Chapter 60 - Kill Or Getting Killed
Minutes passed without any noises from outside the safe room until gunshots and bombing noises permeating through the streets.
From the sound, it seemed like the beasts were still far away and probably not over the wall.
But only two minutes later the first flying beasts could be seen observing the streets and diving onto their human preys, that weren′t able to find a place to hide.
Hearing the pitiful sounds of humans crying out for help, their pained shouts mixed within the screeches of beasts, everyone felt ashamed and scared at the same time.
Jason tried his best to ignore the sounds but after he finished skimming through a few tutorial videos, he decided to take a look outside.
They were mainly four different kinds of beasts Jason could see in the sky.
I)low/mid awakened beast→ Iron feathered hawk′s
II)late awakened beast→ heavyweight vulture′s
III) mid/late-evolved→ thunder eagle′s
IV) low/mid unblemished→ winged wind centipede
"Malia, Greg..what are the strongest ranked beasts you two can defeat once face solo or in a group, separately seen?
Jason asked without looking at them.
The beast tide didn't seem normal and Jason had a bad premonition that this beast tide wouldn't end without something huge happening.
Greg and Malia also looked outside while Malia answered
"I′m at the Initiate-Master rank and I can defeat low-unblemished ranked beasts up to two at once.
With the help of my soulbonds, maybe five to six but that's the most I can hold out."
Defeating an unblemished beast while being at the same rank meant Malia′s soulbonds gave her a decent shared of strength so she could fight against them head-on.
Killing beasts at the same rank is harder the further one walked down the path of cultivation because the gap between human ranks and beast ranks extends only further.
While Jason was astonished about her strength, Greg also answered
"I′m at the 3rd Adept rank and due to the physical enhancement of my soulbond, I can defeat a group of mid awakened beasts or two late awakened beasts at most. With Taurus, I can defeat a few low evolved beasts."
Jason listened carefully and looked at the mana cores of everyone within the safety room but it looked like even if there was someone with decent strength, he or she wouldn't be able to help because everyone looked like they were going to faint once a single beast entered the room.
He wasn't sure if a beast would enter this room but some beasts were extremely sensitive to smell and pheromones and due to the anxiety most people spread inside this room, it wouldn't be a surprise if a beast was about to notice them soon.
Minutes passed and Jason was still looking around attentively and to his shock, he could see the first beasts roaming through the streets….The gunshot sounds could still be heard but a few beasts pushed through the defensive lines??
But according to their core strength, they didn't look strong and Jason was confident to kill them with his Mana M9 pistol so he wasn't really scared at the moment.
Some good news however was that the flying beasts spread out, leaving the shopping street after they preyed on humans.
There was also the possibility of them being shot down by some hunter but the important fact was that the more time passed the fewer flying beasts roamed around the sky.
A full hour passed and more and more beasts could be seen in the shopping street.
Unfortunately, a few shops were attacked and the people inside, massacred and torn apart mercilessly.
Jason who was still confident in the beginning was feeling slightly complicated...
Turning around he asked everyone about their strength or if someone possessed weapons to defend themselves because the situation seemed to go out of control slowly.
Not a single one had a weapon and it was a disaster, only Greg and Malia had grade-two mana pistols that could kill unblemished beasts easily and hurt magical beasts or even kill them with some effort but it would take some time to do that.
Jason was confused that not even the shop owner had a weapon but looking at him with his golden eyes, subconsciously spreading his intimidating aura, the shop owner began to look more and more guilty, and suddenly he gave in and told that he had a graded mana rifle to defend himself in the worst-case scenarios.
Everyone looked at the shop owner in contempt because he lied to them to save himself, except Jason, Malia and Greg
Could the shop owner know that Jason didn′t want to steal his mana rifle to save himself?
Not really, he was just scared...
To be honest, everyone would at first save oneself and then maybe some strangers, without risking one′s own life.
Probably only the most loved family members would be saved before one would save oneself but that was most likely it.
Jason asked if they had mana weapons only because of a single reason...once the beasts would rush into this shop, Jason would probably abandon the people inside there because he was the last who could protect someone.
Being locked inside a small space with beasts was even worse than trying to survive outside.
During the last hour, Gabriella sends everyone her emergency notification with the GPS and wrote that there were too many magical beasts, and if they abandoned their position, the whole defensive line would break-in, which was quite unfortunate.
They could hold their position and push back the beasts slightly, but that was it.
If something was to happen, she ordered the youths to send her another emergency signal and they would immediately disregard the cities safety for them.
When Jason read this, he was taken aback but he nodded. He would also save his family instead of other people.
Gabriella and Mark weren′t responsible for the life of the citizen, rather than that they would look out for Greg and Malia if something were to happen, which Jason agreed on.
While Jason was thinking carefully about what to do, a low awakened beast began to sniff at the safety room gate, and everyone began to breathe fast, scared about the beast.
Jason was most disdainful about their reaction. He could understand the middle-schoolers being scared about awakened beasts but please…
There were more than enough Advanced-Adepts and Experts ranked here. WHY are you scared about an awakened beast?!? SH*****ads??
If there wasn′t a beast tide occurring, Jason would most likely throw a fit right now, even if he didn′t like attention or talking to strangers... if one was strong enough to defend themself, fight for your life?!
Because the low-awakened beasts' action drew some attention to their shop, they had to do something.
"Open the gate slightly for a short moment, so I can see its head"
While the others were scared about Jason′s order, he took out one of his low-grade-1 knives.
The others tried to hold back Jason when he suddenly turned around.
They could see his anger-filled golden eyes flickering coldly which caused them to step back unconsciously, disregarding their thought of intercepting in Jason′s business.
Malia was still amazed and even slightly scared about his eyes but she put up a small water wall between the three of them and the other people inside the safety room before Greg opened the gate with his vast strength.
A moment later the gate closed again and the knife in Jason′s hand already vanished.
Jason took a deep breath and he looked slightly exhausted because he had used up more than half of his mana in an instant to inject it into the knife in order to increase the flying speed and decrease the sound which worked perfectly fine.
The low-awakened beast in front of the door collapsed lifelessly and Jason couldn't even celebrate his first awakened beast kill because he had to replenish his mana as fast as possible.
Time passed slowly and Jason had now completely replenished his mana while the situation outside was getting worse because the street was filled with beasts and more and more shops were getting attacked, dozens of humans getting killed every second
Jason also noticed two new corpses in front of their shops while one was burned the other one was wet and Jason understood that it was Malia who killed them with her abilities, while he had replenished his mana.
He was already aware of her fire and water soulbonds because he saw the transmuted mana inside her mana core.
Even Malia looked slightly worried right now and it was only when she got another notification after the beast tide went on for more than 2 hours, that the tension eased up to a certain degree.
The beast tide was almost over and the soldiers would clean up the rest of the city now.
Afterward, each of the three youths got a message in their newly established group channel, that Gabriella and Mark were on their way.
In 5 minutes at worst, would they be there and the three of them were about to cry out in joy when a majestic pair of lion-heads looked through the window and roared loud, before it spat fire out of its mouths, melting the shelter's gate without any hindrance.