t too worried. He was against a mortal. And that mortal hadn’t escaped the water perennial’s senses either, so the perennial prepared his next batch of needles.

However, far faster than before, the drake appeared. Oli charged into the purple flames. Some ice needles were lodged in his scales, but they were weakened by his fire and scales so Oli just dealt with the pain.

“Check…”

C-crack!

Blood sprayed out as Oli felt an ice knife stab into his chest, cracking some of his scales with relative ease. However, Oli was smiling while spraying more drake flames at point blank.

“AAAGGH?!!”

The water perennial suddenly screeched in agony. His icy essence armor was waning. Without warning or reason, it was now tens of times more difficult to control.

Even with Oli’s draconic body and the dark-death tendrils weakening the water perennial’s defenses, Oli’s lunging claws barely managed to poke through the assassin’s essence armor. But that minimal contact was all Oli needed to assault the perennial’s soul.

Oli flapped his wings again and rushed off, leaving the water perennial alone.

Yet the perennial didn’t attack. He was very much alive, but the water perennial was now at war with himself. The perennial fought to keep his divine essence active, keeping the shadow tendrils at bay. But the more the water perennial focused on his essence, the more he would spasm and twitch. He was forced to focus solely on defenses and keeping his sanity.

“SOUL! SOUL ASSASSIN!?!”

The spastic wails of that perennial reverberated through the entire campground and their surroundings. Under the torment of his soul, the perennial could only cry out with all of his might to warn his companions of the drake’s true abilities.

The unknowing mercenaries were the slowest on the update. They had heard about soul arts and they knew what an assassin was. But they hadn’t heard of a soul assassin.

The members of Blood Moon, on the contrary, all stole a glance at the fire-breathing drake and the grounded, twitching perennial. Those two words were enough for even the bosses of Blood Moon to scrunch their faces up in fury.

Faster than anyone had expected, the first perennial was down. And it was at the hands of a mortal.