Everyone equipped a Class and took action immediately.
Barton equip his Ranger Class and started shooting at the wasps from a tree. The equipment with his Knight Class were temporary and lacked the mana wings he had been using until now. Further, with the elves watching, Barton couldn’t use his more complex Magical Constructs like his Blade Storm or Divine Bindings or they would recognize him as easily as they had recognized Emilia earlier. Thus, rather than wage a ground battle against flying enemies, Barton chose to snipe the wasps from the shadows, taking down as many as possible unnoticed.
Despite her embarrassment, Emilia had equipped her Assassin Class as the surroundings were much too cramped for her Mage Class to fight effectively. Furthermore, although she could use other elements as a Mage, her specialty was fire magic which was dangerous to use near wooded areas such as the Great Forest. Still, she immediately hid her presence, essentially becoming invisible, and started killing the wasps near her with her glove blades and killing those from afar with throwing daggers.
Medony had prioritized healing the injured elves so she had equipped her Priest Class. As with Barton and Emilia, Medony had also gotten new equipment from Thulmok and was dressed in dazzling golden robes with a similarly golden staff. She alternated shining her healing light on the elves while using Holy Lightning to zap any that came too close. Unfortunately, even with equipment from a master like Thulmok, the offensive capabilities of the Priest Class were far too low for the Holy Lightning to act as anything but a deterrent to the wasps. Thus, Barton and Emilia targeted those closest to Medony and the injured elves first.
Finally, seeing the huge number of wasps, Dulhan had decided to fight numbers with numbers, staying hidden in the forest in his Summoner Class so that the wasps wouldn’t find him. His new summoner robes were green and his staff was made from a fine wood.
As he witnessed the wasps falling one after another, the only elf who was still conscious was still panicking. “We have to get as far away from here as possible! Please!”
“What are you so jittery about? We’re totally kicking their butts!” Medony sent another lightning bolt, stunning an incoming wasp. Moments later, it was cut in half by seemingly nothing.
“You don’t understand! These are just the scouts and the queen is on her way! We have to get as far away as possible before then!”
Suddenly, a loud buzzing sound started and became increasingly louder. Something was approaching quickly.”
“Itz too late, meatzackzzz. Oh, it zeemzzz my chillldren have found more meatzzackzz.” What appeared was a wasp-like creature that was over 2 meters long. It’s body was split into three sections with four thin legs coming out of its middle section. On the bottom section was a stinger the size of a hand that was covered by a red venom. However, it was the top section that was the most grotesque. It consisted of a vaguely humanoid torso and head but retained many insectoid characteristics like thin wasp-like arms. Its eyes were black and beady and it’s mouth was still segmented like a wasp. The same shiny black hair that covered its head was also present on its body. Wings that extended about two meters on each side were keeping her aloft.
What was even worse was that she had brought another hundred mutated wasps with her. Barton and the other were slowly exterminating the previous hundred but weren’t expecting their numbers to suddenly double.
Shit! The others need my help! Damn it all! My summoning is barely half finished! Just out of sight, Dulhan was agonizing at his inability to help his friends. However, if he switched Classes now, his summoning would be cancelled and he would have wasted a large amount of mana and time. Thus, he decided to continue despite his feelings.
This didn’t apply to Medony though. As she had been healing the elves this whole time and their lives were out of immediate danger. “Barton! Put of a barrier around these three. I’m joining the fight!” With that, Medony switched to her Berserker class, her familiar bloodthirsty expression back on her face and a red aura forming around her. Her new armor was an intimidating crimson and her new blood-red axe was just as large and the previous one. Her target was the mutated Wasp Queen and any wasp scouts that got in her way were swiftly bisected. With a quick dash and a leap, Medony closed the difference between the Wasp Queen and swung her axe down.
“What?” The Wasp Queen had been caught off guard by Medony’s sudden attack but was able to dodge the brunt of the attack. She had lost her legs on her left side though and green liquid oozed out of the wound. “You bitch! I wazz going to grant you a painlezzz death but I’m going to kill you zzlowly!”
“Bring it on!”
However, the Wasp Queen was now cautious about Medony’s insane strength. She had fought and killed countless prey, both human and elf, and not once had they been able to hurt her let alone sever her legs and slice through her exoskeleton. Thus, she not to take any more chances. Flying up higher and further away, the Wasp Queen made a call to summon the rest of her forces started shoot her poisonous stingers at Medony.
The poisonous stinger of a wasp from the Great Forest is extremely dangerous. Although it doesn’t kill causes its victims directly, it causes them to experience unthinkable amounts of pain while paralyzing its body. If enough venom gets into a body, the pain could be enough to shut the body down. It is with these sadistic stingers that normal wasps in the Great Forest use to hunt prey. This mutated Wasp Queen’s poison was no different. Instead, what the mutation had done was given her the ability to shoot out these poisonous stingers and near instantaneously regenerate them as normal wasps would usually take weeks to regenerate a stinger.
Despite the speed and force behind the stingers, Medony was able to block them quite easily by placing her giant axe in front of her. After all, an axe that would be pierced by those stingers wouldn’t be sturdy enough for Medony.
The Wasp Queen wasn’t discouraged though. After all, her remaining two hundred wasp scouts would kill the other two and though she was injured, she could still fight for hours if needed. She kept flying out of Medony’s reach and rained hundreds of stingers down on her. After several minutes of this, Medony had an idea. Activating enhancement magic on her legs, she ran up the trunk of a tree at full speed, past where the Wasp Queen was flying. After running up about 20 meters, she kicked off the tree and struck toward where the Wasp Queen was hovering.
Unfortunately, the Wasp Queen didn’t underestimate her. She was able to dodge and Medony’s attack hit the ground instead, causing a radius of about 10 meters of earth to separate from the ground and releasing a shockwave that caused the destruction of countless trees in every direction. In fact, the shockwave from the impact alone had caused some wasp scouts to die and forced Barton to put up barriers around himself and Emilia.
“What the hell are you doing to our sacred home?!?”
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“Whoops. Sorry about that, Mr. Elf. I’m not used to this new equipment yet. Didn’t think a casual swing like that would do that.” At that moment, several stingers red with venom shot at Medony and were blocked by Emilia who had seemingly appeared in thin air. “Oh thanks for getting my back Emi! That’s your new Assassin garb? Very stylish! I like it!”
“R-really? Wait, no. Now’s not the time for that. I’d like to thank you for making a clearing. Now I don’t have to hold back either.” With that, Emilia switched to her Mage Class and fiery mana started to surround her.
“Wait, are you sure about this? You could set this whole place on fire. And what about the wasp scou-?”
Before she finished asking her question, it was answered by numerous screeches in the distance. Over two hundred Bloodwing Bats appeared out of a summoning circle. Although Dulhan’s new equipment couldn’t lessen the time it took for his summoning to be completed, it did allow him to summon stronger beasts than before with the same amount of mana. These Bloodwinged Bats were over a meter long and were much more powerful than the Midnight Wolves that Dulhan had summoned against the hydra. Their crimson fangs tore through whatever wasp scouts were foolish enough to challenge them.
Even with the fresh troops the Wasp Queen had summoned earlier, Barton and Emilia had each killed over a hundred scouts already. This meant that not only were Dulhan’s summons stronger than the wasp scouts but they also outnumbered them.
“Mana of fire, become the force of judgement that punishes my enemies! Smiting Torch!” As Emilia finished chanting, magical blue flames shot out of her wand, striking the Wasp Queen faster than she could dodge.
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” She screamed in agony before collapsing on the ground with a thud, smoke still raising from her charred body.
It only took a few more minutes for the remainder of the wasps to be killed either by Barton’s arrows or by Dulhan’s summons. Finally, everyone gathered back up.
“Travelers, you have my gratitude. My name is Nistel and these are my brothers Holduin and Faelus. We’re from the Elven capital, Mirafina.”
“Thank you for protecting me when I was unconscious, humans. If there is anything I can do, just say it.”
“Why did you have to involve humans, Nistel? I hate being in debt to outsiders.”
“Please pardon Faelus. He just has some trauma with outsiders. But still if there’s anything you need, we’ll try to help however we can. I know, this young lady has the Assassin Class. I’m sure if you can gather the poison in the Wasp Queen’s corpse, you can coat your weapons in them and increase your damage potential. You dealt the finishing blow after all so it’s yours by right anyways.”
Emilia liked the idea of increasing the effectiveness of her weapons but still turned to the rest of the group. After all, not even a month had passed since they were enemies and although they were friendly with each other, she still wasn’t completely sure they trusted her yet. “Do you think it’s alright?”
“Sure Emi. You were the one who finished her off so obviously you should get the spoils. ”
“I’ve got no complaints. Besides, none of us use poison for our weapons except for Barton who occasionally uses poisoned arrows.”
“Well increasing your fighting capability increases our chances of surviving so I’ve got no complaints either.”
Emilia nodded and started walking toward the Wasp Queen. Suddenly however, the wasp queen moved and shot a poisoned stinger at Emilia. Although it only grazed her arm, she still collapsed, screaming in pain.
“I don’t care if it killzz me! I’ll take at leazzt one of you with me!” The Wasp Queen lunged at Emilia’s collapsed body, aiming at her heart.
The Emilia was fading in and out of consciousness when the Wasp Queen attacked. Before the Wasp Queen could reach her though, Emilia saw Barton appear between them and blocking the Wasp Queen’s attack. The last thing she remembered before losing consciousness completely was a torrent of mana, billowing all around.
***
Needless to say, when Barton and the others saw Emilia injured by the Wasp Queen, they jumped into action. The elves fled when they saw the Wasp Queen was still alive and that was actually how Barton and the others preferred it. Without them there, they didn’t need to hold back. As the Wasp Queen was going for the kill on the injured Emilia, Barton used his Teleportation to appear between them, twin swords drawn. He simultaniously blocked the Wasp Queen’s attack and severed her remaining limbs. Not daring to fight them all directly, the Wasp Queen attempted to flee. Moments later, Medony arrived by Emilia’s side and immediately started heal her and attempting to counteract the poison. Finally, Dulhan easily caught up with the fleeing Wasp Queen with his Spearman Class, his armor a navy armor and his golden staff a blur as he moved. Using the Blazing Strike spell he used on the hydra, he easily severed the Wasp Queen’s poisonous bottom section from the rest of her body and pierced both her wings to prevent her from fleeing. Grabbing the severed section and kicking the rest away, Dulhan left the defenseless Wasp Queen in the middle of the clearing that Medony had made earlier.
“She’s all yours! Just try to keep your power under control.” Seeing Barton's reaction, Dulhan made a hasty retreat.
“Thanks, Dulhan. I’ll try to keep the damage contained in what’s already destroyed at the very least.” Barton summoned dozens of Magic Construct arrows and started fusing them together into one arrow. The finished product Barton was holding was an arrow with a spiral tip glowing various different colors. This was Barton’s Dream Arrow, one of the ultimate techniques of the first king of Leferon and his most powerful technique in the Ranger Class.
With it, he could easily destroy a large city such as Winora but Barton rarely used it because he generally thought it was too powerful even when he was holding it back. Even if he was using the bare minimum amount of mana he could for it, the Wasp Queen had provoked him into using this technique. Truth be told, he was just venting his anger at himself over letting Emilia get hurt by their carelessness but he didn’t care. He pulled the Dream Arrow back and released it straight at the Wasp Queen.
As the Wasp Queen stared hopelessly at the Ranger shooting the arrow, she knew it was over for her. Master, forgive me. The arrow pierced her body and released an intense light pillar into the sky, dispersing any surrounding clouds. True to his promise, Barton had limited the destruction to inside the circular clearing that Medony had created earlier. However, when the light pillar finally faded, nothing was left except a crater about ten meters deep. After that, Barton collapsed onto one knee. It didn’t matter how much he held back when using the Dream Arrow. It was a technique that drained a set amount of mana regardless.
Unknown to Barton or the others, someone was watching them from a distance. “Useless trash.” With a grunt, they turned around and disappeared into the forest.