STRIKER: Independent Beast Tamer

Cave:

Butch and his friends summoned their lifeline beasts to fight alongside them. The Tier-3 Scorpion Beasts were taller than they were. They needed their lifeline beasts' help.

Meanwhile,

Jeremy Night and Sinag Clark heard the noise of the beasts. They knew it must be the Tier-3 Scorpion Beasts.

"Get ready to fight," Sinag said.

Hearing that, Jeremy unsheathed his blade. He could feel the extra weight and power. A good idea crossed his mind all of a sudden.

He decided to fight without using the starlight energy.

Swoosh!

Sinag Clark summoned her lifeline beast. The next second, a large, beautiful butterfly over 6ft appeared above her.

Jeremy Night was taken aback. It was the first time he had seen the rare insect-type lifeline beast with such interest.

Boom!

But before he could observe the lifeline beast further, a large number of Tier-3 Scorpion Beasts rushed out towards them.

Seeing that, Jeremy slashed at the beast coming toward him.

Puchak!

The blade sliced through the beast's legs as Jeremy moved forward. He was surprised by the force generated by the armor.

He thought, no wonder others were wearing the armor. It could provide defense and generate force as well.

The Tier-3 Scorpion Beast tried to attack with its stinger, but Jeremy was faster. He raised his sword to attack the beast's head.

In a flash, his blade penetrated through its head. He didn't have time to take a look at it. The next second, he confronted another beast.

This time, his blade cleaved through the abdomen of the next beast. His eye ability was helping him find the weakness of the beast.

On the other hand, Sinag held a saber in her hand. She was standing behind her lifeline beast. The beautiful butterfly was stunning the Scorpion Beast with a sound attack.

Sinag then attacked the head of the stunned beast.

While fighting, Jeremy glanced at them. He was surprised by the ability shown by the lifeline beast. The sound ability was rare. He had thought it was only found in bird-type lifeline beasts.

But it was impressive to see such an ability from an insect-type beast.

Smack!

Just as he lost concentration for a second, a huge sense of crisis hit him.

"Fu@k," Jeremy turned around to fight. But a long stinger came right before his face.

At the last moment, he sidestepped to avoid it. But he got hit by a giant stinger. He felt the impact through his armor suit.

His body was flung backward the next moment. Then he crashed against the cave walls. For a second, he felt dizzy. His body was aching in pain.

"Jeremy Night, why are you not using your lifeline beast?" Sinag asked out loud.

She watched how the newcomer was sent back flying. But she didn't have time to focus on him. Her lifeline beast was struggling hard against the number of beasts.

One after another, the poisonous black scorpions were trying to attack the beautiful butterfly with their deadly stingers.

Jeremy Night stood up. Like he had guessed, his response was delayed due to the armor suit. He needed time to adapt. Where could be a better place than this?

Then he started to use his starlight ability to attack the beasts.

Meanwhile,

Butch and his friends were engaged in a tough battle as well. But they had strong lizard-type lifeline beasts. Their fighting ability was no weaker than the Corrupted Scorpions.

It's a pity that Butch had different plans earlier. He had thought about exploring a few passages. But the passages were flooded with Scorpion beasts at that time.

"There is no need to go further. Retreat back with your lifeline beasts. We can deal with the corrupted beasts outside," Butch said to his friends.

He didn't want to be surrounded by these beasts. Otherwise, it would become difficult to get out. Moreover, he wanted to eliminate those two from the Shadow Moon Organisation.

The rewards for eliminating them were higher than completing the mission. But he wouldn't dare to abandon the mission.

The employer clearly saw through their hostility earlier. And he was the one who asked them to act separately. So he had no choice but to fight.

As time passed, the number of Scorpion beasts began to decrease. Except for Jeremy Night, everyone was an elite Tier-3 Beast Tamer. Together with their lifeline beasts, they continued to clear out the lair.

On the other hand, Sinag Clark had big doubts in her mind. She hadn't seen Jeremy Night's lifeline beast. She had even called out to him earlier, but there was no response.

Instead, he had been fighting solo. But she knew this was not the place to ask. Apart from the Tier-3 Scorpion Beasts, they had other threats to take care of as well.

It didn't take long for them to kill the last beast. No more scorpion beasts were coming out of the passages. Still, they were not sure whether the scorpion beasts' lair was cleared out or not.

Because there was no sign of other beast tamers; they had entered the passage before them.

"Should we go inside?" Jeremy asked.

After slaying more than 30 Tier-3 Corrupted Beasts, he had somewhat adapted to fighting in the armor suit.

Sinag looked at her exhausted lifeline beast. She then called back her lifeline beast into her mental zone.

She then turned towards Jeremy and said, "I can't go. My lifeline beast is tired. Both of us need time to recover."

Hearing that, Jeremy wasn't surprised. His starlight energy was close to drying out. It's just that he didn't want to give the Sun Wheel Organisation's Beast Tamers an opportunity.

"Alright, I'm going ahead to check out the passage," Jeremy Night said.

Sinag nodded to him. She herself needed time to recover. She then found a place to sit down and started practicing her breathing method right away.

Jeremy entered the passage where scorpion beasts didn't come out in large numbers. He thought others must have entered the passage and confronted those beasts.

He quickly walked inside. Not long after entering, he paused his movements. After giving it some thought, he pressed the chest plate. The next second, the armor suit opened up.

Then he removed the armor suit before placing it inside the storage ring. Now he grabbed the katana blade and felt a lot lighter.

If he fought in this state, then he could fight more corrupted beasts. If Sinag saw him, she would definitely scold him.

But he was doing it for some reason. He didn't want to be restricted by anything, especially when he was engaging in a do-or-die duel.

He then continued to walk inside. At the same time, he was using his lifeline beast.

Meanwhile,

Butch and his group were trying to exit through the passage. They had no idea someone was coming from the opposite direction.

In this narrow passage, their lifeline beasts were finding it hard to move forward. So they had all called back their lifeline beasts into their mental zones.

But they didn't know they had made the biggest mistake of their entire lives. Behind them, the scorpion beasts were continuing to chase them down.

At the same time, the four beast tamers were also retreating with injuries. Their lifeline beasts were exhausted and injured as well.

It was not always easy to clear out the beast lair, especially when the strength of the beasts was similar to theirs.

Right now, they needed to recover before eliminating the remaining beasts.

About 10 minutes later,

Jeremy Night saw them from a distance because of his eye ability. Instead of unsheathing the katana, Jeremy took out his handgun and held it in his hand.

Then he used his starlight energy to cover the bullets.

Butch and his friends were coming back with serious expressions on their faces.

Jeremy then used his eye ability for accuracy. He was going to target the foreheads of the people, so that the starlight bullet could hit their brains.

He held the gun handle tightly and raised his hand to target their foreheads.

Bang!

Jeremy fired the shot targeting Butch, who had shown him hostility earlier. The starlight pierced through the air, moving at breakneck speed.

In a flash, it appeared before Butch's forehead. As a Tier-3 Beast Tamer, Butch felt a sense of crisis because of the fast projectile.

But it too late for him to move. He had not been paying attention earlier. Only after the sense of crisis kicked in did he feel something was wrong.

Pfff!

The starlight bullet went straight through his forehead before coming out.

Bang!

Three more shots fired the next moment. One after another, the bullets went through the foreheads of the other three Beast Tamers.

Tud! Tud!

When the body of Butch fell to the ground, the corpses of Dalton, Cassidy, and Billy dropped down the next second.

Their eyes showed disbelief and unwillingness. The death was so sudden that they didn't know what had happened.

Because of their death, their lifeline beasts met with the same fate as well.

Boom!

Jeremy didn't have time to inspect. He saw Tier-3 scorpion beasts rushing toward him.