Tibaut quickly looked around and in total, not counting the ones that followed the man in black, there were eight. Of the three behind him, he noticed one of them standing awkwardly.

("Looks like he's decided to stop hiding.")

He quickly looked in front of him and was ready to pounce.

"I know it's a bit late to be asking this but how strong are you?" Tibaut asked the girl his back was against.

"As long as they aren't anywhere near that dude you fought earlier, I should be good."

They all had blunt weapons such as staffs, batons, bats of both types and one even had on a pair of brass knuckles.

("Is killing people not their goal? No, these cult bastards are brutal, for all I know they might just enjoy making people suffer.")

As soon Tibaut started tensing himself, getting ready to rush them, a few of them reached into their pockets and pulled out something. They were blow darts.

Tibaut immediately used his body to shield Grace and they fired at him. Not taking any chances he preemptively used his cure spell as their assault turned his body into a pin cushion. Some had hit Grace as well and they both fell to their knees, as the figures were unrelenting in their attack. Within a few moments, they had stopped. Not out of mercy or anything like that but it seems they ran out. They would have preferred if he had fallen to the ground but this was good enough. Two of them soon walked over to him. The one with the staff, poked him a few times to ensure he was unconscious.

"That shit's annoying."

Tibaut grabbed his staff and pulled him in. Before he could react, Tibaut delivered a punch that sent them straight to the floor. As soon as he did this Grace ran towards the ones behind them.

The one beside the staff wielder, quickly aimed at him with her baseball bat but he had no intentions of playing around and as soon as he blocked it, summoned a fireball in the space between them.

She instinctively backed away and Tibaut launched it at her. She threw the bat at, detonating it prematurely and instead of being dead was sent flying back from the blast along with some wood splinters. The three that had been watching jumped in, and as Tibaut tried to make some distance, the one on the floor grabbed his leg. He summoned fireballs around him and blocked the cricket bat of one but soon was hit by another staff user and narrowly dodged the punch of the one with brass knuckles that barrelled towards his face.

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("Shit I'm too close to these guys.")

With the enemies this close, he'd risk hurting himself if he fired away. With nothing else he could use them for, he fired them just far enough to kick up dirt but not cause any serious injuries to any of them. The staff user was most affected by this attack and jumped closer towards him to reduce any damage from the blast. The one on the floor also had loosened her grip when this happened and he used this to gain some distance. With all three comfortably in his personal space he tripped one of them causing the other two to stumble and summoned another fireball. As he made sure to gain some distance, one of them threw a brass knuckle after he fired it, detonating it before it reached them.

("I never realized it, but these things are pretty easy to set off. If this keeps up, they might use it against me. It seems these bastards have done some homework compared to last time… no they would have detonated my giant fireball if that was the case. It seems these guys are a different breed than the guys who showed up last time.")

For his own safety, he decided to lay off with the fireballs and focus mainly on the fire lances. As he was backing away he soon heard someone shouting as they came closer.

"tibAUUTTTT!!"

He turned around and had to brace himself as they flew into him. He somehow managed to not get sent to the floor and held her in his hands.

"Back already?" He asked.

It was Grace and she was looking more bruised than she did earlier. Of her three opponents, one was struggling to get up, and two were running towards them.

"It seems they aren't fans of how I fight."

As she was in Tibaut's arms, he tried to let her go but she held out.

"Let go, we can't fight like this!"

"Oh shut up and wait until they get close."

They didn't have to wait long as they were already there. He soon saw her master plan. She threw dirt in their faces.

One reeled back while the other wasn't deterred. She used her weight to bring Tibaut forward and he used the opportunity to headbutt the middle of their face.

He thanked God they weren't wearing any head armour or he would be the one on the floor, rolling away in pain. She quickly exited his arms before running over to the one trying to clear their eyes and kicking them in the ankle. They crumpled over and she added a knee to the face as a bonus.

"Well, looks like that's most of them," Tibaut commented.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Grace replied.

He turned to see what she was viewing and six of them were back up. One had wood splinters on them, the other was dirty, three seemed to have minor burns and one was limping towards them. Even the two that had been put down were getting up. He couldn't see their faces but he could tell they weren't exactly thrilled about what they went through.

"If only beating people up was as simple as knocking them to the floor," Grace commented as she wiped some blood off her lip.

("Hmm, based on the weapons they still have left, they might be able to interrupt my fireballs. I guess I'll just have to fight without them.")

Grace flying into his hands had caused him to lose focus but he quickly summoned more fire lances.