Extra's Path: The Eternal Frost Monarch

Noah and Leonard left the mall through the main entrance, stepping back out into the quiet of the ruined street.

"Let’s leave the collecting to them," Leonard said, stretching his arms above his head as they walked. "The rest of the recon unit will show up soon anyway."

"Yeah," Noah agreed. "Not our job."

They moved at an easy pace, heading back down the avenue in the direction of their base. The same broken road, the same hollow buildings on either side, the same heavy silence sitting over everything.

Leonard had his hands behind his head, walking without much care. Noah had his phone slipped into his pocket, feeling for any vibration from Travis.

They were about halfway back when Leonard suddenly stopped.

Noah noticed and stopped beside him.

Leonard’s eyes had shifted toward a building on their left. His relaxed posture was gone. He stood completely still, head tilted slightly.

"You hear that?" he said in a low voice.

Noah listened.

A deep rumbling sound. Low and guttural, rolling out from somewhere inside the building. Like something breathing very heavily, or growling. The sound was followed by a faint vibration in the ground beneath their feet.

"Yeah," Noah said quietly.

Leonard’s expression didn’t show fear.

It showed excitement.

A grin spread slowly across his face. He reached into his storage bracelet without a word and pulled out a greatsword. The blade was massive, wide and heavy, the kind of weapon that needed both hands and a body built to match.

Noah reached into his ring and pulled out his bow and a quiver full of arrows. He slung the quiver across his back, felt the strap settle across his shoulder, and took one arrow in his right hand. Bow in the left, arrow ready.

Leonard glanced back at him briefly. "Stay back and cover me."

"Already on it."

Leonard turned back toward the building and walked toward it, his greatsword loose at his side.

He had barely covered half the distance when the wall exploded outward.

Chunks of concrete blasted across the road as something enormous tore through the side of the building without slowing down. Dust and debris sprayed in every direction.

Noah’s eyes locked onto it immediately.

It was a monster shaped like a gorilla but enormous. Ten feet tall at least, its body thick with dense muscle, its knuckles hitting the ground as it steadied itself after breaking through the wall. Its eyes were dark red. It opened its mouth and let out a roar that shook the air and rattled the broken windows in the buildings around them.

"Oh, now we are talking!" Leonard laughed.

He didn’t wait even a second. He exploded forward off the ground, closing the distance between himself and the monster in a burst of speed. His greatsword ignited as he moved fire blooming along the blade in a bright rolling wave, blazing orange and yellow as he raised it above his head.

Noah took a breath.

He nocked the arrow, raised the bow, and let his mana move.

It came naturally. He didn’t force it or push it. He simply gave it a direction and it flowed on its own moving through his body and down into the arrow in a smooth current, the way water finds a downhill path without being told to. The arrow sat steady in his grip, wrapped in a faint blue glow.

It was the simple first form of his Archery weapon art.

[Form I — Still Calm Strike]

He waited.

Leonard’s sword came down in a heavy overhead strike. The gorilla monster reacted fast, swinging its massive fist up and slamming it against the blade with a sound like a thunderclap.

Boom.

The impact rang through the street. Leonard was pushed back a half step from the sheer force of it, his boots scraping against the broken road.

But the blade had done its work. A dark gash opened across the monster’s forearm where the edge had caught it. The creature pulled its arm back and let out a sharp grunt, stumbling back a step in pain.

"Got you," Leonard muttered.

He lunged forward immediately, not giving it time to recover. His sword swung horizontal across his body, a wide slashing arc aimed at the monster’s chest. The fire along the blade trailed behind the motion in a burning line.

The slash connected.

A deep cut opened across the monster’s chest, edges scorched black by the flame. The gorilla threw its head back and roared again, louder this time.

Noah released.

A blue horizontal line formed in air.

Because the arrow left the string clean. It didn’t, no deviation. It cut through the air in a straight blue line, a faint whistling sound following its path as it crossed the distance between Noah and the monster in less than a few seconds.

The arrow didn’t waver by the air. It moved to its fix point.

Thud

It struck the gorilla directly in the centre of its forehead. The mana-coated tip drove deep, burying itself past the arrowhead. Blood ran from the point of impact. The monster’s roar cut off abruptly.

It swayed.

Then it fell backward, its enormous body hitting the road with a heavy crash that sent a small cloud of dust rolling outward from where it landed.

Then silence.

Noah lowered his bow slowly.

Leonard stood over the monster, his sword still burning faintly, looking down at it with a satisfied expression. After a moment he rested the flat of the blade on his shoulder and looked back at Noah.

"Clean shot," he said.

Noah looked at the arrow buried in the monster’s forehead and said nothing for a second.

"Your fire did most of the work," he replied.

"Sure it did." Leonard grinned. "But that arrow was the one that ended it." He glanced at the dead monster one more time. "F+ rank, you think?or maybe E-"

Noah studied the size of it. The density of the muscle. The way it had taken a fire-enhanced slash to the chest and still been standing.

"Probably F+," he said. "Might be E-. But it was too weak."

"Either way." Leonard dismissed the blade’s flame with a casual flick of his wrist and stored the greatsword back in his bracelet. He turned back toward the direction of their base and started walking again as if nothing had happened. "Good warm up. But damn you take kill means you get points for this."

Noah stored his arrow, the ones that survived could be reused and fell into step beside him.

"What points? This F rank monster only gives ten to thirty points. Not much. Since it might be rank F+, I must might have get 30 points."

Noah said while remembering the point system.

For killing monsters of Rank F- to F+ have points from 10 to 30.

Rank E- to E+ have points from 50, 75 and 100.

While D- to D+ have points from 100,150 and 200.

Then Noah said, "Also, You really have no sense of caution man. How can you just jumped on monster," Noah said.

"Oh come on. It didn’t look that strong so i was confident to kill it," Leonard shot back cheerfully. "Also your Archery skill was good. Was that weapon art you got from instructor Victor?"

Noah looked at him sideways. "Yes. It was. But my profiency over first form is still low."

"But still you perform it well. That’s good improvement in dew days. I mean it’s nearly two weeks I guess."

Then he let out a quiet breath that was almost a laugh.

"Sure," he said. "Perfectly."

They walked back toward the base, leaving the collapsed wall and the dead monster behind them in the dust.