Gary had suffered a serious injury, the attack had pierced through his body but he could feel his muscles hardening around the claw, keeping it in place, not letting it move out. The beast he was going up against was strange for a number of reasons, and mainly because Gary was still trying to figure out why it was so dangerous.
He thought it would be one thing, its power to create copies of itself with its blood. Some time while fighting against the others, the beast had managed to make another clone of itself.
Thankfully, it seemed the max number it could create a copy of itself was six, otherwise he really would be in trouble. Yet, what was actually the most troublesome for him was the sharpness of the claws.
They were going through his thick werewolf hide like it was nothing, at least in his current state.
'There's no point using magnetic howl in this situation, because they're all coming for me anyway!' As Gary could see two more clones coming his way. 'Screw you!'
Using a surge of strength Gary quickly used his hands to grab onto the large white skeleton part of his hand, and pulled them in a bit closer, while adjusting his grip so he could get a better hold of the two of them.
The veins across his hands were showing even though he had thick fur, and they could be seen around his neck as well. He lifted them up in the air for a second as he chucked them against the one in the centre, crashing it into him.
Using his legs, he then pushed off the ground and pulled out the Skull hand from his body as his blood dripped onto the floor, and he got in a safe area away from the six of them.
[Emergency healing is in progress, your wounds will now be healed]
Suddenly, Gary was feeling a bit better, but close to one third of his health was already gone with just that small confrontation.
"Gary has good strength." Apollo said. "Those beasts, you can tell from the footsteps they make. They're heavy and full of muscle… that wasn't an easy thing to do."
Numba didn't say anything, he was just worried about Gary. He was a bit stronger since fighting Midwak, but this was an entirely different situation altogether because of the ability of the monster to duplicate itself.
'This Altered form is more impressive than it looks at a glance.' James thought. 'It's more versatile, an extreme increase in speed, superior strength and its healing capabilities are one of the best that I have seen so far. On top of that, it allows the user to be incredibly resilient. Usually, an Altered would be lucky to have one of these traits, and then mostly its skill would be what propped up the Altereds strength to be extraordinary.'
The beasts seemed to be well coordinated, as they stuck together in a type of formation. It allowed Gary some time to step back and think but also made it hard for an opening. When going up against Midwak, he could use the same skills over and over, especially the lethal pounce skill, but there was a slight problem in this case when fighting multiple enemies.
Gary somewhat couldn't control his lethal pounce skill, it wouldn't just go to whoever he wished, so use it in succession, he would only be able to injure them slightly before going to the next one, because from his first attempt, just one attack with the lethal pounce skill wasn't enough to take them out.
'But do I have anything else… Anything else that I can try?'
Since it was somewhat his best option and only his option, he decided to try as he rushed in. When he got close again, he used lethal pounce, he avoided the first hit, and it looked like a repeat of last time as he hit one of them right in the chest.
[Lethal pounce]
Using the skill while his claws were stuck in the beast, his strong legs pushed off the beast, pushing it back and stumbling, as he went toward the next one. He touched the ground and jumped up.
As he went toward another one of the beasts though, two claws were coming right toward him. They were able to help the other beast. Gary crashed into the two white claws with the two of his own, flinging them back.
However, it had practically stopped the lethal pounce attack, and now the one he had originally attacked had the time to be ready with a fist. It slammed the top of Gary's head and immediately sent him to the ground.
[-34 HP]
'It felt like I got hit by a hammer!' Gary thought. The plan had failed just like he thought it would because there were just too many of them in the area. When Gary came in with the first pounce they all moved around creating a type of circle, not giving him much space to manoeuvre out of the way.
The beasts couldn't quite get to him when he was using the skill and match up to his speed, but they were able to track him, and if they at least knew he was definitely going to go towards one of them, they just needed to act after that.
'At least my head didn't crack open otherwise that would have been over, but I'm sure I've lost some brain cells.'
But he didn't have time to complain about the pain, because when he looked up, all of the beasts were still around him.
———
"We need to get him out of there!" Crowley shouted. "Cancel the special test or he's going to die."
Crowley was already starting to move, but James soon got in his way.
"You can't do that, not yet!" James shouted back. "Not when he hasn't shown what it is he's hiding!"
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