In a matter of seconds, the distinctive trait of Emery's Night Wolf - the jet-black fur that reminded one of the night sky - began to grow on his body, starting from his shoulder to his arms. Following that, his sharp claws grew even bigger, his teeth-turned-fangs became even longer, a short, wolf-like tail, and the black tattoo on his chest.
HOWL!!!
As the transformation went on and the corruption overwhelmed Emery's entire being, his strength increased explosively as a result. His vigorous muscles visibly contracted when his grips on the beholder's jaws strengthened, to the point where Emery was able to push the two jaws in opposite directions and break them apart.
Creacckk!!
A satisfying sound of bones breaking could be heard in the air, which was then followed by the beholder's roaring scream of pain. It seemed to have fallen into a rage as it started to crazily blast out energy rays without a care.
Another blast of the energy ray went through the wolf's chest, but the Night Wolf ignored it and didn't seem to be fazed by the gaping hole on its chest. The arrival of the black-furred creature came with a monstrous rapid regeneration, which was evidenced by the fact that all the wounds it received had started to heal.
Almost immediately, the wolf's fighting instinct kicked in. Knowing that it would soon lose the magic resistance given by its shaman form, it concluded that the big eye was the biggest threat for it.
Just like any other animal who made use of their everything when being threatened with death, the wolf did exactly the same thing.
Three sharp and long bones protruded out of the Night Wolf's clenched fist, and instead of attacking the beholder's main eye which was almost indestructible thanks to the outer layer protecting it, the wolf directed its attention to the beholder's dislocated and gaping mouth..
Afterward, the wolf fearlessly sent its fist into the beholder's big mouth and proceeded to pierce the eye from inside out.
Splat!
Spllaaatt!
Blood started to gush out of the beholder as the wolf continued to move its arm around the latter's mouth. The beholder started whimpering, struggling to shake off the thing rampaging inside its mouth, only to discover there was nothing it could do.
In the end, the creature stopped its struggle, fell down from its position mid-air, with most of its body falling on the Night Wolf's shoulder.
The beholder is dead.
When the red hair girl saw this, she had a very happy expression on her face.
"Hahaha!! That is freaking savage!!"
Annara was happy, not just because of the fact that they won against the infamous beholder, but also by the fact that she actually came out of the fight almost without a scratch on herself.
The red-haired girl couldn't hold the smirk surfacing on her face when she saw how the white-haired girl, Silva, was having a hard time trying to stand. The smirk on her face grew even wider when she saw the latter gave up on standing and just started healing herself.
"Well done, Emery!!" said Annara as she looked at the black-furred figure several meters away from her.
The girl then pulled the whip on her hand, wanting to retrieve it back. However, she was surprised when she discovered that she couldn't do it. The whip was stuck on something.
"What the hell?!" cursed Annara as her gaze sharply turned towards where the beholder was. She thought that the creature was somehow still alive and caught her whip.
When the beholder's dead body fell to the ground, she then realized that her thought was wrong. Instead of the infamous creature, her whip was being held by none other than Emery, or rather, the wolf whose body was covered in red.
"Hei! What are you doing?!" Annara snapped in annoyance. "Let it go..!"
Curse words were about to come out of her mouth, but she immediately retracted her intention when her eyes saw the emotionless gaze Emery's yellow eyes gave her. It was at this moment that she realized the young man was no longer himself.
In that instant, she recalled the sight she saw in the past - the fierce battle between Emery and Atlas. Panic appeared on her face as she immediately turned alarmed.
"Stop! What are you doing?!"
Annara was careless and she wasn't ready when Emery pulled the whip on his hand. As a result, her body was pulled by a strong force, sending her flying towards him. Before she even registered what had just happened, the latter's arms were already on her neck.
"Ugghhh!! Stop…"
The red-haired girl was terrified when she realized, through the eyes she was currently seeing, that Emery was not there. Replacing him was a pure and thorough beast that could easily kill her without remorse. The beast stare at her and sniff her curiously as if trying to remember who she was.
"Stoppp! Urrrghh!!"
Annara naturally tried to break away from the beast's deadly clutch, but her struggle was quickly proved to be futile. At this moment, she realized how vast the differences between their strengths were.
Fortunately for her, a white hair figure shot toward the black-furred wolf's back and stabbed two red vial on both its shoulders.
Howwlll!!!
A loud howl reverberated in the air, then the wolf dropped Annara and fell to its knee squirming on the ground. It was clear that Emery right now experienced tremendous amounts of pain as the gene supressor kicked in and did its job.
Body still on the ground, the wolf gradually returned back to its human appearance - Emery.
In the end, the three people were all kneeling on the ground. All of them were wounded in some way and another, panting for breath as the stinging pain came into existence.
Annara, who was out of breath from the life-and-death experience she had just experienced, shouted in an extremely angry tone.
"Y-you… you're crazy!!"
Emery was in no condition to talk. It was Silva who retorted the red-haired girl's words.
"Just shut up, bitch. He just saved our lives!"
It seemed Annara was about to say more, but a glare from Silva stopped her from doing so. She also realized that what Emery did was ultimately for the three of them, therefore it was enough for her to let out her frustration once. More than that would simply be unreasonable from her.
The three youths sat on the ground, casting their respective healing spells. A few minutes later, Emery finally regained his strength to speak.
Turning to the red-haired girl, he said, "I am sorry for earlier, Annara." Then, he turned to the white-haired girl and smiled. "Thank you, Silva."
Fortunately, before the battle began, Silva had forced Emery to give a few vials of gene supressor to her. At that time, Emery was confident that he would not turn, but now it was clear that the girl was wiser than him.
Seeing Emery get on his feet again, the other two swiftly stopped their healing and followed suit. With a nod to each other, the three went straight to the back of the room, where the gate portal was.
"Finally!" Annara said with a relieved smile.
But a few seconds later, her face suddenly turned pale.
"No.. this cannot be.." She muttered under her breath. "No no no no!"
The reason for Annara's somewhat hysterical reaction was the sight of the few parts of the stone gate that were broken. The three only looked at each other for a moment before dashing off and quickly checking the whole condition of the gate.
When they finished, Annara was once again angry. Apparently, there were a few major runes that were missing from the gate, and they had no way to fix them without proper materials in hand.
"Aaarghh!! Just our luck! All those fighting for nothing!" spatted Annara in irritation.
Emery also couldn't help but sigh. He really thought that he could finally return, but it seemed that the time was not ripe yet.
He turned to Silva and asked, "How's your wound?"
From her body movements, it seemed like she was planning to ignore it. But in the end, she decided to answer curtly. "I am fine."
Emery wanted to comment about her reckless manner of fighting earlier, but stopped himself at the last moment as he realized who was he to say such things. He himself committed many reckless acts that were even more severe than hers.
Knowing that there wasn't anything they could do here, Silva turned around and walked back towards the entrance.
"Let's just hope help comes sooner," she said.
Annara was still annoyed by their findings, but still decided to follow her. After all, it was useless for her to stay here grumbling about their bad luck.
When they walked past the beholder's corpse, Emery stopped as his eyes caught something glimmering inside. At first, he thought it was one of those red spirit stones so he just acted normal as his hands reached for the thing.
However, his eyes widened when the object in his hand was a shining pearl as big as a fist with a little red dot floating inside of it.
"What is this?"
Emery's sudden words caused the two girls to stop in their tracks and turn around. They approached him to see the object more clearly and started pondering.
Not only did it look amazing and extraordinary, the group could actually sense a lot of energy from the pearl. But right now, all of them were all in similar condition - clueless.
When Emery was about to say something, however, the symbol on his palm started to shine.
At this moment, Emery realized that this object - whatever it was - was considered as an ingredient or a fruit. Therefore, he quickly uses his apothecary skill.
[Analyze]
[? – Tier ?]
[No information received. To receive information, you require rank 3 [Analyze] skill along with rank 3 [Universal Flora Knowledge].
Rank 3?
This automatically meant that this pearl was at least a tier 5 ingredient - something that was extremely rare and precious.
Evidently, their life-and-death battle against the beholder didn't turn out to be a waste.