Lisa was now practically flying through the clearing like a white flash, leaving trails of white fire in her wake.
Where the group of professional soldiers had previously needed tactical formation and Lohan’s constant support to avoid being petrified, for Lisa it seemed like child’s play.
With a thrust of her hind legs, Lisa vanished from Alice and Dee’s sight. The next instant, she appeared in the center of the new group of Cockatrices.
Her two white tails now acted as perfect stabilizers, allowing her to make sharp turns at angles that had previously been nearly impossible, moving at a speed that the untrained human eye could barely follow.
The first monster barely had time to raise its metallic beak before Lisa’s claws, wrapped in pure, intense white flames, sliced through the air. There was no resistance; the beast’s shell was torn like paper, leaving only a trail of smoke and the sound of bones snapping.
"This is ridiculous..." Tunder muttered in disbelief, lowering his bow as he watched the third Cockatrice get flung against a tree trunk with its chest completely charred. "We’re a group of six Level 11 Players, and we can’t keep up with a single Player who just leveled up?!"
Alice, who prided herself on her boxing skills, simply watched with her arms crossed and a smile, unable to believe what she was seeing. "That’s the difference in base stats, Tunder..."
Lohan, still firmly anchored to Lisa’s back, felt every contraction of her muscles.
If it weren’t for the active sensory sync, which allowed him to see the world as she did—a hunting ground where enemies seemed to be moving in slow motion—he would have felt just like a passenger on a bullet train.
With every monster Lisa struck and left on the brink, Lohan acted immediately. Projecting small ice spikes, extending tentacles to deliver the final blow to vital points, or leaving small clones to devour the heads of incapacitated monsters, ensuring the kill was credited to him.
[Experience: +350]
[Experience: +380]
[Experience: +410]
The notifications flashed nonstop in Lohan’s vision. The Level 10 experience bar, which had once seemed like an abyss, was rising at a speed that left him euphoric.
’Yes! This is exactly what I was talking about!’ He thought, seeing how close his experience bar was getting to the end.
Lisa stopped abruptly in the center of the clearing, her white fur gleaming with a purity that repelled and burned away the blood that tried to cling to her in combat. She looked back at the trail of destruction she had left in just a few minutes, then focused on the Slime behind her.
"The next group is yours, Vice President." Lisa transmitted through the mental link, her voice conveying an amusement she rarely showed. "Stay with Alice and the others, surrounding the area to make sure nothing escapes. I’ll draw out the pack of bears further ahead. Make sure you’re ready, Halon."
Lohan vibrated the gelatin and formed two small cartoonish eyes, winking at her. "I’m always ready, kitten."
Hearing that, the confident, dominant mood Lisa had been exuding froze, giving way to an intense blush, which was fortunately disguised by her fur and the glow she radiated.
"Foxes are canines!" she said, frustrated, that frustration intensifying even further at Lohan’s laughter.
"I wasn’t talking about the species."
Hearing that response, Lisa darted back into the dense underbrush with the brightest white glow she had ever used.
As she ran, despite the shyness and "anger" she felt at Lohan’s attitude, the corner of her mouth lifted slightly, happy that he was still the same Halon he had been before he knew her identity.
Alice and the five soldiers quickly took their positions, keeping their guard up. They knew that the true strength of Astralis Requiem lay not only in the fox that now resembled a war deity, but in the blue creature that, despite appearing harmless, controlled every tactical aspect of the battlefield.
Seeing just how great the change had been that Lisa had undergone after evolving, without them even realizing it, everyone in the group was already anticipating what Halon’s evolution would be like as well.
"Stay focused!" Alice commanded the group. "The pack of bears might be tougher than the group of cockatrices!"
The group listened carefully, but after seeing how unstoppable Lisa was, they were much more confident they could handle it.
Lohan prepared his webs and clones.
Ten minutes passed, and the sound of the birds singing again indicated that Lisa’s white-flame storm had already moved far away.
Alice kept watch, her eyes alert to any movement in the bushes, while Dee tapped the base of her shield lightly on the ground, her rhythm growing more nervous as time passed.
"She’s taking longer than usual..." Samantha commented, adjusting her beater’s mask. "Normally, at this distance, we should already be hearing the roars of the bears being drawn in."
Lohan also felt a twinge of unease. The range of his [Echolocation] wasn’t picking up Lisa’s return, but rather a muffled vibration that didn’t match the weight of bears running through the forest.
"Stay in formation," Lohan said, but without Lisa nearby, the mental link had broken. ’I should have sent a clone with her, even if she couldn’t run at full speed with me on her back...’
-- BOOOOM!!
The sound of a massive explosion cut through the air, shaking the treetops and sending a shockwave that sent dry leaves swirling upward.
The group froze for a second. The shock on Alice’s face was evident.
"Bella!" Alice shouted, already heading toward the sound without waiting for orders.
Lohan couldn’t give verbal commands, so he formed a small hand and waved it forward while forming a small tail on his back and causing an explosion with [Explosive Steps].
The blue figure leaped among the colossal roots, passing the group as his mind processed the thermal data beginning to emerge ahead.
As they approached, the mental link with Lisa, which had grown faint due to the distance, suddenly stabilized.
"Halon? Alice? Stop!" Lisa’s voice echoed in their minds, firm but with an urgency that made them slow their pace immediately. "I’m fine. There was no attack against me, but don’t approach without camouflage."
Lohan signaled for the group to stop. They crouched behind a moss-covered rock outcrop, a few meters from where Lisa was stationed, hidden behind the trunk of a century-old oak tree.
Her fur, now with both tails held still so as not to give away their position, still gave off a little residual heat, but without the sheen she had been loving to show off earlier.
Lohan glided over to her side, reverting to a spherical form to minimize her visual signature.
"What happened? Did the explosion come from you?" Lohan asked.
"No," Lisa replied, her golden eyes fixed on a valley just below their position. "I was about to surround the bear pack when their territory was invaded. Look down there."
Lohan expanded her perception and shared the thermal vision with the rest of Alice’s group via [Synaptic Synchrony].
Down below, in a clearing that served as territory for the Brown Bears, the scene was one of chaos. The bears, who were supposed to be the dominant predators of the area, were being surrounded and systematically slaughtered, but the attackers were not monsters.
A group of about twelve Players, clad in polished metal armor and matching cloaks bearing an emblem of a stylized eagle, fought with military coordination. In their center, a human mage had just fired an explosive charge from a crystal staff, which caused the boom the group had heard.
"Either they’re adventurers, or they’re Players..." Alice whispered, her voice tense. "I can’t recognize which group that emblem belongs to... Did you know of another group of Players in Thalendor?"
"No, our intelligence network in Thalendor is very poor—something we were hoping the arrival of more Guild members would resolve," Lisa replied in a cold voice.
Although she hadn’t been attacked, and the world was an open and free place for everyone, the feeling that someone was invading her territory and taking advantage of it was far from pleasant.
Lohan knew it would only be a matter of time before they encountered another group of players in person; it would be impossible for Thalendor to be monopolized solely by them, but he hadn’t imagined he’d find another group so soon.
’Great, with so little left before I level up, something like this shows up...’ he thought, frustrated.
At that point, the best choice would be to just turn around and leave, continuing to grind and leveling up as fast as possible, but the scene in front of them prevented Lohan from doing that.
Fireballs exploded throughout the forest, setting large trees and bushes ablaze, with the fire spreading and spreading at high speed.
Knowing the elves as he did, he knew how much they valued nature and how much actions like this would cause their favorability with Players to drop.
Given how low their group’s reputation in Thalendor still was, despite the two ID cards they had, if a group caused destruction near where they were hunting, Lohan was worried the blame for it would fall on them.
And seeing Lisa’s furrowed brow as she looked at it too, it was clear she had the same concerns in mind.
If Astralis were more established, they wouldn’t need to worry about something so trivial, but with the Guild just starting operations, this was a risk they didn’t want to take, especially knowing how greedy and unrestrained the humans from the other world were.