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Chapter 65: E-Rank Monster
🕑 Added 2025-06-19 16:32:59 +0000 UTC
The shimmering fist-shadow tore through the night, but the Red-Feathered Eagle was preternaturally swift. With a powerful downbeat of its wings, it banked sharply, the psionic projectile set to miss by a hair's breadth.
From the ground, Everett Thorne merely flicked his wrist. "A net, then."
Tendrils of pure darkness, like liquid night, erupted from the air in the eagle's path, weaving themselves into a writhing, inescapable web. The eagle, committed to its dodge, suddenly found its escape route blocked. It shrieked in fury, trying to flare its wings and halt its momentum, but it was too late. It couldn't avoid the original attack. The General's fist-shadow slammed into its belly.
The impact was like a dull thunderclap. The Red-Feathered Eagle let out a piercing, agonized cry that seemed to tear at the clouds. The pain was secondary to the rage. Its eyes, once just a predator's cold yellow, now burned a furious blood-red. Every feather on its massive wings stiffened, catching the moonlight like thousands of freshly honed steel daggers. With a single, convulsive flap, it unleashed them all in a deafening, metallic hailstorm.
Faced with the storm of razor-sharp projectiles, the two men reacted in ways that perfectly defined them. Everett Thorne simply dissolved, his form becoming one with the deep shadows cast by the military base, the lethal feathers passing harmlessly through the space where he had been.
General Valerius did not budge. He met the storm head-on. A metallic sheen, like polished tungsten, spread across his skin as his entire body hardened. With a defiant roar, he moved, his powerful legs becoming a blur, kicking and stomping the air. Each impact of his steel-hard shins against the incoming projectiles produced a sharp ping, shattering the psionically-charged feathers into useless shrapnel. Not a single one touched the ground near him.
The eagle screeched again, preparing another volley, but Everett Thorne gave it no chance. The world simply went dark.
The Mayor activated his domain. The moonlight vanished. The distant city lights were snuffed out. The very air became a blanket of pitch-black, suffocating nothingness. In this void, the fire that smoldered on the Red-Feathered Eagle's wounded body was a cruel irony—it provided no illumination, the magical darkness smothering its glow to a mere one-meter radius. It had become a solitary, panicked beacon for its unseen enemies.
The eagle shrieked, disoriented, lashing out blindly. It didn't feel the whisper of shadow that deposited the General directly above it. It only felt the sudden, crushing impact of a psionically-charged fist that sent it plummeting from the sky.
Before it hit the ground, a massive, pitch-black hand erupted from the earth below, its shadowy fingers wrapping around the creature like iron bars, holding it fast. The eagle struggled, flapping its wings desperately, but it couldn't break free. It was then that Valerius, dropping from above, brought his knee down in a vicious, hacking strike. The blow, focused and brutal, felt like a massive axe blade, leaving a deep, bloody wound across the monster's back.
The sheer pain finally triggered the eagle's wild, desperate nature. Its body burst into brilliant sparks, its own flames intensifying as it tried to melt the Shadow Hand that held it. It opened its huge, sharp beak and spat a condensed, glowing fireball. The projectile howled as it flew, the scorching air around it carrying a burning flame, like a shooting star, aimed straight for Thorne.
The Mayor, now solidified, was not at all flustered. A single, sharp tentacle of pure darkness grew from the ground and intercepted the fireball, shattering it into harmless embers. He then made his final move. His entire body dissolved back into a living shadow and shot across the ground, nimbly drilling into the small patch of darkness cast by the eagle's own flames.
The Red-Feathered Eagle froze, its body suddenly locked by an unseen force. It felt a terrifying, alien control seize its own shadow, and through it, its own muscles. Against its will, its massive wings were forced wide open, exposing the vulnerable, less-armored expanse of its chest. Its eyes were filled with a profound, primal terror. It fought, its body spasming, contracting its wings for a moment only to have them forced open again. It was a helpless puppet, its own body turned against it.
On the other side of the battlefield, General Valerius was not idle. An inferno of psionic energy erupted around him. His muscles, already massive, swelled with a terrifying density. A red glow of pure power—amplification—was layered over by a deeper, heavier aura of kinetic force. His fists began to hum, vibrating with the weight of mountains, the sheer crushing force of a tyrant.
He took a deep breath, kicked off the ground with both feet, and his whole body leaped high, a cannonball of flesh and fury aimed at the monster's exposed chest. He clenched his fist tightly, the air around it seeming to tear and scream.
Everett Thorne detached his shadow from the creature just in time.
The moment Valerius's fist hit the Red-Feathered Eagle's body, there was no sound. Only a sickening BAM!!! of displaced air. The force of the punch was so absolute that it visibly penetrated the creature's chest, and a concussive shockwave erupted from its back. A silent implosion of shattered bone and ruptured organs. The monster no longer had any way to live.
"Scree~~" a final, pathetic whimper escaped its beak. The Red-Feathered Eagle collapsed heavily to the ground, the light in its eyes fading. Even in death, however, they were still staring fixedly in the direction of New Veridia, filled with an unquenchable, baffling unwillingness and hatred.
Everett Thorne, his expression thoughtful, appeared beside the massive carcass. "That eagle instigated this entire tide, and for no logical reason. Why would it still show such hatred, even as it died?"
Valerius landed beside him with a heavy thud, panting slightly. "Who cares why?" he grunted. "A bird this big is enough for a victory barbecue for the whole damn garrison." He walked over to the corpse. "And a creature of this rank… let me see if it dropped an Aura Core."
He didn't wait for a reply. He smashed the Red-Feathered Eagle's head with a few powerful, perfunctory punches, shattering its skull, then pulled the bone fragments apart with both hands, reaching inside to search for his prize.
