Abyssal Awakening

Giving her body a stretch on the carriage, Alice could see that Brynja had stopped glaring at her now.

Well, rather than stopping it\'s more so that she wasn\'t paying attention to her at all.

\'Bo told them they could do whatever they wanted so long as they don\'t antagonize me. Seems like this battle should go more smoothly with them being like this.\' Alice thought to herself while pulling out another fruit.

Similar to mead, she found herself being addicted to the sweet nature of the fruit even though Selen has expressed that it was bitter.

In her words, it tasted like eating worms.

Yet for Alice, it was sweet like candy.

The home of the Dreadhorn Ravager was usually that of a tall mountainous cave where it could use its natural abilities to the fullest degree in darkness. However, with its strange movements of approaching the outpost, its home was now a shallow groove beside a cliff.

Spotting the beast from afar, Bo hid himself in the trees while observing what the party wanted to do.

Now that the beast was in sight, Alice took a deep breath and focused her mind.

She had already made slight profiles of each member of the party based on what she saw yesterday.

Each person needed a different kind of support with Brynja being the hardest to cover.

Einar only needed Alice to disrupt the beast, making it easier for Einar to tank. Bjorn needed her to cover his blind spots. To push him out of the way if danger approaches.

But for Brynja, since she was kind of an all rounder, it was difficult to pinpoint a specific way of helping.

She had her own shield so Alice didn\'t need to cover for her that much and her own reactions are sufficient. She has support skills and methods to cover yet if Alice completely ignores her, she\'ll be by deaths door.

In terms of focus priority, it was Einar > Brynja > Bjorn then Selen. Alice was confident in Selen\'s capabilities of taking care of herself and would only need to interfere if the attacks get too ridiculous or if she needed help to approach the boss.

Hesitating for a moment, Einar conjured his weapon.

"Brynja cover my left. Alice… Cover my right. I\'ll handle things head on but if it decides to go for a side sweep, I\'ll be a little slow. Hinder the attacks for a moment will be enough for me to get into position." Einar explained as Alice blinked her eyes before nodding.

Since he was going out of his way to explain his requirements, Alice will make sure she remembers it.

With the other members not having anything to add, Einar gestured for them to follow behind him as he approached the hideout.

Resting by the groove, the body of the beast could be spotted. Its large frame was larger and more muscular than the Necrothrax they fought yesterday with a layer of thick coarse black and silver fur.

The most striking aspect of its appearance was the demonic horns that protruded from its head. Twisted spires of obsidian that shimmered with a deadly light.

Plated armour layered itself across the Ravager\'s body, covering the shoulder, back, arms, legs and spine leading all the way to the tail.

Watching as its body heaved up and down from its breathing, Einar gestured for Bjorn and Selen to begin the fight with a sneak attack.

Summoning her staff, Selen slammed it into the ground as she framed the beast between her hands.

Her Sigils lit up as a barrier began to manifest, slowing down time.

Not only that, but she added more layers to ensure the first attack was a guaranteed \'critical\'.

While Selen was setting up the guaranteed critical, Bjorn jumped back a few steps and grabbed his bow. Energy gathered into his hand as he reached towards his head and flicked his arm out.

A hooded cape manifested behind him as all of his Sigils lit up.

Resonance!

The storm of energy gathered around his body as slammed the bottom of his bow into the ground.

Upon activating his resonance, his weapon grew to be larger than his own body while a quiver appeared beside him.

His entire body was covered by a dark purple energy that gathered together to form a sort of fabric. Leaning his body back, he stomped down as arrows jumped out from the quiver and planted themselves into the ground.

A swirl of violet strands coalesced above his hand as he formed an arrow and nocked the arrow onto the string.

Narrowing his gaze, a spectral arm overlapped his own as it grabbed the string and pulled back as far as the bow would allow. Rather than directly at the beast, he aimed towards the air.

Space began to twist and warp while sparks flickered from the arrow.

*CRACK!!!

Firing the arrow into the air, the ground shattered beneath his feet as the Ravager snapped its eyes open but it was already far too late.

With Selen\'s barrier in place, the beast could only slowly rear its head as the bright blue sky turned dark. A layer of violet covered the sky while Bjorn pointed his index finger at the beast and flicked it down.

*BANG!!!

A solid pillar of light descended upon Selen\'s barrier.

Widening her eyes, Alice noticed that it wasn\'t a solid pillar of energy.

It was in fact, countless attacks landing repeatedly in the same area.

\'But it\'s not enough.\' Alice frowned. While it may look impressive, the power it held was lacking. And if she knew one thing about beasts, it was that they wouldn\'t die from something of this level.

As expected, the shadow near the tree began to flicker.

"It\'s using Shadowmeld! Throw lights towards it, it\'ll force the beast out of the shadow!" Alice shouted without hesitation.

Hearing this, Bjorn jumped into action. This was the best time for him to make up for his mistakes yesterday.

Conjuring an arrow of light, he fired it towards the shadow as Alice had explained.

Once the arrow came close to the shadows, a pair of horns could be seen protruding from the ground as the Ravager\'s body was being forced out.

Its wrath filled eyes glared at Bjorn as it lunged out of the shadow, ready to kill!

*CLANG!!!

Slamming into the best from the right, Einar narrowed his eyes and threw it back with his greatsword. As it was jumping through the air, Alice had already made a path of footholds for Selen to appear above it.

Twisting her body, she slashed down with her sword but it managed to block it with its tail.

However, this was enough.

Fester!

All of the wounds across the beast\'s body burst apart as blood splashed out. Helping Selen get back to the group, they observed the wounded beast.

Compared to yesterday\'s disaster, this was a far better start. The beast was wounded and bleeding from all of its wounds.

Nodding at Brynja, Einar ran towards the beast and grabbed its aggro.

Spinning its body, it tried to slam its tail into Einar from the left but Brynja reacted accordingly. She jumped between the tail and Einar and slowed it down with her shield.

It was long enough for Einar to jump up and slam his greatsword into the beast\'s head, forcing it to stumble back from the hit.

Shaking its head from the strike, the beast gritted its teeth but two more arrows appeared in front of its eyes.

Just as the Ravager wanted to jump away, shards pinned its legs to the ground, delaying his movement as he was forced to block the arrows with his horns.

But by doing this, it has left itself wide open for Selen.

*KRK!!!!

Releasing another slash, she dug deep into its body and tore out chunks of flesh.

"Don\'t let it move!" Einar shouted, slamming his shoulder into the beast\'s chest while chains erupted from the ground, securing it in place.

*URAH!!!!!!!!!

Letting out a scream, the beast glared at Selen as everyone felt an invisible force restricting their body, stopping them from moving.

Strands of energy flowed from the shadow beneath it as Alice gritted her teeth.

Even though she knew it was wanting to heal, she couldn\'t do anything about it and could only watch as the shadows melded into its flesh, healing it in the process.

Its figure bulged and the muscles threatened to burst out from beneath its skin. A new set of horns exploded out from its forehead while red markings stretched across its body.

Berserk Regeneration!

Now that it was in this state, according to the advice left by Ragnar, all they needed to do now was to tough it out. In this aspect, it was now Alice\'s job to cover for everyone!

Watching all of this happen from the trees, Bo was rather impressed by the coordination so far. Bjorn did his job of supporting from afar and dealing large chunks of damage where it could. Selen was doing fine as usual.

Einar was talking and Brynja wasn\'t going out of her way to annoy Alice.

All that was left was for them to survive the last onslaught of attacks.

However, there was something that was bothering Bo.

The Dreadhorn Ravager they\'re seeing here was clearly a juvenile from its suspiciously low defences and reaction. Had it been an adult Ravager, the fight wouldn\'t have gone this smoothly.

This only begs the question… Where did the adult one go?