BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!
Deafening roars of the explosion echoed one after another. Fiery clouds burst out and expanded crazily devouring everything in its radius.
Shockwaves emerged and the ground trembled. The whole forest around them was shrouded with fire. Heilford and the monsters covered only the front area of the forest but for safety, Lucas even planted and blasted bombs in a circular radius around them.
After a moment, the crackling sound of burning twigs and bones sizzled. A trail of smoke lingered rising high up into the atmosphere.
The darkness of dusk was cleared away due to the intense light radiated by the fire spreading around wildly.
Feeling the hot air brushing past them, everyone looked ahead with a bewildered gaze and then stared at Lucas's nonchalant expression.
Parth swallowed his words. His curiosity rampaged his brain, but he forced himself to shut his lips.
Finally, recovering a bit of composure, Frederick asked in astonishment"This.."
"Minesweepers!"
"I have laid them down previously in case something like this happened."
Swish!Swish!Swish!
With the flames encasing them, some monsters ran toward him.
Lucas, who stood at the front, clicked his tongue in displeasure. Despite a bombardment of such scale, there were still monsters who managed to stay alive.
In fact, all of them were on their last legs, and their whole body was burning and riddled with wounds still these bastards didn't know to give up.
"Lucas!"Frederick and Parth shouted in panic.
Three monsters jumped at Lucas but before they could harm him, under everyone's surprising eyes, three reddish-golden lines were drawn.
The head of the monster bouncing back fell on the floor. Lucas sidestepped letting the headless monster run past him and stumble down on the ground.
A few monsters who survived the explosion roared frantically and charged forward.
Their furs were burning and from their lips erupted loud shrieks but despite this, they kept on advancing as if they didn't feel the pain.
"These bastards!'Parth leaving behind after images, glided through the hordes cutting their necks.
BOOM!
Frederick, thrust his spear firing a mass of compressed pressure, sent them flying.
[Whispers of Whirlwind]
Roan chanted the spell, and a small cyclonic storm rampaged through the field. The spell consumed a huge mana and his expression became pale.
"Roan, keep it up a bit"Lucas shouted and fired ice spikes.
BOOOM!BOOOM!BOOM!
The monsters that were pulled into the vortex were showered with ice spikes that stabbed them digging holes in their bodies.
The tide of monsters emerging out stopped giving everyone a moment to catch their breath
"Here comes the asshole."Parth cursed.
Through the cloud of flame and smoke, a man burning in flames walked.
His body was burnt and his face was extremely hideous.
"Good...Good...I underestimated you too much."Heilford gritted his teeth.
"Did you anticipate this?"
Heilford stood there with a gloomy profile.
"Yes and in fact, I was the one who led you here. And after you left the orphanage, Uncle Shawn should have evacuated the children. You should have heard about us from Uncle Shaw."
Everyone's eyes flashed with disbelief upon hearing Lucas's words and they sucked in cold air.
Lucas gave Heilford a vicious look and mutters "If you wanted to hide it, you should have hidden it well."
"You don't even have funds to manage the orphanage but you can afford a speck of more than 20000 R, and your room was filled with extravagance. From that moment, I started to doubt the orphanage's finances. After sneakily searching around, I found that the budget you have given and the one hiding in the lockers are mismatched."
"Still, that doesn't prove anything."Heilford rebutted.
"It didn't. But to take a chance, I decided to leak this information to you through Jay and Uncle Shawn. You might have panicked hearing about us coming here, isn't it?"Lucas's wide grin pressed him forward.
Then without looking at him, he turned towards Frederick"Do you know what is going on here?"
Frederick stared at Lucas with a deep frown.
"This main experiment of this place is not about converting humans to monsters but rather preserving their life. All of these are just test subjects to save his wife whose corpse has been preserved inside."
Lucas, then giving Heilford a sneer, threw a hand at it.
"Take this gift. It's your dead wife's hand."
"You!" Heilford gave a loud grunt and dashed forward, tearing his clothes.
His body bulged out, and his arms extended dangling loose with sharp gnarly claws emerging out.
With an expression to tear down Lucas, he charged at him.n0Velusb.c0m
Everyone reacted immediately. Parth pulling out his dagger threw it out like lightning.
Frederick also rushed ahead and threw his spear sensing the burst of mana from Heilford.
Lightning strikes and a beam of light intersects.
A bluish aura scratched the air. The spear and dagger immediately deviated after being struck and spun in the air. In the meantime, Lucas threw himself onto the ground to avoid the deadly charge of the man.
Kicking the ground, he slides against the ground.
A shadow just went past the place he stood before.
Spitting the dust and sand, Lucas on getting up felt stupefied seeing the figure.
The previously human figure of Heilford had turned into something indistinguishable from before. Standing on his two long hind limbs, his back was as black as night and wide like a mountain bear. His upper limb was armed with long claws of almost half a meter in length and coupled with its height reaching 2 meters, his visage was menacing.
An unknown energy pulsated around his body and his eye had a bloody glint with liquid dripping out from the sharp protruding teeth.
Seeing the gruesome monster, Roan's expression became more and more tense. His body trembled violently.
Slightly frightened, his tawny eyes turned to Lucas who signalled him to step back slowly.
The tense atmosphere that lasted for a moment was broken by Frederick kicking off the ground.
Heilford gave a vicious roar and sprouted forward.
The speed of response to the desperate cry was swift. Frederick thrust his spear with all his might.
The air was compressed and torn off.
CLANG!
Heilford, blocking the spear, pulled it forcefully while swinging his other arm. Frederick's body yanked forward.
Noticing the sharp claws, he tucked down letting go of his spear.
Heilford jumped towards him and kicked him, sending Frederick flying. Parth tried to intercept but he was blown away like a piece of twig with just a slash and his body bounced off coughing blood.
Heilford was about to charge at him but faltered in the middle feeling a piercing pain.
BANG!BANG!
He nudged his arm to shake away the pain, then looked down to see two red dots. Glaring at Lucas, he moved ahead.
"Damnnn!"
Lucas kicks back to generate some distance while keeping an aim at his face.
BANG!
He fired another shot towards Heilford's face who reacted and immediately slashed his claws.
CLANG!
The bullet was deflected by Heilfords claws. Without getting frustrated, Lucas fired a few more shots but all of them were deflected.
Seeing him drawing near, Lucas put away the gun and pulled out his sword.
CLANG!
As soon as the claws touched Lucas's sword, a piercing force coursed through Lucas's body, and like a dried leaf, he was blasted away by the force.
Heilford in this monster form was way stronger than him. In terms of strength, he was incomparable. Even, Frederick may lose out in battle strength. On tough that, his outer layer had gone tougher.
Even if the bullet damages him, it wasn't effective on him at all.
Heilford immediately turned around and thrashed his hand at Lucas who decided to use shadow steps to escape but at that moment.
TANG!
Silverlight glistened and a dagger shooting up to the sky spun in the air crazily.
Heilford snickered at Parth's lame trick. He was about to charge back at Lucas but the dagger that was spinning in the air struck down vertically.
"Khmmmmm!"
Heilford let out a soft grunt of pain as the dagger struck his shoulder.
Lucas and Frederick immediately followed up on Heilford with the little time Parth had brought for them. It was important to weaken him through a series of attacks. Since Heilford had gotten ridiculously strong, they could only use hit-and-run tactics on him.
A shadow flickered behind it. Lucas emerging from the shadow, drew an upward slash. Meanwhile, arriving before Heilford, Frederick drew a solid bluish line.
The guy boasted terrifying strength, and contrary to his bulky body was quite agile.
How on earth such a huge bulky body can move so swiftly? No matter how much Lucas complained, he was forced to accept the absurd reality unfolding before his eyes.
Heilford swung both his arms to tear down the enemies. Sharp claws protruded, it was hard as steel and its length was also quite long.
BANG!
The sound of metal clashing rang out. Lucas and Frederick pushed their weapons and slashed at the nails. The sharp edge of the Frederick spear dug into Heilford's arm whereas Lucas's sword bounced off after the collision, throwing him back.
"Damn it!"Lucas cursed.