Chapter 48: Interfering
Rohan didn’t know how the Awakened below him couldn’t sense the approaching Spike Beast, but a bad feeling churned up from his gut ever since he spotted it.
"Elane! Ready your bow!"
He turned to his side and sort of half-shouted, half-whispered to Elane, keeping an eye on the looming Spike Beast below, still making its way over to the group of Awakened completely unnoticed.
Rohan could almost swear the Spike Beast harboured a level of intelligence far above that of any other beast he’d ever come across. Even the Elite E rank couldn’t quite live up to the careful and calculated movements he was witnessing from a mere Normal F tier.
Something was strange about that beast. Very strange...
Even on its lonesome, the Spike Beast occasionally checked its own surroundings like any human would in the same situation. Like it was afraid of being discovered, or of being watched.
"If these guys don’t discover its presence before it comes within 20 metres, take it out!"
Rohan was keeping intense watch at the moment. His intentions were made clear to Elane with his words. Even though the unofficial rules everyone played by said that you shouldn’t interfere in others’ battles if you didn’t want to start arguments and escalate things, he felt compelled to act in this situation.
All six of the Awakened were unaware of the threat sneaking up behind them, and the likelihood of something horrific occurring only grew by the second.
Rohan wouldn’t be able to sleep easy at night if he watched them die, knowing that he could have done something to prevent it. His experiences with other Awakened so far did leave him with a sour taste in his mouth, but that didn’t mean he would resort to cold-heartedly watching them die.
That would put him on the same level as Rudith, Sarah, Joe and the other three in their group. Even still, they plotted against Rohan and Elane knowing that they’d be sent straight back to Earth upon their death. Even after what he’d been put through by Rudith, Rohan still believed that they wouldn’t dare do the same thing in the real world.
’Haaah... Fuck.’
Like he feared, the six of them still hadn’t noticed the approaching Spike Beast despite it coming within 20 metres already.
Any ordinary Spike Beast would have long launched a barrage of spikes by this point, but this new one held back. With the level of intelligence it displayed, it clearly had the intention to strike at a much closer range, aiming to take down all of them in a single barrage.
Rohan nodded towards Elane, giving his signal to strike it down.
Sharing the same concern, Elane obliged and let her arrow lose, watching as it arced through the air until it finally hit the stealthy Spike Beast in the dead centre of its face, right between the eyes, causing it to fall to the ground lifelessly.
Like Rohan, Elane hadn’t been slacking on her Origin Energy Cultivation one bit over the past week since she Awakened. If she were only as strong as she was after Awakening, her arrow wouldn’t have enough power to kill the beast in one shot.
That kill would have required at least two, and that split second between the first and second shot might’ve been enough for the Spike Beast to launch its barrage against the six Awakened.
Fate had a way of stringing events together.
’If we hadn’t entered this gate... if Elane didn’t get injured, causing us to alter our plan, we never would have encountered these guys and been able to stop this Spike Beast.’
In his small, narrow view of the world, something like this would make it hard to believe that future events weren’t predetermined. But in the grand scheme of it all, situations like this occurred every second.
Rohan sighed. Now that they’d shown their hand, there was no point in hiding their presence from the Awakened down below anymore.
He glanced around his and Elane’s area, checking for any signs of something off. Even if he couldn’t see or hear anything different, if his gut told him a different story, he’d go and check it out.
The Spike Beast was able to sneak up on the six Awakened below with them remaining completely unaware, so he didn’t feel like taking any chances on himself, either.
Down below, the Awakened were kicking up a lot of fuss.
They were already looking around in suspicion for the source of that arrow, hindering their fight against the four... now three Spike Beasts. From their vantage point, they were unable to spot the Spike Beast the arrow was intended for, only hearing the whirring sound of it flying over and spotting it disappearing at the last moment.
To their adrenaline-fuelled minds, this could easily be interpreted as an attack on them that missed its mark or a warning shot to let them know that they were being watched.
The group remained unaware of what just happened, except for two.
The two who’d been injured looked over with shock at the dead Spike Beast, realising at that moment that they were being stalked and didn’t even know it until that arrow came flying over.
They were situated farther back from the other four, so they could see the dead Spike Beast lying on the ground to their rear.
"Hup!"
Rohan, followed by Elane, jumped down from the small ledge they were taking cover behind and made their way down into the ridge where the battle was still ongoing.
The six Awakened were surprised to see the familiar outline of humans approaching them from above but focused on taking down the Spike Beasts first.
Elane and Rohan stood off at an appropriate distance, standing over the corpse of the Spike Beast while Elane retrieved her arrow from between its eyes. They planned to retrieve the loot inside its body too, but that would come after.
They waited a little over a minute for the six Awakened to finish their fight, and the two sides immediately entered a staring match in the ensuing moments.
Rohan scanned them with his gaze, making his own analysis of their capabilities.
One man stood at the front closest to Rohan and Elane and looked better equipped and more battle-hardened than the rest. He was probably the most experienced Awakened of the group and definitely their leader from the way the others kept making side glances at him, as if silently asking him how they should proceed.
He looked older than Rohan and Elane, but only by a few years at best. His chocolate brown eyes narrowed while glancing at the two unexpected guests. Some small stubble had grown over his chin and cheeks, hinting that he’d already spent a good few days inside the gate as he entered clean-shaven. From his demeanour and equipment, it was easy to see that the others viewed him as the big brother of the group.
Rohan was the first to break the silence.
"We don’t mean any trouble."
It was important to ease any tension that arose from their sudden attack on the hidden flanker and their subsequent arrival on scene.