Chapter 277 A Freak Accident
Pheross immediately shot a blue lightning orb at Sera without Jean Grey giving it any order. As usual, the spectators were surprised that Jean didn\'t say anything and Pheross moved on its own, even though they knew for a fact that Jean Grey could converse with his tamed beasts in his mind.
In response, Satoshi also didn\'t say anything. Instead, he also ordered Sera to buff herself up with her status effects. With a cheerful squeal, Sera flew up and gave off a bright yellow light, covering the entire open field with her buffs and debuffs at the same time. Satoshi was already satisfied with what she did, but little did he know, Sera could actually do more than give buffs and debuffs.
As Sera descended to the ground, her plain white body was suddenly covered with a white lacy dress, and the gears on top of her head became bigger as they rotated erratically. No sooner had she gone down, Pheross suddenly felt heavy.
"What\'s going on?" Satoshi asked. He could see the struggle in Pheross\'s eyes but he didn\'t bother letting Sera stop midway through her move activation. Her indirect attacks were pretty effective after all, so there was no need to interrupt her.
Honestly, Sera\'s transformation in terms of appearance was quite pleasing to the eyes, and it made everyone focus on her more instead of Pheross who was having a hard time standing. Unbeknownst to the spectators, Sera actually layered a couple of status skills on the field, giving Pheross the poisoned status, paralyzed status, burnt status, and rebuffing all his stats. It was a crazy mixture of debuffs that reduced Pheross into a weak tiger, or rather, a cub.
"Pheross, are you all right?" For the first time during the fight, Jean spoke worriedly towards Pheross as he sensed his inner struggle. Gritting its teeth, Pheross turned around its owner and nodded. It can still go on, but at this point, it already took all of its strength to just keep its standing pose.
"Pheross, I want you to push through a couple more seconds, and then once you reached \'that\', we can finally activate your special move." Jean Grey whispered towards his Pheross.
\'Sera, do you know any attacks? If possible, we have to defeat Pheross right now. But if you don\'t have any offensive attacks, just maintain a safe distance from Pheross and continue with the debuff, all right?\' Satoshi said in his mind, communicating with Sera as she stood still. With a nod, Sera let out another cute squeal towards Satoshi as she proceeded to continuously debuff Pheross.
Even though Satoshi gave Sera permission to attack, she wasn\'t really expecting Sera to do anything. However, before Satoshi could think of another thought in her head, Sera planted her feet on the ground and locked her arms a little bit to the side.
Sera then frowned, and then a bright white light started forming in her hands. From the looks of it, Satoshi thought that she was doing a poor imitation of a ras*ngan but such wasn\'t the case. Sera was actually tapping into her innate celestial energy and forming it into a ball of compressed energy. Sera then fired the ball toward Pheross.
"Heh, just in the nick of time." Jean Grey muttered to himself as Pheross finally broke through his limit. "Now! Use Indomitable Guardian!"
Indomitable Guardian is a tamed beast skill exclusive only to the blue lightning family. After withholding its attacks and enduring for a specific amount of time, a beast could activate this skill. The effects of this skill is mainly invincibility for a couple of minutes, as well as doubled stats regardless of buffs and debuffs placed on the tamed beast. It was a skill that completely counters Sera\'s abilities, rendering them useless.
\'Now, Pheross, use agility and then pin down Sera.\' Jean Grey said to his Pheross through his mind. Even though the indomitable guardian skill had a time limit, he figured it\'d be more than enough to take down Sera. It would be a close fight, but he had already calculated how he\'d e able to win.
Before Satoshi could react, Pheross had disappeared from where he was standing, appearing behind Sera as she scratched her back with his retractable claws on his paws. It was a pretty swift attack, and Satoshi didn\'t see it coming at all!
"SERA!" Satoshi screamed.
As for Jean Grey and Pheross, they were relieved that the attack actually connected. If Satoshi reacted in a panicked manner, then that means Sera had been hit by the attack. And what\'s more, it was a pretty powerful move since all of Pheross\'s stats have been doubled at the moment.
Dust and bits of rocks sprayed everywhere as Pheross landed the attack. Even though Pheross caught Sera off-guard, it still was relentless with its attack. It didn\'t even worry about killing Sera with its powerful blow.
\'Did I go too far? Eh?\' Jean Grey muttered inwardly as he forced a smile on his face. He then told Pheross to get out of there and not let his guard down. Pheross promptly obeyed, retreating back to its usual position.
"SERA?!" Satoshi called out, wondering why he couldn\'t see Sera when he could still feel his connection to her.
Swish!
The moment Pheross looked back, he saw Sera, standing right behind him. No one saw how she got there. Somehow, she just appeared right then and there in a snap of a finger. And what\'s more, she was preparing another energy ball in her hand.
"Mmuuu~!" Sera let out as she shot the energy ball toward Pheross point-blank. Satoshi could\'ve sworn that Sera meant to let out a \'Kamehameha\' when the energy ball escaped her hands. At this point, Satoshi felt a slight annoyance emanating from Sera as she shot her energy ball. Satoshi had no idea why she was angry, but he could tell that Pheross\'s attack caught her by surprise, and that\'s why she got a little bit annoyed by it.
Fwip!
Boom!
When the attack connected, there was a bleep as if dimensions were torn apart. The bleeping sound was then followed by a huge explosion that blew most of the spectators away. Pheross let out a scream of pure anguish as the attack connected...
... and then...
AGHK~!
Jean Grey suddenly coughed up blood as he impulsively knelt down. Something in his stomach hurt, and he felt like dying. For some reason, the attack that Sera shot at his tamed beast also affected him.
The amount of wind pressure that occurred from Sera\'s attack brought about a rainy day in the park. And when the dust and rocks that flew all over the place cleared up...
Everyone gasped in surprise.
There it was, Pheross, lying on the ground, with half of its body blown apart and al bloodied up. It was breathing raggedly as if it was on the verge of death. Pheross agonizingly look at his master as it tried to say goodbye... but it was no use, it could feel its life dwindling away.
And apparently, Jean Grey\'s connection with his tamed beast was so strong that he also felt the attack. That\'s why he coughed up blood. A portion of the damage that Pheross took transferred to him thanks to that connection.
"Oh no..." Dahlia was the first one to let out a reaction as she watched the dying Pheross on the ground.
The second one to react was none other than Sera. For the first time in the entire series, Sera opened her slits of eyes and clear gold irises could be seen. She wore a shocked expression as she ran towards Pheross. kneeling on his head as she let out a couple of whimpers. It seemed like she was apologizing to Pheross for what she did.
"Pheross! Urk~!" Jean Grey tried to crawl toward his tamed beast but he was injured as well. He helplessly reached out his hand as he watched his partner die before his eyes.
A stray tear fell from Jean Grey\'s eyes as his fond memory of getting Pheross as his first tamed beast from the professor started replaying in his mind. Back then, he dreamed of becoming a beast master. And now, a few years later, he had achieved it. And all this time, Pheross was right by his side, assisting him and fighting for him. Through the hard times, they trained together and spent their years together as master and beast... no, as best friends.
"Pheross... no..." Jean Grey called out. He could feel the connection he had with Pheross starting to sever. Pheross was dying. Of course he was dying, half of his body was blown apart after all.
What started as a friendly beast battle between a beginner and a beast master turned into a bloodbath— something that no one expected to happen in the middle of the park.