Chapter 132: Fighting a Pest-Class Star Beast (2)

Chester landed on rubble, chest heaving up and down visibly.

He had been going against the monster for ten minutes straight without a pause—and the toll was starting to get to him. Even with his superhuman stamina as a supernal, the monster was far superior in terms of physical capabilities.

Behind, the wind shifted.

Snapping his head over his shoulder, he saw the monster’s elongated slime arm coming down onto him. It split into four tentacles with the aim of impaling Chester. Sickle in hand, he blocked and dodged the incoming tentacles.

Each tentacle had a mind of its own, shifting and lashing out at him.

But Chester was ready; he landed a few dozen yards away without so much as a scratch.

It was incredible for him to be able to come out unscathed from the attack.

As he faced the monster again, he saw a crack on the skeleton’s bottom-left rib.

Earlier, when the monster was focused on Matilda, Chester noticed something.

Every time it attacked, it automatically stretched its sludge body. And that made some parts of it thinner during the attack. And the more it attacked or launched a combination of attacks, the thinner its body became.

Since Matilda was hard to budge, the monster exerted more.

And that allowed Chester to sneak in an attack on the thinnest part and graze its rib.

But it wasn’t enough, and he was lucky that his timing was impeccable.

Just a second later and the monster’s body would return to its normal thickness.

Roar—!

Once again, the monster roared, pressuring everyone in the area with its strength.

Slimes spewed everywhere, but Chester ignored them.

Instead, his pupils dilated as a dark-steel colored aura began to seethe from his shoulders. He activated his Halo even more, clashing directly with the white energy that the monster’s Null Gem was emanating.

"Don’t underestimate me, filthy monster!"

Chester crouched down and charged mana into his sickle.

His leg muscles began to bulge and contract, building with strength before launching him at the monster. Mid-charge, he could feel the air resistance straining against his face—from how fast he was moving.

And surprisingly, the monster could react as fast, crossing its slimy arms to block.

Chester didn’t care.

Swoosh—!

Like a searing-hot blade, the sickle sliced through, and Chester spun in the air so that he wouldn’t be caught and slammed into the ground. He knew that this attack was nothing more than his attempt to vent.

If he wanted to succeed in cutting through, he’d need a better plan.

But as he looked over his shoulder, he saw almost half of the monster’s body was sliced open.

"Huh...?" His eyes widened in shock.

Having battled it for the last ten minutes, he knew that the sludge body could turn hard-solid whenever the monster wanted it. A blind attack like that wouldn’t be able to do anything to it, especially since it has no pain nerves.

Only the skeleton inside it does.

So, seeing the monster tumbling to the side to recover caught him by surprise.

Just then, the monster lashed out at something.

And only then did Chester see a guy being pushed hard until he crashed into a house.

It was Kai.

Using his Nigh-phantom Imprint, Kai crept close to the monster—and cast Deep Slumber. A heavy drowsiness seeped into the creature from his touch, forcing it to become sluggish and its sludge body to soften.

It was how Chester’s attack was able to carve deeper, slicing through more of the monster than it ever could before.

"What are you doing here?" Chester landed before Kai. "Go hide with the others."

"Let’s bring it to the outside of the hive!" Kai ignored his hostility, pointing at the horizon.

"No, we’re going to kill it. Here."

"Every time it roared, the purple slimes reached the other areas of the hive! If we’re outside of the hive, they would have no other targets other than us, so they won’t spread. Besides, there are people still around. And there’s enough destruction already. We don’t even know—if the academy would help rebuild the hive!"

Kai’s voice was hoarse from all the shouting.

But he didn’t care.

He gave Chester three logical reasons why they should bring this monster further away.

Any sane person would understand what he was saying.

Each point he made was extremely bad for the people living in the hive, so there shouldn’t be any reason for Chester to argue with him about this. Luring the monster away is the only right decision.

However, he underestimated the influence of ego.

"Are you ordering me around, Lesser Angel?"

"I’m not! I’m onl—"

"Shut up and listen to me!" Chester stabbed a finger into Kai’s chest, veins bulging evidently in his neck. "I am the High Angel here," He spat, shouting in front of Kai’s face. "You listen to me! ME! As a Lesser Angel, you will obey me!"

"I’m going with Kai’s plan," Bree came from behind. "Don’t be unreasonable, Chester."

"I second her," Matilda also added.

Now that two other High Angels had spoken, his demand should be thrown to the trash.

But his ego wouldn’t allow him to do that.

"Do whatever you fucking want," He said, turning around. "I’m going to kill it here."

Crack—!

Chester dashed away; his forceful launch cracked the rubble underneath him.

He clashed with the monster again, which was still recovering from the slash, but it was clear the battle would drag on longer than it needed to be if he stubbornly stuck to fighting the monster in the middle of the hive.

Not only would Kai and the others be constantly worrying about casualties, but the students, those who are stronger in the area. would be stuck fighting the purple slimes the monster let loose on instinct.

If they fought outside, those problems would no longer be a problem.

And with numbers, defeating the Star Beast would be far easier.

Right now, the only thing Chester was doing was putting everyone else in serious trouble.

"What are we going to do?" Bree asked, fixating her gaze at Kai.

Kai clenched his jaw, forcing the anger down. He exhaled slowly through his nose. "If we push him, he’ll just sabotage us. Let’s focus on killing this thing here and now—as fast as possible—before anyone else dies."

No other choice.

Better for them to take a step back and help Chester rather than fighting him.

It would only make things worse.

"On me!"

Kai led the charge with Matilda and Bree following close behind.

Ahead, Chester was fighting head-on with the monster, providing excellent distraction for the three of them to sneak in from the side. Knowing what Kai had in mind, Matilda put her shield in front of her before he struck it hard with the wooden stud.

Clang—!

A golden concussive blast rang across the area.

It stunned the monster momentarily.

Chester seized this chance to attack, stabbing his sickle deep into the monster’s chest and then pulling as hard as he could. It opened up the chest deeper, and Kai came in behind, thrusting the wooden stud forward.

But the monster recovered quickly, covering the hole to block Kai’s thrust.

With a thunderous roar, the monster seized Chester and Kai in its crushing grip—raising them high to smash their fragile bodies—into the earth. Before it could do that, Matilda surged forward, shield first, and slammed into the creature with all her might.

The impact pushed it aside, loosening its hold enough for Chester and Kai to free themselves.

Kai’s pupils dilated.

Flying rubble was thrown straight at Chester. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Gritting his teeth, he put himself in the way and blocked the rubble with the wooden stud.

It snapped into two, and rubble slammed into Kai’s body. He was smashed back and collided with Chester right behind him. Both skidded across the ground in a tangle of limbs. Kai rose to his feet, groaning in pain.

Despite the pain, the Retribution was charged.

Next attack... I can kill it.

"Get out of my way," Chester grabbed Kai’s shoulder and shoved him aside roughly.

"I helped you!"

"I didn’t need help, especially not from you."

Not even wasting a second, Chester went back to the battle.

Kai ground his teeth, fury shimmering beneath the surface. He couldn’t believe Chester would be this egotistical—right in the middle of a battle against a common enemy. He moved to rush back in, but his ankle buckled beneath him.

A sharp spike of pain reminded him he was already compromised.

"Are you okay?" Bree arrived and saw him holding his ankle.

She leaned in and gave him a hug.

Kai was caught off guard, but then the pain suddenly grew weaker to a bearable level.

It was her Maternity Cardle imprint.

Seems like it could also lessen the pain of others.

"Here, drink this," Bree handed him a small vial the size of a pinky finger. "Pause for at least ten seconds before returning to battle."

Kai looked ahead, watching Matilda using her imprint multiple times to distract and weaken the monster’s sludge body while Chester continued on the offensive. From the start, it looked like the monster’s regeneration was endless.

As long as its skeleton body inside was unharmed, it wouldn’t go down.

But that wasn’t the case.

Its body was now healing more slowly as Chester’s attacks began to overwhelm it.

Even though the end was in sight, the monster became more frantic. It kept lashing out more purple slimes with each struggle. Some went toward the inner area, while some stayed behind and attacked Matilda and Chester from behind.

"Okay," Kai opened the lid and drank the vial. "Can you protect me for a second?"

"Leave it to me," Bree smiled and nodded.

She summoned the translucent membrane and enveloped them with it like a dome.

On the other hand, Kai used the Black Starfall imprint, summoning five black stars and send them skyward. He ignored the battle and ignored the pain, focusing solely on these stars and the purple slimes in the area.

Kai began firing black needles at the nearby purple slimes.

The first volley missed almost all purple slimes that sensed the danger and took cover.

But with the next volleys, his accuracy grew more and more.

Operating five black stars at the same time was mana-intensive; even Bree could feel the mana inside each one of them from the ground, but Kai had almost four hundred points in mana. If anyone had enough mana to do this, then it was him.

’I haven’t really seen him fight properly,’ Bree stared at the black stars—hovering above, then glanced back to Kai who was focusing on operating them. ’Since he dominated the Blood Rite, I assumed he’s really strong. But this...? How many Legacy Imprints does he have?’