RB Chapter 197 Inflamed

Eric raced towards a nearby 7 person team. They were in the middle of battling a mutated bird resembling an oversized humming bird. The bird had already claimed the lives of two of their companions while the other one had died at the start due to carelessness. This bird's wings flapped so fast that even when he directed energy into his eyes and activated something akin to dynamic vision, they were still blurry in his eyes. The group had formed a circle, back to back, each one launching long range attacks to keep the bird far away from them. They were simply barely holding on.

'This bird is troublesome.' Eric frowned heavily. This bird shifted locations so fast that only afterimages were left in its wake.

'It looks like I will have to use my domain briefly.'

He didn't hesitate at all and activated his domain for a brief second, encapsulating the 7-man team and the mutant bird within his domain. Then, a tendril of electricity jumped from his body, connecting to the bird. Even with its first speed, it couldn't surpass the speed of electricity. What Eric had done was manipulate his domain in such a way that the charge could jump between the particles within it. It was a genius idea that worked well with his genetic abilities.

The group didn't even have any time to see him before he vanished towards another team. He slaughtered evey beast in his path, with most not needing the activation of his domain.

Every beast that was left in his path was either charred, cut into pieces, or crushed. He showed no mercy. Actually, he was slaughtering while a certain figure entered his mind. The monkey with white fur. His first meeting with it had been the saddest and most humiliating moment in his life! As his mind became overwhelmed with the negative emotions, he crushed the beasts so gruesomely that wherever he passed, blood splattered.

-----

Elena could feel herself tire. At first, it had been interesting to fight the beasts. She even felt fun crushing them, but now, every muscle in her body was screaming at her. She paled at the thought that they were just fighting one contingent of the beasts. If the ground beasts had also been assaulting them, then it would have been even more perilous! The battle had been going on for just 20 minutes, but she felt as if she had been fighting for an entire day! Actually, the problem stemmed from the fact that these were winged creatures, with most being insects which could maneuver their bodies in a multitude of ways in the sky, making it very strenuous to fave since, their flight speed almost matched the reflexes of a person channelling energy within their body to increase speed. If it had been the ground beasts, then the battle could have been easier.

She leapt up, swiping at a large bee that had just dodged Leah's poisonous spit, cutting it into pieces with her claws. Her feet touched the ground with the grace of a cat.

What was a battle? If that question was asked of her several days ago, she might have spoken of those yellow furred endless monkeys. But now, she felt that the battle back then had been too easy. The yellow furred monkeys had been too monotonous, like multiple puppets on a string controlled by an amateur puppet master. These flying creatures were attacking with a multitude of variations and tactics, causing the pressure to be high, not to mention that they had one huge advantage...being in the sky. They had the ability to retreat out of range if necessary. This was the answer to that question. This was the true battle.

She panted while looking around. Four of the original ten had already departed for the netherworld. Their corpses were missing a few limbs, having been devoured by the creatures. She was sweating hard and even the large amount of energy she felt coursing within her body couldn't get rid of the tiredness that was threatening to consume her.

'Let alone creating a legend...it will be a miracle to manage surviving!' She exclaimed in her mind.

"Elena, are you tired? If you are then just die! How can you simply stand there without being vigilant if your surroundings?" A scolding voice rang out causing Elena to turn towards the origin. There, by her left was a humanoid figure covered in different colored liquids which Elena took to be the blood of the creatures. She had a wide grin in her face, but her gaze was still sharp at it bored holes within her tired figure.

'This woman is even more crazier than I!' Elena admitted. This woman was the captain of their little team but different from all, she seemed to be full of energy. Elena felt as if her entire being was an unshackled beast.

"I am being vigilant crazy woman." She snapped back. Every time she looked at this woman, she felt inferior in everyway. She knew it was a psychological thing, but that didn't stop those feelings from welling up. This woman gave her the same feeling as that of her father, someone unreachable...unattainable heights.

"Oh! Since you still have spunk, it means you aren't yet down for the count!" The woman said with a wider grin before turning to the others.

"Elena, is there something you don't like about that woman? I get the vibe that you hate her." Leah came over and said. There was currently no living beast within their sector, so they were resting a bit.

"I don't hate the woman...just that her entire existence is...I don't know how I can explain it to you." Elena sighed and looked down.

"Okay. Regulate your breathing. A creature might attack anytime." Leah said. Elena observes that she had a wound at her left ribcage area. It had closed, but the blood coating the emerald scales of her SYMOR signified that she had bled quite a bit.

'She also had it hard.' Elena thought. Leah was basically on her last legs but her gaze was unwavering.

As the duo were resting while vigilantly eyeing their surroundings, a whooshing sound attracted their attention. Something appeared to be moving at high speed towards the team. Elena and the captain had been the first to detect the sound with their twitching ears before the others managed to do them.

All of them turned to stare in the direction the sound was coming from with a very high level of caution. Something strong and murderous was coming for them.

Elena subconsciously moved closer to Leah as the sound continued to inverse in volume.

Boom!

Finally, around a corner, something hit the ground causing it to shatter and crater. Everyone was shocked when they saw the figure that was causing all the ruckus. It was a boy, teenage looking, with black hair and bright violet eyes. Elena, through her instincts could feel that something was seriously off with Eric. He seemed to be off.

Shew!

The sound of cutting through wind was heard before the sikhoutte of the boy appeared just within five meters of the team. Elena's heart palpitated in her chest as a very oppressive aura was cast towards the team. This was the first time that she saw Eric this stoic. He looked like a God looking down upon them mere humans. 

"Are you okay?" He asked, his voice sounding like it was stressing just by passing through the middle of his lips. His eyes were trained on Leah. It was like she was the only one in his eyes. Through the corner of her eyes, Elena saw the captain's body tremble minutely. If the atmosphere wasn't oppressive, she might have mocked the woman.

"Oh! You are injured?" He phrased it as a question despite seeing the blood.

"Be very careful and stay safe." He said before he turned around with such speed that they failed to see how the movement had been performed. After turning around, he took a step only to appear afar, where another team was engaging with a bird which appeared to resemble an oversized stork. Just a few seconds later, the creature burst into a shower of blood and guts after he passed by. Elena and her team were still frozen by the boy's gaze even though he had vanished for a few seconds.

"Is that the lightning summoner? What a terrifying human!" One of the people remaining on the team commented.

"He had such an oppressive aura! What a cool guy!" Another exclaimed before the entire scene became dominated by the chatter of the team members.

"Did you notice that Eric seemed weird?" Leah's quiet voice entered Elena's ears.

"Yeah. He looked like someone out for blood...no, actually he craved blood." Elena whispered back.

"I wonder what happened?" Leah gazed in the direction Eric had vanished in longingly.

"We can't go searching for him, so it will be better if we focus on the task at hand." Elena said.

"Yeah." Leah answered halfheartedly.

"Hey! Stop chattering! This is the battlefield! Do you want to die?" The captain shouted after coming out of her daze. This time Elena managed to pick out that her voice seemed to lack the edge that was there before.

'It looks like even she can be intimidated.' Elena thought with twinkling eyes.

"Leah, you shouldn't let anything distruct you or else you might die...incoming!" Elena was in the middle of giving advice, before a shout left her mouth at something aiming for their position from the sky.

-----

Eric felt as if something was stuck in his heart wanting to burst out but simply couldn't. For some reason he was losing his calmness, which was being traded for a rise in rage. He couldn't explain the feeling, but every time he crushed a creature, it image overlapped with that of the white furred monkey.

'I will slaughter everything until that monkey shows up!' He howled in his mind. He had deliberately moved in the direction where Leah and Elena's team had been stationed, trying to find out if Leah's face could calm down his raging nerves but had been mistaken. Instead, they had been inflamed when he had seen her injury. Right now, he was crushing beasts left and right, destroying them in such a way that blood splattered everywhere.

'What is this rage? Could it be that I have been holding it all in all this time?' He queried himself even as he crushed a mutant insect's head within his hands. It had been so easy, like crushing a chicken egg. He felt as if his entire body had limitless strength due to his emotions.

"I need to go back to Chloe." He changed his route immediately taking one which cut through the camp in the form of a short cut to her.

As he raced towards her, he looked towards his right, the north, where a wall blocking his gaze. He was 100% sure that that white furred monkey was there. 

'I will take you on!' He clenched his fists so hard that blood droplets slid out only to be blown away by the wind due to his movement speed.

-----

'I thought the losses were going to be even more severe.' Chloe thought as she aided the teams in her path. She had been surprised to notice that at least half of the ten man teams had survived. Kampala city had managed to put together a fighting force composed of about 956 energy channellers, and at least 500 of them appeared to still be alive. This was great news!

The onslaught of the flying beasts was the hardest trial that they would have to overcome apart from the spectrum beasts. These 500 wouldn't suffer too much taking in the ground beasts since they lacked energy channellers.

"The problem is going to be the spectrum beasts. They are seven and we are only two. How I wish they didn't attack at least until the others arrive!" She sped along while mumbling, destroying every insect and bird that she came across. 

'Is Eric going to be okay with facing his past?' That was also one of the things that popped into her mind. She had speculated that the white furred monkey had done a number on him, so she was wondering whether it didn't leave any lasting trauma. She also wondered about something else...whether Eric had been close to Baguma and Elec, or not. He didn't talk much about them, so she failed to gauge anything.

'Baguma was a selfish and pragmatic person. There is no way he would have shown familial love to an experiment. So, why didn't he sacrifice Eric and escape? Could it be that the monkey proved to be too strong for even him to escape?' She wondered.