RB Chapter 208 Retreat

Ssssssssss....pshshshsh!

As those in Cairo were watching the live feed, back on the battlefield, Chloe was also caught in somewhat of a pickle.

A jet of compressed liquid had just passed where she had just been, causing a long sizzling groove to be curved into the ground. Poisonous gas rose out of the groove on dense mists.

This was an ability of the green frog. It could spit out its stomach acid, and was even capable of adjusting the pressure with its mouth.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

After jumping to the side, a few bullets formed from the digestive liquid were spat out towards her at a fast speed. The frog was making sure to keep her at a distance.

'Shit! This frog is troublesome!' She cursed repeatedly in her mind as she dodged the projectiles with grace. To her, who could still increase her agility, they were incredibly slow. The problem was that they were almost as dense as rain drops causing her to lack the means to advance as she couldn't let any one of them make contact with her SYMOR.

The other problem plaguing her were the fumes formed by the explosive reaction between the ground and the digestive acid. The fumes were corrosive and poisonous, even capable of affecting her SYMOR.

She had found out the poisonous effect of the fumes by two ways, one, the other beasts that were near their battlefield collapsed upon inhaling some and the second, she had tested it with her body, inhaling a bit, only for her body to violently react, as if something undesirable had entered.

Now, she was holding her breath and fighting...mostly dodging the attacks of the frog.

'Clever bastard.' She cursed as she dodged, some of the scales of her SYMOR losing some color due to the gas' corrosiveness.

'I need to find a way.' She started thinking through all the abilities she currently had while dodging left and right.

Her eyes brightened, an idea had been found! After the initial brightening, her gaze once again resumed a trace of calmness. She didn't appear to make any more moves, simply focussing on dodging the acid bullets.

Some of them managed to hit the other beasts, causing their flesh to start melting, releasing howls of agony in the process. The howls served to make their battlefield loud and eye catching.

She could see that many of the beasts started giving them a wide berth after seeing what had happened to their companions.

-----

'This human's gaze has become calm, is she plotting something?' The frog pondered even as its crouched body released acid projectiles. It was redirecting its energy to the stomach to urge more production of the acid, splitting some into the cells lining the inside of its mouth so that it could adjust the pressure.

'It doesn't matter, the longer this situation lasts, the more the battlefield will transition in my favor.' It let go of its suspicions, only making sure to keep the human at a distance. What it failed to register was that the electric snakes that had been slithering around the human had vanished.

Puchi!

Many sounds were in the air but this rang like thunder in its ears, before something, a sensation raced along its nerve endings, transmitting a weirdness on one of the frog's sides.

The attacks that it had been belching out instantly stopped. One of its eyes on the side of its head focussed on its right side, the area where its ribs were supposed to be. A dark skinned arm was plunged into its side, with crimson droplets escaping, splattering into the ground.

Drip drip drip

The entire scene slowed down in its eyes, the sound of the dripping blood jolting akin to the beating of its heart.

Its eye moved from the arm plunging in its side to the owner of the arm, only to see that it was that human woman whom it had been keeping away from itself. At first, puzzlement appeared within its eyes, wondering how such a thing was possible only to see that the figure which had been dodging its projectiles become hazy, ultimately fading into nothingness.

'A spectral clone!?...an illusion!?' Its mind tried to come up with an explanation even as its eyes dilated.

CROAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!?

Boom!

The very air itself exploded, causing the hand that had been inside its body to be removed. A dome composed of shockwaves blasted out, sweeping along everything that it could carry.

-----

Chloe's had no choice but to remove her arm as the shockwave caused her to stagger backwards a few feet. It didn't stop there, her ears buzzing as the sound accompanying the shockwave caused her sensory abilities to become impaired.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

An annoying sound played within her ears, her steps stumbling as she struggled to regain her senses. Her eyes grew hazy as the scenery within became shifty and unfocused.

After what seemed like an eternity to her, she regained her senses, causing her previously relaxed body to enter a taut state.

She looked around warily only to see that almost all the beasts that she could seen had collapsed, some clutching their heads. That sound wave hadn't discriminated, even affecting the energy channellers up on the walls. She could see that many had collapsed onto the wall, with those who had been on the edge even falling off to the ground. Good thing their bodies were highly durable so they survived.

This was the first time since she had started fighting that the battlefield had become this quiet.

"Blood!?" Her voice leaked out when her gaze unintentionally moved to her hands. 

"From where!?" It was hoarse. She abruptly brought her hands to her ears, remembering that she had once put her hands on her ears.

"Ah! So that's why its quiet." She mumbled, directing her gaze forwards where the frog was supposed to be before her senses went haywire, only to see that it was empty.

Zzzzzzzzzt!

A burst of lightning lit up in front of her, a figure appearing within it. Her taut nerves relaxed upon seeing that it was Eric. His mouth made a couple of shapes which she took to be talk, but since her eardrums had burst, she couldn't hear anything.

She shook her head at his mouthing and gestured to her ears. His eyes abruptly widened, probably from seeing the blood, before they regained a semblance of calm. But that didn't mean that he had calmed down, instead his figure became blurry before he appeared in front of her, inspecting the origin of the blood thoroughly and patting her body as if in search of injuries.

-----

Pshshshhhhhhh!

A waft of yellowish steam rose into the night sky from a crater. The crater wasn't smooth, instead filled with holes as if the ground had been melted and scooped away like ice cream. It wasn't the only one as many craters were simply in such a state. The gas which had wafted out rose and joined the larger mass that was floating close to the ground. There was no wind and the beasts had retreated, so there were no air displacements capable of causing this gas to move away.

The gas had hindered vision terribly such that even at five meters, only a vague silhoutte could be seen of the corpses lying around on the devastated ground.

Eric looked into her eyes, dried trails of blood could be seen at the sides of her ears. He knew what had happened, her eardrums had exploded, same as his, but since he had been a bit further away, he had already channelled energy to recreate them.

'Its good she's alive.' He breathed out deeply, his heart faintly becoming lighter at that thought.

"What happened? Where are the rest of the beasts?" She asked after a few minutes. Probably her ears had recovered considering the question.

"They retreated. What did you do to the frog?" He asked, his eyes involuntarily falling onto her right arm, whose black scales were coated in dried crimson, shy of reaching the elbow.

"I gutted the damn frog. Too bad I didn't manage to kill it." Her expression showed her sorrow at failing to kill the beast.

"So, it decided to release that sound of death?" He asked, though he already knew the answer.

"Even I was caught off guard. I never knew that frog could have such an attack. Next time I will be prepared." She said.

"...by the way why did they retreat? Even if I had offed the frog, they would still have had an advantage over us." She asked after calming herself and pondering.

"I don't know. All I know was that the white furred monkey issued the order." Eric said as his gaze appeared to pierce through the gas to look at the beasts crowding down the hill.

"It doesn't matter. We need to assess the damages and take stick of the remaining resources." She gave up on that and focused her mind on something that had to be done. 

The two started the slow walk back to the fortress. The walk served to let their bodies recover from the exertion brought upon by the high speed movements from before.

"Do you think...Leah and Elena..." Chloe tried to ask. A grimace appeared in his face, but he didn't fly off to search for them. He had plenty of time to do just that, besides, it also served to prepare him should their fates be less than ideal.

"I will search when whem everything calms down." He said with finality in his voice.