Nalihimatu grunted and supported his large tower shield with both arms as he caught one of the falling lizard-apes on it. Despite the size disparity – Nali was at most five feet or so tall and wide, while the lizard-ape was easily a good twelve feet or so tall and around a third as wide – he took on the hefty burden and roared as he heaved and sent the off-balance lizard-ape aloft and straight into the path of another of its brethren.
The two creatures fell in a tangle and Nali immediately rushed in even as he blocked a heavy blow from a third creature as befit his class as a [Progeny of Yore: Stalwart Eternal Protector]. He raised his hefty mace and slammed it down on the head of the lizard-ape on top once, twice, three times. The first blow further dazed the surprised creature. The second blow cracked its skull and made it bleed. The third blow shattered its head and splattered its brain over the vicinity.
A couple of Ani’s stronger warriors directly clashed and pushed away another two lizard-apes that tried to land on their formation, using their respective weapons to engage the creatures in melee. While the lizard-apes were strong, Ani’s people were already in their fourth tier, after all, and they had a qualitative advantage over the beasts.
They mostly fanned out and took care of the lower leveled creatures in order to ensure the safety of the five Zikealians though, leaving the stronger of the beasts to the [Progenies of Yore] as they knew that the progenies needed the experience and levels more in order to catch up to them. That naturally placed more pressure on the youths, but they were up for such a challenge.
Val-Kas’j blocked the blow from an almost level sixty lizard-ape’s claws using the shaft of his polearm even as he ducked under the monster’s other claw. At the same time, he stabbed out with the short spear in his other hand and pierced the creature’s abdomen, causing it to cry out in pain and anger. It launched a wild flurry of attacks against him.
Faced by the wild strikes, Val-Kas’j remained calm as he weaved and dodged the creature’s claws, at times adopting strange, awkward postures that would have had a spectator exclaim on how he could do that and not fall down. Of course, it was partly thanks to a passive skill from his [Progeny of Yore: Warrior of the Equillibrium] class, which helped him maintain his balance under any circumstance.
He stabbed the beast’s elbow with his spear, which crippled the arm in question and threw the beast off-balance, then used the momentary opening he created to rush closer towards the beast, where he took the chance to slam his polearm’s blade into the same wound he created on the beast’s abdomen previously. Then he yanked the weapon hard to the side.
With a splash of purplish-grey blood, the beast’s abdomen was cut wide open and its entrails spilled out from the wound, some already cut and lacerated by the polearm on its way out. The effect was immediate as the beast fell to its knees and tried to keep its organs from escaping its body using its healthy arm, leaving it wide open for Val-Kas’j.
Val simply ended the beast with a decapitating strike of his polearm, sending its head rolling on the ground with a trail of blood leading to its headless body.
Off to the side, Tiesya pulled off a deadly, yet graceful dance as she took on two of the lizard-apes at once. The [Progeny of Yore: Dancing Blades of Carnage] was obviously in her element, and the only thing the lizard-apes achieved was to tire themselves out while she landed slash after slash on their extended arms. Already one of the lizard-apes was reduced to one arm, its left arm turned into a mangled mess of flesh by her blades. The other one had multiple lacerations over both of its arms and was little better off.
Tiesya did not even have to risk herself to finish off one of her opponents, since before too long, the one-armed lizard-ape collapsed weakly as its lifeblood kept flowing out from its many wounds. She left the beast to bleed out where it fell as she intensified her assault on the other beast, which had also weakened and turned rather sluggish by then.
Her twin blades cut and maimed the beast mercilessly until she finally saw an opening and skewered the beast’s heart in a smooth strike, her blade slipping between the creature’s ribs to slice through its vital organs deep within. The second beast collapsed on its back, dead, as she withdrew her blade. By then the first one she left to bleed out also breathed no more as it too had perished from excessive blood loss.
Ilavakide, the [Progeny of Yore: Shooter of the Magic Arrow], was a bit out of her element since she had to deal with a multitude of enemies rather than being able to charge up a powerful shot in ambush of a single, strong foe. That said she still acquitted herself well regardless, as she took it upon herself to take care of the weaker lizard-apes that managed to slip through Ani and her people, shooting them down with her arrows.
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She even left a few of the creatures crippled but not dead, practically immobilized with her arrows through their shoulders and hips, for the Zikealians to level off. At the short range she simply did not miss her target, and even when her target moved away, she could use her skill to guide the arrow where she wanted it to land.
Dai’Vasy similarly lived up to her class of [Progeny of Yore: Mistress of Arcane Winter] as she froze the legs of any creature that got too close to the ground, immobilizing them on the spot before she skewered them with lances of ice. At other times, she simply created a thin sheet of ice on the ground instead, causing the beasts to slip and fall as they rushed towards the group.
Meanwhile, Resitia used her skills as a [Progeny of Yore: Unstoppable Soul Lancer] to pierce through one creature after another. Her strikes were not fatal ones, on purpose, but her spearhead was laced with her skills’ effects and as a result they directly damaged the souls of the creatures she stabbed. The resultant pain from the damage to their soul rendered the creatures temporarily insensate.
This allowed Iryl – who followed closely behind Resitia – to easily finish off the creatures with a few well-placed thrusts of her own weapon. The girl was always a notch weaker than the progenies, since she lacked the blessing they had, but she made an active effort to keep up and the youths were loath to leave their friend behind. Resitia gave Iryl some easy kills to help her keep up with the rest of the group for that reason.
Legisvula made use of his stealth skills to ambush unsuspecting creatures that were further away from the rest of the pack and took them out before they could react. His strikes were guided with a certainty and purpose by now, no longer the nervous strikes of a youth thrown into a battle far beyond their means like early on.
He accurately struck the base of the creature’s skulls, where their spine connected to their skulls, his blade severing vital nerves, blood vessels, and damaging part of the brain itself, killing the creatures often before they could even react at all to his presence. Before his victim’s dead body even finished collapsing, the [Progeny of Yore: Finder of Lost Paths] already vanished from sight once more as he went towards his next victim.
Mel-Ivas was the one who had the hardest time dealing with the lizard-apes out of the youths, other than Iryl. Her class, [Progeny of Yore: The Bringer of Mercy], had some combat skills, but overall it leaned more towards being a healer than anything. Mel-Ivas was nothing if not determined, however, and had discovered a way for her to use that skillset to fight effectively.
The approach she took was a ruthless one, both to her enemies and to herself, where she simply traded blows with them and only bothered to block or avoid strikes that were truly dangerous. She allowed most of the rest to land on her body and simply healed them up as she fought on. Needless to say, she still felt the pain from those wounds, but simply pushed through with sheer willpower.
Her own mace had spikes embedded into its flanges, which meant that her blows delivered plenty of force and would likely leave a wound behind. Mel-Ivas then used another of her skills – a newer one this time – to enlarge and worsen those wounds, such that a relatively ineffectual pinprick would turn into a deep, dangerous wound after a bit.
The way Mel-Ivas fought was a bloody and prolonged one, but it worked for her, as she slowly but surely weakened her opponent until she could finally take it down once and for all. Perhaps as an ironic twist to her healing class, delivering the final blow – or rather, bringing down mercy – upon her foes gave her a lot more experience than usual, which helped her keep up with the rest, something she had trouble with previously when her class was purely focused on healing.
There were around fifty of the large lizard-apes, with their levels mostly varying between the fifties and sixties. Val-Kas’j had handled the highest level one which was at level sixty-eight, while the rest of the [Progenies of Yore] took on the rest of the pack, with most of the weaker ones kept at bay by Ani and her warriors.
Despite the numerical disparity, the fighting was quite one-sided, as the beasts were not particularly intelligent. Although they were blessed with great physical prowess, they had little else to show, and the blessed of the Deities of Yore were more than what they could deal with. One after another the beasts fell to the youths, some crippled for others to kill, yet others directly killed in at times miserable ways.
Before too long, most of the lizard-apes lay dying or dead on the forest floor. None of the group was even injured, though Mel-Ivas had her clothes reduced to tatters due to the way she fought. The last few creatures were being finished off by Tiara and Iryl who needed the extra experience, while everyone else remained vigilant of their surroundings.
The sight of some rapid movement alerted those who were on guard and they immediately turned their attention – and weapons towards the direction they saw the movement in. They lowered their weapons and breathed a sigh of relief when they realized that the source of the movement they saw was a familiar figure, though.
It turned out that Dali had returned.
Moments later, Esperanza emerged from the forest, once again in her human guise. She was still moving rapidly through the branches, using extended tentacles to hold on to and swing from them, but it was not in a hurried manner. Rather, one could notice that she was moving in a leisurely way, likely a show of her confidence in the [Progenies of Yore]. Gordy followed after her from the ground, similarly taking her time to go around shrubs and bushes rather than barreling through them without a care.
“You’re all done here too, I see. Bueno,” said Esperanza as she landed lightly on the forest floor not far from where the group was situated. “Got myself a level off the pack leaders, so all in all, it was time pretty well spent I’d say. What about the rest of you? Did you get yourselves some levels too?”
The [Progenies of Yore] nodded and signaled that they had gained a level or even two out of the battle. Iryl and Tiara even gained three each, since they got to finish off quite a few of the crippled creatures, and even a couple of Ani’s warriors signaled that they had gained a level as well.