Chapter 80: Survival exercise 5

…

Prior to the sudden attack, Blake had already been informed by the system about the sklades, but since beasts attacking them was expected and him not being their targets, Blake remained concealed and prepared to take advantage of the situation.

'Are there only 2 sklades?' Blake asked as he prepared to take action.

[Affirmative. No other beast is in my detection range.] The system's report put a smirk on Blake's face as he unsheathed Reaper.

'Let's go.'

…

Because of their inexperience, the oppressors and the oppressed were in disarray. Out of fear, they shot spells randomly at the sklades, but because of the beast's exoskeleton and thick scales, most of the damages were negligible.

The fear of death could have different effects on people. There were people who were calm and still able to reason even when they were at hell's gate. The second group was those so gripped by the fear of death that they lost all their thinking abilities and made desperate attempts that usually ended up futile.

Unfortunately, both teams were in the second category. In the face of danger, both teams had forgotten all about their lessons on advanced combat. Even the advice of using weapons against beasts with thick hide was thrown out the window, their judgment was clouded by fear. If not for the nature of the sklades the professors in charge of the team would have warped in by now to save the students.

Blake rushed out of his hiding spot and silently weaved through the panicking students and went straight for the sklade attacking the leader of the oppressors. Just like how he had dealt with the fraxen, he wanted to use the leader as a distraction to end the sklade quickly, but not everything happens as planned.

Sklades had the unique ability of the reptile family which was a high perception of vibrations from the ground. If though Blake had tried to be as silent as possible, it still created some vibrations that alerted it.

The sklade suddenly lashed its thick spiked tail with the intent of taking the human by surprise, but Blake had already predicted such a move from the beast, so he jumped and cast a flame burst to further propel him away from the tail and towards its body.

Blake was so fast, that when he landed on its back in a blink of an eye, he was already at the top of its head with the reaper plunging down towards its skull. The sklade was shocked by Blake's speed and couldn't react, he could only watch as the katana pierced through its exoskeleton and into its brain reaping its life.

'Such speed!' The team leader's eyes were wide open in disbelieve, but before more thoughts could form in his mind, Blake zoomed past him, and before he could react, the hilt of Reaper knocks him out.

'Don't want idiots getting in my way.' Blake thought as he dashed towards the second sklade while charging a flame burst.

The second team was in a worse situation, more than half of the team were unconscious, while the sklade was charging at the one, the other was on the run. Immediately, Blake got into range he fired the flame burst which knocked it a few meters away.

The flame burst was a strong explosive fire spell that carried a punch. The only reason it looked like it lacked power was that Blake usually reduced the time of charge so that he could be propelled instead of having his limbs blown to bits.

HISS!

The sklade was enraged by the human's sneaky attack, it quickly rushed charge at Blake, but before it knew what was going on Blake threw a throwing knife at its eye, blinding it and inflicting on it a mind-numbing pain.

HISS!

The sklade hissed both in both pain and rage, as the fight had turned to a vendetta against the human. First, it had killed its brother now it had taken one of its eyes, the amount of hatred it had for the human had transcended to a different level. "Not even the heavens could break up this fight!" The sklade hissed as it charged towards Blake in a frenzy.

'Seems I pushed the wrong button.' Blake was surprised by the sklades renewed vigor, but he didn't worry much about it. With Blake's speed and the sklades impaired vision, all he needed to do was to stay on its blind side and wait for an opportunity to strike.

It tried using its thick skull to ram Blake into oblivion, but it was easier imagined than done especially against a speedster like him. Blake dodged the charge with ease and spawned behind it, but the sklade wouldn't let him go so easily, it whipped it tail in all direction in order to squash the human.

But contrary to the screams it had expected, it felt a sharp pain at its tail and when he tried to move again, there was nothing there to move.

HISS!

The sklade hissed in pain as its cursed Blake's entire generation, but even if Blake could understand the beast language he wouldn't care because this was a perfect time to end the battle.

Seeing the sklade was still in pain, Blake lashed forward. He slashed at its leg leaving a deep cut that destabilized it for a second giving him an opportunity to cut the forearms causing it to lose its balance and fall, but before it crashed to the floor, Blake was already in front of it with his sword in his hands.

From the moment Blake cut its tail, Dread filled the sklades heart as it watched the human chain his attacks without even giving him an opportunity to react. The sklade could only wish it was an elite beast so that it could beg for its life in human tongue, but before it could even make a screech its head was already meters up in the air.

'Next up, the competition.' Blake didn't stop moving when he killed the sklade, he wanted to use the opportunity while it lasted and that was to eliminate the competition while they were still in shock.

"Thank you so much for saving us from…" The leader of the oppressed team wanted to thank their hero, but he noticed that Blake was moving too fast for someone that was done with a fight.

'Is something coming? or is he coming to me?!' The leader soon realized what was going on, but it was way too late. The moment Blake zoomed past him, he fell on the ground and lost consciousness.

'4 more to go.' Blake calculated as he remembered the member of the oppressed team that was still on the run.

'What is going?' The team of oppressors was still in shock after seeing Blake kill too sklades with such finesse, but his action of knocking out the other team's leader put them into further confusion.

It was when their leader was knocked unconscious that they managed to react, but it was too late, Blake quickly dispatched another member and for the last member who was the quickest to react by channeling a spell, Blake threw a knife at his lap making him lose concentration, hence canceling the spell.

'rookie mistake.' Blake sneered as he approached the bleeding student with his katana.

"Why are you… doing this?" the student stuttered in fear as Blake drew closer.

"Hmm." Blake snorted and knocked him unconscious without say a word.

"Time to go catch our runaway student." Blake said with an even grin as he dashed towards the direction the student went.

'I can't believe, she is stupid enough to run in the same direction.' Blake felt like face-palming. It meant that if he was really out to kill her all he needed to do was to follow the same direction to get his target.

'Well that makes things easier.' Blake couldn't careless, he was running out of time so he had to be quick in capturing her.

[…] The system had many things to say about his statement, but he decided to be quiet. Blake was using the system's detection ability to locate the student, that meant even if she made a thousand turns they still be able to locate her as longer as she was in the 100 meters range, rendering Blake's comment useless.

With his speed, it didn't take time for him to catch up to the girl. She  was sweating profusely and regularly looked back with a frightened expression as she ran for her life.

'Omg! I wonder what's going on in her head. She really is a damsel in distress, but too bad I am the cause of her distress.' Blake could see the frightened expression on her oval face.

With lightning arcs squirming all over his body, Blake dropped in front of her like lightning god.

[Nice entrance.] The system said with a 'smirk'.

'That's what I do best.' Blake replied.

"Are… Are the beasts gone?" Tessie stuttered when her eyes met with that of her crush.