Solar Ascension-Chapter 145: Ayla’s Training

"Ain’t that a surprise," Devon muttered, referring to the fact that Garron Boar had praised him.

"It truly is, friend," Rhett nodded, "I never considered a man of his demeanor was capable of praising someone."

Nox, Flint, Devon and their new friend Rhett were now in the academy’s cafeteria, with Marion still resting in the medbay, and Calewin having disappeared on the way here.

"That damn third year," Flint muttered as he stabbed his fork into his food.

He was, very clearly, still pissed off about the fact that they had failed the team work part of the test because of his ’teammate’.

"You finna fight him for revenge?" Devon asked, looking at Flint’s expression.

Flint just clicked his tongue, before gripping his fork tighter and saying nothing, sure he wanted nothing more than smashing Calewin’s face in.

But as lazy as Calewin was, he was undeniably strong, so Flint knew he would undoubtedly lose if he tried throwing fists.

But that didn’t mean he had completely erased the thought of getting pay back, maybe he would somehow catch Calewin off guard.

Devon leaned back in his chair, balancing it on two legs as he glanced around the cafeteria.

"Speakin’ of teammates," he said, tapping the table lightly, "ain’t we supposed to have one more?"

Flint raised a brow. "Marion’s in the medbay."

"Nah, I mean for next round," Devon replied, shaking his head. "Boar said there’re seven of us. We only six so far."

They hadn’t met Alya yet, so the six..well, five didn’t know who their last teammate was just yet.

Of course Nox knew who their last teammate was, but he hadn’t said anything because they’d be introduced next week anyway.

Still, speaking of Ayla, he wondered what she was up to anyway.

***

Roar!

A massive Eclipsed in a lupine form let out a loud roar as it lunged towards its target.

But just before it could react them, the shadows on the floor started shifting and before the Eclipsed could react, a black spike rose and pierced cleanly through the creature.

The Eclipsed out a low whine as it started struggling to free itself, but before it could, multiple other shadow spikes stabbed it from all directions until it went completely still.

Astra, standing a bit further away from the creature, looked on with mild surprise as her eyes moved from the Eclipsed to the girl calmly standing before it.

Astra was sure that the blind bat was only spouting nonsense when she said that the kid was using a solar tech.

Who the hell would believe that? Especially after seeing what she was capable of.

Still, Astra wouldn’t mention anything about that, since the kid wasn’t a threat....just yet.

Ayla looked at the dead Eclipsed before turning to the side where she sensed multiple others rushing towards her.

They were coming this way because of the SE Ascended Dawn was released to bait them all out, as part of Ayla’s training.

She was basically acting as a baby sitter for Ayla.

"No, I’m not a babysitter," Astra suddenly said, "I was tired of just staying in the academy for this long and that’s why I agreed to help the kid."

....

Anyway, the two were currently in a tier 4 rift, surrounded by large trees and blanketed by a dark sky without a single star in it.

The only source of light was Astra’s rings which were producing the SE to call out the Eclipsed.

But it wasn’t as if Ayla had a problem with the darkness, after all, it might as well be daylight for her.

She could sense the approaching Eclipsed, and from what she sensed,they were at least tier 2, capable of weilding Umbra energy.

Normally, this would make any Solar Knight a bit wary, but Ayla was still completely calm without the least bit of expression on her face.

"Alright kid, it’s time to wrap it up," Astra suddenly called out as she looked at the glass like device in her hand, "the blind bat wants us back."

"Hmm," Ayla nodded, "after I’m —"

Before her words could be completed, an Eclipsed lunged from within a shadow, its claw slashing at Ayla’s form.

Her figure split where the claw came in contact only for it to dissolve into a mist of shadows.

"Done with these ones," she completed her words as she could now be seen standing a bit farther away from where she previously was.

Astra just nodded in response, they could clear the rift, but the blind bat wanted them back and that would take a bit of their time, so she just allowed the kid to take care of the few Eclipsed coming her way before they left.

The Eclipsed that attacked Ayla sank into the shadows again as it swam to safety, waiting to ambush again whenever she got distracted.

At the same moment, the other Eclipsed arrived, three of them, ranging from tier 2 to 4 just as she had felt, arrived.

The first slowly walked out of one of the trees, it stood upright as a human would, but all its limbs were over extended as it arms were also touching the ground, but it was also because hunched.

The Eclipsed had horns on its head and its eyes were glowing red.

This one was clearly a tier 4 and before Ayla could make a move, shadows spread from it and enveloped the two of them, putting them in some kind of large cube.

It seemed the creature noticed that Ayla was a threat so it was trying to isolate and go for the one that seemed like less of a threat to it.

Ayla also noticed that her senses couldn’t stretch past the shadow cube’s walls but that didn’t panic.

Her face still remained expressionless but she was a bit curious about how the creature had disconnected her from the shadows outside.

A second later, the other two Eclipsed surfaced from the ground, which told her one thing, these damn things were working together.

Which was strange for Eclipsed, except if the situation was the same as the one she and Nox handled.

But this didn’t seem to be the case, which meant one thing, these three might be Fiends.

The second Eclipsed looked something closer to a gorilla and anyone else would’ve been unaware that it was capable of weilding Umbra energy.

But Ayla could clearly sense it.

Unlike the first, it didn’t seem deformed, which most solar knights use to figure out whether or not they could use umbra energy.

The moment the second Eclipsed fully surfaced, a dark, heavy aura fell on Ayla’s shoulders.

But instead of just pressure, she could also feel that the aura had limiting factors, it made every bit of move she tried making, cost more energy.

It almost felt like she was in a gorilla’s grip.

Then came the third Eclipsed, the tier 3. It was someone tried making a deer from darkness.

It was smaller than the gorilla-like Eclipsed and the tier 4 one.

As with most other Eclipsed, the tier 3 Eclipsed had red glowing orbs for eyes.

The moment the third appeared, the other two Eclipsed wasted no time in attacking. Shadows from the floor of the cube crawled and wrapped around Ayla’s legs, keeping her in place.

The deer-like Eclipsed lowered its head slightly, for a split second, its body seemed to flicker and the next second, it vanished.

The Eclipsed was completely gone, only leaving behind a dark smoke, not that it was too visible in this darkness.

It reappeared next to the trapped Ayla with its antlers glowing a dark light as it slashed it towards her.

At the same time, the gorilla-like Eclipsed leapt towards her, while the pressure continued increasing.

She was essentially trapped between three coordinated attacks with no way of escape.

***

Meanwhile, Astra looked at the dark cube from outside with a bit of curiosity. Of course, she had faced Eclipsed with variety of abilities, but there were rarely ever ones that seemed to be this coordinated.

They had identified her as the bigger threat, so they decided to deal with the lesser one first, which was coordination she had only seen a few times.

This meant that these creatures weren’t ordinary Eclipsed, Fiends maybe?

"Nope, she’ll handle it," Astra suddenly spoke up, "besides, we’ve seen how strong the kid is, she should be done in a couple of seconds."