Chapter 540: First encounter
With his 360 degree vision, he was able to see something small and fast running towards his direction.
Is it a monster? he asked himself.
Whatever it was, it was using magic which was causing it to mix with the Light mana in their body, meaning that he couldn’t quite make out what kind of monster they were.
Now, it wasn’t running directly towards him, but if they continued to run in that direction, then they would stumble upon him sitting down beside a tree.
Looking at the surroundings more, he realized that they were getting chased by a much bigger monster the size of a gorilla.
He quickly exited out of his Drone Vision, and within a moment, he found himself back in his old body, with the Drone left behind and slowly flying down to his location.
He turned his head to the sounds of trees breaking and crashing into the ground echoed through the forest.
As he squinted his eyes and peered through the thick crowd of trees, he finally saw what it was that was coming towards him.
And as it turned out, it wasn’t a what. It was a who.
A woman with brown olive skin and black flowy hair jumped through branches and shrubs with elegance and grace. Her thin green veil and scarf flowed beautifully behind her like fish in water.
Contrary to that image, the one coming towards her was a giant monster hybrid of a gorilla and a tiger. Its grey skin and black fur could break through boulders and stones without a scratch. Not only that, but its striped tiger head showed two enormous fangs that could tear through an elephant with one bite.
It’s Reena, he realized. And she’s being chased by a 5-star monster. Should I help her?
Since he had a business agreement with her father, he thought that it wasn’t such a bad idea to possibly team up with Reena.
After all, there was no reason for them to fight. Keys were the only thing important in this game. It didn’t matter if they teamed up or not since there were five drops that could be shared.
And he wouldn’t be surprised that other people from the Rising Six had also teamed up to get a better chance of winning. If he was going to be teamed up with someone, then it was much better to team up with someone he already knew.
He stood up and announced his presence.
As soon as he did that, Reena’s head turned in his direction. Her eyes showed surprise and conflict, as if she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing to see another player this early in the game.
To convey his wish to work together, he waved his hand as a welcome.
He was even about to go and fight the Gorilla-Tiger monster for her, but it looked like she was going to take care of it all by herself.
She reached behind her back and revealed two scimitars, one yellowish-white and the other violet-black. Almost the entire blade itself glowed with power, meaning that the weapon was a Mithril Relic in good condition with barely any rust.
She didn’t seem to acknowledge his greeting and quickly turned around to the Gorilla-Tiger.
Using her stable footing on one of the tree’s branches, she shot towards the monster with her scimitars in a crossed pattern.
The gorilla-tiger beat its chest and charged towards her, accepting her challenge.
As she got closer, the monster raised its two giant fists and slammed it down just as Reena arrived in front of it.
Sparks flew out from the moment of impact, with Reena being thrown to the ground.
The gorilla-tiger smiled, thinking that it won. But then it noticed that it hadn’t completely crushed the human at all.
Reena stood with her feet on the ground, with cracks on the soil propagating as she fought against the weight and power of the monster.
A magic circle appeared beneath her feet.
The ground rumbled for a brief second before a rectangular pillar burst forth from the floor and hit the gorilla-tiger directly in its head.
The monster recoiled back, its chin aching from the magic.
Still, it was unhurt.
It growled and bared its fangs, intending to crush the human that dared to injure it.
But before it could even attack, Reena suddenly appeared just a few feet away from the monster’s head, with her scimitars held out horizontally next to her.
And with the momentum she gathered, Reena began twirling in the air before hitting the gorilla-tiger’s chest, hitting it with the force of continuous slashes.
The sound of metal clinking continuously rang out in the forest as Reena spun in the air and hit the monster with her scimitar with each revolution.
At first, the gorilla-tiger’s thick skin allowed it to withstand the first few attacks. But as Reena continued to spin, the monster’s defenses kept getting whittled down until blood spurted out of its chest.
"GRAO GRAO!"
The monster jumped away, creating separation between him and Reena.
Angry, its body began to glow red with power as it used its innate skill to increase its power even further. Its black fur began to turn red as flames spontaneously erupted from its body.
It banged its chest again, and with each slam, its fiery fur roared with it.
It immediately lunged towards Reena, its giant fists balled up in flames, and its fangs turning as orange as magma.
The monster tried to grab Reena, but she swung both of her scimitars and created a crescent made out of pure Earth mana to deflect it away from her, giving her enough time to dodge away.
Its fists crashed towards a tree and immediately turned part of the tree burnt black.
Reena squatted down and closed her eyes before jumping up in the air, her scimitars crossed on her chest.
Just then, red dust started to flow around her like strings.
There wasn’t a magic circle anywhere on her body, meaning that those red dust weren’t made out of mana at all.
It’s her Aubility! Michael realized.
And it was at that moment that that same red dust started to gather above Reena’s head.
These dust began to coagulate and form into the curvy torso similar to that of a woman’s torso. The dust continued to form upwards and upwards, before finally reaching the head.
The dust formed the general shape of a human head before its features became molded.
Michael realized that the red dust wasn’t just forming one face. It was forming three faces at the same time!
Three facets of a woman appeared on Reena’s Diva. They all looked like they were the same woman, but their expressions were completely different.
The one at the front showed a serious and solemn expression. The one on the right showed a happy and smiling face. And the one on the left showed a combination of anger and sadness.
Once her Diva had formed, more and more red dust surrounded Reena.
And as she started to rotate in the air, the red dust continued to rotate with her, forming a sort-of galaxy disc shape that spun as fast as a top.