*BOOM*
The hole in the creature's chest increased in size, creating something that looked close to a crater in its chest.
The creature roared out in pain and shot the soundwaves toward Jay, who was still in its crater of a chest.
The monster was significantly bigger than the other ones, but it was only around as tall as a house, so it wasn't big enough for Jay to just duck into its chest hole and hide there.
However, before he could be hit by the sound waves, a wall of orange flames appeared before him and blocked the soundwaves for a second before dissipating, before a flash of light zoomed pasted Jay and took him along with it.
Landing on a nearby hill, Lloyd dropped Jay and quickly took a knee.
[Lightning fusion] might have been inexpensive regarding mana, but the technique itself was very straining on his body.
However, even though he wanted to take a break, he also knew that the longer he kept it on, the worse it would get, and since turning it off and on wasn't an option, Lloyd got up as quickly as he kneeled before turning into a bright bolt of lightning.
However, this time he didn't shoot toward the monster, but instead shot into the sky.
Hovering above the creature by a few meters, Lloyd charged up what looked like an enormous lightning bolt and shot it down at the monster, shooting it right through its chest.
His soul senses told him that the creature was dead, but Lloyd shot it a few more times to ensure it was dead.
Deactivating [lightning fusion], Lloyd dropped to the ground with the grace of a meteor and landed a few meters away from the monster. Of course, he was more than fine, but he had to ensure he didn't seem unscathed from the battle.
Seeing that they were all looking at him, Lloyd took out a bottle with a red liquid inside it before quickly chugging it down and wiping his mouth.
By the time they had gotten to him, Lloyd had already begun to get up, even though his movements were plenty unsteady, while his balance was close to nonexistent.
"Are you okay?" Kay asked while helping Lloyd out of the hole.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I took a healing potion, but I don't have any stamina or mana potions so I'm kind of fucked in those regions." Lloyd chuckled as dryly as he could. He had to act out the part of someone without any stamina and has both mana fatigue and abuse.
"Ah, man... I don't have any stamina potions, either. Those things are expensive as hell." Jay complained while throwing Lloyd's arm over his shoulder. And walking him until they were in front of the corpses again.
"Alright... Let's split all this stuff." Lloyd spoke before scanning and absorbing the strongest monster into his ring before looking at the rest of them.
"I get the strongest one; Haley gets 7 of the non-charred corpses, while Jay gets 4. The non-charred ones aren't going to be worth anything, but you can have them if you want." Lloyd shrugged before looking at the two D ranks trying to do the math in their heads.
"Hey, wait-" Before Elliot could say anything, Lloyd looked at them and pointed at the ashes.
"You can have these." Lloyd spoke.
"What!" John finally flared up in anger, no longer able to take this kind of rudeness, and from a commoner at that.
"Do you have the smallest idea of who I am? I can destroy your entire family in a single-"
"If you were of any importance, you would have had the ability to contribute more to this fight. I saw your weaknesses, and I didn't want to throw a couple of weakling into battle just to have them almost die and lose us all of our points." Lloyd sneered.
"You didn't let me-!"
"I would have let you if you were strong enough. From my analysis of you, you are by far the oldest one here if we exclude Alex, yet you are the only one who's complaining like a child, and you're the weakest among us." Lloyd retorted before the man-child could continue.
"Heh... Do you think you're all special because you're stronger than us? You have no idea what political power is. My family can destroy you and everything you love in an instant. And you know what, try and stop me from taking the rest of the corpses." The boy grinned, making Alex narrow his eyes, but he remained idle.
Lloyd didn't do anything, either. He simply watched the boy walk over to one of the corpses that was in a better shape than the others before scanning it and taking it into his ring.
The boy turned around smugly and looked grinned when he saw Lloyd not moving an inch, supported by Jay the entire time.
Haley was about to flare up in anger as well, quite literally this time, but Lloyd snapped his fingers, causing her to switch her attention from the boy to Lloyd.
"You all saw what he just did, right?" Lloy asked, making everyone nod with confusion. Only Alex seemed to understand what was about to happen.
Lloyd took his hand off Jay's shoulder and took a fake deep breath in.
They all felt the mana gush past them and enter Lloyd as his stature improved a little, but even though he could now stand, he was still limping.
"This boy... No. This man just walked over here with his little smug spoilt act and took one of our things. Not only did he not deserve it, but he practically spat on your hard work and effort by doing so..." Lloyd began speaking, slowly walking closer to John, who still thought himself invincible.
Clearly, no one had ever gone against him or his name before, and Lloyd could not help but think that he was in need of a reality check.
"He then proceeded to threaten my family and me without a second thought. You guys might stand for such a thing, but I won't." Lloyd muttered, his voice becoming colder as the words left his mouth.
"I dare you." John grinned, yet his grin froze when he looked into Lloyd's eyes.
[Void Gaze]
It was as if everything else had disappeared, and the only things left were him and the enormous eyes that floated above him, looking down at him with disgust and hatred.
He felt as if his fears were changing. He didn't know why, but suddenly, he felt scared of the dark and space simultaneously. It felt so cold and empty that he just wanted to scream, yet his voice remained in his throat, unwilling to leave no matter how hard he tried.
"I'll repeat once more..." Lloyd muttered, his voice reaching John's ears like a booming voice of an entity far beyond his comprehension.
Then, John felt an iron-clad grip grab hold of his knee before another hand moved to his mouth and grabbed hold of it so tightly that it was impossible for him to breathe.
"I won't stand for it."
*CRACK*
Excruciating pain tormented his entire body as he screamed and thrashed while muffled screams attempted to leave his mouth.
Everyone, including Alex, was pale. They all expected Lloyd to punch him in the stomach or threaten him with his killing intent. Not in a million years did they expect Lloyd to break his leg, and so easily at that.
Elliot instantly swallowed his complaints while Jay and Haley vowed never to be on Lloyd's bad side.
Lloyd kept John on the ground for several minutes while grabbing his mouth until his screams died out and were replaced by muffled sobs.
Lloyd felt disgusted by the snot and tears to the point he wanted to just burn his hands to keep them disinfected, but he didn't want to scar the man-child's face.
After all, this was just a quick way to become the group leader. It was a power play that ensured they would all listen to his orders.
When the cries died down a little, Lloyd finally let go and burned his hand while spamming the self-cleaning feature of his clothes to clean his hand too.
"From now on, I'm the leader of this team, is that understood?" Lloyd asked while looking back at the other three, who quickly nodded.
"I don't want anything like this to occur ever again." Lloyd spoke before looking at John
"And if it happens again, it won't be your leg that I'll break..."
Lloyd leaned closer and reached a level where they were face to face.
"It'll be your face." Lloyd whispered, causing a shudder to run down John's spine.
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