Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Everyone watched as the merchant caravan continued on its way to the city of Lelvern on its own, without Lucius and his party joining them. After he had told everyone that the injuries done to the Quillow Beast will be slow to heal, they figured that this was a good time to track it down and finish the job.

After all, their job was to hunt one down and turn it into a merchant who dropped the request off at the guild.

Many of the injuries inflicted on it were on the front legs which would slow it down majorly. Because of the type of monsters they were, the injured ones were often kicked out of their pod if they were deemed a potential risk or threat to the others.

All of these factors combined set up a rather golden opportunity for them to actually take one down now, instead of having to either locate a solo one or separate one from another pod later.

Being the person with the best skills for tracking and scouting, Lucius thought about doing the standard procedure of scouting several hundred feet in front of the group, but after taking those spines to the leg, he was not so enthusiastic on running into the monsters alone.

Rena agreed with the idea and felt like it was a good idea for the party to remain together while in a new location. Jen could not really offer up a good counter argument to convince even Paul and Lethen otherwise, so she simply agreed with the group assessment.

One thing that Lucius did fail to mention about his Mutilation skill was that anyone who survived his attack with it would be branded with an invisible mark made of mana that Lucius would be able to identify at any time in the future. It did not let him track the monster down, but if the monster were to fully heal, he would be able to tell it was the one he attacked if he ever saw it again.

The secret trick to Mutilation is that it was a skill that a victim was not meant to survive from, either directly or as the result of their injuries after. So, the mark was left as a part of the skill to ensure the user would be able to finish the job later. Really this was how every skill that used red colored mana worked.

It was a curse built into the rules of the skill as a 'punishment' of sorts for surviving the attack.

There was no way he was going to share this information with his party. Maybe Rena in the future, but not everyone else. He only trusted them as far as adventuring together goes, but you never know when a friend could turn into an enemy. There were exactly two people living in this world that he trusted. One was his mother, Rubellia, and the other was Rena.

The sun began to set on the horizon by the time the group felt like they were getting close to the monster. As they had theorized, the injured one was slowed down and actively bleeding from most of its injuries. It helped leave a trail, but it was not enough to be life endangering.

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Per the information they had on the Quillow Beast's behaviors, it did seem that it had been ejected from the pod for the safety of the other two.

That would make the hunt so much easier for them. However, they wanted to get it before the sun fell. It was a bad idea to fight in the woods at night, unless you were Lucius who could basically see in the dark.

His ears began to twitch as he heard the yelps of pain of a familiar sounding creature up ahead. Lucius held up his fist to the group and whispered in a low tone, "It is up ahead and still hurt. I think we can take it quickly if we plan this right. Rena, what are your thoughts?"

Jen cocked an eyebrow at Lucius' sudden display of rebellion against her. She was the one who normally made the plans as the leader of the party. The reason behind this behavior were two-fold: one, he wanted Rena to have more decision-making power to put her brain to work, and two, Jen kind of annoyed him with her prattling earlier about his opinion on 'honorable' versus 'dishonorable' skills.

"We will leave it up to Jen. She is the party leader."

"Of course, Rena. Jen…what do you want us do?"

"Paul will take position in the trees, Rena as well for any long-distance coverage. Lethen and I will jump in to take melee after you distract it." She ordered.

"Done."

Lucius quickly skirted around where he felt like the face of the creature was. He figured that Jen and Lethen could deal with the much more dangerous ass-end of the creature this time around, especially for making him a distraction, yet again.

There was another thing he could do to get back at them… he never did tell them what his signal would be before he left, but how could they miss it?

As predicted, the creature was limping along and trying to nurse its wounds. It had stopped to take a short rest, but was hyper-aware of the surroundings. It jumped at every little sound worried a predator might take it unawares. Lucius could almost see the sweat pouring down its face as it seemingly sensed his hungry eyes glaring at it from afar.

"[Tempestas: Lightning Bolt]!"

A pale blue mana in the form of electricity danced around his body once again. Dark clouds formed in the sky, and the air began to smell of ozone. A flash of bright, white light illuminated the surrounding area, searing the eyes of anyone looking at the creature. In the instant the light disappeared there was a loud crack of thunder that echoed through the woods as a result of the strike.

He was still a Novice, so the power left a lot to be desired. Honestly, it was more of a show piece at the moment than a serious threat. Right now it did not do much damage, but most of its power led to temporary blindness and deafness of the target.

Jen and Lethen rushed at the monster that was hissing and screeching from confusion.

"[Shield Arts: Double Bash]!"

"[Sword Arts: Grand Swing]!"

They opened up with a skill each. Lethen's shield glowed golden and a second 'skin' in the same shape of his shield formed in front of the real one. He smacked the lower jaw of the Quillow beast once, but the sound of two impacts met Lucius' ears. The monster recoiled from the hit, then took a powerful uppercut swing from Jen's greatsword.

"[Bow Ars: Twin Arrow]!"

"[Glacies: Ice Spike]!"

Two golden arrows followed by an Ice Spike shot towards the beast's now exposed underbelly. The monster roared in pain, though still seemed to be blinded from the earlier Lightning Bolt. Despite having no sight, it still faced its backside to it's foes and prepared a spine barrage.

"Not this time!" Lucius growled. "[Forsaken Arts: Goring Rush]!"

His machete glowed gold with mana once again and he lunged forward at the monster. His target was the center of it's forehead, intending to slash directly at its skull. Just before the weapon connected, he called out a spell. "[Tempestas: Thunder Clap]!"

Electricity surged down his body and coated the blade of the weapon. At the moment of impact between the sword and Quillow Beast, a massive explosive 'BOOM' filled the air and a wave of wind pressure blasted everyone back several feet. The source of the explosion was the intersection of the machete blade and the monster's head.

The explosion weakened and cracked the Quillow Beast's skull and jostled its brain from the vibration. Thanks to the weakened bone, the blade simply cut right into the monster's brain like a hot knife through butter.

When everyone's ears stopped ringing, they stared wide-eyed at the black-haired boy who only just awakened his magic mere hours ago. His lips felt cold and all of his strength was gone. The only thing keeping him standing was the fact he had fallen back onto a tree, yet his knees shook in desperation to keep him from collapsing.

"I think that one needs a little more practice before I do it again." He shouted. Something wet tickled the side of his head and when his hand reached to feel what it was it came back red with blood. "Oh, yeah, that move needs work."