The beautiful beast.

Chapter 30

   “Arrgh, take this!”

  Although he was not the first person to charge out,Thomas was still the first to arrive in front of the monster horde. 

Without hesitating a bit he raised his gigantic battle hammers in a large vertical swing before bringing it down on the approaching monsters.

   “Earth crusher!”

   Instantly,the earth cracked and actually rose up as if it were rippling waves of water. This in turn caused the approaching monsters to get swept off their feet by the enormous force.

   “Rooar!”

   Whimpering in fear,the monsters in front tried to run back but unfortunately for them,those coming from the rear weren't giving them any chance to do so leaving them at the mercy of Thomas's hammers which wasn't exactly desirable either, no?

   “Come die you moth*r fu*kers!”

  BANG!

  Slamming the hammers left and right,a lot of monsters were either knocked out or were outright killed,crushed to pieces. The amount of monsters that were taken out in that one hit was at the very least over ten!

   “Attack!”

  By now the others had also arrived and the battle soon shifted into full gear.

 Now you might be wondering why Thomas was the first person to reach the monsters when there were speedsters in the teams right?

  Well the reason was very simple,he was a vanguard. Sort of like a tank.

 Essentially his mission was to cause a disruption in the ranks of the first wave of monsters making then disoriented and thereby making it easy for the others to deal with them.

  It was a bit similar to the divide and conquer tactic except that this would be better called confuse and conquer.

   Slash, slash, slash!

  Swinging the twin blades in her hands,each of Tracy's movements was reminiscent of flashes of light as her hands couldn't be seen at all only the blades in her hands which did not stop flickering could be seen once in a while.

   Further far left,huge lightning bolts were tearing monsters into pieces. However the cause of this,Mira didn't even bat an eyelid as she ripped through the monsters like she was cutting paper. 

  No matter which direction they tried to attack from they were always met with the same thing—a blast of lightning to the head.

Watching from up the wall there was only one question on Ethan's mind as he watched her.

“There was no way the monsters could possibly touch her or could they?” 

Soon the answer was provided when a monster that looked like a cross between a lion and a scorpion, the manticore suddenly attacked from the midst of the horde.

   SWISH SWISH SWISH 

The sound of sharp objects piercing through the air could be heard all over the battlefield as three sharp thorns flew towards Mira. Each one was targeted such that even if she didn't die fighting was also out of the option.

   As if to increase the odds against her,three more monsters engaged her preventing her from responding to the attack at the cost of their lives.

   “Damn it she's gonna die!”

  Watching the scene below panic gripped Ethan's heart. Out of everyone the reason they targeted Mira was that most powermasters with elemental powers were usually weak physically despite being walking weapons if mass destruction plus the lightning element was an element suited for these kinds of battles.

   Just when it seemed that the three thorns were about to punch holes in her she yelled while gritting her teeth.

   “It's about time guys!”

  “Huh!" 

  Confused,Ethan wasn't sure who she was talking to as everybody was busy with their own monsters. However what he knew was that she would soon suffer grievous wounds.

  But then…

  BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM 

  Four gunshots echoed above the sounds of battle each just later by its predecessor by a few milliseconds. However that few milliseconds created an unbelievable scene that caused Ethan's eyes to become as big as lightbulbs.

  The first bullet flying from who knows where accurately struck one of the thorns shattering it to smithereens before travelling fowards while the second and third bullets both forcefully redirected the trajectory of the remaining two thorns using their spinning motion thus causing them to instead kill some of the other monsters.

  Now you might ask what was the essence of shooting four time when there were only three thorns? Well it was all for the crazy maneuver about to happen.

  Remember the first bullet? It was still flying in the direction of the manticore albeit slowly as it was almost at it's distance limit. However a truly miraculous scene happened as the last and fourth bullet actually collided with it in a way that transferred its own kinetic energy to it causing the already slowing bullet to suddenly reach speeds of three times it's original!

 The calculations needed to do this was simply on another scale!

    SCREECH!..

  The manticore also saw this and knew that if it didn't dodge this bullet it would probably be having it's dinner in the netherworld and without hesitation it turned tail. 

However, how could it get the chance to escape when the chains of death were already wrapped around it's neck?!

BANG!

  The manticore had just raised it's claw to burrow into the ground when suddenly it froze. Then without any dramatic fallover it simply died with a huge bullet wound in it's head kicking a dust cloud up in the process.

   Headshot!!!

     From the far side of the moat near the entrance Greg and Burt appeared from thin air before grinning at Mira and then dissapearing again while they continued to rain havic on the monsters with heir targeted shots.

  One bullet, instead death!

  “What the…???”

Unable to suppress his shock Ethan's exclaimed loudly causing the other wall gunners to look at him wierdly with the only thought on their minds being.

  “What's up with this kid,is this the first time he's seeing this kind of thing?”

Yes,the battle was intense and stimulating but wasn't his expression too exaggerated?

  They had seen this a countless amount of times so much that they had already gotten used to it.

   Shaking their heads they thought to themselves that this guy seems to be a bumpkin.

 Walking up to him, Mike the wall gunner that exchanged greetings with earlier tried to give him some ‘elderly words of advice’.

“Hey kiddo this your first time seeing high end snipers like Greg and Burt right? I know it's amazing and all but don't gawk like that it's too low level. In fact this is not their peak performance. They shot four times just to take down one monster.”

    Hearing mike say this an awkward expression formed on Ethan's face as he forcefully repressed the urge to tell them how the whole battle played out. He knew better though as they wouldn't believe him in the first place and even if they did believe he wouldn't be able to answer how he was able to observe a battle of such calibre.

   “Yeah, thanks Mike!"

  " No need,no need it's my duty to educate youngsters.”

Looking at the smug,satisfied smile on his face as he walked back to his post Ethan wanted to burst out laughing as he wondered how embarrassed he would be if he knew the truth.

  Glancing at he battlefield below and the assortment of battles ongoing,a desire to partake rose up in Ethan. He had been suppressing this feeling for the past several days but seeing the ongoing battle his heart nearly leapt out of his chest. Unfortunately he didn't want to cause trouble for the team.

  “But who said I couldn't help anyway?”

  Looking at the sniper rifle in his hands a smile tugged at his lips. All he neded was an oppourtunity and that oppourtunity came soon than he expected.