Chapter 349: 349 - A-Rank Threat
"Lilith, Bel, we should go there now. Something bad is happening," Noah said, realizing the entire feeling of the monster"s aura had changed. It was no longer the threatening and heavy feeling from before, but rather, the rage of a monster gone beserk.
"Yeah, this feels bad," Bel was the first to agree, looking down non-chalantly to see his clothes. "Aw, man... I forgot I was wearing those, now they are ruined," he complained, as he saw his fancy white shoes Carlos had bought him covered in blood.
"That"s the least of our worries. Let"s go," Noah called out, as he dashed towards the origin of the pressure, not teleporting so Bel could match his speed without worries. After all, Noah looked forward to see him fight in a full on battle, not just a senseless ma.s.sacre like before.
The two rushed through the destroyed blocks, only a few houses standing unharmed, as the destruction seemed to be leading them somewhere. "Did the monsters divide and rush in multiple directions?" Noah asked himself aloud, as he noticed the way to the ice-cream store they were in before appear across a handful of untouched houses a couple streets over.
"Yeah. I"m guessing they spread out in groups like the ones we fought before," Lilith was quick to confirm his suspicion, her eyes roaming across the landscape as she searched for threats.
"Just what in the f.u.c.king h.e.l.l is that thing...?" Noah asked himself aloud, stopping dead on his tracks, Bel quickly stopping by his side.
"d.a.m.n! That thing is ma.s.sive!" he explaimed, his eyes gleaming with the will for a fight.
A monster Noah had never even heard of was standing proudly on two feet, like a gigantic lizard-esque dinossaur. It towered up higher than the three story building between it and the group, its eyes colored red with rage, as its gigantic teeth screeched against each other.
"That thing has got to be at least A-Rank. Let"s go, those guys may be having troub—" his words were interrupted by a sudden thump, as the monster disappeared from behind the building, followed by a large rumbling as a cloud of dust ensued.
"Lilith, Bel, stay close!" Noah yelled, as they were struck by it, his vision completely covered by the unsurmountable amount of dust. "What as that, a skill?!" he asked himself in thought, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve, to hopefully filter a little bit of the dust and not get a.s.saulted by a fit of coughing.
"I don"t think so! The building, it"s gone!" Lilith responded in his thoughts, forcing Noah to open his eyes despite the ma.s.sive cloud of dust, only to see the ma.s.sive three story building had vanished from his sights, only a pile of rubble in its place.
"Noah! The building collapsed, there may be survivors," Bel exclaimed, rushing Noah to help them as he dashed ahead.
"Bel, don"t!" Noah called him out, and almost as if it were already arranged for, a large burst of flames exploded from the monster"s mouth, engulfing the rubble, and everyone inside it, and turning it into a scorching h.e.l.lscape.
Bel stopped, dumbfounded, his eyes open wide to what he"d just seen. It was almost like the monster had heard him and reacted to it, denying him the chance of helping anyone, inviting him for a fight. And if it were a provocation, it had worked. Bel was fuming, his nails gouging into his palms and a couple dropplets of blood forming. A vein could be seen popping on his temple, while his head was redder than just flushed.
"Bel, calm down," Noah walked towards him, until he paid attention to the monster"s feet. There, around 40 Blessed were a.s.sembled, fighiting against its claws, and dodging for their lives as they swoop them, occasionally throwing one to his death against a building"s wall. "Nevermind, we need to help." He dashed, teleporting a ways ahead, Bel flying through the air behind him as he propelled himself like a projectile, straight towards the monster.
"What do you guys even plan on doing against that large of a thing?! It"s not like you guys can do anything to it directly," Lilith exclaimed, showing her concern, which Noah chose to not take to heart.
"I don"t really know, but I can"t leave those guys to their death. We need to do something, even if just take help them by keeping the monster occupied while they regroup." Noah was adamant. While he didn"t care about most blessed, letting people die without even trying to help was not something he was comfortable with. "Moreover, I feel that ma.s.sive thing will net us a lot of xp," he said, as he closed in the gap.
By now, he slowly started to become able to see the details of the people fighting, especially their weapons, since those were easier to see from a distance.
"Strange, this get-up is very familiar," he murmured, as he recognized the way some of the blessed were organized.
"You sound weird. Is there something wrong?" Lilith asked, looking up to him.
"Not wrong per se, but I feel I may find some known faces in there. Oh, I haven"t checked about cooldown, have I?" he suddenly realized as he spoke, trying to once again manifest the mask to cover up some of his tracks, though if there was someone from his own party, they would probably recognize his blessing.
[Lucifer"s Artifact: Hannya Mask manifested. Manifestation will last 30 minutes.]
"I guess there was no such thing as a cooldown," he thought while rolling his eyes. The sheer stupidness of it making Lilith laugh in his mind.
"You are overlooking a lot of things today, aren"t you?" she teased him. "But honestly, it really doesn"t sound like you usual," she backtracked, as her joke turned her feeling into worry.
"Today was just too hectic. And I keep having these weird dreams of Lucifer"s memories all the time and wake up tired as h.e.l.l," he told her in thought, as Bel had neared him, and he didn"t want to risk the boy hearing it. "Either way, we"re... s.h.i.t, it really is them," he cut his sentence off mid-way, as he recognized at least 10 or so people from the group. "What the h.e.l.l are they doing here? It"s too dangerous," Noah thought, but shrugged it off as he approached them.
"Welp, here goes nothing," he thought, as he materialized a pair of large stakes. The fire condensed into the weapons, taking the usual red and orange color. But as it condensed and heated up, a strange thing happened. The color, which usually was bright, slowly turned deeper, darkening. "Odd," Noah thought, as he examined the darkened weapons while running.
"The color of those looks... different," Lilith told him, without any more to worry about other than look out for counter-attacks.
"Yeah, I probably leveled up [h.e.l.l Flames]," he said, shaking his head and hardening his gaze. "Bel, let"s come in with a blast," he yelled, and watched Bel nod. As the boy lowered his stance, the strange arrow like shape appeared in front of him once again, and Noah could only grin, before he teleported up above the monster.
"What in the lord"s name is that?!"
"Take cover!"
Yells could be heard, as the Blessed saw strange lights approach them. A large red ligh, moving quickly towards them on the ground, and a ma.s.sive fireball from above. From the fight they were having, it was not a far-fetched idea that those might be either monsters or the boss itself, now that its attack patterns had completely changed. The sheer despair in their voices was obvious to Noah, considering he could hear it clearly even from all the way up there, despite the overlapping voices and commands from other Blessed, the loud noises from the monster, and the multiple sirens and screams coming for all over the city and debris. "Whatever, let"s see if this works. Here goes nothing!" he thought, as he launched the two spokes, followed by the ma.s.sive fireball straight towards the monster"s head from above, teleporting towards the ground as he did. Here did not wait to see whether his attacks took effect, but as he emerged from the tunnel onto the solid ground, she glanced towards the monster, just in time to see the red arrow vanish inside its hind leg.
A roar loud enough to burst one"s eardrums ensued, as the arrow emerged onto the other side, the monster raising itself slightly, before its right leg collapsed entirely onto the ground, Bel merging right through it, dripping blood. Noah immeadiately threw a sizeable but smaller fireball at it, looking forward to make use of the wound Bel left behind in order to burn the ma.s.sive monster. The gigantic lizard gnawled in pain, thrashing about as it struggled to get itself upright, but, as the fireball hit and exploded, yet another abhorrent cream resounded, forcing Noah to cover his ears to withstand the noud noise. And his eyes met with the monster"s as he saw the fire that burned on its neck from his attack dwindle and ultimately die.
"f.u.c.k," Noah thought, realizing the monster"s aim was him, and side gazing towards Bel, who was rushing towards the blessed. "Lilith, think, fast, flamethrower!"
"Wait, what?!" she shot back at him, not understanding what he meant.
Noah took a deep breath, as he saw smoke appear on the monster"s nostrils, its eyes locked on him. "This is gonna be kinda bad," he thought, as he used [h.e.l.l Tunelling] to teleport upwards and as far away as his range allowed him, reapearing over a hundred meters away from the monster, and in another completely different direction.