Before it could reach Tyrel, Zayden appeared, his grip on his sword tight and firm. He pumped a substantial amount of oblivion flux and darkness laws into the sword, the aura of darkness around the blade towering.
The claws of the aberration were very close as Zayden swung out his sword, with alarming speed and power.
The sword made contact with the aberration, releasing a small shockwave that pushed everyone away from each other by a few meters.
Tyrel used this chance to gain his footing, while Zayden's eyes remained on the aberration.
Zayden tightened his grip on his weapon, scanning his team. Tyrel's hands still glowed faintly with the aftershocks of his lightning strikes. Valeria crouched low, blades ready, her breathing sharp and measured. Amara's shadows rippled behind her like a living cloak. Dare's drones hovered overhead, with the rest of the team ready.
Even though it had no eyes, they knew that the aberration was staring at them with anger and hatred; however, its hunger never subsided.
It had deep gashes on its body, a testament to the attacks of Tyrel and the few hits that Zayden managed to get in.
"We end it now," Zayden said, voice firm. "Before it recovers."
The aberration's wounds, deep gashes along its side, were already closing, silver light knitting muscle and sinew back together. It was slower now, weaker, but far from beaten.
Tyrel stepped forward, rolling his shoulders as arcs of electricity began dancing along his arms. "I'll push it toward the ridge. Dare, be ready with explosives."
"Copy that," Dare replied, fingers flying over his wrist controller.
"Valeria, you flank left," Zayden continued. "Amara, keep it bound if it tries to bolt."
"And you?" Valeria asked without looking at him.
Zayden's gaze locked on the creature's glowing core beneath its chest plates. "I'm finishing it."
Now, one might think, where were the rest of the team while all of this was happening?
Well, the number of wolves was much, so Darian, Isara, Soren and Aiden were holding the beast back, so that the battle would be a little bit easier.
Tyrel didn't wait for more words. He broke into a sprint, the ground crackling under his boots. With a shout, he unleashed a blinding spear of lightning that slammed into the aberration's side, the sound of impact echoing through the street, even reaching the buses at the end. The beast roared, spinning toward him, blinded by the sudden light.
Valeria shot forward, a streak of motion across the mud. Her blades flashed with golden holy energy, carving deep lines across its legs. Silver blood hissed as it hit the ground, burning through dead leaves. The creature swung at her with one massive claw, but she ducked low, sliding beneath its arm and cutting again before rolling away.
Amara extended her hands, shadows surging outward like a tide. They wrapped around the aberration's rear leg, slowing it just enough for Dare's spider drones to zip in from above. The small spider drones dropped a series of flash energy grenades, each one bursting in sharp white light.
The beast staggered, head whipping wildly.
Zayden seized the moment. He sprinted straight toward it, his sword glowing with dark energy. His first strike landed in the exposed joint near its torso, sending a tremor up the monster's body. It screeched, the sound shaking the air.
But Zayden was unperturbed; his gaze was firm, killing intent slowly seeping off his body.
He jumped back to gain some space and released arcs of darkness in quick succession, each hitting the aberration with a bang, without giving it any time to react or block.
Before long, silver blood covered the body of the aberration, making it look a lot more like a demon. But the waves of killing intent and hatred coming off it didn't wane in the slightest.
"Keep hitting it!" Zayden shouted.
Tyrel answered with another bolt, this one aimed for the creature's head. Sparks crawled over its skull, making it convulse. Valeria struck again, this time piercing deep into its side. Amara's shadows lashed tighter, preventing the beast from making a clean counter.
The aberration staggered. It had many skills that it could display, but these people didn't give it the chance to display any of them.
Then, the aberration roared, a desperate, final act of survival. Its body glowed bright silver, steam pouring from its wounds. With terrifying speed, it lunged, catching Zayden mid-stride and hurling him across the ground. He rolled, mud splattering his face, but forced himself up.
Dare's voice crackled, "Tyrel, it's charging..."
Too late. The beast barreled toward Tyrel.
Tyrel planted his feet, drawing all the electricity in the air toward himself. His body became a storm, sparks leaping wildly. At the last second, he thrust his hands forward and unleashed everything.
"Zeus's Anger!!!"
Storm clouds gathered in the air, crackling with terrifying golden lightning.
Tyrel managed to quickly push the aberration away. He was contracted to Zeus, but he didn't know if the lightning attack would harm him, and he sincerely didn't want to know.
Thankfully, he pushed it away just in time as a few seconds later, a column of lightning slammed into the aberration's chest from the sky, blasting it into the ground, forming a large crater.
A few seconds later, the lightning disappeared, and the aberration was lying in the crater, its torso exposed to reveal a crystal glowing with starlight.
"Valeria! Now!" Zayden roared.
She leapt, twisting midair, and drove the grandmaster's sword into its exposed power crystal. The crystal shattered into four different shards, the power in them weakening slightly.
Because it was about to die, memories that it thought it had forgotten started flashing before its eyes.
It was a normal deer without any violence in its heart, before the apocalypse hit, and it was mutated. A week had not passed since it was mutated when it was captured by the humans, pregnant.
Thankfully, along the way, it managed to give birth without the knowledge of the humans and sent its child away.
It was thrown into the pond with another beast, and the mutation increased. When it was finally done, all it wanted to do was find its child and live a peaceful life away from the humans, but who would have thought that it wouldn't even get the chance to do that before it died.
"My... Child"
The aberration thrashed once, then fell still.
Meanwhile, behind one of the houses, a small deer stared at the aberration in the crater, a teardrop going down its cheeks.
Its mother had just died, and it was sad. But very quickly, the sadness turned into hatred and then killing intent as it looked at the humans around its mother as if trying to ingrain their faces into its head.
In a swift moment, it disappeared from the house it was standing behind and dashed towards the pond.
The team was shocked as they saw the beast charging towards them.
"I've got this", Darian said as he stepped in front of the beast, but to his surprise, the beast went between his legs and arrived at the pond.
It opened its mouth wide and picked up three canisters, filled with water from the Cascading Starlight pond.
The eyes of the members of the team widened, but they didn't have the chance to do anything, as the beast ran away just as quickly as it had appeared. After all, it was a swift deer thanks to the mutation.
For a long moment, no one moved. The only sounds were the hiss of cooling wounds and the faint hum of Dare's drones.
"It's… dead," Valeria breathed, pulling her blades free.
"Not gonna lie," Dare said, grinning, "I didn't think we'd make it out of that one."
They seemed to have just ignored the fact that a deer took some cascading starlight pond water, the reason they fought this deadly battle.
It seemed almost unnatural.
Tyrel leaned on his knees, still catching his breath. "Would've been worse without those flash bombs."
Amara's shadows slowly retracted, curling back into the edges of her cloak. "It tried to evolve again," she said quietly. "We stopped it just in time."
Zayden walked toward the fallen beast. Silver liquid pooled beneath it, spilling into the ground where it shimmered faintly. The pond water it had swallowed leaked from its body, glowing faintly in the dark.
"Let's gather what we can before..." He froze.
Movement. From the side of a building...