Lucas finished his nap, feeling refreshed, just in time to pack up and leave the camp with the rest. Surprisingly, the mood was pretty light – hearted, the bantering, teasing and chatting going on as usual, tension present but pretty hard to notice on the first glance. Deciding not to sour the mood, Lucas stayed silent about the upcoming fight, instead opting to be as cheerful as possible.

The remaining distance they had to the location that hopefully held General’s vault was quickly covered by the party and they could spot in the distance ruins of some long abandoned houses, nature slowly reclaiming them. From information gathered by Bruce and Goldilocks, this place had been the first settlement the group from the General’s tutorial built when they were returned to Earth and a pretty logical place to hold your valuable items if you knew the location, seeing as there would be a small number of people who would share that knowledge.

“No signs of beasts that are supposed to guard it yet” Maggie said, her eyes scanning their surroundings for any signs of movement or threat. Lucas was also watching, but he also searched for good vantage points where could survey the whole battlefield and also be close enough to react in case anyone was in too much danger, major bodily harm or death being his threshold to get involved.

As they began to get closer, they started noticing movement, spotting the guards they had been warned about, a menagerie of creatures with the most bizarre features. Closest to them was something that looked like an ostrich wearing mane befitting a lion and with front limbs that probably hid the claws from the king of all animals back on pre – System Earth.

“Good luck” Lucas said before jumping on the nearest rooftop, getting ready to use the confusion that was sure to happen to get to the chimney on one of the houses in the middle, deducing that as the ideal vantage points. Waiting for his chance, he watched as his party rotated, Ted taking the point, flanked by two illusions of him, courtesy of Chen. Maggie carefully aimed and fired two shots in quick succession, arrows piercing into the flesh of the beast in front of them, its pained wailing drawing the rest towards the group and giving Lucas the chance to move to his intended destination.

Climbing the chimney, Lucas got the best view he could possibly have of the battle that was unfolding below him. The opening shots from Maggie incapacitated the ostrich beast for a second, but the second beast was already on them, a gorilla with scales all over his body and it elongated mouth full of extremely sharp teeth. It smashed the ground, cracking the earth and sending shockwaves that threw the party slightly out of balance and then followed it up with the charge. Luckily, Ted managed to regain his balance in the last moment, swinging his club at the charging ape. Lucas heard the loud crack from where the club connected with the gorilla, two momentums crashing in catastrophic results to the unfortunate beast, its scales completely smashed and, by the looks of it, ribs caved in. It howled in pain and rage both and started swinging wildly, its muscular hand always missing by a hair, Ted currently managing to avoid blows from the creature.

The ostrich managed to recover from the arrows embedded in its flesh and was now charging at the party, the beast sights squarely set on Maggie. In response, she fired an arrow at the eyes of the creature, Chen falling back and multiplying them. The ostrich immediately changed direction, jumping away in display of agility one wouldn’t expect from the unwieldy bird, the lion in it taking charge. Its legs started moving again, rapidly gaining speed and covering ground while dodging the powerful, but ultimately slow attacks Maggie launched at it. Just as it was passing the gorilla and Ted who were exchanging blow, the beast made a miscalculation, allowing Ted to swing his club into the side of the creature. It shrieked and that momentary stop was enough for Maggie to once again fire two quick arrows into the beast, managing to pierce its flesh once again.

Ted hadn’t managed to escape unscathed from this maneuver, the gorilla he was fighting quickly taking advantage of his exposed arm and sinking his teeth into it with a quick head snap. Lucas prepared to insert himself into the fight, but Margaret beat him, stepping forward and shouting “Rapid Regeneration”. Ted’s arm was beginning to heal, but since the teeth of the gorilla were still sunk into it, he still continued to get his flesh tore, managing to enter into a loop of losing and re - growing flesh, pinning the gorilla down. Panicking beast started smashing into the body of Ted, who was wincing in pain with very smash but still managing to retaliate with his club, smashing the gorilla into the head and weakening it with every blow.

Worry growing in him, Lucas was deliberating whether he should get into the fight or not, when he spotted two more creatures struggling to join the fight. Deciding he needed to help his party, Lucas studied the creatures, isolating his target, the flying tentacle creature which looked like it just stepped out of someone’s nightmare. Activating “Sharpsight”, he focused on the creature.

“Hummoctopus, level 60”

“What the fuck did the old fart breeding here?” Lucas wondered in disgust as he watched the fast moving wings trying to get the tentacles in place to rain down havoc, repositioning himself to intercept it, trying to sense the aura of the being and potentially stun it with “Aura severing”, but finding little success as the creature seemingly possessed no aura.

“I guess we do it the old fashioned way” Lucas thought before activating “Infused piledriver”, spinning himself and his falchion towards the tentacle monstrosity. Like always, his falchion didn’t penetrate as deep as Lucas was used to, but the wound it did make was far more severe, one of the tentacles completely in ruin as the creature shrieked in pain and tried to find the cause of it sudden appearance, correctly assuming it was Lucas once it saw it, prompting it to attack him. As the tentacles flew towards him, Lucas scrambled in mid – air, straining his massive Agility to its fullest extent and managing to plant a foot on the creature, using it as a springboard as he activated “Dodge”, launching himself into the air and avoiding the tentacles. Stabilizing, he immediately activated “Infused piledriver” spinning downwards into the creature, slamming it with full force of gravity combined with his momentum, forcing even his falchion to go deep into the creature, shredding flesh and vital organs both. Not willing to relent now that the victory was at hand Lucas activated the “Inflict poison” skill of his sword before combining it with “Strikes of doom” and launching a barrage of attacks at the unfortunate beast, cutting it flesh and stacking poison with every hit. After about twentieth hit, the creature shuddered and stopped flying, it comically small wings frozen as the creature went flying towards the ground, System deciding to inform Lucas the battle was finished in the middle of his struggling to not collapse with the creature. Unfortunately, the roof was closer than he thought, an so both him and the creature crashed through one of the ruined building, Lucas feeling his back slamming into something solid and going right through it. He landed with a loud thud and instinctively activated “Dodge”, rolling away from the debris that was now falling on the carcass of the tentacle creature.

“You took 679 points of damage”

“I really have to learn how to stick the landing” Lucas mocked himself as he took out a health potion and prepared to drink it “at least no one had seen me now, unlike the last time” he finished his thought as he gulped the potion, pleasantness starting to course through his body.

“You restored 800 health points via health potion”

Lucas climbed the rooftop and quickly ran back to his previous vantage point, finding the battle in much different shape than when he went off. The gorilla was lying in the on the ground in the puddle of blood, its head turned into a pulp, while the ostrich was still going, but visibly slower that it was. The only legitimate threat was the newly arrived giraffe, its torso and legs belonging to a bear, slamming its head on the ground, trying to flatten the humans underneath it. On the human side of things, Ted was visibly bruised and his skin tender wherever his armor broke off and Maggie had a claw marks on her thighs and arms, but neither seemed in mortal danger. Chen however, was laying some way away from the battle, Margaret in the process of pouring her healing spells into him, indicating he probably took a hit from the giraffe’s head. He settled and watched as the siblings downed the heavily wounded ostrich, before dodging the head slam, leaving only the unfortunate beast they were just killing as the target, the head flattening the upper part of it.

“The lunatic was playing a dangerous game. If these beasts had gone feral, they would have shredded his troops” Lucas thought as he watched the battle continuing, Maggie caught in the shockwave and thrown on the ground, luckily just in Margaret’s way, who quickly cast a healing spell to get Maggie back on her feet. Snarling angrily, she fired arrows on the raising head, managing to pierce the eyes. Screaming horrifically, the giraffe started randomly smashing around, demolishing what little man - made structures were still standing.

In all that mayhem, Ted ran towards the creature, waving for Maggie and Margaret to retreat. Arriving near the creature, he activated the skill form his club, a flash of white energy consuming the torso of the creature. In the moment, only thing that could be heard was the horrible shrieking of the creature, before silence fell on the battlefield as the long neck fell on the ground, Ted’s attack decapitating the creature. After the white energy cleared, Lucas could see Ted standing triumphantly, the girls running to join him in celebrations, Chen hobbling behind them. Happy with what he had seen, Lucas also made his way towards the party, when Ted collapsed to the ground, horrifying him. He let his passive build his speed up to breakneck pace, arriving at the scene only to find the rest of the team, laughing, immediately realizing what had just happened.

“He got the Advanced class?” Lucas asked, the enthusiastic nodding of the head from the rest of his party his only response.