Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening-Chapter 66: Two Down, One More

"Haaaaaahhheeee!"

The monkeys screamed in a frenzied state as they all jumped towards him.

It didn’t matter what they thought of him — as someone who had managed to take down the whole group of beasts on his own. The moment he stepped into their territory, the only fate that awaited him was death by their hands.

Kieran looked back for a bit before commencing his attack, swinging his scythe though the air while slowly moving around carefully. He didn’t want to go back to being encircled like earlier.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much land in the area of the monkey’s, the pool of water extended to the other side, leaving a little amount of solid land, but the monkeys themselves had no problem woth that since they mainly lived on the bunch of trees at the back, putting Kieran at a disadvantage, with little room for maneuver.

’I can do this!’

Kieran chanted in his mind and let out a deep breath, his attack speed slowing down.

"What the hell is he doing. Is he crazy?" Ruby shouted from her spot seeing kierans change in attack speed. If he fought like that, he’d be torn to shreds by the group of monkey’s before he could do anything.

Despite his words, she was pretty much ready to shoot to the peice of land the moment she noticed anything she couldn’t handle watching, his warning didn’t matter to her anymore. What use were his words if he was dead?

Kieran on the other hand had a calm expression as his body was getting riddled with marks from the sharp claws of several monkeys.

His eyes constantly flashed around the place trying to follow their fast movement, his hand occasionally moving to kill a few of them.

The image he had built for himself after cutting down a whole group of beasts was still hot on the memory of the monkeys as they always maintained a distance as they attacked him, swinging from the trees to deliver some slashes and back, but now that most of their attacks landed successfully with Kieran barely blocking any of them, they became more confident on their attacks, delivering them more often...

It didn’t take long before they forgot what made them cautious of him and went all in, abandoning any form of caution they had before.

’Is that it?’ Kieran wondered with some doubt before letting go of it. He had no other option at this point.

Suddenly switching from his passive method of battle, Kieran grounded his feet on the floor, tensed his muscles and twisted his body rotating his core to deliver a massive and powerful swing, decapitation and cutting several monkeys in half at once.

"Haaaaaaaaa!"

Several cries of pain rang out amongst the group of monkeys as they all rushed back to the high trees, but Kieran wasn’t going to give them the opportunity as he moved with purpose, delivering stirke after strike, ignoring his constantly increasing wounds.

After a certain point, the monkeys abandoned all hopes of retreat and jumped at him all at once hoping to overwhelm him with their numbers and tear him apart, and both parties involved themselves in a battle of mutual destruction.

Kieran battling more like a beast than human, using his hands which had lost hold of his scythe long ago to tear apart the heads of the monkey’s from their bodies

...

Ruby watched as Kieran tore the head of the last monkey which was crawling away, a picture of fear painted on its face as its head got ripped out of its body with the spine still connected.

"What....?" She could barely exclaim.

She had no words to say, no thoughts to think about the brutality she had just watched Kieran unleash.

All she did was stare at his bloodied figure as he walked down to the pool of water in the middle of the island and wash the blood of his hair and body the best he could.

Even then, he was still painted red. After several more minutes of trying, he finally gave up went back to fish out his weapon which was still sticky with blood, and started making his way towards her position, he didn’t try to attack the last group that had yet to show themselves this time.

"What’s wrong?"

Cold faced Kieran asked Ruby who had been silent since he got in front of her, just staring at him like she was looking at a stranger.

Hearing his voice so close to her, Ruby snapped out and replied in a rough tone

"N-n-othing. It’s nothing!"

She said, looking away.

"I’ll go after the last group later, after I rest a little, but are you sure there’s a mystery beast here, I didn’t notice any!"

Kieran asked Ruby doubtfully.

Ruby who still had her eyes on the numerous scars and still bleeding scratches on his body, answered dazedly,

"That’s why it’s a mystery, isn’t it? Besides, how would you sense something like that while you were busy trying to get yourself killed!"

She raised her voice at the last part, her hand hovering centimeters away from his injured body. He was completely shirtless now, the last bits of his uniform had been trying during the second battle.

Somehow his trousers managed to survive both battles, somewhat. It was now reduced to shorts.

"What’s the mission’s completion rate?" Kieran asked, walking past her to sit on a root.

"50%"

Ruby replied, taking a quick glance at her watch.

’50 huh?!’

Kieran wondered. He could see why this mission was left uncompleted. There was no way a normal group of level 5 recruits would clear that amount of beasts, it was pretty much a mini horde of sorts.

Aside for his suicidal actions, he also noticed something he got to the price of land, before he started the fight with the first group of beasts.

They all had several scratches on their body and he could also make out the rotted corpses of some of their fallen members.

The three groups must have had a fight a dew days before he arrived, leaving them weakened.

That must have been the reason why the throw group of beasts didn’t show themselves even after he cleared out the other two. They must have believed that they were safer underground. They were, at least for now, until he found a way to lure them out.

He was pretty lucky to have arrived when he did, but then he was disappointed that the mystery beast which had been reaping the lives of recruits, the beast which was the reason this mission was a forbidden one, hadn’t shown up despite all the blood shed.

He just hoped it was going to show its face after he had dealt with the last group, it wouldn’t be nice after all if he came here and didn’t manage to do anything different other than clear out the beasts like the other recruits who took this mission and didn’t die, did.

"What was that?" Ruby asked again, walking up to him.

"Nothing, I was trying to study their attack patterns" Kieran said, his eyes staring straight into hers.

"What do you mean—"

"Drop it. I’m alive, am I not?" Kieran interrupted Ruby.

"Fine" Ruby muttered ro herself walking to the side.

’Sigh!’ Kieran sighed, laying on the root, enduring the painful feel of his back on the root.

"Stay still"

Ruby’s voice was heard from above him and he left some pressure along with a sharp sting on his injuries.

"What are you going to do now?" She asked.

"Rest and go back." Kieran replied.

"Alright. I’m coming along!" She said, leaving no room for opposition.