Not even a moment passed from the first scream until ten more sounded from the crowd's edges. The sounds of explosions, flashes of colorful light, and the splattering of blood enveloped the entire area in pandemonium.
Jacob immediately began shouting for his companions, the noise dying under the mass of screaming people.
The delvers around them pushed each other around, scrambling over one another as they stampeded in every direction. Many rushed towards the passage to try to break through and escape. But it was pointless.
The more powerful and experienced delvers tried forming their parties and breaking out of the mass of bodies, but they were vastly outnumbered by beginners who simply wanted to get out.
He spotted Jack, the tall, blonde man with two scars on his cheeks, dragging his sister, Jean, the woman with the scar across her eye, out of the crowd with the help of Rick, the man with the massive red mark across his head.
Suddenly, a human corpse flew right at the mass of bodies pressing against the blocked passage. A flash of light lit up, and with the dull, disgusting sound of human flesh splattering, the corpse exploded, killing nearly a dozen people. Blood and guts splashed over every single one of them, painting the whole area red with gore and shredded armor.
All Jacob could hear was a muted buzzing, with explosions and screams breaking into his muffled mind like rocks through the surface of a pond. His eyes flickered, quickly spotting Theodore, Phillip, and Karen—but Rachel was nowhere to be found. His blood went cold for a moment, but he spotted her in the next second.
Just as he was about to rush to her side, he saw her take a nasty hit by a cloaked figure, a kick that landed right on her midsection and threw her back further away from the mass of people.
Panic sprung through his whole body. Rage burned in his chest, and he rushed forward. He knew that he should regroup, that without his team, there was little he could do, but he wasn’t thinking about that. This was different. This wasn’t an attack they had prepared and plotted for.
Rather than allowing himself to calm down and assume the position of a strong leader or guide, at that moment, he was just a young man watching his lover get thrown into a mass of enemies.
There was only one way he could respond. He rushed to save her.
Rachel tumbled, then dropped into a shadow, using her talent to teleport behind one of the figures not too far from herself. She swung a dagger right at the man’s back, but in the second before it landed, three phantasmal figures of pure flame appeared at her sides, looking much like the man she was about to assault, and stabbed shortswords right at her.
She reacted in time to block two of the attacks, but the third stabbed into her ribs. Keeping her composure, she leaped back and dove into another shadow, but before she could get away, another figure, a giant of a man, threw a punch at her, and she lifted her daggers to at least try to defend herself.
It was useless. The force of the attack effortlessly carried through her puny defense, shattering both her arms as the bulky man gripped her by the back of the head, pulled her body out of the shadow she had half-sunken into, and slammed her into a tree… killing her instantly.
Jacob froze. His thoughts slowed to a halt, and he watched with eyes wide open, mind uncomprehending. The sounds of explosions, flesh being torn, and bodies being crushed fell into the background as nothing but a high-pitched buzzing filled his ears. “No…” he whispered, his knees shaking as his legs nearly gave out from under him.
“Jacob…” someone was shouting at him. “Jacob!”
Everything snapped back into place as he turned his head and faced Theodore.
“I understand!” Theodore shouted. “But grieve later!” Theodore pointed to another section where Karen struggled to defend herself against a cloaked, bulky figure swinging a massive sword at her. Phillip was working overtime to keep her safe as she seemed to be freezing up.
Numerous people were dying around them as explosions and projectiles tore people into pieces, with anyone who was trying to escape the encirclement getting picked off by skilled fighters. The situation was growing more desperate by the second.
“Fuck!” Jacob barked after a moment of hesitation as he rushed to help his party members, Theodore by his side.
The two of them reached Phillip and Karen in the next moment, and with their presence, the bulky figure backed away, swinging their sword to the side as they continued killing other, weaker delvers.
Jacob shouted at them, throwing out standard orders while the others listened impatiently, constantly glancing around them to see whether anyone was directly attacking them.
Theodore swallowed a lump as he looked around, failing to spot his former party. He forced himself to take his mind off them and refocused on Jacob’s orders. Jacob barely knew what to do, and his words kept slurring. “Shit!” he shouted. “We don’t have time to organize! Just… get into a fucking formation already!” he spluttered in a panic.
A cloaked figure leaped out of the woods on the other side of the battlefield. She was clearly a woman based on her build, and from her back, a giant scorpion stinger appeared, stabbing at those trying to escape, tearing people into pieces with incredible force.
A man wielding an axe leaped at her, his weapon enveloped in a golden glow as he prepared to swing the empowered strike down on her head.
The woman’s stinger flicked, knocking the axe right out of the man’s hands, then pierced right through his chest. The man hung by the stinger, his arms growing limp as a considerable amount of venom seeped into his body, and a second later, the woman moved her tail to slam him into a nearby tree with incredible force, shattering his body and dropping him to the ground.
From her side, Rachel’s killer stomped his foot down, sending a shockwave that shifted the earth beneath another man’s foot. The man tried defending himself, raising a shield to block the incoming attack. The giant cloaked brawler aimed right at the defense and slammed into it.
The shield didn’t budge, but the arms of the man on the other side exploded into gory pieces; a second later, a crescent moon-shaped flying strike cleaved his head off his shoulders.
Above them, another cloaked man floated into the air, levitating above the crowds as he fired stone bullets at the people below and swooped down, taking heads off with his shortsword.
Suddenly, a tall woman with blonde hair and a scar over her eye jumped up from the crowds, the wind moving about her in a way that propelled her forward as she stabbed an impossibly quick rapier jab at the levitating man. Just as the attack was about to land, the man just barely moved his shortsword before him to block and used the force of her attack to let himself be propelled further up into the sky.
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The woman—Jean, Jack’s sister—dropped to the ground and straightened, her heavily repaired armor gleaming under the false sun, speckled with the blood and guts of dead delvers.
From her side, Jack, her brother, the incredibly tall, blonde man, jumped forward, racing toward the cloaked figures with Rick by his side.
Jacob and his party stood in formation, waiting for an opportunity, but when the corpse of a woman exploded near them, splattering them all in more boiled blood, they realized that they had to choose right then and there whether to run or fight.
There were only around 20 enemies, compared to a bit over 100 delvers. But the delvers’ numbers were no advantage, as most of them were rookies who were, if anything, making it more difficult for the more experienced crews to organize.
The rabble was thinning rapidly, and before long, fewer than 50 delvers remained, allowing them to see a much clearer image of the battlefield. And what they saw made one thing crystal clear—the only way they were making an escape was by fighting their way through the encirclement of opponents, few of whom were easy targets.
Theodore’s eyes bulged as he observed the cultists before them. They all exuded a threatening aura, with even the weakest of their opponents glowing with a sinister red light. But there was another figure.
A short man whose aura shone pure black—he didn’t move. The man stood impassive, observing the battlefield, his face partly hidden beneath the hood of a cloak. One of the random delvers, a woman carrying a small sword, rushed at the man, and all he did in response was raise his hand; a thin, near-instantaneous jet of water pulsed into the incoming woman’s head, and she dropped dead to the ground a second later.
Shivers ran down Theodore’s spine. That man was a water mage. Anyone who could effectively use water magic was not to be trifled with.
Yet another corpse exploded beside them, with most of the power blocked by Phillip, who timely intervened.
They nodded at each other without further ado and rushed forward, jumping into the fray.
One of the cloaked figures ran at Jacob, gleaming blades of blood protruding out of their hands as they leaped and stabbed down. Theodore sent a minuscule pulse at the attacker’s eye, blinding them for a mere moment as Jacob landed a punch on their chest, shattering their entire body like an ice sculpture, the display only second to the gory image of yet another corpse exploding not too far from where they stood.
A metal ding sounded from right before Jacob's face as Theodore just barely flicked a red ball of toxic blood away before it could strike him in the eye. Jacob released a shivering breath as he looked over to the person who had fired the projectile.
Around 20 meters ahead of him stood a woman, a tall man, and the short figure Theodore identified as the greatest threat among them.
The woman was firing bloody projectiles, while her talent seemingly allowed her to raise shimmering, transparent barriers wherever she pleased, and the tall man was the fire mage responsible for the exploding corpses.
Karen rushed at the short water mage, choosing to take him out of the fight as quickly as possible. But her movement was frantic, desperate.
“Wait!” shouted Theodore, watching in panic as he saw the inexperienced woman on the verge of making a massive blunder.
The blood mage woman summoned a barrier before Karen, and before she could even swing her sword to cut through, the bulky figure she had been fighting before reappeared, swinging a massive sword at her back.
Phillip jumped just in time to block the attack, only for a bloated, glowing corpse to land right between him and Karen the next moment. Karen jumped back swiftly enough to get outside the effective range of the attack, but Phillip was forced to block with his shield at nearly point-blank. The force of the impact couldn’t be redirected. There was nowhere for him to send it. It knocked him flying back as he tumbled across the dry soil and away from his party.
Just as he got up, a massive arrow flew right into his armored head. With the metallic clank of the arrowhead meeting his helmet, his head whipped back, and he raised a hand to pull the arrow out as he looked over to his attacker. The arrow was stuck. Two figures stood beside one another, one swinging a whip at him while the other prepared another arrow.
He blocked the whip with his shield, but the arrow looped around his defense and hit him in the head again. Thankfully, the attack wasn’t potent enough to pierce his metallic skull, but it hit hard enough to embed itself into it, and the force of the impact was potent enough to daze him.
Phillip started running back to his party, but before he could make it anywhere near them, three golems of ice ran forward, standing between him and his party. They didn’t look too threatening, and anyone in his party could handle them. But to him, who specialized in defense, they were virtually an impenetrable barrier.
Karen relied on her air affinity to move at incredible speed and relied on her superior mobility to evade the numerous attacks flying at her. She felt helpless, like a fish on dry land. Her instincts and muscle memory kicked in whenever an attack was flying at her, but she was surrounded by bloody, mangled corpses and severed body pieces.
The battlefield around her looked like hell. She had endured rigorous training and seen many such things in videos her clan showed her. She truly believed she would be ready to stand firm if she ever found herself in a situation like this.
But those recordings never portrayed the overwhelming metallic smell of soil and blood. The screams all around her. A chunk of someone’s flesh flew into her mouth, and she spat it out.
She had never been splattered in blood and guts from head to toe. And from every single fight she had participated in, even the bloodiest, most difficult ones, she had never faced a scenario that began with one of her party members getting brutally murdered.
Despite her incredible speed, the bulky figure was nearly capable of keeping up despite wielding a sword at least five times heavier than Karen’s. Her opponent’s skill was tremendous but inferior to her own, but the constant barrage of bloody projectiles and shards of ice made Karen feel blind and dazed; she didn’t know where to look or what to pay attention to. It wasn’t long until stray projectiles started landing glancing blows, and poison started flowing through her blood.
As time passed, she found herself dodging the incoming blows and projectiles by smaller and smaller margins, with each new attack getting closer to causing severe damage.
Jacob and Theodore stood alone before four opponents.
Standing to the left was the woman who could conjure barriers and throw projectiles of toxic blood. To her right was the tall, skinny man who was beginning to run out of corpses and now supplemented his attacks with regular fireballs.
Yet another melee fighter had appeared from the crowd that grew thinner by the second, rushing at them from behind.
Meanwhile, the water mage had yet to make his move.
Jacob was forced to orient on the incoming man. The melee fighter approaching them wielded a mace and rushed at the two of them with reckless abandon while the two casters continuously pelted them with attacks.
Jacob observed the trajectory of the incoming mace swing and stepped back, preparing himself to kick the opponent in the torso to end the fight. But—
“Watch out!” Theodore screamed as Jacob’s head whipped back, only to see a portal of reflective water conjure right in the middle of the air.
Head-first, with half his torso pushed through, appeared the short water mage, his hood just barely revealing a wicked grin beneath
Every cell in Jacob’s body screamed at him as he moved his body away from the man, who raised his hand and fired a Pressure Jet at Jacob’s stomach.
The burst of water reached Jacob, stabbing right into his gut and causing a powerful burst of agony to jolt through his torso, and in the next second, a spiked mace slammed right into the middle of his back. He yelped, his Stone Skin and Hundred Wet Hells just barely stopping the attack from damaging his spine.
Jacob wheeled and grabbed the man by the arm as he kicked him in the side.
The clang of metal rang out as the mace-wielder reeled, flying back a few steps. Stone Skin and Metal Bones had protected the mace-wielder. Jacob’s teeth clenched. That was too much defense for his talent to end the man in one blow, but he had caused plenty of damage.
Theodore fired a pulse of blinding light, restricting the water mage’s vision and forcing him to fall back before he could capitalize on Jacob’s distraction.
Jacob had to dodge several attacks again, but he was determined to get the mace wielder out of the fight.
However, to his horror, the mace-wielder rushed at a few helpless delvers and started swinging. Three lives were extinguished in mere moments, and once the deed was done, the mace-wielder stood a bit straighter as if the damage from Jacob’s attack was gone.
On-kill Healing, Jacob realized, cursing under his breath as he dodged a ball of fire flying at his face.