Fighting the Giant Flaming Ape!

In the distance quickly approached a very large creature with a humanoid shape. The size of it reached the mountains, and each step caused the ground to sink below it's feet like stepping into mud. Each step caused the ground to shake and mountains trembling!

As it came into view, the creature resembled a burning ape!

The hairs on it's body and the ape's body itself were burning red as if the creature was a giant volcano of heat and fire!

The atmosphere around it was hot and intimidating enough that any water half a kilometer away was turning into steam. Trees and leaves would wilt before catching fire along with anything else. Up very close and even the ground started to turn black and glow a molten color.

The ice atop the nearby mountains was directly turning from ice to steam at a rapid pace.

"W-What the hell is that?!" Abe lost his composure and turned pale in fright.

The atmosphere coming from that giant flaming ape was enough to induce fear into the usually calm and collected Abe. He felt like he stood no chance in fighting that creature.

"A flaming ape? I've never heard of that before. How is it so big without it's body succumbing to the square cube law." George remained unfazed even in the most unusual of situations and calmly analyzed everything with his empty indifferent eyes.

"Now's not the time for analysis! We need to get out of here!" Abe picked up the unconscious Bernice and Hester onto his shoulders.

"Hold it." George grabbed Abe's shoulder to hold him still before looking directly into his eyes. "You and Melissa are to pack up everything in the area and evacuate with the members. I'll hold that flaming ape off in the meantime."

"Are you insane?! Now's not the time for jokes!" Abe thought George had gone crazy and for a good reason. He's a weak rank E adventurer with no class and a mere guide.

Abe tried to remove George's hand to flee with the members but was surprised to find out that his hand would not budge.

"Melissa! Come over here." George called out to Melissa who was holding Emma.

"At your service." Melissa appeared right next to him with a respectful tone different from her usual behavior around the party. However, Abe was too panicked at the current situation to notice.

"You should some kind of shadow space right?"

"Yes-wait, how do you know that?" Melissa's eyes widened in surprise.

"Now's not the time for questions. Can you fit everyone's backpacks and equipment into your space in a timely manner?"

"Yes, but it'll be a mess if I don't take me time to sort everything out." Melissa naturally told the truth to the one she's supposed to "protect".

"We can sort out the mess later. Throw everything into your space and flee with Emma to a respectable distance. Share some of your powers with Abe so he can flee with you."

"Understood!" Melissa respectfully nodded and turned around to unleash her powers.

As her dark aura soared, giant dark spherical shadows appeared around the campsite and pulled in all the tents, backpacks, and other equipment lying around. They sunk into the shadows and disappeared.

"This..." Abe's widened in shock.

He thought of Melissa as a powerful [Ranger] with some basic shadow abilities, but he did not know they were that powerful enough to create shadow spaces. Only a few people he knows of are that knowledgeable to be able to create shadow spaces like that at such a large scale.

"Let's go." Melissa appeared next to Abe and put her hand on his shoulder, releasing her shadow aura once again.

"Wait! What about George?! We can't leave him behind!" Abe tried to release his powers to resist but were suppressed by Melissa's higher rank. He angrily glared at Melissa in response.

He naturally cared about George as well.

Without George, it is likely they would have encountered an anomaly and died to one of them without properly knowing. They would have encountered the frost apes without sufficient knowledge on how to deal with them. If not, they could have gotten lost.

"Have faith in George." Melissa gave a faint smile as she encased him with her powers.

Her [Shadow Form] ability manifested itself as it encased both Melissa, Emma, Abe, Hester, and Bernice.

"Why do you sound like-" Abe was about to ask why Melissa was so confident when his voice was cut off by the darkness.

The party morphed into a larger-than-average shadow that whizzed into the distance.

George watched as they went into the mountains before turning to face the giant flaming ape with his empty indifferent eyes.

The giant flaming ape reached the conjoined mountains area and stepped into the valley with one of it's feet. The size of the foot alone nearly touched both sides of the valley cliffs.

The giant flaming ape noticed George and paused for a second.

With great curiosity, the giant flaming ape leaned forward and brought it's head down to the valley to look at the tiny person.

Steam arose George as the ground and grass in the camp area rapidly dried up. Very quickly, these plants turned brown and caught fire.

However, he seemed unfazed as he pulled out his dagger and looked directly into the ape's eyes.

"You wish to tango?"

George's irises fully turned a glowing red as his long hair began floating.

He stopped suppressing his natural atmosphere and released it in full glory, causing the natural lighting in the area to dim as if light itself was being absorbed.

Any mortal nearby would feel bugs crawling beneath their skin, crazy insane thoughts entering their mind, their hearts and body cold, and a feeling of emptiness as if the world is no longer interesting. Anyone who looked at him would start hallucinating terrifying things and sense approaching death.

Instead of fighting, he chose to intimidate. Instead of using [Aura], he used his passive natural atmosphere that he keeps suppressed. He would rather scare it away than waste time fighting it.

The flaming ape felt his intimidating presence and flinched.

Rather than backing away, it roared at him as if angered and brought back a fist.

"Strange... most animals would realistically back away from a stronger opponent." George sighed upon realizing he had to fight.

"Come at me!"

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Notes:

* I have created my character stat for Abe. Don't worry, he will be getting his fight scenes very soon. Every member will have the chance to display their abilities eventually.