The monster, a dog-like creature, with its 3 meters fork-like tongue slithering out with malice. Saliva dripped out of its mouth with savor, ready to devour human flesh and blood.
Every human had experienced the fall out. And had been sucked into the Safe zone. With the invasion of Astrals, every human had been trapped, only to gain freedom by defeating the monsters in the tutorial zone and gaining ascent, else they are destined to die.
'Tutorial Safe Zone?.....The irony'. Liam exhaled.
Liam and his crew were slowly getting accustomed to their reality, gaining enough knowledge and learning from their surroundings.
While still making sense of what is happening, the ground trembled and a grotesque dog appeared first. A menacing beast with acidic saliva ready to pounce and feast.
Liam moved with incredible speed, almost inhuman, but still mundane, and with a fight response powered by adrenaline, Liam swung his fire axe at this beast.
Marcus was the closest to the beast. But the sudden appearance of the beast caught him off guard. Before his brain could register what had happened, he had a brainwave overload, and completely lost his coordination or his ability to move or fight.
Marcus froze, his face white.
By the time Marcus could regain a little of his stupor, the beast had moved towards him, "Oh, you've got to be kidding me." He shrieked.
The dog beast opened its maw, to snap off Marcus's head. But Liam had moved, hitting the beast at its knee joint, which caused it to recoil before it could take off Marcus's head.
Burning with malice, the beast concentrated on Liam, which gave Marcus enough time to create some safe distance between him and the beast.
"Grab anything worthy of a weapon!, it's a low rank beast. We can still injure it even if we can't kill it". Liam commanded as he swings his axe in the air facing the beast squarely.
Liam charged and swung a down slash attack at the beast head, but the beast swiped the axe off Liam's hand with ease. The force of the swipe was terrible enough to throw Liam a few meters back.
Liam groaned.
Rita had paced towards Liam before he hit the ground. Dragging Liam to his feet, Rita mopped his forehead, "You're bleeding". Rita said.
"That can wait..." Pushing Rita's hand away, "grab something and let's fight this thing together sooner, else we're all dead before later". He uttered.
Already moving, Liam grabbed a long rusted iron pipe, and assumed an attack stance.
The rest followed suit, grabbing whatever equipment they could find, worthy enough to repel the beast.
"Marcus, you try to attack from the side, focusing on the soft underbelly, stay away from it claws".
"Priya, try to cover up Marcus from the flank, so you can protect his body if the beast attacks with his tail. Hit the tail with as much strength as you can generate".
"Rita can cover my back, I'll act as bait, and try to hit it in the eyes or it's mouth".
They moved at once.
Marcus swung a broken branch like a club, smashing into a creature's ribs. It yelped but twisted midair, its claws raking Marcus's arm. He screamed as acidic drool seared his flesh.
Liam didn't have time to help as he was already charging at the beast too, with Rita a few steps back.
Instinct took over.
He sidestepped, swinging the pipe with all his strength. It connected with the creature's skull with a sickening crack. The beast staggered—but didn't go down.
Shit!
It lunged again. Liam barely dodged, tumbling into a tree, feeling the heat of the creature's breath on his neck. Liam had recovered his iron pipe weapon.
The beast claws had barely missed Rita's upper trunk, so before it could balance itself, Rita had driven a long pointed iron into it shoulder joint, which surprisingly pierced with some level of difficulty.
That was enough to rob the creature of great speed and movement which Liam and his team capitalised on.
Both Liam and Priya sped towards it. Liam feinted left, baiting the creature. As the creature snapped at him, Priya stabbed its neck causing the creature to roar in agony. Before it could recover from the pain, Liam jammed the iron pipe straight into its open mouth.
The beast shrieked as its own acidic saliva corroded the metal—and its throat. It collapsed, twitching.
As the beast slowly burnt away, Marcus looked at the creature and said amusingly, "It really died on its own saliva...such a weird way to die".
Priya, who was already gathering a few useful materials looked up at Marcus, "And you'll be dying by your own blood if you don't arrest that bleeding on your arm".
Marcus squirmed, "that's cruel", and pouted. Rita moved closer and wrapped his arm with a plain cloth she had picked earlier.
"I think we all just gained 12% EXP points from killing that beast, by the time we get to kill some more, we might become stronger and ascend before our timer counts down. Let's get ready, pick up anything that could or couldn't be useful for now. We move in approximately 20 minutes"
The rest looked at Liam, weariness evident in their gaze. It was Marcus that broke the silence, "Aren't we going to rest and find food at least, or maybe hide somewhere and hope that this ends soon....."
Others had the same question in their eyes, steadying their gazes on him, waiting for a response.
Liam glanced at them, shook his head and said, "20 minutes is enough rest here. This is a battlefield, the faster you understand it, the more chances of living. For now, we don't depend on hope.."
"Hope kills".....