Lukas didn’t stop.

The [Smites] kept coming down, each pillar landing before the light of the previous one had fully faded.

The desert around the Turtle was lit in a constant shade of gold. The sound of it was loud, rolling out across the open sand in every direction.

The Turtle responded the only way it could.

Its exposed skin, the thick, leathery patches on its legs and neck, withdrew into the shell, pulling inwards as if the body itself was trying to shrink away from the holy rain descending on it.

The legs tucked in, the head disappeared, and the shell sealed itself as completely as it could manage.

Lukas chuckled and kept casting.

"That won’t be enough to save you, Turtle."

He could feel his mana dropping with each activation, but the rate wasn’t alarming. He had enough mana to sustain this for long enough to achieve his goals and more. If there was someone giving out first, it definitely wouldn’t be him.

He just needed to keep going.

Then it happened.

He heard the sound beneath the impacts of the pillars of light. It was a bit more muffled than the snapping of individual spikes.

In that moment, a long crack split across the surface of the shell, running from one edge towards the center in a jagged, uneven line.

Lukas’ eyes locked onto it, his grin widening. "Gotcha, bitch."

The [Smites] kept coming.

The crack widened under the continued assault, the edges splintering out as the force found the weakness and exploited it with each successive hit. The fracture branched, sending smaller cracks running off the main line like tributaries.

Then the golden pillars found the gaps.

Light drove through the cracks and into the flesh beneath the shell, and the Turtle made a sound Lukas hadn’t heard from it before. It was a shrill, high whistle, muffled by the shell but it was unmistakable.

Pain. It was feeling intense pain as the attacks began to penetrate its shell.

The legs reappeared.

All four of them scrambled against the sand at once, the Turtle lurching forward, trying to move.

Even when it had been running towards him, it had been deliberate with its movement the entire time, but now it was panicking. It was trying to run.

"Not on my watch."

Lukas slammed his free hand against the ground and activated [Bone Wall].

Bones tore free from the sand in a wide ring around the Turtle, fusing together as they rose, building a circular barrier that closed around the beast before it had covered two meters. It was tall, thick, and sealed at every point.

The Turtle slammed into the wall and a section splintered under the impact, the bones cracking and separating. But more rose immediately in their place, the wall sealing itself before the gap could widen.

The Turtle hit it again, and the wall cracked, but this time, it didn’t splinter, held together by the constant reinforcement of bone Lukas kept pouring into it.

Through it all, the [Smites] kept raining down.

The cracked shell continued to give way under the assault, the fractures spreading across its surface in an expanding web.

Blood began seeping from the widest gaps, running down the shell and dripping onto the sand below.

Sections along the edges had already broken away entirely, falling in large pieces and exposing the injured skin beneath.

The whistling sound became continuous, then it changed, becoming lower, quieter, and more broken. It slowly became a squeaking that came in intervals, each successive one becoming weaker.

The Turtle was spent.

Then a notification appeared.

Ding!

[Congratulations, you have cleared the quest!]

[Reward: +2000 Gacha Points]

Lukas lowered his hands, stopping the rain of [Smites].

The golden light faded and the desert went silent. The only sound left was the Turtle’s quiet, broken squeaking from inside its ruined shell.

Lukas reached into his spatial ring and closed his hand around the [Monster Ball].

He held it out towards the Turtle, pointed it at the broken shell, and activated it.

The ball hummed in his hand.

A suction force extended from it, invisible but immediately pulling on the Turtle. The beast shifted in the sand, its ruined legs scrambling weakly against the pull, but there was nothing left in it to resist.

The squeaking rose in pitch for a moment, then cut off entirely as the Turtle’s body compressed, the suction pulling it across the sand and into the ball in a smooth, continuous stream.

The ball flashed once, then went quiet, its red surface gleaming.

Lukas looked down at it.

He could feel the ball draining him immediately. It was a small, constant drain on his mana and was almost negligible when compared to his total reserves.

He pushed his awareness into the ball and could sense the beast inside, still present, its condition already beginning to stabilize.

The ball was using his mana to heal it, slowly and continuously, rebuilding what the [Smites] had broken until the Turtle would be ready to fight when he called it out.

He smiled at the sight. He now had a C-rank beast among his arsenal.

He exhaled slowly and sent the ball back into his spatial ring.

Then he cut everything.

The [Cursed Ground] was released first. The dark shadow that had spread across the desert floor shrank back towards its origin point and disappeared, the hex lifting from the sand in seconds.

The [Bone Wall] followed, the fused structure losing its cohesion all at once, the bones crumbling and breaking apart into fragments, then into dust, the wind catching it and carrying it away until nothing remained of the wall at all.

What was left was overturned sand, scattered broken spikes, and the divots where the [Smite] pillars had struck the ground around the shell pieces that hadn’t been pulled into the ball.

"You did it!"

He turned to see Melody and Akira running towards him across the sand, with Melody slightly ahead, and both of them moving at full speed. He had just enough time to spread his arms before they hit him.

They slammed into him together, wrapping both arms around him, and the impact nearly took all three of them to the ground. He laughed, catching his balance and holding on.

"Did you think I couldn’t?" he asked.

Melody pulled back just enough to look at him. "It’s you," she said, laughing. "Of course you could."

"The fight would have been shorter," Lukas said, "if the Turtle hadn’t been such a defensively focused beast."

Akira stepped back and looked around at the disturbed sand. "Where is it?"

"I captured it." He tapped his spatial ring. "With my [Monster Ball]. It’ll fight for us when we need it."

Akira stared at him, grinning. "Hell yeah."

Slow, unsteady footsteps approached them.

Lukas looked up.

Karrakas was making his way towards them across the sand, his suit dusty, and his usually composed expression completely gone.

His eyes moved across the overturned ground, the broken spikes, and the spot where the bone wall had stood. Then they landed on Lukas.

He stopped a few meters away, staring for a few seconds. Then he spoke.

"Just who the hell are you guys?"

Lukas laughed. "We’re new Adepts, of course."