Rip!

The Blade Snake rips through my shoulder, giving me another cut.

Pachack Pachack!

Though, a moment later; it got its head cut off by Fang’s claws, while I also killed another blade snake coming at me, before moving my sword to defend against the attack of Ralturan, the red-eyed baboon.

Clang Clang!

I defended against its claws, before attacking it, which it defended, and attacked me again.

It is faster, faster than me, while I am tired and injured.

It had been hours since I had been fighting against the monsters. Their numbers are endless, there is no end to them; the moment I killed the monster, another one would appear in a few seconds.

‘I hope they will find the leader soon,’ I thought, dealing with another attack of the monster.

I had seen them chasing the leader. It was fast, so much so that I could only see a blur, and powerful seeing how effortlessly it had torn through people who had tried to block its way.

I hope those five will be able to deal with it or I don’t know, what will happen to us and the whole Nakar baronies.

“Now Fang!”

I said, and he leaped at the monster while I also attacked at the same time.

He had been waiting for my order. The moment he received it; he acted.

The baboon monster saw Fang with his purple claws coming out and my sword coming toward it and decided to jump back to dodge the attacks.

“Hehe,” I grinned and moved forward toward the monster.

A moment later, Fang’s claws retracted, and he landed on my shoulder before turning and jumping at the monster at a much faster speed.

The baboon monster was surprised to see it and swiped its claws toward Fang while chattering its teeth angrily.

Clang!

Fang didn’t maneuver around the monster's claws and instead, his purple energy claws clashed against the monsters.

Maneuvering would have been a death sentence for Fang; the monster is fast and agile. He would have torn Fang apart, with how fast he could move its hands.

The monster was shocked as they clashed; its claws had cracked, but were still capable of tearing Nero apart. That is why he used the force of the clash to jump back.

The monster is angry and tries to follow Nero, but at the same moment, with its eyes widening in shock.

Puch!

It moved its claws to stop my sword, but the blade held too much momentum to be stopped by them. It slipped through them and entered the heart of the monster.

A moment later, I removed my sword from the body of the monster and looked around.

In these past hours, Fang and I had learned to fight together. It is quite hard to believe how compatible we are.

Usually, such a thing requires training, months and years of it, and help with few skills. It seemed like those trust exercises and fun games to tire him out had helped a lot in fostering teamwork.

Nero is really powerful. Grade 0 monsters are nothing in front of him. His purple claws would tear through them.

Even the defenses of Grade 1 monsters are crushed with those energy claws. Only powerful things like claws could stop his claws and he damaged even them, like he did the baboon claws.

Hun!

Barely seven seconds passed when I saw another monster coming toward me. Bavcinh, a grey-striped hyena.

It glanced at Nero and stared at me, before coming at us.

I am glad it is alone; I have seen a group of Bavcinh, tearing a man into pieces within seconds.

‘We have surrounded the horde leader,’

I was about to move to attack the monster when I suddenly stopped.

A smile appeared on my face, not only mine, but of everyone's.

They have surrounded the monster leader. This means it is time for the final attack. I had just heard the message when I felt another skill on me.

‘So, this is what Blackwell was talking about,’ I thought.

“Come on, Fang!” I said and moved toward the Hyena monster. As fast as I could, activating every skill that would help me kill the monster.

I am moving toward the hunting group and will kill every monster that comes my way. It is not just me, but everywhere is doing that, because now, the real battle will start.

Any time now, the leader will call its monster to protect it, and it will be the responsibility of the entire army to stop it from happening.

So, the group could kill the leader, with no interference.

ROAAARR!

I had only taken a step when I heard the roar of the monster leader. It is the loudest roar it made since the battle began.

It happens in every monster horde. The moment; the leader is surrounded. It will call the whole horde for its defense.

It didn’t matter if it could finish those surrounding it. It will call them, as the horde leaders’ job is a direct horde, and it couldn’t let anything happen itself. Without it, the whole horde would collapse.

The monsters stopped, what they were doing and turned before running toward their leader while we moved toward our group.

With every step I take, I begin to feel tens of skills on me.

The soldiers have started to activate the army skills in mass. There are all types of skills, affecting strength to healing.

The effects of these skills are small due to being shared with a large number, but the sheer number of them makes up for the power.

The soldiers had been instructed to save on their army skills. To be used at this moment.

I could feel my strength rising and my steps becoming lighter. My fatigued mind reinvigorated, and I started to think clearly again.

I also used this opportunity to drink, the healing and stamina potions. I felt their burn and knew I would suffer as it was not the first time I had drank the potion in the battle.

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I would think about the side effects if I survived this battle.

“Fang,” I said with potion bottles in my hand, and he understood. He jumped toward me after he decapitated the rat that attacked him.

I caught him and fed him the potions. I also spread them over his wounds. I did the messy job, but in my current state; I couldn’t do it much better.

He jumped out of my arm to deal with the insect monster coming at us from the left, while I moved forward to kill the monster in front of me.

Monsters and we are moving toward the same place and it has become chaotic, with both sides trying to kill each other while doing that.

Monsters are dying and so are the people.

Not far away from me, I saw a red stallion monster chomping the head of the soldier and a second later got killed by Captain Oliver.

The young captain is really good. A textbook fighter. What he did was amazing seeing he did it with one hand, while his other hand was hanging loose.

I only looked at him for a moment, before swinging my sword at something black coming at me.

It was so black that it seemed to be sucking the light surrounding it.

My sword stopped the arm-length thing, only to realize it was a mantis monster. A pitch-black mantis with glowing green gem eyes.

I don’t know what type of mantis monster it is, but I know, I couldn’t let it touch me. Those sharp blades would cut through my bones without any problem.

Even Fang didn’t leap at it and, instead, turned to the monster at the back.

Its wings buzzed, and it tried to come at me, but I used everything I had to bring my sword back and swing it at me.

Clang!

I stopped it, using everything I had, and needed to take a step back to absorb the shock.

There is a large difference in size between me and the monster, but despite that, it is stronger than me and blades that even my enchanted weapons couldn’t nick.

Clang Clang Clang

I begin to clash with it, which is more like defense, seeing it is trying to come at me, while I am stopping it.

I fought against it calmly, matching its attack with attack, while keeping an eye on the monsters around. Thankfully, most of them moved forward, while that remained being handled by Nero.

Now and then, my guards and other people also help, but they are also busy fighting loads of monsters.

Suddenly, it avoided my sword and came at me with incredible speed.

Seeing it coming, a terror-filled my heart.

I know, that if it reached my fatal spot, I would be dead, I couldn’t let that happen.

So, I harnessed every bit of power I could from my Rapid Legs and other skills covering me and moved.

Rip!

A moment later, I felt a sharp pain on my cheek; only to see the cut opening and blood coming out of it.

The cut is deep, and it cuts some of the bones; making me tear up. These tears are not of the pain, which is immense, but of relief; I truly hadn't thought I would survive, but I did.

Riiii!

I didn’t have a chance to celebrate my survival as the monster came at me again and this time. It is angry, seeing the sound it was making.

Clang Clang Clang!

I was able to move my sword in time to defend against the attack, but it attacked again and again.

I defended each and every move of it, observing it. Seeing its strengths and weaknesses.

This monster is obviously strong, with sharp limbs powerful enough to cut through the metal and strong enough to push me back.

Though it also has weakness in its body; harm it and it will be dead, but that is easier said than done.

Still, it is not that hard either.

I only need to understand the attack pattern of the monster and once that is done, it will be much easier to kill it.

Monsters are easy that way.

People consider fighting monsters more dangerous than people, but in my first battle against them. I felt it was monsters that were easier to deal with that person.

The monsters are powerful and have great instincts, but even that couldn’t compare to their intelligence.

It is defining the quality of people; the one that makes them a much greater threat than the monsters ever could.

So, I focused on understanding the monster and building a power for an attack. Understanding alone wouldn’t be alone; I would need power to back it up.

…thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two.

I launched the forty-third counter of Consecutive Strikes against the monsters, but unlike my previous counters. I flicked my hand at the last moment and avoided the blade of the mantis.

It is not as easy as it looked.

The speed and power of my attacks have been increasing rapidly and in the past few counters, I was able to move the monster back.

So, this time, I moved my sword a little, just when it was about to clash against my sword, predicting its movement.

It reacted quietly and tried to retreat, and it might have been able to do that a few seconds ago, but not now.

My sword is too fast to do it now.

Pachck!

My sword reached it and cut through its body, dividing the monster into two vertically.

I didn’t wait for the body of the monster to fall down and moved forward with people around me.

It took me minutes to cross those few hundred meters, but I reached the place, and what I saw put fear in my heart.

I saw thousands of monsters attacking wildly to save their leader while we were stopping them.

It was a scene I would never forget in my life, and I wanted to run away as fast as possible, but I joined the people.

Running is useless.

The only way I could survive, any of us could survive, would be by killing the monster leader.