Five of the ranker wolfbats clashed with Ingots group. Two of them went directly for the huge bear, while the other three targeted the remaining party members. Dan imagined that they split in such a way because Ingot seemed so much more of an imposing monster than any of his other creatures. It was problematic because even if the bear looked much tougher, they were still in the same rank, and it forced the bear to tap into his large pool of mana in order to hang on against the enemy rankers. Thankfully, the bear's base quality was still higher than the wolfbats', allowing him to put up a good defense.
That was something Dan was glad about, as in the battle between monsters when everything else was equal, one of the things that mattered was the monsters' ancestry. Something he was sure the World Crystal only gave him the best off.
Even then, there was still a problem as one of Dan’s rankers was not combat based. Fir was a healer through and through, which would not let her put up much of an offensive fight against another D-ranker. Thankfully, the wolfbat that clashed with her hit a barrier created by Fur. Surprising Dan, the wolfbat just shrugged off its responsibility as it kept running past Fir and towards the ongoing battle. Dan didn’t necessarily like the outcome, but it was better than Fir being taken out of the fight early on. On the other hand, George and Fur were able to hold their own though George was putting up a much better fight than his elk companion. This was mainly because George also had Earthen Armor, but unlike Ingots, his armor was more humanoid and not as intrusive and bulky. George’s armor was made of a darker grey color that matched his fur, which Dan had returned to its original colors. The armor was also more stylistic as it reminded Dan of those that the Romans used to wear.
The enemy wolfbats, seeing that they were at a bit of a stalemate with Ingot’s party, released their sonic blasts. Sadly for them, Fir was already on the lookout for such a tactic, and as soon as they released the blast, she released her Cleansing Aura, removing the stunning effect from her party. That, however, brought notice to Fir, and she became a target of great interest to the four wolfbats. Thankfully, they were still engaged in their own fights with George, Fur, and Ingot, so they were unable to strike the elk easily.
Moving his sight from Ingot's party, Dan was worried about the four remaining wolfbats that were going straight toward the main battlefield. He had put a plan into motion in order to deal with them, but it would only stop three of the damn monsters.
The plan began with Balbatzar, who had still gone unnoticed. The bat targeted one of the wolfbats with his Silent ability. This would stop the dumb bat from using their sonic blasts. With that done, Balbatzar struck, giving the wolfbat some of its own medicine as it was hit with a Sonic Boom. Balbatzar’s sonic boom was amazing and sounded like a crack of thunder. Dan was glad then that the enemies did not have resistance to their own attacks, which meant that the dumb enemy bat was disoriented, and Balbatzar just kept slamming more and more blasts of sonic attacks into it.
Following Balbatzar into battle were Kinetic and Eagle the Hawk, who had been charging their respective abilities since his D-rankers engaged, and now they were ready to unleash them. Dan needed these damn bats out of the fight, as he didn't want to take more casualties than needed. The first to strike was Eagle. She had been using her new Wind Charge ability, which worked much like Kinetics Lightning Charge. The wolfbat rankers had wholly removed the flying bird from their notice, which was about to cost them. Eagle activated the Stalker ability and dove down at incredible speeds as she poured all of her pure mana into one single strike. The bird was literally glowing with power as she was encased in the light green light of wind magic. Then, surprising Dan, she broke the sonic barrier with a boom! And slammed into her target, cleaving right through its enhanced body like it was nothing.
After Eagle the Hawk came Kinetic. His rank-up had caused the cheetah to become slightly lighter, and his eyes had gained even more of a vibrant blue color. His lightning capabilities were now more present than ever as he had a consonant small field of blue sparking lightning all around his fur. This was more noticeable than ever when he was charging up his ability.
As he ran through the forest, his body was surrounded by blue and yellow lightning, making him a blur of yellow and blue, causing him to stand out in the darkness of the night. The cheetah ran straight at one of the wolfbats heading to the battlefield. The wolfbat noticed the clear amount of energy the cheetah was releasing and was quick to react as it got ready to receive the cheetah's incoming attack. Dan knew what the wolfbat was trying to accomplish as he saw its body tense, trying to wait until the last second before jumping over the incoming cheetah. Kinetic noticed this, too, and decided to play into the wolfbats plan.
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The cheetah got closer and closer as the wolfbat got tenser and tenser. Then, Kinetic did something that the bat did not expect. A couple of dozen feet before slamming right into it, he opened his mouth and, with a hiss, unleashed all of the pent-up energy as a lightning bolt rushed forward and struck the wolfbat leaving a large hole right through its chest as electricity flowed through the damn thing frying it. Amazingly, it did not kill the bat, though it left it at the death’s door, unable to return to combat.
That still left one wolfbat heading toward the rest of his monsters. There wasn't anything else Dan could throw at the damn bat as all his other bosses were busy. Chomp and Jamole were heading straight to Hawk the Eagle to assist her with the two wolfbats tearing the bird apart. At the very least, the pain had shaken the bird back into wakefulness but with a damaged wing, and she couldn't fly and was struggling to keep the wolfbats at bay.
Meanwhile, Itsy was blasted with a sonic blast by the wolfbat that had engaged her and struggled to stay conscious. The small spider had been able to strike the bat with some more needles, but it would take some time before the venom did its job. Dan had ordered Xinos to go help the spider, and it would be a few more seconds before the jaguar got there.
Meanwhile, back with Ingot’s party and thanks to Fir, they gained the upper hand in their fight. George had been able to put his wolfbat down by repeatedly smashing it onto the ground, though it had cost him a good bit of his mana. Then, after having put down that wolfbat he switched to helping Fur take down its wolfbat, something they were almost done with it. For Ingot's part, the bear was still holding on and keeping the two wolfbats that had originally engaged it under control, but at a great expense to his own mana pool. Overall, most of his monsters were winning their fights but had used a lot of their mana to do so.
Back on the main battlefield, the ranker wolfbat had finally engaged his monsters, who were in the middle of wiping out the normal invaders. The fight, which was already in their favor as they massacred their enemies, suddenly turned against them. The ranker enhanced its body further and started tearing through Dan’s monsters. Pretty much every swing of the monster's claws took a life. As it got even more chaotic, his monsters noticed the enemy and rushed at it without care for their selves in an attempt to bring it down. Dan knew they could eventually kill it as they outnumbered the thing, but their sheer power difference would cause many of them to die. The view showed Dan how far his monsters had come at overcoming their worry of pain, or maybe the World Crystal had just tweaked them and erased that useless bit. Either way, Dan was happy with the change.
Now, he hoped the boss would only engage once the fight settled down more. However, his hope was quickly shattered as another roar went through the battlefield, and the enemy boss began to move.
The thing moved slowly at first as it headed towards Hawk the Eagle. That fight was coming to an end as Chomp and Jamole managed to take down one of the wolfbats that were harassing Hawk, and then the three began teaming up on the last wolfbat. It hadn't been without injury as they still had taken some damage, but nothing like what Hawk had taken. The bird was essentially done for, especially when they saw the boss was moving towards them. Dan quickly told Jamole and Chomp to disengage while giving Hawk the command to deal as much damage as possible to the remaining wolfbat they were engaging. Thankfully, they didn't stop to question his orders, and Jamole and Chomp quickly disappeared under the earth, with Hawk pouring as much mana as she could into her Wind Slash. The light green blade struck the wolfbat, but she wasn't able to do much damage before; in the blink of an eye, the boss appeared behind the bird and, with a swift punch, crushed her into the ground, killing her.
Taken by surprise by the sheer capability of the boss, Dan quickly gave me orders to his bosses. Xinos, who was about to strike the wolf harassing Itsy, was told to back off and wait for a good moment to strike the boss instead. The timing was perfect. Right as he gave the instruction, Xinos stopped himself from hurling at the wolfbat. The wolfbat was already heavily injured by the venom in its veins, but Dan knew what was coming. He felt the boss move as it appeared in front of Itsy and, with another powerful punch, squashed the spider under its fist. The spider was a bit healthier than Hawk the Eagle, but it still didn't have as much life energy as the large bird could carry. It was why the spider had been placed as a defender, and Dan had given it so many camouflage and stealth abilities.
Seeing the boss fight, Dan knew it was spending mana to be able to take out his bosses so easily, but the fact that the damn thing was a High D ranker put it on a different level. The one upside to the situation was that there was no way a D ranker could move at such speeds, and it meant that the boss should not have any of the sonic abilities his weaker versions had. More than likely, it had been created to be a tough and strong opponent that could move at speed. Even so, now that it was engaging in the fight, it was only a matter of time before the fight was again turned against Dan's favor. Not that Dan was too worried about it, as he still knew he would not lose the overall battle. Dan’s confidence came from two things. He still had not engaged in the fight, and all his defenses were still fresh.
Even more important than those two things was the fact that throughout the whole fight, he had been getting mana, and that mana was not just being used to spawn regular monsters. He had the design for his new D-rank monsters for a while now but had finally been able to spawn them. In fact, his new D-ranked teams were already on the way to the battlefield, and it was only a matter of minutes before they arrived.