Ambush

"Jeez how does one bastard get so lucky?" Nina found this entire situation absurd.

This guys first gate was in an environment he was strongest in!

If they'd wound up in a jungle she was going to start breaking things!

Her first gate was on a beach filled with ravenous sirens and her power only worked on males!

"It is a bit unfair." Opal agreed.

"Even if it were the middle of the day, the night is wherever I am. That means home advantage is always mine if I so choose." Malachi gloated.

While a true statement, the truth was his control over his powers wasn't that strong yet.

Even if he did turn the day into night, it would take up all of his focus and leave him useless.

But of course, the people watching on stream didn't know that and everyone thought he was the coolest blessed imaginable.

'This is ridiculous… we just entered and we're already at 500,000 views!' Bill was over the moon.

"Alright, let's get moving." Nina didn't want to stay in this dark and cold place any longer than she had to.

The group began their trek though the desert yet Malachi was still on edge.

That feeling of being watched hadn't left him since he'd entered and no matter how hard he tried there was no shaking it off.

He was about to ask the girls if they felt anything strange when suddenly the earth rumbled and the blessed immediately went on their guard.

All around them, sand was parting and giant scorpions were rising up from the ground.

'They look.. off?' Malachi thought.

While they looked normal per say, there was a hollowness to their eyes that left him bewildered.

"Mal do you wanna take the lead?" Opal asked.

"It's his first dungeon of course he's taking the lead!" Nina gave Mal a hearty pat on the back.

"Careful. If he breaks in here then lady Luna will blame us."

"….Hey Mal why don't you let your senior take the lead, yea?"

Malachi chuckled at their concerns.

"You girls don't need to worry, I don't break that easily."

Suddenly Mal's jacket flew open and the dozen glimmering silver knives he had tucked away sprang out.

The group watched in awe as Mal controlled the knives expertly, their trajectory was precise, weaving around the bodies of the scorpions tightly before lopping off their head in a swift motion.

With the rapid movement of the blades in the dark, the group felt like they were surrounded by miniature shooting stars.

"Unreal.."

"I've never seen carnage so… pretty?"

The girls weren't alone, the number of views online had skyrocketed and all of the comments were saying the same thing.

Viewers were all completely stunned by the fearsome yet captivating display on their screens.

Once every scorpion had been beheaded, Malachi returned his blades to his jacket and breathed a sigh of relief.

Honestly he was more nervous than he'd been letting on so he was grateful that his first fight had gone off without a hitch.

Malachi turned around to face his group only to find them all giving him strange looks.

"Should we… Why are you all looking at me like that?"

"That.. was awesome.." Bill muttered.

"I'm pretty jealous of your control." Nina stated.

"Do you want another girlfriend by chance?" Opal asked boldly.

Nina promptly elbowed her friend in the ribs. "You can't have him! You know Bianca already called dibs."

"Tsk. Lucky bitch.."

Malachi was about to tell the girls he was more than satisfied with his current girlfriend when he sensed movement behind him.

He narrowly managed to dodge a well placed stab from the tail of a headless scorpion.

Activating telekinesis on himself to dodge and gain an aerial view, he frowned deeply when he realized these creatures weren't dead at all.

"What the hell?"

He wasn't that familiar with arachnid type monsters but he was fairly certain they shouldn't still be able to move after being decapitated.

It seemed like all of the other scorpions were recovering as well and they all rushed at Malachi.

He took one look at their thick exoskeleton and realized his knives would never be able to penetrate any other area of their body.

He clicked his teeth before his hands began to crackle with black lightning.

With a wave, he dropped several large lightning bolts on the backs of the headless creatures.

A hole was blown right into the center of their backs through their underbelly.

The creatures shuddered and fell over seemingly finally dead.

Malachi lowered himself to the ground and went to investigate their bodies.

Some were still crackling with electricity from his blast but he ignored that and focused on looking for drops.

While he was investigating, the group warily approached him while eyeing the dead scorpions curiously.

"Never seen insect type monsters survive after losing their head like that." Opal muttered as she poked at the corpses with her sword.

"Weren't they pretty aggressive too? They didn't even look at us." Nina added.

Mal finally stood up and his expression contained unmeasurable disappointment.

"Nothing… none of these things dropped a single item."

The girls both looked around and realized he was right.

While not every monster dropped loot, in a herd of 20 like this one it was extremely uncommon for nothing at all to drop.

"It looks like our pretty boys luck is over." Opal joked.

The blonde haired woman had no idea how right she was when in the next second an earthquake incomparable to the one that came before shook the desert.

Hundreds of giant scorpions crawled up from the desert sands and trained their beady hollow eyes on Malachi.

"What the hell is this…" Bill was now trembling horribly.

This was supposed to be a simple C ranked gate!

So why the hell did an entire horde of monsters just show up?!

Viewers were just as confused.

Hordes this big usually only showed up in S rank gates or above.

A reassessment of the gate outside proved that it was in fact C rank, so what was with this absurd amount of enemies??

Opal and Nina immediately became alarmed and drew their weapons.

Malachi's nerves were going mad.

There were so many enemies and their only focus seemed to be on taking his head off.

To make matters worse, there was this strange energy he could feel that was making his senses go haywire.

"Mal look out!"

Thanks to Opal's sudden warning, Malachi was able to pull himself out of his own mind long enough to see the four large stingers aimed directly at his back.

He avoided them with ease, but did not anticipate the venom that was dripping from them would be corrosive.

A single drop landed on his shoulder and burned a hole in his suit before traveling directly to his skin.

"Damn it!" He ground his teeth in pain before he took a giant leap back towards the group.

"Are you okay?" Nina had a worried look on her face.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Truthfully, Mal was really annoyed.

So much so that his animal instincts had begun to emerge causing his teeth to sharpen.

"I need you guys to stay behind me alright?!" Malachi suddenly thought of a crazy idea but he wasn't sure if he had the control or the necessary power.

"Mal we can't let you-"

"Lady Luna would kill us if-"

"JUST DO IT!"

Mal roared and the girls could now see his lengthened canines and his orange eyes that were now glowing too brightly to be hidden by sunglasses.

The girls meekly nodded and formed a tight circle behind Mal, waiting for his next action.

"Here goes nothing…" Malachi breathed in deep and summoned as much of his power as he could use at the moment.