“Great…”
ROAR!!
Rex looks at the roaring winged creature and finds that the creature is what he’s looking for, its hulking body, and its red skin matches the mayor’s description.
But upon meeting it in real life, the raven has many thorns around its body.
The raven spread its wings menacingly that almost as wide as the cave’s width completely intimidating the Awakened that saw this scene.
Roar!!
Delta also roared back without any sign of fear even under the raven’s pressure.
While holding onto Delta’s back, Rex scans the raven as the system shows that the raven in front of him is a sixth rank mutated animal.
<Crimson Thorn Raven>
Race: Mutated Corvidae
Power: Sixth Rank (Early)
Mental: 200
Strength: 343
Agility: 429
Endurance: 671
Intelligence: 0
‘Although it’s only an early sixth rank mutated animal, its stats almost comparable to that of a mid-sixth rank’, Rex thought as he glance at the liquid that hurt Delta.
It was completely unexpected, Rex didn’t expect the liquid to be corrosive.
The liquid is red in color almost peach color, and when Rex looks around he noticed something.
There are several spots of this red liquid scattered on the cave wall, but the weird thing is that Rex can’t find where this liquid came from.
For such a corrosive liquid to appear, there must be a source.
Caves don’t usually have corrosive substances in them, in fact, Rex never knew any cave have one and Rex can only conclude that it’s from the raven.
Before the raven can make its first move, Rex decided to attack it first to test the raven.
“Delta let’s jump!”, Rex whispers as Delta’s body glows with a white hue.
With her powerful hind legs, Delta jumps up to reach the roaring mutated raven as Rex takes out his sword from his waist.
The sword started to blitz with black lightning as Rex imbued his element to it.
After the momentum subsided as Delta’s body started to fall, Rex uses Delta’s back to jump towards the raven because he’s not quite there yet.
Everyone on the ground saw this as they marvel at Rex’s power.
One can feel that Rex’s element makes their own element feel weak, it’s simply overbearing.
The raven saw Rex leaped towards it,
Feeling the intense black lightning coming from the sword, the raven closed its wings that are full of thorns and wrapped them around its body to block Rex’s attack that felt threatening.
Using Delta as a stepping stone,
Rex manages to reach the gap level and saw a glimpse behind the raven’s back.
Behind the raven turns out to be its nest with a set of eggs on it, the eggs are red in color, and the Armadillo that the raven caught is on the nest dead.
It seems the raven just makes this cave its home and feeds on the Armadillos.
‘Some of them are already hatched’, Rex thought as he saw some shells leftovers around the nest that proves his point.
Rex’s arms muscles bulge as he swings the sword with everything he got.
SWOOSH!
The sword creates a spark of black electricity, an arc of black lightning is created as Rex swings his sword down with all his might.
By the enormous mana that is gathered on the sword, it’s clear that Rex is not playing around.
CLANG!!
A loud vibrating sound was created as Rex’s sword vibrates.
Instead of slashing through the raven’s wings, Rex’s sword got stopped and vibrates uncontrollably instead upon connecting with the raven’s wings.
“What?!”, Rex gritted his teeth as the vibration makes his arm go numb.
The skin of the raven shocked him very much,
Although the sword that he used is only a fourth rank sword, it’s still very sharp.
For the raven to block this sword that Rex swing powerfully is a shocking deed, the red skin of the raven is as tough as steel.
‘I can penetrate it’, Rex thought as he try to stop the sword’s vibration.
After blocking Rex’s attack, the raven peeks from behind its wings as its yellow eyes glisten before it flapped its wings creating a powerful wind that pushes Rex away.
SWOOSH!
Rex started falling down because of the wind, but then suddenly his eyes widened.
He saw the bird’s mouth dripped with red saliva, the same red liquid that corrodes Delta’s paw on the wall before.
‘That red liquid is the raven’s saliva?! Did it purposefully put its saliva around to defend its nest?!’, Rex thought in surprise before Delta catch him falling and went down to the others.
“FIRE!”
POW!
BAM!
The others started firing at the raven with their weapons.
Colorful bullets that are imbued with different kinds of mana rains down upon the raven, they all hit the raven cleanly proving these Awakened to be trained Awakened.
Adhara and Kyran also fire their gun towards the raven, but theirs are not as good as the others.
ROAR!!
The raven roars once again as the bullets bounce off of its body like a toy bullet, its furs and skin are as hard as steel and the bullets can only hurt it a little.
Even Rex’s attack before got blocked, but Rex can see a slight cut on its wing.
‘Firing at its eyes are too hard in this distance, let’s aim at that cut’, Rex thought.
Rex takes the sniper rifle before he aims for the slight cut on its wing, he exhales lightly before the black lightning imbued the bullet before he pulls the trigger.
BAM!
ROAR!
Bullseye, the slight cut on the raven’s wing got shot directly by Rex making it ripped wider.
After getting the raven’s attention, the Awakened started marching forward while keep emptying the bullets in their gun.
“What should we do?”, Adhara asks hurriedly.
Hearing this, Rex thought for a moment before he wanted to try something.
But then suddenly,
SWOOSH!
The raven flew down like an aerial jet aiming towards the group of Awakened.
Its hulking body certainly weighs more than a few tons, and getting hit by the raven will certainly kill Slila’s City Awakened.
Without wasting any time, the ground suddenly turns black.
Rex activates his Black Field Orko spell before the black lightning tentacle grabs the Awakened and flung them to the side avoiding the raven’s crash.
BOOM!!
The ground cracked as debris flew around like bullets.
Because of Rex’s quick decision, the Awakened survived the raven’s crash.
While they are all recovering from the crash,
KAAW!
KAAW!!
A couple of cawing sounds can be heard, Rex looks up and saw fledglings flying weirdly.
Not long after the cawing sound, “Arrghh!”
BAM! BAM!
“Get this thing away from me!”
Wails and screams of the Awakened can be heard as little versions of the raven that they fought appear, it’s the fledgling that just hatched.
They look similar to the mother raven except for their size.
All of them can already fly on their own, and they started pecking and biting the Awakened.
More than a dozen of fledglings appear out of nowhere and started pecking the Awakened, but one shot from the Awakened killed these fledglings.
Realizing that its fledglings are getting killed, the raven roared angrily.
ROAR!!!
After the loud roar, the raven glare at the group of Awakened as it flaps its wings towards the Awakened with murderous intent.
“S-Someone help!”, one of the Awakened shouted as he saw the murderous glare.
In a blink of an eye, the angered raven already arrived in front of the Awakened with its beak opened wide but then suddenly,
BAM!!
Rex came from the side and tackled the raven with his sword.
Both of them crashed onto the cave’s wall but the raven immediately flicks Rex to the side angrily before going back at the Awakened again.
By now, there are only a couple of fledglings left.
The Awakened already killed most of them easily as they’re still only but fledglings.
Although they inherent the raven’s thick hard red skin, their skin hardness can’t be compared to the raven as they seem to be just a couple of days old.
Seeing the approaching raven, the Awakened started firing at it.
Different colors of barriers appear around them as they fire at the angry raven, their bullets manage to land a few cuts on the raven’s body.
It’s clear that the raven is at a disadvantage fighting on the ground.
But seeing its little fledglings pecking at the Awakened before getting killed, no mother would just let them be even for an animal.
SWOOSH!
“Waarrgh!”
“Raaghhrh”
The Awakened got hit by the raven’s body as all of their barriers broke.
Out of more than a dozen of Awakened, half of them got heavily injured after getting hit by the raven’s body that is full of thorns.
The thorn around the raven’s body is very sharp, and this cuts the Awakened’s skin easily.
All of them started to walk in pain as they feel their skin that got cut sizzle, their skin slowly turns black because of the cut.
ROAR!!
The raven roared as it saw the last of its fledglings wails on the ground, the fledgling wailed for a bite as the gunshot wound on its chest started to bleed.
It didn’t take long before the last fledglings died.
After the last of its fledglings died, the raven slowly glare at its back.
Rex and the others stepped back subconsciously after feeling the change of vibe, the place becomes really choking in an instant.
Adhara and Kyran went to the Awakened and started pulling them away.
The raven’s aura changed, and its eyes turns bloodlust as he glared at the Awakened that killed its precious fledglings.
Rex saw the raven cover its body with its wings again,
<The enemy is using a skill>
<Analyzing the enemy’s skill…>
Reading the system’s notification, Rex widened his eyes, “Get Down!!”
SWOOSH!!
Dozens of thorns burst from the raven’s body like a bullet as it flew to the surrounding, these sharp little thorns are very sharp and deadly covered with red liquid.
Rex manages to activate his yellow barrier in a nick of time,
On the other side, Adhara also manages to block the thorns by creating purple fire around her body that manage to reflect the thorns.
Other unfortunate Awakened got stabs in various parts of their bodies.
Some of them got stabbed by a long thorn and died instantly, their skin then turns black.
The more than a dozen Awakened were left with a handful, and all of the surviving Awakened got injured heavily as their barrier broke first before the raven attacked with its torn.
‘The thorn has the red liquid too’, Rex thought with a frown.
<Skill Analysis Complete!>
<Altering the skill…>
<Completed>
<Thousand Lightning Thorn skill can be used>
After getting the system’s notification, Rex looks around trying to find Kyran.
Rex sigh in relief when he saw Kyran is okay,
Out of the three of them, Kyran doesn’t have a good defensive spell that he can use especially since he just becomes an Awakened for not too long.
It makes him relieved when he saw Kyran hiding amongst the rocks.
Just after he sigh in relief, Rex suddenly felt the raven approach him from the back fast.
Without even looking back, Rex jumped to his front to create some distance before he turns around and saw the raven’s murderous eyes.
Rex’s eyes glow red but then,
<The target’s mental stats are too high!>
‘Tch! I can’t weaken its stats’, Rex thought before he readies his sword.
CLANG!!
Rex’s sword collided again with the raven’s beak, it creates a loud clanging sound as Rex got pushed back a couple of meters.
By fighting inside a cave, Rex can’t use his Sky Rupture spell.
And his sword can hardly penetrate the raven’s thick skin, this is a hard fight.
“Adhara! Delta! Let’s aim for that cut on its wing”, Rex shouted as he points at the cut he made on the raven’s wings.
Hearing this, Adhara’s body glows with purple fire as Delta’s body emits white force.
Both of them dashes after Rex dashes in.
The attack from the raven is too strong for Kyran to handle, it’s not his time yet to join in so Rex signal for him to help the surviving Awakened.
ROAR!!
Rex, Adhara, and Delta started a brawl with the raven.
The three of them attacks from different sides,
Adhara takes out her daggers, Rex uses his sword, and Delta uses her claws.
Rex leaped towards the raven’s front with his sword ready and blitzing with black lightning, but he got swatted away by the raven’s wing.
But then, the raven roared as its wings got stabbed by something.
Adhara and Delta take a turn in attacking the cut on the raven’s wing as Rex distracts it.
Out of the three of them, Rex is the one who can take the hit from the raven the most so he will be the one to distract it.
“Aim for the soft spot of its body too!”, Rex shouted.
The belly side of the raven’s body has numerous wounds from the gunfires of the Awakened, and the raven also likes to cover its belly side with its wings to defend it.
Rex figures that the belly is a soft spot, and it seems he’s right.
SLASH!
Adhara manages to slide dodging the raven swinging its wings, the thorns around its body disappear after the attack from before.
But Rex saw that the thorns started to appear again,
The purple fire manage to slash a nasty wound on the raven’s belly.
Feeling that it’s at a disadvantage, the raven flaps its wings intending to fly but Rex intercepts it by appearing above the raven like a streak of lightning before he pounds the raven with his sword.
BAM!
CRASH!
The raven falls to the ground again crashing to the ground.
Rex then mount the raven and started to choke the raven by squeezing the raven’s neck between his body and his sword that he put in front of the raven’s neck.
While this is all happening, Kyran is watching from the side and feels his blood boils.
Unable to contain sitting on the side, Kyran wanted to join in,
He stretches out his hand and activates his element, the dark mana went into the wounds on the raven’s body before amplifying the pain.
After the dark mana invades the raven’s body, the raven widened its eyes,
ROAR!!
The raven roars as it glares at Kyran, it can feel that the pain is caused by Kyran.
Looking at this, Rex shouted hurriedly, “Kyran get back!! Don’t interfere in this fight!”
He’s still trying to choke the raven out with his sword.
Right after he shouted that Rex saw the same notification from the system as the raven wanted to blast another round of thorns.
Rex jumped away as he creates the same yellow barrier.
Adhara is also already ready with her purple fire surrounding her, while Delta leaped towards Kyran to push him out of the way but it’s too late.
SWOOSH!!
“Kyran!”, Rex shouted in shock as he saw a thick long thorn fly past him.