Void Lycan's Advent

Burst type Aberrant

Orion noted the low – and still reducing – 27% his Ether reserves displayed to him through his system panel and clicked his tongue. ‘We have to finish this fast before I and Evangeline empty out our Ether.’

He suddenly shifted to the side once more as the aberrant appeared beside him, its familiar blue markings shining brightly on its legs. Still, it seemed he had underestimated the intelligence within the aberrant because it abruptly swung its arms to the side.

Orion grunted as he forced his body to bend backwards, barely dodging the sudden and unexpected attack. His body repositioned itself quickly, but he was now sporting a deep injury at the bridge of his nose. He then realized that if he were a second slower, he would have probably lost his eyes in that exchange. He had to clean the blood since it threatened to spill into his eyes and block his sight.

The aberrant attempted to push its advantage but was forced to stop its charge when a gunshot rang out in the air. Its neck bent to its extremes, the bones within it breaking as the right side of its head met its lowered shoulder.

An extremely fast bullet swept past the second after, and even with its crazily fast reaction time, the bullet had been able to tear away its left ear and a bit of its cheek, revealing a gory looking image of its cheekbone.

Such injuries didn’t matter to it though. Its hand moved to snap its neck back in place, the unnaturally fast regeneration engraved into its existence helping it heal the otherwise grievous injury. Even its battered shoulder seemed to be patching itself up, though not as fast as the rest of its body.

Orion wasn’t even surprised when the aberrant still stood after such an occurrence, instead choosing to return the favor and capitalize on its unguarded state. His arm swung out, muscles tightening as the sword in his grip aimed to cut the aberrant’s head off.

Unfortunately, the monster still seemed to possess its frightening reaction speed. Its arm shot up, stopping the incoming blade with its flesh. The sword strike tore deep into its skin, only stopping when it met the bones.

The werewolf gritted his teeth upon seeing this and growled once more. He could only swallow his irritation and anger though. The aberrant’s skill, Burst – an information he had found out through the use of his Void Sight – seemed to also boost its reaction speed, as if that aspect of an aberrant weren’t fast enough already.

Evangeline’s metal discs appeared by its side forcing it to twist its body, forcing the blade to exit its skin. Orion followed though, his sword slashing out again and cutting the arm off completely.

The aberrant glanced at the stump and rushed forward again, this time at Evangeline. She quickly reacted, her feet lightly treading the ground with light steps as she retreated from the approaching aggressor.

Marcus flicked his wrist, taking aim before firing. He hadn’t really practiced much with guns so his aim wasn’t so good against a moving target. He fired nonetheless, hoping that the aberrant would at least pause its charge.

It did. The bullet had missed, piercing a hole into the ground, but since the aberrant had enough intelligence to somewhat plan its attacks, it could also recognize the attack that had almost blasted away its head.

The aberrant twisted away from Marcus's shots with unnatural fluidity, its body contorting at impossible angles. The creature really knew how to capitalize on its quick regeneration speed.

Each bullet that whizzed past only seemed to make it more determined, its eyes tracking each fighter with predatory focus. Even with Evangeline keeping it off-balance with her discs, the creature's speed made it nearly untouchable.

"We need to pin it down!" Orion called out, his sword cutting through empty air as the aberrant danced away.

Evangeline launched another volley of discs, this time aiming not at the aberrant but at the ground around it. The metal circles embedded themselves in the earth, creating a makeshift arena of glinting steel. The aberrant's movements became more constrained, forced to watch its footing among the scattered projectiles.

Marcus, understanding the strategy, began firing in controlled bursts. His bullets might not hit, but they kept the creature moving in increasingly predictable patterns. Each shot forced it closer to Evangeline's disc-marked boundary.

The aberrant snarled for the first time as it realized a trap closing in. It launched into a dizzying display of speed, becoming almost invisible to the naked eye. One moment it was near Marcus, claws barely missing his throat, the next it was behind Evangeline, who barely managed to spin away from its grasp.

Orion kept his breathing steady, watching, waiting. The creature was fast, but its attacks were becoming desperate, less controlled. It couldn't maintain this speed forever – even if, as failures, the aberrants had a lot of Ether within them, it would still get drained if it used its special ability for so long. Which it did.

His grip tightened on his sword as he noticed something crucial - each time the aberrant pushed its speed to the limit, its movements would stutter for a fraction of a second, like a video dropping frames.

"Keep the pressure!" he shouted, moving to position himself. Marcus increased his rate of fire, while Evangeline pulled her remaining discs back to her hands with a metallic sound, ready to throw them again.

The aberrant blurred toward Marcus, then abruptly changed direction, heading for Evangeline. The stutter in its movement came just as it passed between them. Orion was already swinging, his blade catching the moonlight. The aberrant's speed worked against it, unable to alter its course in time.

The sword met flesh and bone, but Orion didn't stop there. He followed through with a second strike, then a third. His arms and sword became a flurry of movements that sliced the beast into pieces before he cut the head off, dealing the final nail to the coffin.

Silence fell over the battlefield, broken only by their heavy breathing and the soft ping of Evangeline's discs as she called them back to her. The threat was eliminated, but all three fighters kept their weapons ready, knowing from experience that in their line of work, celebrations came only after they were absolutely certain of victory.

The three headed to the hiding spot of Emma and the rest, collapsing the moment they confirmed there were no immediate threats in their vicinity.

Orion groaned in pain as his aching muscles screamed bloody murder, the adrenaline blocking away all the pain had receded, allowing his torn and battered wail spasmed while he endured the pain.

The next emotion he felt was hunger. One so strong he had lost control over himself for a split second, his hands finding themselves in his bag and picking out the rations he had brought with him before shoving them down his throat. Nobody noticed that his eyes flickered yellow while doing this…

Anyways, the werewolf could immediately find the source of his almost primal hunger. His [Transcendent Regeneration] had probably emptied out all the nutrients in his body before switching on to his Ether reserves.

A majority of the pain he felt was even from his recovering broken arm which would fix itself whenever his Ether reserves returned to 1% before being used by the healing skill to fix up the arm. Even worse was that he couldn’t turn off the skill, due to its status as a passive skill.

Thankfully some good had come out of that fight.

_

93 Ether points gained.

[Werewolf Transformation] has increased to level 3 – Host can now transform 30% of his body.

_

Orion sighed as he saw this. Truthfully the best thing to do right now would have been to increase his Etheric Power. His [Dark Manipulation] hadn’t been used in his last match due to the fact that he wasn’t proficient enough to use it in such a fast paced battle where one mistake could lead to death.

He needed energy both for maintaining the skill and to train. He couldn’t allow such a powerful skill rot in his system panel.

Still, he also knew that, with the system, he could do that later. So he mentally commanded the system to exchange for 10 attribute points, increasing his Constitution by 5, his Strength by 3 and his Agility by 2.

The burst of power served to help Orion calm himself down. He glanced at the group with him and noted their shaken yet determined gazes. They were going to need it. “We’ll rest for now. Once our Ether is all filled and Alex is awake, we’ll be on our move.”

And they did.

Three hours later, Orion had healed enough to walk around. That was how long it had taken for Orion’s arm to heal up surprising both his teammates and him. It seemed the skill was stronger than he gave it credit for.

Orion frowned as he reached the locked cafeteria door. There were people inside.

And some didn’t sound welcoming.