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Chapter 30: Eclipse part 1

"Shouldn\'t we go back? it\'s getting late."

"Pffft, yeah, and miss on the orb? no thanks. It may be a weakling, but those things are too valuable to leave behind." Phlox replied. "Besides, we still have a lot of time, it\'s not even noon yet."

As they waited for the Black dog\'s corpse to disappear, Luna took her time to study the remains. Without any hint of fear or disgust she examined every part of the carcass under the awed gaze of her companions. The shape and size of its fangs, the color and texture of its fur, even its claws. Unfortunately for her the corpse vanished before she could finish, then a small opaque glass like bead fell on the ground with a clinging sound.

After Phlox picked the orb up and stored it in her backpack, they quickly resumed their incursion. Moving forward through the maze-like neighborhood, the hunting party was finally living up to their name. Now, instead of cowering and hiding, they were actively seeking for cryptids to hunt.

"Horned rabbit, over there!" Sam shouted pointing towards the lawn of a house in shambles.

Medusa was the first to reach the target and made quick work of the cryptid while the rest of the ascended students sighed in disappointment after being unable to participate in battle. Medusa almost felt bad for the poor creature because they didn\'t look so terrifying during daylight and it was left completely mangled after a single punch.

"You\'re supposed to call the cardinal direction, didn\'t you learn anything at school!?" Luna complained furrowing her brows. She still dragged her words in an annoying fashion, but she spoke a bit faster because of her intense emotion.

She wanted to study every different kind of cryptid there was, for that reason, she was carrying a notepad and was making drawings and scribbling doodles as fast as she could. Still, that would prove to be completely useless if she didn\'t have the time to actually examine the corpses.

So far, her notepad contained some information about horned rabbits thanks to her first incursion with the army, a little bit about black dogs because she was taken by surprise and couldn\'t pull out her notepad in time and she even managed to gather a little bit of information about the shapeshifter, despite her short interaction with the abnormal creature.

Although Luna had no intention to fight, Miss Dragonfang was still happy to bring her on the incursion. The information the young student was gathering could prove to be even more valuable than their loot, especially if she managed to find a way to identify shapeshifters without the need to approach them.

"You just move too slow..." Medusa shrugged as the cryptid\'s corpse started to slowly vanish leaving an orb behind. "It\'s not my fault your legs are so short." Medusa said picking up the flux orb left behind by the horned rabbit.

"My legs are not short, I\'m almost of average stature, I checked the statistics." Luna\'s words were met with pitying gazes from her companions, except for Miss Dragonfang who was loudly laughing without a hint of compassion for the short student.

They were still lost, but now they were actively seeking for cryptids after gaining some confidence on their combat ability. In time, they also acquired some degree of practice, which allowed them to spot any creatures faster and kill them even faster.

"We\'ll make a killing out of this!" Phlox gasped. "No wonder so many people refuse to join the army and go on independent incursions."

The seemingly empty city turned out to be infested by all sort of small creatures, some of which were cryptids, while others were simply bugs or even animals. Uriel was already familiar with mice, but when a racoon dropped from a tree he was scared witless.

"Cryptid!" He shouted.

"Calm down, it\'s just a... What are those things called?" Miss Dragonfang pondered for a few seconds. "Trash panda!" she finally exclaimed.

"Uh... That\'s actually a racoon, it\'s just an animal, Uriel. It\'s harmless." Luna, the one with the most knowledge about animals and cryptids alike, said calmly.

It was Uriel\'s first encounter with such creature and the only way for him to judge how dangerous it could be was its appearance. It actually looked more weird than dangerous, especially because of its small hands and odd colors.

"I\'ve been meaning to ask, why did the black dog you killed took a couple minutes to disappear, while the horned rabbits we\'ve been hunting disappear almost immediately?" Luna asked.

"It\'s because of the amount of energy, the stronger a creature is, the longer it takes them to vanish. You can speed up the process and retrieve the orb yourself, but the location varies from species to species and I\'m too lazy to memorize it."

Uriel took mental note of this as he followed the group closely. If the black dog took a couple of minutes to vanish, it could only mean they were a lot stronger than the horned rabbits.

"Ah! there it is!" Miss Dragonfang exclaimed pointing at a sign that was, somehow, still standing after all these years. "The exit should be that way."

Uriel didn\'t know the meaning behind road signs, especially those from old times, and he couldn\'t make much of it, but that didn\'t stop him from feeling safer now they weren\'t lost anymore.

The neighborhood was all mostly destroyed, either by bullets, explosions or strange claw markings and all the houses and buildings were tagged with many names, meaning they would most likely be empty. Because of that, every single member of the hunting party was excited to leave such a place behind.

Phlox looked around trying to spot one last building to check before going back to their camp and, as luck would have it, among all the destroyed, crumbling and burnt buildings stood a house that looked completely fine, with no markings on its walls whatsoever.

"Lieutenant... I mean, geez, why is this so difficult? Miss Dragonfang, do you think it would be possible for us to raid that place?." She said pointing towards the nice looking house with greed on her eyes.

"Really? Doesn\'t it look suspicious to you? a house like that with a well kept lawn and all, right in the middle of a lost city?" Miss Dragonfang replied. "Hey, Moonlight, do you know anything about a cryptid that could do something like that?"

"Do you mean, if I know about a cryptid that will mow the lawn, water the plants, paint the fences, repair the house and keep everything clean? That\'s a gardener." She said sarcastically.

"I\'m just a former soldier, I don\'t know much about superstitious stuff, whenever we encounter something we don\'t know we shoot first ask questions later." Miss Dragonfang shrugged.

"This isn\'t \'superstitious\' stuff miss Dragonfang, cryptozoology is an actual science." Then she took a glance at Uriel and before he was able to say anything she continued. "It is regarded as a pseudoscience actually, but it doesn\'t mean it is based on lies, it just doesn\'t follow the strict scientific method."

What menaced to become a raging debate about whether or not cryptozoology is a proper field of study, subsided as soon as Phlox spoke again.

"Then what about the next one?" The former corporal insisted, uncaring of any sort of verbal dispute, the only thing she cared about was profit.

The nice looking house, with a white picket fence, well kept lawn and beautiful flowers, started fuming smoke out of its chimney.

If this were the old times or if this wasn\'t a lost city, something like that wouldn\'t even draw their attention. Now, though, everyone stared at the black smoke in disbelief.

The smoke increased in density as it slowly rose up to the sky, faster by the second, until it began moving impossibly high up in the sky covering the sunlight in its wake.

Uriel thought it looked as if he was wearing sunglasses, not that he had any, but everything looked darker. It wasn\'t necessarily difficult to see, but the colors of the walls, the asphalt and everything on sight became pale and devoid of color.

Suddenly, the group heard a rustling sound coming out from a trash can. \'It\'s probably the raccoon.\' They thought at the same time. Then, a tin can was kicked in the distance and finally, strange noises started coming out from every direction.

"Something\'s not right." Said Uriel.

"No shit Einstein! We need to scatter, that\'s an eclipse!" Phlox shouted.