Eren released Renar and the rest. Then introduced him to them as Ronny; a fellow anthrope who wanted their participation in exploring a place meant for rankers like them. Renar could feel it in the butcher’s address that the possibility of their participation wasn’t up for the debate.
The guy whose three limbs Eren had chopped off in his fight with him now had three different limbs attached in their place. They were limbs taken from other dead rankers of the same rank. The surgeon had done a good job patching the guy up. But he couldn’t do anything about the different skin tones and textures he now carried on his doctored body.
“Introduce yourself.”
Ronny asked Renar and the rest in a commanding voice. The captives couldn’t see the C-Rank entity that had scanned them but they were wary of its existence. They couldn’t underestimate Ronny either because of the fierce aura surrounding him.
“Name’s Renar, sir Ronny. I’m glad someone from the Beast Bloods came to save us. Our surrender to the city of Silvermoon…”
Ronny raised his hand and told the guy to stop with the act.
“I’m indeed an anthrope like you. And I was once part of Beast Bloods too. But not anymore. So you don’t need to explain yourself about how and why you were caught.”
Renar realized then realized that there were no Beast Bloods higher behind this guy. And the exploration he was going to be part of wasn’t planned by his previous organization.
“Al.. alright. I’ll keep things concise then. I’m Renar. Boys, out with your names too.”
The young anthrope who had previously gotten beaten up by Ken introduced himself as Viper. And the guy whose limbs Eren had hacked introduced himself as Belar.
“Renar, Viper, and Belar. Good to meet you. Before I let you understand your assignments, I want to see how well you can fight and use your anthrope powers.
Renar, you are up first. We’ll fight without using any spells.”
Eren wanted to see how effective his new pawns were going to be. He wanted to gauge their strengths so he could make effective use of them. Plus, he had never fought using his E-Rank strengthening before.
Anthropes had access to the same type of spells other rankers had. But they were blessed with relatively higher body stats. The anthropes who could implement the high body stat values into their battle styles and turn that into their strengths would have the edge over normal rankers.
Eren asked Renar to fight without using any spell because he couldn’t use any E-Rank spell. Only his body was strengthened to the E-Rank by Reen’s fusion after all. He couldn’t use the E-Rank spells on the borrowed body boosts.
Renar nodded his head and manifested his anthrope transformation. His transformation was based on a crocodile-type mana beast. As a result of which the transformation turned his skin dark green before loads of scuts were formed on its surface.
These scuts enforced the skin and made it more resilient. These scuts were the reason Almera’s wind arrows couldn’t take care of Renar previously.
Eren used therianthropic transformation mimicry as well while Reen had strengthened his body into E-Rank. Since they were going to fight without any spells, Eren could focus on testing his and the genuine anthrope body’s limits.
“Don’t hold back.”
Eren shouted before bolting towards Renar. The latter had also understood that Eren meant business and no half-assed performance was going to impress him.
Eren AKA Ronny and Renar got within striking range of each other. The former made a chopping action aiming for the target’s neck, which was blocked by the latter just as swiftly. Renar launched his counter by trying to land a blow to Eren’s stomach with his right knee.
Even without the time-element spell, Eren’s perception in close combat range had gotten pretty sharp. He saw Renar’s right knee heading for his stomach. Instead of blocking it or stepping aside, he used his left foot to step on it, using it as a springboard to jump over his target.
Zwhoom!
Eren became airborne when he successfully pulled that move. But the fight had just started. He united his right hand’s fingers into a fist and swung it forward as he was being dragged down by gravity. His fist was aiming at the guy’s cranium.
Renar saw that Eren had almost disappeared on him when he tried low-blowing him with his knee. Before he could register what had happened, his mana sense told him the attack was going to come from above.
Renar braced his arms in X formation up above his head without looking up. The timing was impeccable as the punch landed right in the middle of the X formation as soon as it was made.
Eren’s E-Rank strengthening wasn’t all for the show. It packed a punch as it cracked the ground on which Renar was standing. Five feet wide and two feet deep crater was formed with Renar standing in the middle of it.
But Renar himself was not injured at all. The crocodile scuts had absorbed most of the impact, enabling the genuine anthrope to carry on fighting.
‘That’s impressive.’
Eren thought as he praised the resilience of the anthrope’s body. For some reason, it excited him too. If a copy can produce such promising results, how effective should a genuine demi-human transformation be?
‘I desire this power!’
Eren thought and subconsciously grabbed Renar’s wrist. An unfelt-before pulse of mana was generated at that time. Eren’s skin melted and spread across the guy’s hand. It created a sizzling noise as the anthrope’s skin melted. Eren’s liquified skin absorbed all that plus Renar’s blood, producing a steam-like mana residue in the process.
“Aaaarrrrrgh!”
Renar yelled in agony. He couldn’t understand what was happening to his arm. The guy told him there wouldn’t be any spell usage. But now he felt stupid believing in some random man.
Eren was bewildered too. He couldn’t make heads or tails of what was happening to him or his unintended victim.. But in the next second, the hand that had grabbed Renar’s almost melted wrist also turned dark green and had crocodile-like scuts over it.
