77 Ring of fire

The Hercules beetles proved to be a worthy challenge for most of the party. The beetles' hard outer shell and rapid bursts of movement made them formidable opponents. However, their true strength lied in their forceps which were capable of crushing an average human's bones within seconds.

The most difficult part of this whole ordeal was disguising my true strength by acting like I was struggling. The beetles were nowhere near on par with my strength bolstered by the assimilated basic and intermediate tier crystals and siphoned mana. I decided to make the best out of this situation and improve my dexterity with the gauntlets. With one hand, I would block the beetle's pincer attack with the other hand swipe at their exoskeleton using the jagged black claws. This putt on quite a show. When I deemed enough time had passed, I infused my gauntlets with Ki and made quick work of the beetles.

I then turned my attention to Gary. It appeared he was faring quite well. Both beetles took turns attacking him from both sides, but their attacks ended up harming themselves as Gary would parry one beetle's pincers into the other. In spite of this ingenious tactic, Gary was getting frustrated because his Ki-infused sword was not strong enough to pierce the beetles' hard exoskeleton.

He patiently waited for both of the beetles to thrust their pincers towards his side. With impeccable timing, Gary dodged the thrusts and with the added momentum of his sword's strike, forced the beetles' pincers to impale each other, killing both of them in the process.

Martha and monk showed brilliant teamwork. Monk used his black sash footwork to weave between the beetles, catching their attention and luring them into Martha's range with her bow. Just before the outing, she had upgraded her bow to an intermediate quality enabling her arrows to pierce the outer shells of the beetles. However, the beetles were tough both inside and out. The arrows failed to fully penetrate the beetles, but rather got stuck in their shell. Monk followed up with fierce blows to the arrows, sinking them deeper into the beetles until they ceased to move.

Ian was locked into a stalemate with his beetle. The bug had Ian grappled between its forceps and was using all its might to crush him and pull him close enough to devour his head with its razor-sharp teeth. Ian, on the other hand, through sheer willpower and brute force was keeping the beetle at bay.

On the flip side, Kyle was all but useless. He avoided sustaining damage from the beetle relentlessly chasing him, but his attacks couldn't scratch the durable exoskeleton. Once Ian was able to overpower his opponent by ripping the beetle's forceps cleanly from its body and squashing the bug, he picked up the two forceps and wielded them like axes. Ian was proficient with axes and made quick work of Kyle's adversary.

Dan was doing unexpectedly well. He gave up on trying to spear his beetle and switched to the heavy stick we all tried to lift when we first met him. He swung it at the beetle like a baseball bat. Even if he couldn't pierce the beetle's shell, he could still bludgeon the thing to death. Eventually, yellow liquid began oozing from the cracks in the beetle's exoskeleton and it succame to its inevitable demise.

Last up was Slyvia. Her defences were flawless as she wielded her shield in such a way it rendered the beetle's attacks useless. The downside to her defensive prowess was her lack of offensive power. Despite her finesse and grace she displayed as she sent a flurry of attacks with her sword, the beetle's sturdy outer shell displayed no signs of damage. The beetle grew bored of the stalemate and ultimately left Slyvia in search of a less guarded foe. Martha had long since defeated her beetle and saw Slyvia's opponent flying off, so she quickly knocked an arrow and pinned its forcep to a tree. The rest of the group finished off the pinned beetle.

Martha perceived Slyvia's downcast demeanour and recognized it was due to her being one of the only people unable to best their foe. She wrapped an arm around Slyvia's shoulder and tried to encourage her.

"Don't worry about it. This just wasn't your type of beast. Plus, it's not like you couldn't beat it…you just need to upgrade your sword."

Slyvia sighed, "You're right. Come on let's gather the crystals."

Each pair had lured their beetles a fair distance away from each other to prevent any accidental collateral damage, but were still within viewing distance. The system had collected one of the intermediate crystals for me, so I only had to carve one out of the beetles.

After harvesting the crystals, we made our way back to Slyvia. But before we could congregate, a sudden creaking noise caught our attention. Gary and I jumped back as a falling tree came crashing down inches in front of us. We were separated from the rest of the group.

Before we could hurdle the fallen tree, it spontaneously lit ablaze. The fire spread to adjacent fallen trees which apparently made a full circle around Gary and me.

"Slyvia the whistle!" Martha snapped.

"I…it's broken." Slyvia cried with horror.

"Just go back and get help!" Gary ordered.

Gary hadn't ordered the group to return to the academy for help merely because of a small forest fire. Instead, there were three people that stood in front of us with high level beast equipment. They were covered head to toe in armour, each brandishing a different weapon. One had a sword in his hand while the other was spinning a chain with a blunt weight at the tip and the third one donned a pair of daggers.

They all had one thing in common: their faces were completely covered by a red mask with two slits for eyes. They were clearly the perpetrators of the fire and wanted to separate Gary and me from the rest of the group.

We didn't bother telling the group as it would only serve to worry them or worse yet, lose precious time trying to break us free instead of retrieving help from the academy.

"Do you think it's the dark guild?" Gary asked.

I scanned them with my Dragon eyes but they didn't show signs of being infected by the shadow plague.

"Whoever they are, they're strong."

The man with the sword began the assault with a leaping overhead strike. I lifted my left arm to block while readying my right arm to rip his stomach open with the black tipped claws, but as the sword made contact with the gauntlet, I felt little resistance as it sliced through the defensive layer. I quickly lowered my left arm, twisted my body to the right to avoid the rest of the swordsman's strike, and used my shoulder to knock him off balance. I used the opportunity to put some distance between us.

The fact that his blade managed to slice through my gauntlet meant one thing: his blade was a higher tier. This was bad.