Inside the Guild Hall of Saints Seat, John strode to beside the controlling platform. Jonathan was at the platform issuing orders to the native soldiers. Jonathan could only afford to give his son a brief glance before his attention was back to the holographic image on the platform.
"It looks like a mess," John remarked after seeing the hologram image. The fog cast by Arlcard had also filled up the hologram. Jonathan couldn't give accurate commands because he also couldn't see inside that magical fog.
"You have lost a level," Jonathan said.
"Such is what happened when you get killed while wearing Amulet of Rebirth," John replied.
Silence returned as Jonathan struggled with the native soldiers. John simply stood there. There was another player besides the two of them. A level 45 Sentinel. He was Jonathan's personal bodyguard.
"Such a mess," John said again.
"Why don't you go out there and help them?" Jonathan asked, a bit irritated by his son's remarks.
"Why don't you go out there and help?" John returned the question. "I was just out there gotten whacked back here. You will provide way better help to them compared to me. You know what I'm good at. While you, as the leader, I'm sure you carry one or two trump cards that you can use out there, don't you?"
Jonathan didn't reply. He ignored his son as he continued focusing on controlling the native soldiers.
John shrugged. He just stood there and watched his father at work.
*
Outside the citadel, the chaos was escalating. Jack didn't worry about his wolf pack and rock golem. He won't lose anything even if those creatures died. Ten wolves would still come out the next time he used Call Wolf Pack.
His Therras Beast pet, on the other hand, would be gone if it died. Although Jack didn't think anyone here had the ability to kill his pet, he still followed his pet just for precaution. Additionally, his beastmaster perk made his pet stronger when he was close by.
Arlcard was also attacking now. He turned into a swarm of bats, biting everyone the swarm passed by, causing damage and inflicting Weakness status.
That was Aubelard's skill, Jack thought. It seemed that Arlcard absorbed more than just his vampire father's blood during that fight with Aubelard.
When Jack arrived at where his Therras Beast was, he saw it was fighting against three medium-sized beasts and several smaller beasts. Those must be the pets of Saint Edge's players. The three medium-sized beasts were a bear, a large lion, and a horned buffalo-like beast. This meant that there were three Beastmaster players nearby.
Although mainstream players had mostly gone past level 40, there were still few that had successfully gotten their elite classes. Due to the difficulty in passing the trials, more than half the players were still in their advanced classes.
Those three large beasts were all higher in level than Therras Beast, but they were still having trouble dealing with Jack's Therras Beast. If not for the smaller beasts running interferences, the Therras Beast would have broken out of their encirclement.
Amongst the smaller beast, there were also many wolves from the Call Wolf Pack skill. Upon observation, Jack noticed that all the wolf pack was the normal grey wolf, there was no larger black alpha wolf. Jack wondered if this was because he performed better in the trial? The trial-keeper lady did praise his result of only losing a few of the wolves.
Jack cast Energy Bolts, Arcane Turbulence, and Mana Beam to disrupt the beasts that were bothering his pet before he dove into their midst and hacked all those beasts. Those that owned the smaller beasts, hurriedly called their pets back, leaving only the wolves. If they lost their pets, they lost them forever.
All of a sudden, three extremely large wolves came before Jack. They clawed and bit at Jack. Jack found their cooperation and movements to be very unbeast-like.
"They are Beastmaster in transformation!" Peniel informed.
Jack had suspected so. Every beastmaster got a wolf form for their basic transformation. "Hehe, let's reciprocate," Jack said.
His body suddenly became larger, his face deformed and elongated. His hands and feet turned into claws. Black fur covered his entire body. He had done this transformation before when he first get this skill. He didn't think it was anything special at the time, but after seeing the other beastmaster's transformation, he noticed that he had a different black fur compared to the others who had grey fur.
'Is this also because I performed well in the trial? Meaning my black wolf transformation a better one than those normal grey ones?' Jack asked Peniel in his mind.
'Probably,' Peniel answered uncertainly.
It didn't matter, Jack's attributes and equipment were still a league above the others. When he transformed, even if he appeared buck naked at the moment, his weapons and equipment stats were still considered equipped. He could even cast spells.
The other three werewolves were completely outmatched by his speed and strength. One advantage of beast transformation was the player's HP was doubled, making them harder to kill.
Two robot-like entities came to support the three werewolves. Peniel informed Jack that those were Technocraft's Techno Golems. After seeing Wilted's Mazin, these two techno golems looked like oversized cheap plastic toys. They made Jack realize how special Wilted's Mazin was.
Jack's in his werewolf form, activated his Gold Scale Armor. The others nearby were shocked. Jack's beast form was already different in black color, now it transformed again into a golden color.
With the extra HP and damage reduction, Jack became even more reckless. Every attack they sent to him was like simple mosquito bites. Not to mention during beast form, beastmaster also acquired a small regeneration effect, sort of like a healing factor, further enhancing his already high HP recovery ability.
Which such survivability, he just barreled through everyone savagely, fully embodying his inner beast persona. The Therras Beast followed in his wake. It stomped and headbutted anyone that escaped Jack's ravages.
On the other side, Arlcard delivered lightning-fast thrusts with his rapiers. None of the native soldiers nor the players could touch him. Even if they did, his overwhelming HP meant that they would need more than a few touches to deal with him.
The fog was getting thinner by then. He saw that his spell was nearing its end.
Arlcard made a circular swing. The energy wave from his swing threw everyone away. He then started casting again. The ones who saw his spell formation, panicked. There were four runes and the spell was still ongoing. They tried their best to interrupt, but Arlcard was casting his spell with his off-hand while the rapier on his right-hand thrust anyone that dared to come near. Any offensive spell cast his way was also getting slashed to oblivion by his rapiers.
Was he casting the fog spell again? Everyone wondered. The fog had gotten so thin that the ghouls had disappeared by themselves. When the runes reached six, it continued. Everyone's heart fell by then.
The spell was completed after seven runes.
Several black holes appeared randomly all over the place. Before anyone could react, sharp and devastating sword energy shot out from the holes. Most of the players getting cut by these black sword energies died instantly. Native soldiers survived but their HP fell by a large chunk. The worse thing was, these sword energies didn't stop after that one attack. It bounced back and struck anyone who had been lucky enough to have escaped the first one, and again, and again.
The attack seemed unending and even covered an extremely large area. Many of the native soldiers also died after getting hit by this sword energy four to five times.
Jack, who watched from afar, recognize the spell for Aubelard's Perpetual Sword of Death. 'Those people are in trouble now,' he thought.
William's companion had already died, but William himself managed to escape. Diana's companion was wounded as he grabbed Diana and tried his best to bring the girl away from the danger zone.
*
Jonathan banged his hands on the platform. "How did he get such an overpowered companion?!" He yelled in frustration.
"Not only his companion. You see, he himself is rampaging throughout our force unhindered," John said. "You should have better heeded the stories about when he fought the coalition. Why do you think they are so scared of him? Their entire offensive plan hinged on the fact that he is not there to fight them."
Jonathan glanced at his son. His gaze was then back to the holographic image before turning back to his son again.
John simply watched him without saying anything.
"You think you can do better than me in controlling these native troops?" Jonathan asked.
"You know what I'm good at. I say I should fare better than you in that department for certain," John replied.
"Hmph. I guess you are more like your mother in that department. Fine! I will leave the tactical movement to you. I'm heading out!" Jonathan exclaimed.
"You should have done this earlier," John said.
"Don't push it, boy! I'm not in the mood," Jonathan uttered. Then to his bodyguard, he said, "You stay here! Guard him!"
"Yes, sir!" The sentinel replied with a bow.
Jonathan strode out of the Guild Hall. John started to assume control over the platform. He watched his father leaving the building from the platform's map.. He then smiled.
