Yet another talking monster

Eo looked at Reya and thought about it.

"Dunno, man. It's pretty easy to visualize as well…"

Reya closed her eyes and clasped her hands in a prayer fashion. She breathed deeply, like she was trying to "imagine".

Suddenly Reya's hand shot out and fried a monster that got too close. She pulled her hand back in and deeply inhaled. Eo thought she looked like a warrior monk. Minus the baldness.

(Wait, could you say, "minus baldness" anyways?)

"I'm going to try visualizing the essence circulating." Reya's brow furrowed.

Suddenly it looked like she got stabbed in the chest.

"I… I don't even know how essence is supposed to move around… what even is it?!"

Eo suddenly remembered that his knowledge of tangiform had aided him greatly in circulating his own essence. That was a trade secret for him though, so he quickly turned away.

"Eo, I saw that smirk. Tell me, what is it?"

"Huh? What?" Eo tried to look as clueless as possible while stabbing another monster in the gut.

Reya sighed in annoyance. "Didn't know you were that stubborn." Reya got back up and electrified her hands.

Eo sighed. "I'll tell you after this is over. I'm still trying to figure some stuff out. Plus, it's stuff that's already been discovered by other people. Nothing special." Eo's mouth was slightly bitter at those last words. After all, his secret dream was to be super unique.

Reya suddenly pointed behind Eo. "Look."

Eo turned around. There was what seemed like a dozen Phase I monsters, all viciously glaring at the duo. However, something was off. Something was different.

In the center of all their foreheads was embedded a black pearl.

☆

Eo surveyed the group.

"Whoah! Didn't know Phase Is had them!"

Reya stretched out a hand. "Give me something metal and pointy."

Eo was lazy, so he just placed the dagger he was already levitating above him. He disconnected the chain and regrew another dagger from the stump.

The black-pearled monster closest to them snarled.

"We are a new breed of monsters, one that shall take over the world once and for all! Our species has been the oldest, but my kind has been the most smartest!"

The monster jabbed a finger to the black pearl on its forehead.

"We are the Cognizant Monsters."

Eo nodded. "Ohhh, so that's what that snake-woman was. What was her name, Savannah? Savage? She should've just called herself a 'cognizant' from the start! Would've definitely cleared things up."

Reya looked extremely confused. "Monsters… they can talk?!"

Eo looked back over to Reya. "Oh yeah, you missed the awesome fight with Savageweed. It was back at the hotel/apartmentment/condominium thing, where you were on the roof and I was in the lobby."

"Oh…"

The monster who had spoke before suddenly widened its eyes. "O-O-Officer Savazya… so you were the one who killed her? How dare such an inferior species do something as disgusting like that… you will definitely die for that!"

Eo flung a dagger-chain towards it, but the monster, who was a Boar Man-type, blocked it with its jagged sword.

"Yeah, Phase I with the seven hundred IQ points are so much harder to deal with than if they had three IQ points like normal Phase Is…"

"Are you mocking us by putting us on an intelligent scale made for humans?! I will surely-"

Eo had grown another dagger-chain out from behind the blocked dagger and plunged it into the monster's neck, beheading it.

"Okay," Eo said. "Reya, let's race!"

Eo flung out his hands. Chain-daggers flew out from every finger, coming in like a storm.

However, Reya just laughed. She held her arm up and yelled "watch my chain lightning!"

It really was chain lightning. An enormous surge of electricity arced from her arm and into the weapons of the enemies, where it arced off into the next one, and so on. After barely a moment had passed, all the enemies were dead on the floor, smoking.

"No fair!" Eo complained. "Those were all kill-steals!"

"Nah, you were just too slow." Reya laughed as she picked up a crooked blade. "Next time, remember to follow these steps: 1) Let Reya get all the easy monsters. 2) Give Reya all the loo-"

A giant footstep suddenly cut off Reya's sentence.

The duo turned around to see five murderous-looking Phase IIIs glare at them.