Beast-Tamer: Limitless Evolution-Chapter 220: Engage

Engage

"The target is on the move."

"No, the Blossom Assets are stationary. He is moving around with some of the elites instead."

"Undestood, they will be engaged as soon as they reach the stellar object."

As a convoy of helicopters flew overhead, numerous cloaked figures who were already near the south side of the Citadel moved swiftly.

They had been lying in wait, preparing for the Citadel Lord to make his next visit to the site of the meteor which he did at certain intervals.

Indeed, he was right on schedule, and their preparations were all in place.

They managed to exit the Citadel without drawing any attention from the guards or activating any alarms due to special means, and they proceeded through the forest and bits of construction going on.

With the campaign on the south, a large number of military structures had been erected to better cater to the army. As such, soldiers were moving about.

Still, these people moved undetected, and soon enough, they managed to get past all the military installations and soldiers before they arrived at an environment that resembled a stone desert, but the stones were all tall like spires, making it resemble a forest made of stone.

They somehow managed to match the pace of the helicopters with relative ease, never moving too close to avoid detection but still keeping them within their sights.

"We will arrive in 4 minutes. Get ready for our arriva–"

Just as one of them was communicating with whoever they wanted to meet, they were cut off as something strange happened.

A large circular plane appeared in front of them. Its surface was smooth and reflective, almost like a mirror.

Before they could react, its surface rippled like water, and from it, several figures appeared.

The group halted, and as soon as they saw who appeared, their faces went grim.

"There's been a situation. The Assets were aware of our location and have intercepted us. Report." One of them communicated with their allies.

Or tried to, anyway.

"Don't bother. All forms of communication have been cut off. No one can hear you here. Clyde made sure of that." Kurt said as he cracked his knuckles as his feet touched the ground.

The others also touched down around him, beasts summoned and weapons drawn.

The only person who hadn't arrived with them was Osho, but he was busy doing something else...

"... Interesting." One of the hooded figures spoke. While the appearance of the group was surprising, none of them were particularly worried.

After all, their beasts were all at the Adept rank. Impressive, sure, however...

Each cloaked figure opened up their beast space, and as soon as they did, a sense of wrongness immediately permeated the area.

Their beasts appeared, but each of them looked... off.

Their skin, fur, or scales were darkened unnaturally in random spots, and the energy each one gave off was simply unnatural, like nature itself bent around them to give way.

Corrupt Mana.

"You kids are much too early in your attempts to stop us." Another hooded figure spoke.

A moment later, the surroundings darkened as Corrupt Mana suddenly surged through the area.

Whatever small vegetation that was around withered away, and the ground lost its luster as the Corruot Mana started to seep into everything.

This was one of the scariest things about Corrupt Mana. Its existence was passively harmful to anything that didn't use Corrupt Mana. The longer one was exposed to it, the weaker they would become, and prolonged exposure could be fatal.

And that's just from exposure. Getting hit by an attack made of the stuff was even more dangerous. An example is when Mrs Jane got hit by the Skyblight Harbinger during their first fight. The wound had almost disabled her entirely.

Moreover, each beast the hooded figures summoned was at the Expert Rank, so they already outranked the group. But what's more, the beasts could match Elite Rank beasts due to the tampering that went into their creation.

To summarize, each one was extremely dangerous. And yet...

'... Hold on.' The hooded figure in the lead narrowed their eyes.

In front of them, the group seemed... wholly unperturbed by the Corrupt Mana surrounding them.

Upon closer inspection, they noticed that their beasts had created thin films of Mana around their tamers, while the beasts themselves remained completely unaffected by the Mana.

'That's impossible. They shouldn't be able to shrug off the effects of Corrupt Mana while still being a rank below us!' The leader frowned.

"Surprised?" Ellie said as she leaned against her weapon. A polearm.

"That stuff doesn't really affect us." Irene added as she started drawing her bow.

Sam didn't say anything, she just gave the hooded figures the middle finger.

"... Move around them. We'll deal with this." The leader spoke, realizing that dealing with the group wouldn't be so simple.

Still, their priority was the mission. They needed to get there quickly.

The 5 other hooded figures nodded, but before they could move, Ellie shook her head.

A small orb that looked like an undulating mass of shifting mirrors and glass appeared next to her. Spectrum.

A pulse went out, and everyone watched as a large dome of mirrors appeared around them in a large area. About 20 miles in diameter.

"You guys aren't going anywhere." She smiled, but the faces of the hooded figures just darkened.

"... Your actions will prove futile." The leader spoke and pulled out a pitch black scimitar as he moved behind his beast.

"We'll see." Ellie shrugged as she straightened and hopped on top of Sugil.

There was a brief pause, then a large battle broke out between both sides.

***

Around the same time the group appeared in front of the hooded figures, a mirror also appeared further out, ahead of the helicopters, and closer to where the site of the meteor was.

As soon as it opened, something shot out of it in a blur, but it was too fast to catch.

'That ability is pretty broken to be honest.' Osho thought as he watched the mirror portal vanish behind them.

Apparently, one of Spectrum's abilities allowed her to create mirrors they could use as portals, and they could theoretically create these mirror portals anywhere as long as there was light in that location.

And that was just one of their many abilities.

With a sigh, Osho looked down at Gale who was in his large form, and despite moving at supersonic speeds, was only flying at a leisurely pace, because he was fast like that.

'Have you spotted anything?' He asked through their bond.

'Yeah, hold on.' A moment later, Osho found himself sharing his vision with Gale, and what he saw made him frown slightly.

The helicopters were meant to land within a vast area that had been cleared out. There were no rock spires. Instead, it looked like a massive battle had taken place there, as giant craters, overturned earth, half-destroyed giant trees, and cooled magma could be seen.

This was where the Meteor began, and it was where the Citadel Lord as well as the Elites engaged with the stronger members of the ants for the meteor which was underground.

They would slowly whittle down the ants and claim more territory, encroaching on more and more of the meteor until they eventually claimed the whole thing.

This wasn't what made Osho frown, though.

What did, was the utterly massive magic circle beneath the ground.

He did a brief calculation, and he realized that the thing spanned the entirety of the meteor, which gave him an idea of its purpose.

'They said they wanted to steal the meteor with the chaos brought from taking out William. This is probably how.' Osho communicated with Gale, and the bird hummed.

As for whether they were at risk of getting discovered. Well, Gale simply refracted light using his domain to make himself invisible while also ignoring the wind resistance to avoid making any sound, and it seemed to work well enough.

Anyway, their goal was simple.

While the others stalled the terrorists from the Citadel, Osho and Gale had to cause as much chaos as possible, and while they were at it, kill as many terrorists as they could.

If they could break the magic circle, that'd be fine too.

As for William himself, well, he along with Simon and Timothy would deal with something else.

'You ready?' Osho asked, and Gale snorted.

'I've been ready.' He shot back.

'A simple yes would have sufficed.' Osho deadpanned before looking around again.

There were about a dozen groups of terrorists lying in wait using what he assumed to be special Corrupt Mana items that hid their presence. They were good enough to hide from most things, but nothing could be hidden under Gale's gaze.

'Bedrock, what about you?'

'Yeah.' The gorilla who sat in his beast space just affirmed simply.

'Alright, then.' With that, Osho lightly tapped Gale's back.

The Bird immediately accelerated and moved to the outer edges of the magic circle, his four wings flapping as he started to fly in a large circle.

'This should be interesting.'

***

A/N: I HAVE RETURNED!