Chapter 131: Fighting a Pest-Class Star Beast (1)

Kai was surrounded from all sides.

He blocked and counterattacked the purple slimes that hurled themselves at him.

It’s not his first time being surrounded; he had tasted the feeling from the fish-monsters in the Fire Swamp, and it shows. Instead of being on the defensive, he charged and cut through one side, swiping the wooden stud in hand to swat away the purple slimes.

Each successful strike rang like a steel baton against stone.

And the impact, it rattled the purple slime for a moment, but not quite killing it.

Some purple slimes managed to slip past his guard—and either body-charged him or slashed him with its body that can morph into a blade. A small price to pay to not have a single purple slime behind him.

Now, all of them were coming from the front, and Kai took advantage of this.

Clang—!

A vertical downswing struck a purple slime, denting its head.

Clang—!

Another vicious arc swept and caught two purple slimes, launching them away.

Each purple slime wasn’t nearly as strong as the monster, but they were really durable.

Hard to kill.

Kai’s attacks were hurting them, but his attacking speed wasn’t nearly as fast in order to battle thirty purple slimes at once. A heavy body-charge slammed into his side, directly on his liver, forcing him to gasp.

He swung the wooden stud in a crescent arc, pushing them away and buying a second to breathe.

It’s too long. I’m not used to this.

For the longest time, Kai had been using a sword. A scimitar to be exact. His arms were used to handling a blade that was the length of his arm, not this wooden stud—that was his height at the very least.

Other than his inexperience using a long weapon, it also has a fatal weakness.

He was fighting enemies no larger than two adult heads put together. Landing a hit on such a small target was hard enough—harder still with a weapon he wasn’t comfortable with. And if he missed—if even one of them slipped past his guard, it was almost guaranteed to land a solid, punishing blow.

All he could use was his leg.

Making a kick would cover that weakness, but that also meant losing his center of gravity.

Against thirty purple slimes, he would rather take a solid hit than be swarmed while off-balance.

Kai paused for a second, and then kneed the wooden stud to a reach that he was comfortable with; roughly the length of a sword. Five purple slimes leaped toward him, and in a flash, he struck them.

Now, the wooden stud moved faster in his hand.

And with his free hand, he could swat those who got too close without a problem.

As soon as he held a weapon that he was used to, he immediately killed five purple slimes.

In the next few seconds, five more fell, melting their forms away and staining the ground.

Rumble—!

Kai looked down when he felt the quaking beneath his feet.

It must’ve come from the monster.

I need to end this quickly.

Bam—!

A second of distraction—and a purple slime already drilled deep into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Kai staggered, and another purple slime swiped its elongated body—at his face, knocking him sideways and searing his cheek.

Kai recovered quickly and rolled to the side, avoiding more purple slimes.

He stopped and leaped as another one blew past him like a bullet.

"Black Starfall!"

Before his feet even touched the ground, Kai hurled a black star skyward. He landed solidly on both feet—only to find a purple slime already inches from his face. But the black flash came down faster.

It pierced straight through the creature, drilling a clean hole through its body.

The slime melted mid-air, dissolving before it could ever reach him.

It was a black needle from the Black Starfall.

Kai clashed against the purple slimes again, but this time, the rate of death increased.

Every time he blocked a purple slime, a black needle descended and pierced through it.

Balancing the movement of his body and firing a needle with pinpoint accuracy with the Black Starfall imprint is a new kind of sensation. It required control and focus that he has never once needed in his entire life.

He tried fighting while firing black needles earlier, but he missed all of them.

It was the reason why he only fired at the purple slime that he blocked.

He stopped them from moving before firing the black needle.

Clang—!

Kai hammered the wooden stud against a purple slime, grunting roughly as he put everything into that slash. He cut it in half even though the wooden stud was blunt. And when it dropped dead, he looked around.

Out of the thirty purple slimes, there were five remaining.

Finally understanding that they couldn’t win against Kai alone, the five merged together.

It slowly became a big purple slime, about the size of a car.

Instead of attacking, Kai turned around and walked back to the hive. His eyes were fixated on the splashes of mana and dust in the distance, coming from the fierce battle between Chester and a few others against the monster.

"For it to survive this long..." Kai muttered with a frown. "How strong is it?"

Enraged that Kai had turned his back mid-battle, the big purple slime coiled itself to leap, fully ready to crush this arrogant Supernal into the dirt. But above, the black star had already begun to glow—trembling with such immense, gathered mana that it began to pulsate.

Before the purple slime could spring, the black star flashed. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

A big black needle—a lance the size of a massive man shot downward with a loud shriek.

It slammed into the purple slime’s body from above, pinning it to the earth.

Crack—!

Kai didn’t even need to look as the big purple slime exploded and melted away, dead, behind him. He headed to the commotion, but along the way, worried that there might be others who were still hiding or trapped, he decided to use the Black Starfall imprint again.

But this time, he summoned ten black stars and scattered them everywhere.

Most of the students were in the inner area, protecting their families.

Chester and the other High Angels, presumably, are busy fighting the monster.

None of them had the time to see ten floating black stars above them, or at least, that’s what Kai was hoping for. Kai held his head—summoning that many black stars hurt his mind. Not because his mana was insufficient, but because it demanded rigorous focus.

He closed his eyes and focused, using them to detect any trace of people in the area.

And surprisingly enough, there were a handful of them.

Kai dispersed the black stars and immediately sprinted to check on these survivors.

...

Meanwhile, the battle at the center raged on.

Roar—!

The monster rose like a wave of rot, its torso skeleton suspended in a mountain of purple ooze as it roared thunderously. Its suppressing presence grew stronger. Other students who came to help were forced to push back.

Only those with colored Halos could withstand the monster’s suppression.

For a mere Pest-class Star Beast, this level of strength surprised the students entirely.

Back when the professors had drilled them on the importance of opening their second Divine Lock and undergoing the Seraphic Rebirth ceremony to receive a blessing, some of them had thought they were exaggerating the strength of a Star Beast.

In TVs, Pest-class Star Beasts are handled fairly easily.

As long as they are careful, they should be fine.

But they were dead wrong.

Like a water serpent gliding through the ocean, the monster charged—and raised its massive arm up before swinging down with strength. Matilda raised her golden shield, but the impact sent her to one knee.

It was really heavy; the heaviest attack she had blocked with her golden shield.

A figure suddenly turned visible on the side—Chester.

He drew back his sickle and launched himself at the monster, carving through its gelatinous body with relative ease. But the cut meant nothing. The wound, eight inches deep, sealed in a matter of seconds—faster than he could even land.

"Tch," Chester clicked his tongue. "To actually hurt it, I need to reach the skeleton inside. But with all this sludge in the way, how the underworld do I do that?"

Making use of this distraction, Matilda rolled away and also saw the same thing.

’Even Chester can’t cut deep enough," She frowned, gaze fixed on the monster. "Worst case—we keep it distracted until the professors return. I knew a Star Beast would be stronger, even a Pess-class. But this... this is ridiculous. If it weren’t for Chester—we wouldn’t be damaging it at all."

Chester and Matilda charged at the monster again.

One was searching for a way to kill it, while the other was focused on distracting it.

Both weren’t on the same page at all, and it showed.

Chester vanished from sight—and the monster’s attention snapped back to Matilda. It had no other target nearby than her. Blow after blow crashed against her golden shield, each impact reverberating through her bones.

She held her ground, but her arms were growing numb with every blocked strike.

Feeling sore, Matilda bit her lower lip and leaped over an attack, avoiding it.

But the monster already anticipated this; it lashed with its other arm while she was mid-air.

Just then, a translucent pale white fabric materialized out of thin air and cocooned Matilda in it, protecting her. It took the full brunt of the attack, absorbing the impact—as she was hurled hard into a house.

The walls crumbled around her.

But inside the cocoon, Matilda was completely unharmed.

"Keep yourself grounded. Don’t be reckless."

She lifted her gaze to find Bree poking her head through the hole in the wall.

"Yeah, alright," Matilda climbed out of the rubble and exited the house. Her eyes stared ahead, finding Chester managing to cut deeper this time since the monster’s attention was on her. "I don’t think he realized I’m only stalling. He still thinks he can kill it."

"Guys have too much desire to die," Bree shrugged. "I’m not surprised."

"Where are the other students anyway? Where are the other High Angels?"

"Some of those small slimes got near the inner area. I think they are dealing with them."

"A hand or two would really help right about now."

Bree nodded; it would be far better if they had two people blocking the monster’s attacks.

One isn’t going to cut it.

She was helping as much as possible, helping block attacks that couldn’t be avoided with her imprint, but she can’t maintain Matilda constantly. Other than the imprint required immense mana, it also couldn’t be used rapidly.

"Oh," Her eyes narrowed, noticing a figure sneaking in from the other end of the street. "Right about time he arrived..."