The next few days repeated themselves. An empty vast and dry land during the morning, with giant Carrancas walking slowly from one place to the other, and a land filled with ghosts and goat men during the night.On the 4th day, they found a sleeping Carranca during the night. They noticed that the ghosts actively fled the giant. That explained why they didn’t see any other creature during the day. The giants walking around seemed to drive them away.
The discovery led them to search for the sword during the day and rest in safe positions during the night. All they needed to do was to hide from the Carrancas that sparsely wandered during the day.
"How much have we covered?" Eric asked Mia while they were preparing to rest on their 5th night.
"Not much." She showed him her map. She picked up cartography in the adventurer school and was quite good at it.
"This place is a desert. I wonder what those goat men feed on." Vanessa said.
"There are a lot of plants. Even though they seem dead, they aren’t." Mia said while Eric studied the map.
"But there’s no water, no insects, no birds." Matthew protested. "A thing that big must eat something other than plants."
"It has a goat head." Vanessa argued. "Perhaps it feeds on plants."
"Then why did they attack us?" Matthew questioned.
"Perhaps it’s just evil." Faralynn said after finishing setting up her tent.
They looked at each other. That settled the argument.
Matthew woke up in the middle of the night with the sounds of battle. Vanessa screamed for them to wake up.
Matthew jumped out of his sleeping bag, using his Shadow Form ability to dress himself in his dragon armor and leave the tent he shared with Faralynn.
Outside was a horde of hungry ghosts that charged Vanessa and Mia, who were in guard watch, trying to bite them down.
Those ghosts were very weak. Level 5 to 10 only. But their numbers were annoying.
Mia’s laser beams illuminated the night every time she shot them at the undead.
Matthew touched her shoulder, blessing her against the miasma that was starting to cover the field.
Vanessa dashed around the undead with incredible speed taking them out with her knives with ease.
"They’re getting more aggressive." Matthew commented as he charged forward and slashed the undead without mercy.
"Does that mean we’re getting closer?" Mia asked while using a barrage of laser beams to take down the ghosts in front of her.
"If this was a dungeon, I’d say yes. But here, who knows?" Matthew said while easily destroying their attackers.
Faralynn and Eric didn’t even get ready. They just watched the fight from inside their tents. It was clear that the 3 others were enough to deal with that.
After the ghosts stopped showing up and attacking, Matthew walked around purifying the miasma in the air.
That’s when they heard a bellowing howl from nearby.
"What was that?" Eric exclaimed and quickly started to put on his breastplate.
"Get ready." Vanessa said to the others while scanning the surroundings with her Sense Others skill.
Faralynn rushed to put her armor on.
"Here it comes." Matthew exclaimed, also sensing whatever it was with his own skill.
A 8 feet (2.5 meters) humanoid monster jumped from the shadows bellowing like a crazy monkey. It had a deep dark green fur covering its body. It had human ears and an empty nose socket. Its eyes were round and completely black. It had a large mouth filled with pointy teeth. Its hands were like the hands of monkeys and, instead of feet, it had talons similar to a velociraptor’s, with large black claws.
"What the hell is that?" Eric asked, fastening his breastplate buckles the fastest he could.
Quibungo, Level 50. Matthew read using his Identify.
He looked at Vanessa saying sorry with his eyes. Then he drew his gun and enhanced himself with Unholy Mana. He shot the beast who quickly ran using its dinosaur talons to great speed trying to dodge Matthew’s shots.
Vanessa and Mia joined him, each attacking with their own weapons.
The beast dodged Mia’s lasers, but Vanessa’s knives flew more precisely, hitting it on the legs, doing minimal damage.
The Quibungo crouched, putting its hands on the floor. That’s when they all saw its back opening. From its neck to its tailbone, a vertical mouth with the same teeth as its mouth opened. It bellowed even higher now from the opening on its back.
Vanessa’s face went pale.
"More are coming!" She shouted.
Matthew then rushed forward with Belial’s blade in one hand and a gun in the other.
When he reached the creature, it jumped high avoiding Matthew’s bullets and strike.
A big mistake, in the air it couldn’t dodge his bullets. Matthew drew blood from the beast that fell on the ground in black droplets.
Matthew noticed that his gun wasn’t doing as much damage as he could with the Stats he had. His bullets and guns weren’t strong enough to handle all the power he could imprint on them. That was the hurdle of using guns, bullets weren’t simply big enough to handle high amounts of mana. The reason most high level ranged adventurers used bows, arrows had more mass and therefore could hold more mana inside them.
Faralynn shot the Quibungo as soon as it landed on the ground. Her magic arrow trespassed the creature’s leg. Faralynn’s armor was still hanging from her torso, she didn’t have enough time to fasten the straps herself.
Eric charged forward with his sword in one hand and his jacket in the other. His sword came down onto the creature who stopped it with its arm. Its Vital Shield took most of the damage, but half its arm was now open with Eric’s sword embedded in it.
"Two more from behind!" Vanessa screamed.
"I’ll take them, you kill this one!" Matthew shouted while already moving towards the newcomers.
Mia covered Eric with dozens of lasers when the man stepped back to dodge an attack from the beast. Mia’s lasers burned its fur forming dark black circles on it.
Still with her armor open, Faralynn shot another arrow aiming at the soft skin inside the mouth on its back. The mouth, however, closed biting and munching the arrow as if it was a snack.
Vanessa masterfully threw a dagger at the creature’s nape doing no damage.
"There! Aim there!" Vanessa shouted showing the others the point her Sneak Attack skill showed her where the Quibungo’s Vital Shield was thinner.
Eric used his jacket as a weapon, hitting the beast with its metal plates and then tried to strike with his sword using all his skills to gain strength. However, the tradeoff of him losing agility gave the beast time to dodge it.
His sword carved a deep hole on the ground.
The Quibungo tried to bite Eric when he pried his sword from the floor. But Mia acted quickly creating a ram made of light to headbutt it away from the warrior.
Mia’s Familiar skill allowed her to give intelligence to her mana and light creations. The light ram had a mind of its own, charging forward and keeping the creature away from Eric.
The Quibungo then jumped over the animal made of light and landed on top of it cutting it deep with its talon and destroying the mana simulacrum.
Vanessa charged forward attacking from the creature’s back with her daggers, but dealing no damage. But her objective was not to harm it, she simply wanted its attention.
It turned to her gnarling in anger and gave its back to Faralynn that charged an arrow with all the mana it could handle.
The elf’s arrow flew true, hitting the Quibungo’s nape with flawless precision.
It screamed loudly and trembled as if it was being electrocuted by the arrow embedded in his skull.
It turned on its talons with difficulty, the arrow head was deep enough to mess with the creature’s nervous system. It charged Faralynn limping from the arrow in its leg and twitching every time the arrow in its nape moved and messed with its nerves.
On that stated it had no chance to dodge Eric’s brutal swing. He hit it on the belly, cutting it in half and sending the top flying away some distance.
It’s black blood poured everywhere drenching the warrior in it.
They’ve done it. Even though that was a level 50 beast, 4 level 30 adventurers managed to bring it down.
The mana surge inside of them was enormous.
Vanessa took a look at her Stat Screen. She leveled up two levels.
Mia, Eric and Faralynn each leveled up one.
They took a moment to breathe.
Faralynn fastened her breastplate with Mia’s help.
Eric put on his plated jacket.
Vanessa collected her daggers from the floor.
There was no time to think about leveling up. Matthew was facing two of those creatures. They rushed to his aid with haste.