A Risk Worth Taking

"They are ready Nishon." Jardon said as he walked into a gigantic structure which looked like a massive cave that had been altered to look like a house with the use of magic.

"Send them out immediately." Nishon said, sitting on what appeared to be a throne made out of the same material as the cave.

"Are you certain we should not attack more than two planets?" Jardon asked.

"I am." Nishon replied. "I do not intend for this to be a full-scale attack. It is just to deliver a very important message."

"Of course." Jardon said then excused himself.

"They will never see this coming until the moment it hits them." Nishon said to himself then smiled.

***

After the help that they had gotten from Jake and his group, Kyle's group decided that staying close to Jake's group was a much better option than separating and running into a beast they couldn't handle by themselves.

Seeing no problem with the proposition offered by Kyle and his group members, Jake agreed to it after discussing it with his group but they agreed on one condition.

The condition being that Kyle's group will not get involved in any of their fights against the beasts unless asked for help.

With the deal made, both groups continued moving together but stayed a reasonable distance apart.

Currently, Jake and his group had come across a cave which seemed to be the resting place of some beasts of the same type.

The beasts looked like wolves but were far bigger and instead of two eyes, they had three eyes which were closed at the moment.

"Are you sure we should do this?" Max asked, hiding behind a large rock along with Smith, Jake, Kevin and Diane.

"Yes." Jake replied. "There are at least ten beasts inside that cave. When Kyle's group is done with that beast they're fighting, they can come over here and all of us can kill the beasts."

"T-That sounds v-very risky and d-dangerous." Smith said shakily.

"I know but think about it, isn't that a risk worth taking?" Jake asked. "We know that the beasts are primary ranked beasts, and we don't have to fight the beasts all at once. We can try to lure some out and kill them, then we do it again."

"I think Jake's right." Kevin said. "There are ten beasts and there are ten of us. We get five beasts essence and the other five goes to Kyle and his group."

"So we all agree?" Jake asked.

"Yes."

'If I can deliver the killing strike to at least seven of the beasts,' Jake thought, 'I'll be close to leveling up to level eight after I reach level seven. Now that I can mimic two magical abilities, I think I'll mimic Max's magic. Having the Fatal Strike as offensive magic and Max's force field as defensive magic will be good for what we're about to do.'

After moving to Max's position and touching him while making it look like he was trying to get a better view of the cave, Jake looked at both screens of his system.

[Jake Cayden]

[Level: 6]

[Health:160/160]

[Species:Human*]

[Strength:35]

[Speed: 36 +2]

[Endurance:43]

[Mental Moxie:21]

[Mana:31/31]

[Magic:30]

[Element: None]

[Ability: Magic mimicry]

[Exp: 1353/2500]

Swiping to the second system screen in his head, Jake saw the magical abilities he had mimicked.

[Stat points: 5]

[Mimicked magic 1: Fatal Strike]

[Strength of Mimicked magic: 15]

[Mimicked magic 2: Force Field Generation]

[Strength of Mimicked magic: 19]

[Total Magic Strength: 34]

'Total magic strength?' Jake thought. 'Does this mean I can combine the strength of both magical abilities together?'

Explaining the plan to Kyle and his group after they had killed the beast they were fighting, they agreed to the plan and after waiting for their mana to replenish, all ten of them went to the orifice of the cave.

"So how do we wake up some of the beasts and lure them out here without disturbing the others?" Kyle asked.

Picking up a stone from the ground, Jake threw it at the beast that was the closest to the exit of the cave. He had not held back his strength so when the stone hit the beast it woke up immediately and looked around before spotting Jake and the others.

"It's coming." Max said. "Quick, wake up some more so that they attack us at once."

While Jake was waking up other beasts, Kevin tried to use his magic on the first beast which was slowly heading towards them and to his surprise, he was able to possess the beast.

His eyes were now cyan in colour and he was standing still without moving a muscle.

Jake had successfully woken up four of the beasts and all four were heading towards them but seeing the beast in front of the rest stop moving, Jake and the others became slightly concerned.

The beast had stopped moving and after the other beasts had overtaken it, it had continued moving, following them from the back.

"Move back." Jake said and immediately began taking a few steps back.

Seeing Kevin remain where he was, Smith called out his name, "Kevin!", but he still didn't move.

Quickly moving to meet Kevin, Jake saw his eyes were now cyan and knew that he must have used his magic to possess the beast that was now following the other beasts from behind. Jake lifted Kevin onto his shoulder and took him to the side of the cave where he knew the fight would not affect.

"Don't attack the beast at the back." Jake shouted to the others. "That's Kevin."

With Kevin's body out of harm's way and the beasts now out of the cave, everybody began attacking without holding back.

Jake ran to one of the beasts and used the fatal strike magic to slash the leg of the beast. To his surprise, the dark red line that would usually come out from his hands and the daggers was bigger and brighter than before and it cleanly cut two legs of the beast at once.

'Then I was right.' Jake thought. 'I can combine the strength of both magical abilities together.'

As the beast collapsed on the ground, Jake used the fatal strike magic again and cut off the head of the beast. Not stopping to take out the beast essence, Jake moved to another beast.

Kevin, who was still in the body of a beast, was fighting with another beast along with Smith and Diane. He was using his extremely sharp teeth to bite down on the neck of the beast while receiving damage from the claws of the beast.

Smith and Diane were also hitting the beast as fast as they could so that they could kill it before it kills Kevin.

Jumping in unexpectedly as the beast continued to claw at Kevin's head, Jake used the fatal strike to divide the beast into separate halves and went to another beast without slowing down.

After Jake killed the beast, Kevin had returned to his real body and the beast he had possessed had been killed by Smith.

"Don't make eye contact with the beasts." Max shouted. He had made eye contact with the three eyes of one of the beasts and had stopped moving instantly. He was unable to move no matter how much he tried. It was only until Jake killed the beast that he had regained control of his body.

All the noise from the fighting had woken up the other beasts that were still in the cave and they were currently running out of the cave, heading towards Jake and the others.

After killing three out of the first four beasts that had left the cave, Jake saw the other beasts running towards them and he ran forward.

Ignoring the calls of his teammates, Jake ran towards the beasts and used a force field to protect himself from the teeth of one of the beasts and immediately after blocking the teeth, he removed the force field then used the fatal strike magic to divide the head of the beast into two.

Jake noticed the others coming to help him and because of that increased the speed at which he was killing the beasts.

Jake slashed, jumped, cut through, shielded, and when he was about to kick the leg of the last beast, he was hit by the claw of a beast which he thought was dead.

He had slashed the beast with the fatal strike but apparently the strike hadn't killed the beast, it had only done critical damage and after the beast had clawed Jake on his back, it had died from the excess loss of blood.

[Your blood has been drawn]

[Health points will now be used to heal wounds]

[Health:150/160]

Due to how high his endurance was, after receiving the hit on his back, Jake didn't feel much pain and went ahead to kick the leg of the beast in his front then sent out a fatal strike attack which left his hands and the daggers and divided the beast diagonally.

"Are you alright?" Smith asked with concern, getting to Jake after Kyle.

"I'm fine Smith." Jake replied with a reassuring smile.

"Let me see the wound. I can heal it." Smith said, concern still evident in his voice.

"Why did you run to the beasts like that?" Kyle asked.

"I felt like." Jake answered.

"You felt like?" Kevin asked casually. "You felt like putting your life at risk and worrying these guys?"

"So you weren't worried?" Jake asked.

"Of course not." Kevin said. "You running to the beasts like that, means you know what you're doing."

"Are you really alright?" Diane asked, still concerned about Jake. "That looks like a lot of blood on your back."

"Seriously, I'm fine. The beast didn't do much damage, just kinda grazed me." Jake said.

"That didn't look like..." Kyle was saying before Jake interrupted him.

"Anyway, did you guys get the beasts essence from the beasts?" Jake asked.

"Yep." Max said, standing up from the ground where the last beast Jake had killed was. "I'm with our five, Ava is with theirs."

"You know," Kevin said, "technically you guys shouldn't get any beast essence."

"And why's that smart guy?" Rick said.

"Because, Jake killed nine out of the ten beasts, and Smith killed the last beast." Kevin answered, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"That's because he always jumped in and killed the beast we were fighting." Mike said. "We didn't ask for his help."

"Kevin they're right, just let them have the beasts essence. You see," Jake said, "ten beasts essence and no injuries. This was great."

Looking at his system screen again, Jake saw that he was now in level seven.

[Congratulations, you are now level 7]

[You have been rewarded with +1 to all stats]

[Jake Cayden]

[Level: 7]

[Health:170/170]

[Species:Human*]

[Strength:36]

[Speed: 37 +2]

[Endurance:44]

[Mental Moxie:22]

[Mana:32/32]

[Magic:31]

[Element: None]

[Ability: Magic mimicry]

[Exp: 3147/3500]

After levelling up, Jake's wound healed up and his health points was replenished along with his mana.

"Let's keep moving then." Kyle said. "Since everyone is alright."

"Yeah, let's go." Rick agreed.

Jake's group now had nine beasts essence, while Kyle's group had seven beasts essence and one of those being the beast essence of a medial ranked beast.

Just as they were about to leave and look for more beasts, they all heard a powerful roar coming from inside the cave.