Chapter 70: Cht 70: Forest Skimish
The afternoon red star filtered lazily through the canopy of the dense forest, slanting golden light across a clearing speckled with moss-covered stones and tangled undergrowth. The air was rich with the scent of pine, earth, and something metallic - the scent of beasts.
At the edge of a small rise, under the wide shade of an ancient maple tree, Lucy lay on her stomach in the grass, chin propped on her hands. Beside her, Alice reclined against the trunk, a book resting on her lap though her eyes weren’t on the pages. Instead, they were fixed on the figures moving through the trees below elegant, deadly, and unbothered.
"They make it look like a dance," Alice murmured, shielding her eyes with a hand.
Lucy grinned. "That’s because for them, it is a dance."
Down below, the clearing had turned into a fluid battlefield.
Saira moved with effortless grace, her azure robe billowing with each step. Her hands traced arcs through the air, and streams of water followed, coiling and snapping with intent. With a flick of her wrist, a lance of high-pressure water shot through the air and impaled a charging boar-beast mid-leap. It shrieked once before dissolving into blue energy, absorbed by the forest floor.
Xingning floated lightly above the ground, the wind playing with her silver-lined green robes and long braid. Each twist of her fingers summoned slicing gusts that carved through trees and flesh alike. A whip-thin beast with mottled fur lunged at her, but she barely turned her head. A lazy motion of her hand sent a miniature cyclone spinning outward, launching the creature high into the trees where it vanished in a flash of dissipating energy.
"They’re not even breaking a sweat," Lucy said, sounding half-impressed, half-earning for not being able to do things like them due to her situation. Yet still she evolved to super rank for some reason surprising everyone, even to herself. She could increase her rank by consuming beast meat and product of greenery, which is pretty common even among other awakeners. There are many who can still level up among fatal injured, handicapped awakeners but their cap would be the ultimate Tier they will be at like Basic Tier, Super Tier or Supreme Tier.
There is no record of someone breaking past the Ultimate Tier. Though that is only publicly and low level awakeners. And they don’t have the sourse right now to investigate the matter.
"That’s what months of hunting in beast territory does to you," Alice replied, finally closing her book. "You either get good or get eaten."
Jean, the wood-element beast, surged from the shadows behind a tree like a force of nature. Her frame was massive, covered in dark green bark that pulsed faintly with inner energy. Vines writhed along his limbs, snapping out like serpents to grab hold of a two-headed panther-beast. The creature snarled and writhed, but the vines tightened, then bloomed violently with spiked blossoms, and the beast was torn apart, its energy spread and absorbed into Jean’s body.