Starbound Awakening

Isara and Soren were facing maybe the most difficult null to fight. This null was the venom null. And why was it difficult to fight? That was because it could easily poison its opponent.

Now, why would that be a problem for the duo? The body of the null is composed of venom. Well, not the whole body, but most of the body of the null is composed. Thanks to his constellation, Soren was a melee fighter.

This meant that he had to touch his opponent to do some damage, and being unable to touch the null, reduced his damage output by a lot, even though he had a skill to handle that.

Not only were they unable to do much damage to the null, bu they also needed to watch out for the attacks of the null, because it was poisonous. And they had no way to circumvent it at the moment.

So their battle could easily be the most difficult.

[Ice lance]

Isara stood a few meters away from the battle, with about five weird runic circles above the Soren and the venom null he was fighting.

The runic circles glowed a faint blue color as multiple lances started shooting out of the circles. The lances were about four feet in length and had a very cold aura on them.

They were targeted at the venom null. So the venom null had to not only dodge the attacks, but defend against the attacks of Soren.

Anywhere the lance landed, ice would spread for about half a meter before stopping. So even though the null had no brains, it instinctively knew that it wasn't supposed to allow those lances to touch it, no matter what.

But that was proving very hard with Soren blocking its chances of escape.

Soren released punches into the air, a brownish aura in the form of a fist leaving his hand, going towards the venom null.

The venom null managed to dodge most of the attacks, but with Isara joining Soren to attack her, dodging the attacks seemed a lot harder.

And finally, it happened. Soren's fist managed to hit the venom null, sending it crashing into one of the many buildings in the vicinity, kicking up a whole lot of dust and debris.

Isara obviously would not miss this chance, even though she was unable to see the null. She started shooting ice lances into the dust, and eventually, ice crystals started forming from the intense cold.

She stopped for a few seconds, and that was the mistake.

The null lashed out with what seemed to be a whip, made entirely out of green venom, with the head of a snake.

Soren was unable to react as the snake-head poison whip made a large gash across his chest, infecting him with a whole lot of poison and sending him flying away.

Isara's expression changed as she saw Soren flying away. The venom null slowly stood up from the dust and debris, walking into the light. On its body were a whole lot of icicles, meaning that Isara's attack had worked, but there was no time to celebrate that.

The venom seeping off its body was already melting the ice, so it would only be impeded for a few minutes at best.

With Soren blown to god knows where, Isara had to fend for herself.

Raising her hand, she formed four runic circles in a row in front of her. Ice started gathering in her hands as the runes on the circles glowed a faint blue color.

The ice was slowly shaped into another lance, but this time it was about seven feet long.

She pushed the lance through the first circle, and it started rotating fast, picking up speed. The lance was pushed through the second one, and the speed became faster. It moved through the third circle and disappeared.

Well, not disappear, but it moved so fast that the eyes could not follow it. In the blink of an eye, the venom null was impaled.

But it didn't stop there.

The lance changed into what looked like a spiked ball, embedded in the body of the null. From the spikes, about five ice chains were formed, anchoring themselves to the ground, keeping the venom null in place.

It was at this point that Soren appeared. He had a large gash across his chest, but he didn't seem to notice that or anything around him at all.

He was charging at the chained-up venom null like an angry monkey with an orange aura surrounding his body.

Green veins were moving around his body, coming from the wound on his chest.

Isara saw that and with a wave of her hand, what looked like a patch of ice appeared on his chest, covering the wound slightly, and at the same time, some gauntlets made out of ice appeared on his hands to protect him from the ice.

Soren finally arrived in front of the null, not knowing the changes that had happened on his body. With his eyes and body glowing orange, he started punching away at the venom null.

The venom null tried to retaliate, but every time the attack was about to land on Soren, a screen of ice would block the attack.

But once again, Soren didn't seem to notice that, all his intent focused on killing the null in front of him.

Every punch of his created a shockwave that shook the null to its very bones. After about five minutes of punching, the venom null was now only a bloody pulp.

It turned into particles of golden energy that were divided into two, fifty percent each going to Isara and Soren.

Golden glows covered their bodies as they levelled up. The wound on Soren's body closed up as he vomited a mouthful of green blood.

It was at this point that some clarity entered his eyes. Isara walked beside him, her cold eyes looking at what was on the ground.

There were two green orbs and one glass marble with a swirling purple mass inside.

"That was easier than I expected," she said, picking up the orbs and the marble.

She gave Soren one of the green orbs and kept the marble.

"This thing looks suspicious," she said, keeping the marble.

She finally turned her head to see Soren staring at her, but as their eyes met, he quickly looked away.

"The nulls aren't dead yet," she said as she walked away.

Soren put a hand on his chest, trying to calm his heartbeat.

"This isn't normal," he muttered and ran into the horde.

****

Everyone was fighting, but Lucas was running.

Lucas, being the coward that he was, ran away from the battle because he didn't want to fight anything.

Even after five days of putting his life on the line, the nulls still scared the shit out of him.

He wasn't smart by any means; he only managed to get into the college on a sports scholarship, for rugby.

He never had the brain, and he knew it. He wanted to live a good life, but never wanted to work for it.

Rugby was the only thing that he loved, so he didn't mind doing the work for it.

He was lazy to the point that he had everyone do his sh*t for him. So he was a bully. That kind of bully that took pleasure in hurting the weak, but had no voice when facing the strong

But everything changed when his roommate's skin started turning black then he lunged at him.

Lucas threw his roommate in the way of the monster, and that was how he managed to live that day.

Then he met Zayden and his team and found a weird pistol being pointed at his face. He had to swallow his pride, promising to have his revenge, but the chance never came, and things led up to this.

There was no way he was going to fight these monsters. If he fought them, he knew that he would die, and if he didn't figh,t he would still die if Zayden found out about it, so he had to get out of there.

He didn't know where he was running to, but he just kept running.

He kept running without looking back, he was now out of the horde area when he saw a male silhouette in the distance.