Edward didn’t have to wait for long, he only had the time to think This lightning is coming close before it hit him squarely. His aura resisted the hit while sizzling, sparks coming out of it. He was blinded by the flash of light but his aura picked up a huge bird diving at him. He teleported above it avoiding the Roc coming for him. Blinding and paralyzing its prey with electricity and then coming for the kill, it’s a pretty good strategy. “Rèng khwāmrĕw”, Edward used his acceleration now that his opponent had arrived.

The bird was as large as a moose when it had its wings close to itself, but when he opened them wide, its wingspan was a good ten meters. Having missed its prey, the Roc didn’t stop and used his momentum to regain some altitude but it was a lot slower than when diving at Edward.

This is their weakness. They are perfect killers but if they miss, they become vulnerable.

Edward teleported next to it before the bird could get away or regain its previous height. He was glad that his teleportation range had increased so much because the birds were indeed quite fast and it meant that it was already a hundred meters away before Edward had been able to react. Their loss of speed after a failed attack may be an opportunity but not everybody had the means to seize it.

His acceleration made it so that the bird was unable to make any evasive maneuver in time before Edward slashed his sword sending a twenty-meter aura blade at it. It could only open its beak and shoot out a lightning bolt to offset the blade. It saved its life, the lightning piercing through the blade in the middle and missing Edward by a few meters even as the rest of his blade continued on its trajectory only causing light cuts on the Roc instead of cutting it in two.

It has good reflexes as well. But this is insufficient.

Now close enough to use his domain which had reached twenty-six meters, Edward teleported, again this time in direct contact with the monster, swinging his condensed blade of aura at the same time and beheading it in one swoop. Aura tendrils manifested from Edward’s body and plunged inside the bird’s body, absorbing its essence and stabilizing the corpse before it could crash to the ground.

Only when the monster was drained of essence did the tendrils retract leaving gravity to take hold of the corpse. Surprisingly, although far smaller in size, a Roc had almost as much energy as a sandworm, being roughly worth the blood essence of four predators. While sandworms were large they didn’t have any ability which meant their essence was less potent.

However, even as Edward let go of the corpse, the storm only gained in intensity. Thunder erupted with threatening undertones and from the corner of his eyes he saw several forms flying within the clouds. A pillar of lightning far larger than the first lightning bolt he had to endure fell down from the sky. Thankfully Edward still had his acceleration active, and that gave him barely enough time to teleport out of the way, judging by the size of the attack he wasn’t sure how many times he would be able to tank such powerful lightning strikes.

The lightning missed him and fell down all the way to the ground, exploding as it reached Zakrens’ streets, projecting rocks around and leaving a smoking crater behind.

Seems like the others are here. They are grouping together to strengthen their attacks.

No Roc race down after the lightning strike, maybe having learned their lessons after having witnessed Edward kill their comrade. However, the lightning coursing through the sky only increased and another pillar came crashing down at him. He teleported again to avoid it, but he had barely reappeared when a smaller lightning bolt stoked him with dead accuracy, his form sizzled, his hair moving to and fro as if it was alive as the electricity slowly dissipated.

I can’t let things progress as they are. I don’t know how many lightning strikes they can conjure but given the size of the ongoing storm, I bet they can keep at it for a while. I have to bring the fight to them.

Edward teleported higher in the air but that left him open with his long teleportation on cooldown, two lightning bolts came at him simultaneously and he had to use his short-range teleportation to barely avoid the strike. The strikes were so fast that only his acceleration gave him the time perception to react in time, and even then, he wouldn’t have been able to get out of the way without his teleportation. He felt the electricity run havoc but a few meters in front of him, his hair standing up once again.

With his aura, he searched the monsters' location within the storm as lightning strikes multiplied around him. At this point his eyesight was useless, he felt as if the sky itself was broken with the thunderbolts acting as cracks. His hearing wasn’t any better with waves of thunder joining together before the sound had the time to dim, it was as if the sky itself was shaking in anger. Only his aura was unaffected.

The monsters didn’t come any closer, only relying on their lightning to finish him. Don’t underestimate me, Edward thought in anger. He closed his eyes, relying solely on his aura, and teleported toward them continuously shifting between his long and short-range teleportation. The Rocs weren’t able to pinpoint his position and the distance between each teleportation was large enough that they weren’t able to retreat in time either. Avoiding someone able to cross a distance faster than the speed of sound was an impossible task.

Edward felt a growing headache as he chained the teleportation, having to locate his position and those of the birds each time he teleported. But it was less than what he feared, multitasking so many times with his clones seemed to have improved his mental faculties.

Edward appeared near his prey which tried to retaliate but Edward was too fast, he seemed everywhere at once. The Roc retaliation missed him completely while he acted like a circular saw, downpouring attacks at such a speed that the monster’s aura protecting it cracked before it could attempt anything else. Immediately Edward latched on the opportunity and his daggers pierced inside the Roc’s heart killing it on the spot and draining its aura.

He teleported away as another lightning pillar struck his previous location, turning the dead Roc into charcoal. One down…Fourteen more to go.

The loss of only one Roc didn’t change things much, the rest of them were still shooting lightning bolts at him and it was more than what the aura protecting him could endure so he had to rely entirely on his teleportation to avoid them, his movement speed not enough to contend with such fast attacks.

His headache worsened but Edward didn’t relent, although the monsters tried to keep their distance his teleportation had such a reach that two of them were enough to catch up to a Roc. The problem was more the short-range teleportation he had to use as well to avoid the lightning bolts coming at him.

The second Roc he had targeted attempted to flee but it was already too late. Edward appeared next to it, his blade morphing into a barbed whip and holding the monster in a deadly embrace. The blade did a full rotation around the monster and shredded its armor in one motion. Without protection, the barbs dug without resistance within the monster and lacerated it in two pieces. Tendrils shot out of his body plunging inside the monster's bisected corpse and absorbing all of their blood essence within seconds before retracting into him. It was a far cry from the time he needed to bath inside a monster’s blood to absorb their essence.

Edward teleported again before lightning could slam into him. He never stayed in the same position for more than two seconds, usually even less than that thanks to his short-range teleportation. He was hard to lock onto and the Rocs became increasingly disturbed as their attacks continued to miss him, Edward seemingly killing them one after the other with complete immunity.

As three more of them died in quick succession decreasing their number to ten individuals from the initial sixteen, their leader seemed to have had enough. He personally dived toward Edward, his form visibly bigger than the rest and radiating with lightning, greatly increasing his speed.

I’m not done yet. Wait a minute, your time will come later.

Edward didn’t respond to the challenge and simply teleported away toward another Roc. Killing their leader won’t do me any good right now. I want to hunt them all, not scare them away.

The large Roc wasn’t expecting to be ignored and it emitted a high peal sound that rang Edward’s ears but that was soon drowned within the ambient thunder. It attempted to catch up to him but Edward’s was faster and it could only watch helplessly as Edward killed two more of its flight.

It emitted another high peal cry and the remaining Rocs grouped together with their leader so that they would be close enough to assist each other.

This makes things complicated. There are still eight of them. I won’t have the time to focus on one before the others react. Though…it also makes things easier in a way.

The Rocs and Edward stared at each other for a second, the next instant Edawrd teleported right in the middle of their group. He sensed their leader discharge a blast of lightning in a powerful nova that blasted through him, temporally bypassing his armor and paralyzing his muscles with powerful electric currents. However, he had the time to conjure two aura grenades and he teleported away just as they detonated, his teleportation didn’t require him to be able to move his body.

He still hadn’t recovered control of his body, his members twitching irregularly but he had the satisfaction to see three of the birds fall from the sky. The rest hadn’t been spared either, their leader included and their flight appeared difficult.

Edward let himself freefall with his body still paralyzed and he teleported in pursuit of the dead monsters not wanting to let their blood essence go to waste. Still shaken by the exchange the Rocs didn’t react in time and Edward managed to absorb the power of the three defeated monsters, three teleportation, and a handful of seconds all it took for him to absorb all of their essence. By then he had mostly regained control of his movements.

Time to finish them.

Only a third of the Rocks had survived and they weren’t in perfect shape. The storm above them had already greatly decreased in intensity, the thunder becoming intermittent.

However, Edward still kept his distance from their leader, he hadn’t expected it to be able to exceed his aura resistance capacity in a single attack even if it required him to be in close range. He knew how fragile a body was without aura armor, not everyone was as freaky as the Andherians, and without protection, a single casual attack was enough to get killed.

They are injured, from the way they are flapping their wings their mobility should have decreased a lot already. This wouldn’t have worked before, but it’s worth a try now.

Edward spread his arms and conjured dozens of spears with his aura that he ordered to shoot at the Rocs. Some Rocs tried to avoid them by diving down, and others blasted them away with lightning. However, it was only partially effective as there were not enough of them to destroy all of the spears and two more of them died from this attack. Another one found himself isolated from the other after an evasive maneuver and Edward teleported next to it and finished it.

This left only their leader and an ordinary Roc. Considering the way things unfolded, the ordinary Roc tried to escape while their leader had a defiant look in its eyes, too proud to flee. Edward threw a glance at the falling bodies of the deceased Rocs and he summoned three clones to secure them while he teleported after the fleeing bird killing it before it managed to fly too far.

He was left alone with their leader. He could respect the monster’s defiance but he needed its essence. They stared at each other and Edward once more conjured spears while the Roc shot a pillar of lightning forgoing all defense for offense. Edward was hit by the attack as he focused on controlling the spears rather than teleporting, but even as the lightning surcharged his aura and paralyzed his body the spears plunged themselves into the Roc’s body ending its life.