Without a moment's hesitation, the Walters family moved, kicking away their opponents as they shifted positions. Mr. Walters’ shield expanded and connected with ones created by Lou and Arnold, forming a glowing wall five feet high and ten feet wide. Behind them, Captain Eizo taunted the monsters towards their defensive line while Mr. Walters, Elizabeth, Lou, and Arnold took advantage of the taunt to make quick work of the irrationally charging beasts.

As they fought, Topaz rapidly poured red healing potions over the injuries of the fighters, drenching them in the crimson liquid until it looked like they were covered in blood. The potions wouldn’t be as effective as they would if they’d been drunk, which was good because everyone was too busy fighting to pause to drink anything.

Nick, who had been using his spear to strike from the back of the line, quickly put away his weapon and cast holy fire on some beasts ensnared in sticky goo from one of Topaz’s grenades. However, the feeling of triumph from the successful AoE attack was short lived as he watched the goo burn up too, not having expected it to be incinerated with the monsters. Holy fire usually only killed the monsters they were targeting, proving harmless to objects.

It’s ‘cause the snare is a condition they’re suffering, so it’s counted in with them, Nick reasoned as he switched to his spear, taking his position beside Seo-ah as he began to thrust his weapon between Lou and Elizabeth, striking at the charging beasts.

For a moment, Nick felt like everything might go smoothly, but it only took that same amount of time for the formation to suffer its first gap as a large explosive ball of ice magic from the vulpe in the distance smashed face first into Lou, not only knocking him out of the fight but sending him flying back nearly ten feet at the same time.

“Lou!” Mr. Walters yelled, turning his head in panic, ignoring the swift claw strike to his abdomen as one of the wolverines broke through the old man’s hexagonal shields and struck the unfocused warrior.

“Captain Eizo! Sub out Mr. Walters!” Nick shouted as he moved in quickly to the slot where Lou had been. “Topaz! Snare them quick!”

“I only have two more! They won’t last more than a few minutes on these bastards. You’re not going to have long!” Topaz warned Nick even as she shot the sticky grenade in front of him, just in time to hit three encroaching monsters, two wolverines and a lynx.

The lynx had only just then revealed itself, its white coat turning a ghastly, gross gray like a spider web as the snaring substance coated the three of them.

Nick didn’t have time to capitalize on the opportunity as an ice bear charged him. Nick’s body roared in pain as he gritted his teeth, digging in his feet, and did his best to resist the charge of the seven-foot-tall bear. The hulking monster nearly threw him backward as its shoulder slammed Nick in the stomach. He likely would have been sent flying even farther back than Lou had been if not for the fact that, as he jammed his spear through the beast’s shoulder and into its rib cage, the impact to his front was negated by Seo-ah and Landry bracing him from behind to stop him from ragdolling backward across the snow, the three only just managing to negate the monster’s momentum.

As Nick turned into a veritable sandwich between the two people and the bear, he lost his grip on his spear, reflexively trying to increase its weight as much as he could as the life was nearly crushed out of him. A moment later, the pressure faded, and Nick had to catch himself as the bear staggered backward, wheezing as it struggled under the weight of the spear lodged through its rib cage. Nick rushed forward, grabbed the weapon, and killed the bear as he yanked the spear free and retook his position.

“I can move in if you need,” Landry, the most muscular mercenary in the group, offered as Nick took his position, but he only shook his head. Landry had been doing a ridiculous amount of the work during the initial onslaught, and he needed the rest time. This was Nick’s job, and as he gripped his weapon and threw the spear tip out at one of the still-snared wolverines, he told himself that, leader or not, he couldn’t slack off for a second.

“Your left!” Arnold yelled as Nick scored a killing blow. From Nick’s other side, Arnold sliced through an incoming Lynx’s throat and decapitated the monster as it tried to bite onto Nick’s arm. Nick wanted to thank Arnold, but the man had already turned away to fight another monster, his glowing purple sword cutting into a gulo gulo like a hot knife through butter, proving how effective his father’s training techniques were.

Nick backed up, returning to his position in the line, and felt a douse of liquid stinging across his body from behind. He glanced down to see the familiar red of Topaz’s healing potions as he touched his stomach for a moment, doing his best to quickly undo the damage from being crushed by the bear before more monsters could threaten his life.

“That’s it! We can do this!” Nick shouted as he extended his hand at the next group of monsters charging them, the two stone-covered wolverine creatures that had freed themselves from the sticky grenade as well as another pair behind them that were pushing through, unfazed by what little webbing liquid remained.

“Nick, I don’t have any more, that’s why I’m focusing on healing,” Topaz blurted out, seeming to have intuited Nick’s demand before he could even open his mouth, leaving him a little frustrated as he lifted his hand, his injuries healed as much as they could be in the middle of a fight without taking a break or getting Adele’s magic. He gripped his weapon again.

With the four gulo gulo charging straight toward him, he threw his spear at the closest one, using his now-empty hand to then channel holy fire at the next as he materialized his Blade of a Thousand Failures is in his left hand just in time to kill the third one, cutting right through it as he backed up.

Unfortunately, he didn’t back up quickly enough, and the fourth and final gulo gulo of the four, claws open, took a large swipe at him. He did his best to retract his weapon in time to parry the monster’s thick, heavy claws, sparks flying as sword met obsidian claw, and then ducked and spun his fiery sword as he slashed open its gut. The holy fire from his sword flared up as his blade scored the creature's rocky fur. As it slowly died, the monster, now ignited with holy fire, tried to take Nick with it, opening its large maw to try to bite Nick one final time only for a glowing pink spearhead to snake over his shoulder and ram into the open mouth of the gulo gulo.

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The gulo gulo’s eyes went wide as it was killed on the spot. Nick kicked the monster, pushing it back and freeing Seo-ah’s spear. He looked back just long enough to exchange a “thanks” glance with the woman who had just saved him. Turning back just in time, Nick was able to stop another rampaging bear, his spear going into bear’s eyes as Seo-ah supported him one more time, driving her own aura enhanced weapon through forehead of the monster at the same time.

Then Nick spotted an achlis, as Omni-Trainer identified the monster, a moose-like creature probably large enough to destroy his guild building with a single charge. The humongous beast gored the vulpe with its two sets of antlers, the points piercing the fox-like creature’s fur like lances, Then, a dozen tiny squirrel-like sciuri covered in armor and holding weapons made from bone rushed off the top of the achlis and ran across the vulpe’s back, stabbing and attacking the monster with everything they had. The tails from the dying vulpe struck down across its own body, splattering a few of the sciuri as a white ice shard stabbed into the side of the achlis too.

The vulpe looked like it was going to kill the achlis and every sciurus on it, but one of the sciuri champions, standing nearly five feet tall and wielding a seven-foot sword as thick as the sciurus’s own body, charged out and create a huge burst of aura with his blade before stabbing it into the vulpe’s spine, driving the blade as deep as he could. It wasn’t enough to kill the monster at first, but the squirrel-like hero was relentless as he stabbed again and again, his blade digging through the flesh like a miner with a pickaxe as he dodged the incoming tail attacks aimed at him, one after the other, only to return to his position and keep digging into the vulpe with his blade until the tails stopped their assault, the vulpe body stiffened up, and the large monster finally came crashing to the ground.

With a throaty call of victory, the half-dead achlis, with three large ice shards stabbed into it, ignored its wounds, stomped the frozen ground, and shook its head, sending the body of the slain vulpe flying free. The achlis let out another loud victory cry, the sciurus hero raising his blade as the vulpe-slayers cheered.

“Why do I feel like this isn’t going to go well for us,” Seo-ah said from behind Nick as the group of defenders waited in quiet anticipation for the woodland critter crusaders to point their blades at them.

“Because no matter how the saying goes, the enemy of your enemy can still be your enemy,” Nick said, running forward to grab his spear, ripping it out of the dead gulo gulo as he threw it into his inventory and retook his position on the line, sword in hand.

He glanced at Captain Eizo on his left and then Elizabeth on his right as each of them continued to whack and hack, cutting through the ground with their aura instead of resting, creating deeper and deeper trenches at their flanks. Meanwhile, the army of woodland critters shifted, turning their attention to what remained of the vulpe’s minions, ignoring them as the beasts scampered off, fleeing in all directions now that their commander had died.

Then the sciuri and its forces set their eyes on Nick’s group, and their commander, climbing back atop the towering double-antlered Achlis, let loose another shout as he pointed his blade toward Nick.

“So it begins,” Nick began, addressing his companions. Even though the new army that had flanked their initial aggressors had clearly taken a big hit in the battle, they still far outnumbered Nick and his crew. “But don’t worry. We can do this. They’re just as beaten up as we are.” He raised his sword, activating Pep Talk one more time just to make sure everyone was operating at maximum capacity when the battle broke out.

Only a few seconds later, a wave of burly oxen-like monsters and their beasts came barreling toward them, magic exploding out from the sciuri that rode on the backs of oxen. The horned lepuses darted between the legs of their larger oxen allies as they finished off some of the lynx, bear, and gulo gulo soldiers that hadn’t managed to escape yet, killing the retreating foes in their way as they beelined straight for Nick and his crew.

“We could dig a moat in front of us too,” Captain Eizo suggested. “We’ve got a minute or two before they reach us.”

“No,” Nick quickly shot down the idea. “We do that, and they won’t funnel right at us. I’d rather face only one flank than fight in all directions given our numbers.

“You know, between large bull like oxes and those predators from before, I kinda miss the predators,” Elizabeth grumbled as she gripped the hilt of her sword and sighed. “The momentum of those monsters even if we kill them…”

“Predators and herbivores, ey?” Nick thought, noting that actually was the difference. The gulo gulo, the vulpe, the bears—they were all large fanged monsters that one would find in an arctic tundra back home. The enemies charging at them now, they were the omnivores and herbivores that would scavenge plants, eating anything green, bark, seaweed, or whatever they could find. Although the shapes were a bit different, the fur was off, and the monsters were definitely their counterparts from Earth, they still somewhat resembled the animal’s of Nick’s world. It was almost as if nature had said, “This is the most efficient form.”

“It fits,” Seo-ah agreed with Elizabeth too.

“Whatever they are, if they can’t be domesticated, they don’t need to exist,” Akiko said as she threw something out, a wave of glittering steel glinted brightly as it flashed across the sky.

Nick hadn’t even seen her preparing it, but sure enough, it made sense when he saw what she had tossed: caltrops. And not just any caltrops either, but large mana-filled ones.

Those will break the oxen charge, Nick thought, his heart feeling a hundred times lighter as he saw them cover the field.

“You could have tossed those out earlier,” Landry grumbled.

“We didn’t need them earlier, and I only have enough to break a single wave. This is the wave I want to break,” Akiko told her companion.

“I’m going to buy a million of those when we get back,” Nick noted to himself aloud, kicking himself for not thinking to have those types of traps on him before.

“They won’t work on most monsters. Even with the mana-filled tips, a lot of monsters have feet that will just stomp them flat, and you’ll be left having spent good money on fancy pressed metal discs,” Akiko explained their downsides as the group.

“You know, we really should have gotten reinforcements by now,” Seo-ah said, turning back to look at the rift behind them as everyone waited for the incoming monsters, feeling fatigue heavy in their bones from the constant fighting, but having no choice but to stand their ground as they desperately wanted to keep the domain heart alive.