Fighting The Monkeys (1)

People with mana are sensitive to significant changes in the emotions of those around them. They usually do not feel the subtle changes but when a wide sea of people go from enjoying their day to being put at the forefront of death, they are bound to sense it.

These emotions would invade the mind of mana users and cause them to lose focus. They would have to struggle to contain themselves and not get engulfed by the motions of others.

This only happens when there is a large group around them. Being a decent away from others would also deter the emotions from affecting them.

'Even with my mind boosted by the serum, this is hard.'Cynthia had small beads of sweat dripping from her forehead as she tried to save herself from falling into an ocean of others' negative emotions.

It felt like she was on a wooden boat in the middle of a turbulent sea where tall waves and dark clothes came ever so close to consuming her existence.

The pressure was immense and she had to practically give it everything she had to hold on the mast of her sailboat, hoping that the ship can stay afloat for long enough.

The same was the case for Karina who was currently kneeling while holding onto her head. There were over 200 people around them and this caused quite this surge of emotions.

Karina had never felt mental pressure like this in her life and the imaginative pain that came with was incomparable to what she had faced when awakening. Still, she had been tempered by expert mana users in preparation for cases like this.

She was still able to hold on for a while longer, the two girls just had to let their ships adjust to the waves, to ride along with it. As long as they had enough time to get used to the pressure, they can regain their normal train of thought.

"ROOAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!" the apes suddenly yelled as they pounded their chests with pride. It seemed to be a call to war, the apes were getting ready to begin their slaughter of small monkeys in front of them.

'F*CK' the two girls cursed in their minds as they had no energy to spare for moving their lips. They were slightly scarred by the sudden events and were in no way prepared for anything like this.

Regardless, the girls were unwilling to lose hope as they were banking on a plethora of possible events such as the arrival of their guards, the government, or some Extractors who might happen to be nearby.

Granted, the Extractors would have to be willing to put themselves in danger for others. These girls are stubborn and unyielding, they wouldn't give up if there was the slightest chance to win.

ZWING!

As if to answer their hopes, a figure of an able-bodied youth appeared behind the girls. He wore a white dress shirt tucked into his tight, black trousers at the waist. He wore a pair of white sneakers and his blood-red hair was distinct.

His crimson eyes were set at Cynthia's back, which he also found strangely alluring. No one noticed this man appear from nowhere as they were too occupied with their impending doom.

Unlike Cynthia and Karina who had expressions of struggle and the others who had faces full of fear, Ryan Fronterra did not sweat a drop.

He just stood there, calmly eyeing the girl who, in the last two days, had not failed to give him surprises. A smile appeared on his handsome yet somewhat villainous face as he took out two pills from his pocket.

The pills were a light shade of blue in color and had no markings on them. He walked in front of Cynthia, held her jaw, and lifted it up. He then forcefully broke her concentration by opening her jaw with force and dropping a pill into it.

He did the same for Karina and then stood up and continued to scan the apes that had formed a circular formation around them. The humans had been trapped in a cage, like rats with nowhere to go.

The girls, who were definitely angered by his forceful methods, glared at him with a cold look in their eyes. This sent shivers down Ryan's spine.

'If their eyes could kill, I would most likely be an ice sculpture that was based into pieces.' he thought while preparing his man in secret, getting ready to teleport the girls out of here as soon as they were in the right state of mind.

'I would save these people if I could, alas, my powers aren't the best for combat. Not yet.' Ryan looked back at the girls whose expressions were now returning to normal.

"Sh*t! What did you just feed me?" cursed Cynthia as she rubbed her jaw. She had felt an ethereal sensation of warmth spread in her mind as all the pain and pressure from earlier were alleviated.

It only took seconds for the side effects of mana to be wiped out as if wasn't there in the first place. The medicine didn't wait and had started acting the moment it entered the mouths.

In their minds, the girls imagined their storm-ridden sea to gradually halt their tumultuous movements and turn into an obedient child. The dark clouds that occasionally poured out thunder and rained poofed out of existence as holy rays of sunlight beamed down.

They felt serene and protected by this holy light as they bathed their bodies in its comforting embrace.

"I don't know what it is called. My family uses it to shield themselves from the side effect of mana's emotional sensitivity. It only has a duration of ten minutes." he replied truthfully.

Since Cynthia had not been very active in the field of man users, she didn't know that's something like this existed but it would make sense that there were preventative measures.

The governments would never allow their Extractors to have such a glaring weakness for long and probably spent loads of money around the world to find medicine to help them.

At this point, Karina stood up from her kneeling position and carefully looked at Ryan's handsome face and was shocked, but not for the reasons one would imagine.

"What's wrong?" Cynthia saw the reaction that was clearly present on Karina's wide-eyed face. She wanted to make sure her sister's friend was alright. They had not even started to truly get along yet so it would be a pity if something bad happened to her.

When Karina heard Cynthia's voice, she turned to look at the girl that's seemed to be familiar with the boy in front of them. She also noticed that Ryan looked at Cynthia with a strange gaze which she reciprocated back.

Karina wasn't sure what was held in the eyes of the two for each other as she was still young and not really experienced with anything serious like romance.

This is why she decided to fix her expression back to an icy one and answered the question with a question.

"How do you know my cousin?" she said with a questioning gaze at the both of them.

Cynthia and Ryan were stunned. "COUSIN?!!" they said at the same time while looking at Karina in surprise. It sounded like Ryan also didn't know that this silver-haired girl was related to him.

"ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!" The sound of the ferocious, blue-furred apes broke out once again, this time with more power. They had finished winding up and were ready for the slaughter.

"SH*T! We don't have time for this. Since we're related, this should be fine." Ryan rushed up to the two and grabbed them by the waist and activated his mana to allow them to teleport out of here and into a safe place.

After a moment of silence, he had expected them to be in a different area but that expectation was ruined when he found that his man was not being spent and that they stood rooted to the spot.

"Interference magic? F*CK! This is a trap!" he said out loud and the girls that were taken by surprise when he hugged them, also heard it clearly.

They started guessing in their minds about who and why someone would make sure a vicious trap. Who was their target and what kind of means did they issue to trigger such an event?

"Uh..can you let go of us?" asked Karina as she was somewhat embarrassed but didn't show it. The tip of her ears, however, were slightly red. Cynthia noticed this but didn't care. She could see that there were no romantic feelings in Karina's eyes. Not even an ounce.

Cynthia also didn't say anything because she was okay with being in his embrace, though she would prefer it if she was the one holding him instead.

Ryan complied and let the two of them go which disappointed Cynthia. Only a little. It disappointed her very little!

"Our only choice is to fight then," said Cynthia as she went through her hair and was tying it back. Ryan started to feel a strange attraction towards her when he saw her holding a hairband in her mouth and her arms reaching behind her to adjust the straight locks of jet black hair.

"Hot!" he said in his head while trying to look away from this stimulating scene.

Karina also fixed her hair but with hair clips instead. She carried these all the time just in case a situation where she had to fight came up. These clips had tech installed in them that would not let them fall out hair easily.

The three lined up side by side and stood in the very middle of the crowd. This was to make it hard for the apes to approach them.

This was them technically using the rest of the humans as literal meat shields but at the same time, these three youths were their only hope. They didn't know this though as they were too lost in their own thoughts to notice anything.

They were more focused on sitting on the ground, awaiting what was to come as the moments they cherished in their short lives flashed their eyes.

"You guys ready?" asked Cynthia as somehow, she had become their leader. the other two nodded as their mana flared up.

As soon as this happened, the monstrous apes let out one more burst of roars while charging at the crowd. These apes were waiting for the humans with powers to show themselves first before action.

they didn't want to dive head in and take large, unknown risks. this is why they roared and intimidated the humans before attacking when either all or some of their hidden cards were shown.

By no means, were these beasts idiots as they understood the principles of hunting in unknown land very well.

When they had finally attacked, the humans standing and sitting in the crowd were completely trained from the last bits of their hope.

"NOW!"

SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!

Numerous projectiles of ice and blood-red thorns headed towards the 22 beasts that were so much taller than the humans.

The ice spikes looked as if they would slam right into their faces. This caused the apes to react by putting their thick burly, arms in front of their faces. They were assuming that the ice would hit their arms and shatter but they felt nothing.

Only, their feet started to feel cold as they saw the ice that was gliding up their legs. Within seconds, they had stopped moving as their legs were stuck to the ice that had attached itself to the ground.

The ice bloomed outwards like a flower and each of the 22, blue apes had their feet planted to the interconnected ice that had formed a ring around the humans.

The people that once had given up everything, regained a sliver of hope as they looked at the supernatural powers that were rarely shown in public.

Many of them turned around and faced the middle of the circle where the figure of a goddess was imprinted in their minds.