Shadow Weaver: Sole Heir Of The Night

"Is that Beta crawler?"

In the massive opening where a small base had been formed, a young man pointed out at a crawler in the distance emerging from a canopy of trees, slowly approaching the base with a crooked walking pace and its cannon smashed in half.

Clearly, extracting the blood from a great terror had proven to be much harder than it sounded. The damage to the crawler was a testament to its brutality.

"Allow them to dock at the repair platform," a voice sounded from the intercoms as the figure of Master Seth appeared in the window of the activity room, signalling those at the gates.

Shortly, the Beta crawler docked and Raven exited the crawler with a massive canister floating atop two spinning orbs at equal distance from each other.

"Hold it stationary, let me check." Suddenly Master Seth appeared from a back door with several others from other instructors.

"Ionized. It seems like we have the same thought process," Master Seth thought to himself as he viewed the blood sample in front of him.

Most of what the others had been sent to capture were at most terrors of the common tier with the highest being uncommon.

He wasn't completely insane to send these young men and women to their deaths fighting things way stronger than them.

However, what he sent this group after, despite how simple it seemed, was much more dangerous.

"You two, take the sample to the storage room. We'll need it soon," Master Seth said, rubbing his chin approvingly.

He was very pleased with their achievement and looked forward to sending them on more detailed missions in future.

After all, this was a part of their 'assessment' of students.

Deeper into the night.

"Capturing the white-haired mankat isn't any easier, those craft lot, they are the devils themselves."

Around a campfire in the base, the other two teams discussed the parts they played in the missions and how it was fighting against real-life corrupted beasts.

Most of them had only seen them in their voyages, that is, those whose voyage even involved them.

"Sounds hard," John commented, a smile on his face. He was a second year and was one of the outstanding talents in that year under Snowfall.

As such, he had a lot of friends and influence as right now he was the focal point of attention.

"Incredibly. If not for Senior Brother O'Neil, we might not have captured even one," someone else chimed in.

There were three 3rd years that had succeeded in entering exalted stage in the teams… it was planned from the very beginning to be as such.

"Yeah," John nodded at the tall man with bronze skin seated completely naked in the far corner of the base, only his underwear visible.

Snowfall was inherently biased to their family members. But they were also power-hungry, ready to give their all to develop talents in their name.

They were one of the top families from which the Dual Moon Institute derived its power, so they had to be cut-throat in recruiting the best of the best.

"What about you? How was your mission?" A familiar voice resounded from the group, a female with white hair and a short build.

Licia.

She was fishing to understand how well Enzo and his group had done in their mission, an obvious fact from the way she looked at John.

"Hehe, it was fine. It was just an extraction mission," John responded with a casual smile.

He was saying the truth, it was just an extraction mission. Of course, telling them that they were sent to extract blood from a great terror was a completely different story.

"Come on, Brother John, look at the state of your crawler. It can't be so simple," another person called out, pointing to the crawler in the distance.

It was being repaired as they stood right now.

"Hehe, I'd rather not," John shook his head. Not because of anything, but because he could just not go into it as he was still processing it.

"Haha, John is too polite. Why don't you guys let me tell you the story?" Suddenly a savage-looking young man with hair that grew long and bushy, touching his lower back, appeared walking to the campfire with a cup full of rum.

Supplies were limited on what could be brought, but this guy really brought instant rum? What a lack of priorities.

But still, who did not know the attitude of Ice Lake's Savage Wolf? It was a completely normal sight to behold.

"So, it went like this." He suddenly came to a long bench and pushed two others from their positions, sitting right between them before starting his narration in great detail.

They spotted the red hammerhead centipede sprawled atop a small hill. It was much bigger in size than the crimson tail centipede, but its length was a mere 20 meters longer.

But its most prominent feature, its hammer-shaped head, gave it away.

The moment they confirmed it was their target, they loaded the cannons of the crawler with armor-piercer rounds then opened fire, drawing the creature from its position to more flat ground where they could fight it.

The key wasn't to kill, so a surprise attack was useless.

As it rushed at them, they led it into a downhill slope of massive shrubs and vines entangling some of its body parts while they used lasers to cut their way out.

Knowing that the creature wouldn't hold forever, they had their neighbourhood arsonist set the entire thing ablaze, the scrubs and the creature alike, hoping to further weaken it.

However, it only made it angrier as it brought the fire to them directly.

Thankfully, Savage Wolf was a slashing specialist and was able to bleed the beast to the best of his capabilities, allowing them to extract its blood and run away.

"Wow, that's a lot for a terror…" Licia frowned at the elaborate planning.

Was Savage Wolf secretly a fraud? Why would he need to go to such lengths to bleed a terror of the same rank?

"Terror? What makes you think it was a terror?" As if her words were just registering, Savage Wolf belched and responded quickly, standing up to leave.

"Huh?"

For a brief moment, everyone sat there in confusion at his last statement as they watched him slowly leave the area and go sit next to O'Neil at the far corner.

Quickly, they turned to John questioningly, trying to get an answer.

"Yeah, the mission description said we should extract from a fully mature hammerhead red centipede. Coincidentally, those are typically at the great terror stage."

As John finished speaking, a cold silence washed over the group as a few of them began to sweat.

A Great Terror?

That old bastard had sent the Beta team to face off with a Great Terror??!!

John continued to smirk bitterly at them with a smile that wasn't really a smile.

How could he explain further to these guys that this wasn't the full story? How was he supposed to explain to them that they had actually killed that Great Terror?

In the corner,

"You're full of shit, Klien. Even if we joined forces, yourself, me, and Rika, we wouldn't be able to kill a Great Terror. Stop spouting nonsense."

In the corner, the bronze-skinned youth named O'Neil retorted Savage Wolf's statements, tossing it away as lies.

The only person he knew of that had killed a Great Terror as an exalted was Titus, and that was with the help of several others from his club and outside.

This was like the previous generation of miracle workers that graduated in their second year.

"Naturally, it would be attributed to luck… but it's a fact." With a sneer, he pulled up a photo of a dead hammerhead red centipede.

O'Neil, of course, looked over and frowned deeply. It looked impossible… but evidence was right before him.

[Red Crawling Scales]

[Withered]

[Description: amongst the crawlers of nature, the hammerhead is the most brutal and headstrong. With scales not just built for defense, it is a force to be reckoned with. The scales are its lifeblood and will serve you well.]

Enzo looked at the red scales around his left arm as he made them squirm and crawl to his neck forming another guard piece around his neck.

It wasn't a full armoured set, but in his arsenal of life-saving weapons, it was now number one.

"Hehe," Enzo smiled coyly. He didn't expect to get an echo of this might so soon. It would surely make a lot of people jealous… if he ever told them about it.

'Better to keep it hidden for now. It's not that inconspicuous anyway.'

Enzo said to himself as he slowly laid his head on his bed inside the base.

This was just their first day on planet Defi. There was so much more to come. Be it good or bad, Enzo would just have to face it head-on.