On the Cursed ship, when Brock had revealed to the group that Quinn would be talking to Eno right now, they didn't take that as a good sign. Instead, Logan and Sam were thinking along the same lines.
They were worried. Richard Eno wasn't someone they could fully trust yet despite what Logan's parents told him, or believe that he was the great scientist that helped out the human race in times of need. There were just too many secrets for things to go smoothly.
After learning of this, Sam suggested that they keep a close eye on Quinn and find out where he was. They knew the schedule of the military and what planet they would be on, and because they had an inkling that Eno would try something, they were ready having organised a few things beforehand.
Of course, as soon as the communication devices were down and the military had put out a report for anyone in the nearby area to be careful of the Planet Caladi, they were already one step ahead of everyone else.
This allowed them to arrive before anyone. Linda, Nate, Dennis, Wevil and Sam had teleported to the planet closest and already had a ship prepared to head to planet Caladi.
"Remember the plan!" Sam said, and at that moment, the Dalki came rushing forward. Wevil, Sam, Nate, and Dennis stood in front of Linda and each one of them raised their shadow. They used their abilities to equally take part of the attack.
Alone, their MC points were probably enough to just block a single attack from a Dalki, but then they wouldn't be able to fight using their ability anymore. However if they mixed their shadows together, they would contribute evenly to the attack and it wouldn't drain them so quickly.
'The shadow ability, isn't that Quinn, their Cursed faction Leader's ability? Does this mean that he taught it to others in his faction as well?' Samantha wondered. In a way, one wouldn't think this was too surprising - it was a strong ability that should be shared. However with such a strong ability, some people might have decided to keep the power only to themselves.
However, with the shadow ability alone, this couldn't be the only reason why they were confident.
Samantha had noticed that Linda didn't use a shadow ability, but instead started to grow in size while being surrounded by shadows. As she began growing slightly larger than the Dalki, her beast armour was being equipped through the shadow equip skill.
Then when she was ready, the others quickly moved out of the way and the Dalki and Linda clashed. Their hands netted closely together, pushing against one another hoping for one to give in.
For the second time today, Samantha had seen another human match a Dalki in terms of strength.
'Do the Cursed faction have a lot better beast gear than we thought?' She wondered, and she soon started to move Fex and herself away from the danger zone.
"Everyone quickly, get to it!" Sam ordered and Wevil's body started to transform into the dangerous bug man he was, turning into his tiger beetle form.
At the same time, Dennis had moved his shadow to form small wings on his back. Sam, using his own shadow, had somehow allowed it to also attach to Dennis, letting his wings grow bigger.
Dennis hopped onto Nate's broad shoulders and soon added his shadow too, making it so Dennis had formed his own pair of shadow wings. Using his strong t.h.i.g.hs, Nate crouched down before jumping up and pushing up Dennis into the sky.
He flapped his wings giving him extra air time and speed, and then he stayed still for just a second as he looked down at the Dalki.
"I never thought I would ever be able to fly again after losing my ability, it's not quite the same but this will have to do." Dennis said as he started to descend, spinning his whole body. At the same time he activated his soul weapon, creating a golden aura around him.
Soon, Nate and Wevil launched forward to the Dalki, attacking its legs as hard as they could. Nate had formed a blood punch of destruction and Wevil now transformed into his tiger beetle-like form, he charged forward and with his strong claws smashed into the other leg.
The Dalki tumbled to the ground and Linda at that moment quickly let go of the Dalki's hands to give it an uppercut, hitting its head upwards. At just the right time Dennis used his soul weapon and at high speed he came spinning down, slamming onto the Dalki's head and crushing it within its own body. The sand on top of the hard ground blew out and Samantha had to cover her eyes before she was hit by the aftershock.
'Is he okay?' She thought, for one to land with such force it was almost a suicidal attack.
The wings on his back had spread out onto the ground creating a soft landing for Dennis so he wouldn't be hurt further from the initial impact. The five that had arrived seemed perfectly fine after their turbulent entrance and the Dalki was no longer moving.
'Did they just manage to kill a two spiked Dalki that was on the verge of death?' Samantha thought, as she saw them walking towards her.
She could see that Dennis also seemed uninjured after her initial worry about the impact of his attack. In the last war they had mainly only fought against one spiked Dalki. Two spiked were a very rare occurrence and three spiked were the highest that anyone had ever encountered.
Even back then it would take a great force to kill a Dalki. Some even thought it was just because of the humans' sheer numbers that they were able to somewhat win the first war, but the human race's numbers had greatly dwindled after that.
If the Dalki actually had stronger forces than that then the humans would have no hope, which was why the military were being so strict on gathering tools to defeat the Dalki as well as training the students.
'How powerful is the Cursed faction for only five of them to defeat a Dalki without getting hurt? And if they have the shadow ability, how are they able to do things that would require an ability? It seems like we hardly know anything about them. I don't even recognise any of the people here and the same goes for teacher Fex back there.'
"If you don't mind, I think we'll take him." Sam said with a smile as Linda lifted Fex and hurled him into her back.
"I think you should head to the others, and it looks like your own commander has arrived." Sam said, pointing to the sky.
Looking up, one of the Bertha sh.i.p.s that was operated by the military could be seen entering the planet's atmosphere with several smaller faster sh.i.p.s around it.
At that moment she realised that the shelter probably wasn't the only place that was attacked, there were the students out on the expedition.
'What if five or more Dalki came to where they were, I have to get in contact with them.'
"You guys, you need to make sure the students are okay, the Cursed faction-" Samantha was trying to explain, but Sam just placed his hand on her worried shoulder.
"Don't worry. The fight is over, we can tell." Sam said, and he wasn't wrong either.
With the connection they each felt with Quinn, they could feel when he was fighting close by, but they could also tell there was something else going on, but what could it be?
——
Standing out on the sandy desert, Quinn was surrounded by several bodies of Dalki he had defeated, the Boneclaw that had come out to help had done half the job for him and soon disappeared right back to where Quinn was.
But as Quinn stood out ahead of them and looked around, he could see the students and teachers who had been injured and killed. Many lives had been lost in this battle.
'This isn't the victory I wanted.' Quinn thought.
[Quest has been completed]
[50/50 Dalki have been defeated]
[Rewards will now be given]
******
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