The Druid flew across the sky as quickly as his wings could carry him. To anyone below, he would have been a small blur zooming underneath the orange-red clouds directly above. At his current Level, his high flying speed would have easily shamed a regular hawk’s in a race. The landscape underneath him shifted as he flew. The city very quickly became too distant to see, and eventually, even the camp disappeared from view.

  I think I’m already about to soon be past the area they’ve explored. Feels weird to think that after not even flying for that long. But I guess that’s just the difference between people just walking on foot and someone moving faster than freeway speeds, huh? Jaco thought to himself.

  Down below, he then spotted an irregularity. Figures that contrasted the otherwise mundane landscape. The hawk’s speed drastically plummeted as he slowed down and took a better look. He didn’t need to descend, however, as he could easily make out exactly what he was seeing even from so high up in the sky. That was just the benefit of having the eyes of a raptor, for ya.

  Hmm, seems like it's just some undead. Two Ghouls and seven Skeleton Mages from the looks of it. While they are moving in the camp’s general direction, if their path stays at this angle, I think they’ll just miss it entirely. Eh, better to eliminate them now before they become factors in the moving plan. I could use the warm-up, anyway. With that thought, he began to dive down in order to engage the undead.

  When he got closer, Jaco was able to identify the undead with the System just to confirm their Levels.

  Ghoul (Undead)

  Level: 19

  Ghoul (Undead)

  Level: 21

  Skeleton Mage (Undead)

  Level: 23

  Skeleton Mage (Undead)

  Level: 22

  So no surprises there in terms of their average Level. But it's always good just to be sure nowadays. Even the basic Skeletons inside the fortress were just as strong as these guys. With the third stage of the Apocalypse now ongoing, one could only be cautious that these stronger types of undead might soon appear with equally higher Levels. In any case, this group in particular were just a bunch of riff raff when compared to him.

  Jaco then glanced at the notifications that had come with his earlier transformation.

  Ability Temporarily Restricted:

  Lesser Beast Transformation

  Temporary Ability Acquired:

  Whirling Cyclone

  Temporary Ability Acquired:

  Talons of the Tempest

  He recalled using the second of the Temporary Abilities against the first Minotaur. But he’d never given the first one a real test drive, had he? The Druid then figured that now was a good of a time as any to rectify that. These guys wouldn’t even be a challenge after all and not worth much Experience, so might well get some actual value out of them as test dummies.

  The hawk felt the Mana channel as he activated the Ability. How it started from his core, and then went to the very outermost tips of his feathered wings. Jaco felt a flash of recognition as he could inherently feel a similarity between how the Mana was currently being utilized compared to when he used Lesser Elemental Offense. He couldn’t quite explain it in words, only that these two Abilities just felt highly comparable at a foundational level.

  Then as soon as it was ready, he believed that he was close enough to the group of undead. They just continued to shamble ahead, their heads pointed forward. If these mindless monsters weren’t triggered by directly hearing or seeing something, it might as well not have existed to them. So it was while they remained completely unaware of his very presence that Jaco activated his Ability with just an additional flap of his wings.

  The power unleashed took immediate effect. Rather than just manipulate the air around him like with Elemental Offense, this Ability diverged to become closer to the way Elemental Offense generated his own fire. In that it also generated its own wind, which were released together in tandem with his wing beat.

  Two gusts of wings slammed into the undead, each coming from an opposite side. One was formed with heavily moist air that started from upward and then quickly sunk. While the other gust’s air was extremely hot and rose from the bottom. They mixed together, spinning around and around while sucking up the surrounding air in their wake. The ever growing force of the wings left just one small spot in the middle untouched, forming them into a true cyclone.

  As the Ability continued to form, Jaco could sense how it would keep functioning. Past the initial activation cost, it kept draining a steady amount of Mana from him. And what it did with this energy was actually kinda fascinating.

  The rapidly growing cyclone actually took this Mana and used it to affect the air directly surrounding it. So now it was constantly being fed with extremely freezing and humid air at the top, and burning hot air at the bottom. This difference was even more extreme than what would normally be found in nature, and was also being held together by the magic that inherently made it work.

  The center was of course placed in the middle of the undead. The Skeleton Mage closest to this point was the first victim as it simply got clobbered between the colliding wind gusts. The rest of the undead then turned around, but without immediately sighting an actual enemy yet, didn’t further react. Not that it would have mattered, anyway.

  As it only took seconds for the cyclone to grow and grow. With each moment that passed, it continued to increase in both size and ferocity. From a relatively small column it quickly grew to the size of a large truck. Then just a couple seconds later, it became comparable to a small house. This was the point where the next pair of Skeleton Mages were dragged into the buffet of winds and got torn apart. The cyclone then continued to increase in size, and just kept dragging in the undead as it did.

  It was only when the cyclone had already grown big enough to cover a large, multi-story building that the acceleration of growth hit its limit. It did seem to keep growing with the amount of Mana it took up, but now would seem to do at a much slower pace. With his current Stats and power, it seemed that this was the limit for when the Ability reached quickly diminishing returns.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Even after the supply of Mana was cut off, the cyclone kept spinning for another minute or so before it then slowly dissipated. As a hawk, Jaco couldn't whistle as he normally would have. So instead, he just let out an appreciative screech as he felt impressed by the Abilty’s overall performance.

  Below him, bits of bone and rotten flesh were scattered about. The cyclone had effectively acted as a shredder that tore apart the undead with slicing winds. Not a single one was left, as even the resilient Ghouls had all their tissue mercilessly ripped from their bones. Jaco was personally unsure if this would happen to someone caught in a naturally formed cyclone. But even if not, he was more than happy to have that be the case for this magical one.

  Though if I had to give it one weakness, it’d be the build-up time. I’d say that it took around 15 seconds for it to more or less reach the cap to its growth rate? That’s pretty good against mindless undead that can’t even think to look around when the source of the attack isn’t obvious. But if I had used it back then against the Minotaur in the fort, that much time might as well be forever. Plus there’s the fact that it would have likely hit the Angel too, he thought to himself.

  With that now settled, though, Jaco resumed his original mission and kept flying ahead. While that bit of practice with the cyclone had drained a bit of Mana, it wouldn’t prove an issue as he was still remaining in his bird form. He didn’t have almost 150 Will and 200 Spell Power for nothing, after all. With how large his reserves were and the speed in which it naturally regenerated, he could more or less remain in this form for however long he so desired at this point.

  After getting higher up again, the Druid soared through the sky. His watchful eyes scanned the rolling fields on either side of the freeway, as well as the top of a nearby forest. About half an hour had passed since his encounter with the undead, but he hadn’t seen anything else of note. By now, he wanted to say that his distance from the camp was 40-something miles, or at least 30 at an absolute minimum.

  However, it was just shortly after this point that he spotted something in the distance. A column of dark smoke was rising into the air. His eyes narrowed as the sight brought back the memory of seeing the camp being attacked. After climbing just a bit higher up, his bird’s eye view allowed him to clearly see the source of the smoke.

  It was a small town, or at least what was left of one. Before the Apocalypse, this town seemed like the kind that would have been home to a couple hundred people at most. Now, however, a few of its buildings were up in flames. And from a distance, he could spot what appeared to be ants moving across the roads. Though when accounting for the far length between him and them, he already had a feeling that these were people running around.

  Other survivors? Jaco asked himself. Though with the way that most seemed to be running away from a smaller number giving chase… he had a bad feeling. Following his gut, he kicked his speed up a notch to get there even faster. He rapidly flew through the air, now trying to reach them as quickly as physically possible. And as he got ever closer, his bad feeling was unfortunately confirmed.

  Men, women, and children alike were running for their lives from a smaller group of what appeared to be four individuals. Jaco could only watch as one woman and two little kids were chased by someone who appeared to be a Scout, who then shot a single arrow into the woman’s back. When she fell, the Scout allowed the kids to despair for just a few seconds, before firing off two more arrows.

  “Mark me for three!” the Scout yelled out, just loud enough for Jaco to barely catch the words between the other ongoing screams. From down that street, another man pulled out a notebook and quickly scribbled something into it. It took Jaco just half a second to realize exactly what it was he just witnessed.

  They… they’re treating it like some kind of game?! Sons of bitches, they’re fucking sickos! His blood boiled with fury. When he got even closer, Jaco quickly looked between the group of aggressors and assessed the System screens that then appeared.

  Scout (Human)

  Evolved (Sharpshooter of Mana)

  Level: 30

  Warrior (Human)

  Evolved (Iron Vanguard)

  Level: 32

  Warrior (Human)

  Evolved (Elite Warrior)

  Level: 33

  He then finished with the man who had written into the notebook.

  Mage (Human)

  Evolved (Arcane Sorcerer)

  Level: 36

  Jaco instantly recognized the Class Evolution named on the last screen. As part of their long-term goal of understanding the System, Sam had mentioned it during their earlier meeting. She would have then later written out the specifics when free, but he would already have left the camp by then. But even without knowing the exact details, it was his understanding that this option focused more on upgrading a Mage’s raw firepower.

  Though interestingly enough, he then had a sudden realization. Was this the first time that anyone had actually seen a repeat of Class Evolutions? In the sense of two individuals picking the same thing. It made sense that it hadn’t been seen before, to be fair. Since the number of people above Level 30 was pretty small, and mostly made up of the Chosen Few.

  As the Druid had considered that thought, something he’d been preparing in the meantime was then released. By now, he’d already flown close enough to get within rage as well. He stared directly down at the Mage, who was currently reviewing something in his notes.

  A beam of fire shot through the air at high speeds, aimed right for the apparent leader of this group of Chosen. Coming from dozens of feet up and behind, his target never even knew what happened until the beam pierced straight through his skull. The Mage then dropped to the ground, already dead.

  The remaining Chosen Few collectively turned toward the noise they heard. As the Mage had been positioned in an intersection in the middle of their group, they were all close enough to see him.

  All of them stared down at the still-warm corpse that was the strongest member of their group, their eyes widening with horror. Without anyone seeing the attack itself, they would likely think for a moment that he had just collapsed on his own. And during this moment that it took for them to process what just happened, the Druid considered something that came to mind.

  Was there another way than just killing the man outright? Perhaps, but this was the best choice. There were no means of keeping superhumans with magical powers currently available to them, after all. Could Jaco have simply incapacitated him for questioning and then killed him? Maybe.

  Even if the guy was hostile, there was the chance that if Jaco promised to spare him, he might have been more willing to spill some information. Now Jaco would have then killed him anyway, which is why the idea would have left a bad taste in his mouth. But none of that actually matted. For the thought of even temporarily sparing the Chosen for questioning had only just then come to mind. So it was a bit too late, as the individual in question had already been turned into a corpse.

  His cold gaze left the body and scanned the remaining members of the Chosen Few. Perhaps he would leave at least one of them alive for questioning. Or he could just kill them all here and now, and be done with it.

  It was only after the initial shock passed that they looked in the direction that the beam of fire had come from. There in the air directly above them was something that nobody would have expected. A bird that simply stared back down at them.

  Naturelly, the next thing they would have done was try to identify its Level. One of them took a few steps back in fright, as another heavily swallowed, and a third just stumbled back and fell. They all stared up into the eyes of the hawk who would alone act as judge, jury, and executioner. And today, he was in no mood for mercy.