As V and L fought the beast, the innocent fox girl chased Eika; she was still running in terror. "Hay wait I can’t run that fast! I need more help with secrets! I messed up!" The fox girl called as she ran after her. Eventually Eika ducked underneath an abandoned cart, its owner and horse having ran away, most of the surrounding streets were empty by this point. Breathing heavily, the fox girl stumbled over to Eika's hiding spot. Looking under the cart she spotted Eika. She was crouching down with her head in her hands, shaking uncontrollably. "Are you ok?" the fox girl asked curiously. Eika did not respond, keeping quiet and hunkered down. "Hello? Are you angry at me? I’m sorry!" The fox girl made a sad face, as if she was about to cry. "I don't know many things... I was trying to learn... please forgive me!" Eika grabbed the girl and pulled her underneath the cart "Shh it will find us" Eika whispered urgently as she hid the girl alongside of her. As the girl huddled with Eika she tilted her head, confused "What? What is going to find us?" Eika spoke in a hurried and hushed voice. "The beast, can’t you feel it?! It's a predator!" As Eika spoke, the fox girl’s eyes took on a slightly reflective quality for a second. "Is Eika a prey animal? I thought you could fight?" Eika looked up at the girl, confusion in her eyes. "Eh? Eika is a.... oh... right..." Eika tried to take a few deep breaths. "Eika can fight. When I saw the monster, I just felt like I had to run to hide! I guess I let my instincts get the best of me..." While Eika's words were reasonable, her body was still wracked with fear, shaking and crouching down under the cart. The fox girl questioned Eika "Is that man who takes care of us a predator?" Eika jumped up, bashing her head on the underside of the cart "Owe.... Ya! V is a predator too! He is fighting up there. I need to help him. I’m just so scared." 

The fox girl poked her head out from under the cart for a second "If you want to fight, you should do that! If you want to do something you should do it! Right?" Eika shook her head and pulled the girl back under the cart. "No! Sometimes you want the wrong things. Like L! She wanted to kill herself, but that was the wrong thing. You have to learn self-control..." Eika trailed off at her own words. She tried to take a few deep breaths to steady her terrified body. "I have to go and help! What if they are in trouble?" Eika began to crawl out from under the cart. The fox girl spoke "Should I follow you?" Eika spoke as she began to crawl out from under the cart "I have to go and help! what if they are in trouble?"  Eika paused a moment. The fox girl tilted her head "Why did you repeat yourself?" Eika looked around in confusion "I don't know... That was weird."

L stood, breathing and bleeding heavily. V was still groaning on the road, the amount of pain the disconnect caused him was way worse than he expected. L called out "Did you get a kill notification." V rolled over groaning as he held his hands, no physical damage had been done, but it felt like a body part had been ripped away from him. "Ungggg, no. No kill message..." L grabbed V and dragged both of them to the wall of a house, placing her back against it, and rolling V alongside of it. "I'd advise you stand up sooner rather than later." V groaned again "Ya, I’m working on it." He was starting to regain his motor control, and struggled to stand, leaning on the house. The body of the beast started to bubble, the chitin cracking and the softer parts bubbling up. "That's not good, I’m sure." V spoke as he tried to regain his footing. "You did well, I will remember this hunt." The beast's voice came from above them, standing on the roof of the house they were leaning on. L's head snapped upward. The beast stood there even as his body was... boiling? a few yards away from her. This time however, his body had no tail and appeared leaner. He also wielded four new weapons; they were made out of the same black material as most of his body. Two were sword like weapons, one was a blunt object, and the fourth was like a mini trident.

Before L could react, the beast lunged toward her. She could never defend in time, the best should could do would be to try and push V out of the way. However, as she grabbed V, the beast suddenly crashed into the side of the building, going through the wooden wall. Confused, L attempted to assess the situation. A few feet away from V and L, stood the Champion of Time. He had changed his outfit from when they saw him fighting with War, he stood now with a dark red outfit. It was just as ostentatious as his last outfit however, golden embroidery, an emerald broach, fancy shoes, the works. He spoke with a haughty tone "I have been searching for this Champion since the other day. He stole a kill I wanted. Ever since then I’ve been scouring the city for him. Devilishly hard to find though. My thanks for drawing him out." As the Champion of Time spoke, the beast pulled himself out of the rubble and launched himself toward Time. Dodging effortlessly, Time spoke evenly. "I’ll handle this one, you are going to need to kill the main body. You have a few seconds before both of you die if you fight this one. I can’t reset this street a second time, and once he kills both of you, even I have a spot of trouble with him. Do hurry." As he spoke, the boiling body of the beast exploded, a strange creature bursting forth from its remains.  "Also, all I can do is hold this one off. If I kill it, it just makes a second main body. Which you think would not be possible, but I mean, I have seen a lot of impossible things in the last few months. Chop chop you two."

The creature that burst forth from the dead one’s body rapidly expanded, it had started as a strange worm like creature, within seconds however it had transformed into an elephant sized monstrosity. The surface and color of its body were similar to the... original... version, however it now stood on six legs, and it had a number of whip like appendages sprouting from its back. Its face was a mangle of eyes and mandibles. "What in all the hells that might exist is that?" V said, revolted by the thing’s appearance. Time, who was still effortlessly dodging the beast, shrugged "No idea, it obviously was not intending to die, so I suspect that form is not the finished version of whatever it is supposed to be. You probably forced it to fight you while it was still half formed or something." L gripped her weapon tightly; she was unsure how they were supposed to fight this thing. At her current level of damage she would survive, partially thanks to her regeneration skill going from level two to level four recently. She could take little more, if she received much more in the way of damage, she would need medical attention to survive. V had recovered but he was only so adept at fighting. Her only hope was that this monstrosity was not as good at head on fights as the smaller body was/is.

"That thing is sort of ugly right?" The fox girl asked Eika as they witnessed the birth of the monstrosity from down the street. "You need to use a stronger word then that." Eika said as she surveyed the street, and the situation. "Can you fight at all?" Eika asked the fox girl. "No, I do- wait is this a test? Is this a secret?" Eika grabbed the girl by the shoulders "No! Right now, I can’t teach you about secrets! Can you fight!?" The girl shook her head "I don't think so. I never really tried. Well, I fought a rat for some food once but-" Eika cut her off. "Then you need to hide! Go back and hide under the cart. We will come get you before we leave." Eika spoke in urgency, her fear gone; replaced with the professionalism she often showed guiding V through the forest. The girl nodded happily and walked off, "I wonder if there is any food under the cart..." As she walked off, Eika attempted to figure out where the actual fight was going to take place. In the middle of the street? Or next to one of the houses? She supposed it did not matter. Eika gripped the small knife she had stolen from the cart as she prepared herself. 

The monstrosity lashed out with one of its whip like appendages toward L and V. As they both dodged it became clear that this thing’s attack range encompassed the entire width of street. V was attempting to switch his class back to Champion, but it was difficult while dodging whip attacks, weapon master might have better stats, but in Divine Champion he could use the Swordsman class's Focused Slash. L was slowly trying to advance toward the monstrosity, but it was slow going as the closer she got, the more of its whip appendages struck out at her. V managed to change his class, thankfully it still had the Focused Slash ability from the last time he was using it, so he did not need to waste time muddling with that. He attempted to circle around as far away from L as the street allowed, hoping that if they advanced on it from two directions, it's aim would be worse. L was quite a bit closer to the monster, but was still outside of striking distance. The whip attacks were poorly timed and aimed. L wondered if the monster was unable to control them properly, or if perhaps they simply were not effective at attacking.

As the distance between them slowly closed, four more limb like pieces erupted from it, two on each side of its body. They looked somewhat like a grain scythe cross with an arm, crossed with an insect stinger. V's face twisted in disgust as he readied himself for this new threat, if this thing was horrible before, it was positively eldritch now. V appeared to be out of the range of these new limbs, for the time being. On the other hand, L was now dealing with this new threat. Quicker, more precise than the whip appendages, these new limbs immediately struck out at L. Unprepared for the speed and strength of the new assault, L was only able to block one of them, the other hooked behind her left leg, severing the muscle. Luckily it seemed unable to sever the bone, allowing her leg to remain attacked to her body. In any other circumstance L would have immediately collapsed, as her left leg was essentially just being supported by bone and sinew. However, not only did she stand, she continued to advance. In her mind a voice screamed for the blood of the beast, L could think of nothing else, there was no pain, there was no weakness, only the need to plunge her sword into this horrid monster. Her leg was gushing blood as she continued to use it through the severed muscle.

V continued to advance on the monster, unable to see L as she was opposite the monster. Suddenly, an opportunity showed itself. From the building that the monster was standing with its back to, a small being jumped from the roof into its head. Eika had launched herself from the roof, running full speed into a leap that carried her directly onto the monsters disgusting mangled face. Sinking her small knife into one of its eyes as she landed. Eika struggled to pull the knife out, hoping to stab it a second time. The monster roared in pain, rearing up on its hind legs. In the moment of its distraction, V and L struck out toward it. V was only able to reach its flank, but using focused slash, severed both of its scythe like arms from the side of its body he had approached, thick globular blood leaked out of it as V was tripped by one of the whip appendages, slamming into the cobblestone. L had slashed at the monster’s face as it started to rear up, hoping she could close the distance before its head was out of her range. Unfortunately, she only severed the lower half of the things face instead of beheading it. The lower half of its face fell to the ground, that in and of itself was a horror show. From the gaping wound flowed not only blood by what seemed like malformed eyes, and other undefinable solid bits of mass.

Eika was thrown off before she could retrieve the knife, luckily her race was good at falling, and she managed to only take a few bruises as she was tossed off. V struggled to regain his footing as the beast turned toward L. Her body had finally given out. Despite the will's demand for blood, her body simply would not respond any longer to her, or the will's, commands. The monster turned its mangled face to L, slowly brought its face down, some of the mandibles still on its face clacked in anticipation, it clearly planned on eating her. L tried to move, but even her arms had lost all of their strength. As the face moved closer, and her vision slowly blacked out, a small figure stood in front of her. "Get back! Eika will not let you eat L!" V had managed to get to his feet, and prepared to charge the beast, but he would never be able to kill it before it ate Eika, and perhaps L as well. As he pushed himself, the monster came face to face with Eika, blood and viscera poured onto her as she stood in front of L. For a moment, the monsters many remaining eyes met Eika's. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, before a single word emanated from somewhere within the monster’s head, it was spoken with fear "Predator..." The monster’s hesitation was all V needed to close the gap between him and the monster’s head. He was not confident in his ability to behead it in one slice, but its head was low enough that he slammed his sword up through the wound, burying his hand in the gaping, bloody, viscera pouring wound. The sword burst forth from the top of the horror’s skull.

┌——————┐
Your level in "Divine Champion" has increased!
5 => 6
Skill Acquired:
Insight Lv 2

Congratulations! You have killed a rival champion!
Please Choose Your Reward!
1) Tlix's Blessing
2) Tlix's Divine Class
3) One letter of Tlix's Name
└——————┘