Blood herself was having a bit of a harder time, but she thrived in it, the challenge that the monsters presented giving her a good opportunity to hone her skills. It was also a good chance to work on her Blood Queen's Claws, the move powerful enough even in the mid-Copper ranks to slice through the hide and flesh of the phykes, every single energy-claw of the attack dealing deep wounds. She was much, much faster and more agile than the phykes, the monsters not able to utilize their great physical power to move quickly as effectively as a sentient being would, nor did they have the required DEX to even be able to better direct their very high STR. Blood was able to battle a group of these slow and cumbersome enemies with minimal danger to herself, slowly tearing them apart piece by piece.

Beth had crashed into a group of three monsters, smashing away their clumsy swipes with her greatsword before slashing and chopping at their limbs with great skill and speed. As she lopped an arm off the center monster, a fourth leapt in from her rear and to the left, slashing for her open back. Beth didn't leave it to her armor to deal with the blow, but instead pulsed her Presence as the phyke attacked, everyone else on the battlefield but Blood staggering for just a second as the power of her soul washed over them. The monster attacking her rear was thrown off course slightly, and Beth's Presence gave her more than high enough power to turn on that creature and slash it apart, her strength totally overwhelming the thick hide, tough flesh, and even hardened bones of the monster.

She spun back around in the next instant, cleaving through the three monsters she had been fighting with a single swing, pieces of their arms and chunks of flesh flying into the air. She released her Presence as she completed the swing, reversing to cut into the rightmost of her opponents, finishing it off with the second strike. The monster in the middle of the group was down to a single arm and the monster on the left was heavily injured, presenting even less of a threat. Beth didn't take them lightly, however, attacking with all her power and skill, cutting the two phykes apart in a matter of a handful of seconds.

She looked around afterwards, taking just a moment to assess the battlefield, seeing that Blood was down to a single enemy herself. She saw the rest of Dream Snake battling four of the monsters, all that remained of the initial ambush, with the team clearly having the upper hand. Still, she wasn't in this stage to sit around and rest, so she surged forward again, crashing into the rear of the remaining enemies. It didn't take very long at all to kill the four creatures, Beth's high level of skill and strength combined with the team's own power easily dispatching the remaining threats.

"Circle up!" Dean commanded, frustration evident in his voice.

The team responded to the command, Beth and Blood a little slower as they had taken an extra minute to scan the surroundings. The team grouped together back up the road a handful of paces from where the fight had taken place, thankfully upwind of the bodies, which stank even worse in death than they did in life. Several of the team were cleaning weapons while Thom was checking his arrows, having used quite a number and not able to recover all of them.

"Now," said Dean, glowering at Beth, "What the hell was that?!"

"A boring fight?" Beth replied a slight bit acerbically, right eyebrow lifting as she stared back at Dean.

"Not only did you not coordinate with the group, you used your Presence without consultation mid-battle!" Dean bit out, glaring at Beth rather hotly.

"Alright, first off, hotshot, I don't actually fucking answer to you," Beth glared right back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Secondly, I did exactly what I was supposed to do, standing at the front and fighting the enemies as they charged. And lastly, why the hell wouldn't I use my Presence in a fight?"

"You-" Dean started, but Natalie put a hand on his arm, cutting him off.

"Let's just relax," she said, making a calming gesture at Beth, who just raised both brows slightly in response. "Battle gets everybody a little excited and we should take a minute to calm down."

She looked around at the whole group, noting Trish and Liz were relaxing a little, the tension easing out of their shoulders. Thom was still busying himself with his gear, glancing up as he checked the last few arrows to give Natalie a nod, while Dean was still agitated but had subsided. The two outside personnel, Beth and Blood, seemed almost entirely unruffled, with Blood distractedly sniffing the air and scrunching her nose while Beth remained standing with her arms crossed, though she only seemed slightly frustrated.

"Good," Natalie continued. "Now, let's go over that fight quickly before we move on." Having said so, she then gave her husband a bit of an elbow in the ribs to prod him on.

"Right, so," Dean began, looking around at the group, only pausing for a moment to give a slight glare to Beth. "Let's go over that battle. Overall, I do want to say 'good job.' Everybody performed admirably, including our two additionals. Very good on our scouts for getting the drop on that group, both with finding them and taking out several at the start of the fight.

"I appreciate the work done by Trish and Liz there; the buffs were well-timed and the fire magic that Liz tossed out did quite a number on the phykes. Good job to Natalie for keeping us up and running and making sure that nothing hindered us during the battle. In terms of formation, we were quite solid and there's very little I would change. Our secondary frontline did a good job, though charging forward like that is risky and we should try to stay grouped a little better.

"Finally, let's hold off on our use of Presence during fights, alright?" Dean finished, giving the whole team a look, but specifically concentrating it on Beth.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I don't see why, but if it bothers you that much, I'll try to hold off on it," Beth replied with a shrug, arms still crossed on her chest.

"A Presence is a last resort kind of thing," Trish replied before Dean could. "You use it as you're finishing a difficult series of fights to guarantee victory, not during a fight."

"I just don't understand why you would do that," Beth replied. "A Presence is such a powerful tool in your arsenal, why would you never use it?"

"Because it takes time to activate and it exhausts you?" Liz asked in reply, just an edge of exasperated sarcasm in her voice.

"You can train to get the activation time down to basically instant and can learn to use it for short bursts that only drain a little stamina?" Beth replied in the same type of slightly questioning, sarcastic tone. "Anyway, it's not important, I'm not lead on this so I'll just listen to what the team directives are."

"Most people simply don't have that kind of training or skill," Liz replied, shaking her head at Beth's response before also dropping the subject.

"We'll clean the corpses first and then move on," Dean then said, gesturing at the bodies.

The team set about doing just that, dragging all the corpses to the side of the road before cutting them open to find any beast or mana cores. The one big advantage of fighting monsters for most people were the more generous rewards, as they tended to be worth more experience and have higher chances of having either a beast core or mana core. The crystals Beth had pulled out of the plant monsters all the way back in the Silver Endless Trial were an example of this, as otherwise there was no chance of pulling something so valuable from a beast in the teens in level.

Finished with processing the corpses, the team took a minute to drag them further into the woods, letting the scavengers have at them somewhere away from the road. When Beth had tossed the last of the corpses deeper into the forest, they reoriented themselves and set off down the road again, moving even deeper. It was just slightly after noon, and they still had plenty of daylight left to explore and assess the situation before they headed back to the city for the night.

Blood was once again scouting ahead, moving silently through the lower branches of the trees at an impressive pace, Thom also venturing forward to scout but sticking closer to the group. Beth trotted along beside Dean, not saying anything as they moved along the road. The others seemed to have moved on from the argument earlier, but Beth was still thinking about it a little as they moved. It had basically showed her that she would have to be kinda picky about who she teamed up with in the future. Dean and his group didn't seem like bad people, certainly, but they also didn't seem like a group that was intent on pushing on their limits and seeing just how far they could go.

She shook off the thoughts as Blood contacted her again, saying, 'There's another group ahead. They're not lying in wait, but are off to the east of the road about a mile up from you. About twenty of them total.'

"More ahead," said Beth, Dean immediately signaling the group to stop.

"How many and where?" he asked.

"Twenty. Off the road to the east about a mile ahead," she answered.

"Is this a fight we're prepared for?" Dean asked the team.

"We're still good," Trish replied, the rest of the team nodding along.

"Didn't think you'd ask," said Beth with a raised brow. "Nice to see. Anyway, Blood and I are always ready. You want the two of us to take them out?"

"No, that's unnecessary risk," Dean replied. "We take care of them as a group, same as last time. Make sure that we stay organized and cover each other. We'll approach them as quietly as we can; Thom, up in the trees and get in position."

Thom immediately hopped up in the trees on the opposite side of the road from where he had been scouting, bow ready with an arrow nocked but not fully drawn. He slipped ahead as the rest of the group trotted down the road in formation, devouring most of the distance they would need to draw level with the monster camp in just a couple minutes. Thom signaled them when they were at the place to turn off the road, his having skills useful in scouting allowing him to detect the enemies at a far distance, the elf only have to return a short way to let them know when to change course.

The team was careful in their movement through the woods, though Beth simply hopped up in the trees, staying well in the front so she could intercept anything heading for the team. They caught up to Blood's location in a minute, the wolf sitting high up in a tree watching the group of monsters. Unlike a group of beasts, which may stay in one place for a short time while they rested or fed, the monsters were all awake and not eating, suggesting they were capable of stilling their violent urges for more than rest.

Beth hopped up to where Blood was, her DEX enough to allow her to move mostly silently and land next to her companion. Luckily, the forest was still somewhat noisy this far from the source of the monster outbreak, and the monsters themselves certainly weren't trying to keep any kind of low profile. Blood just glanced at Beth before gesturing at the monsters, indicating the group gathered in the center. Ten of the twenty monsters were grouped together, jostling and striking each other while two of the largest seemed to be more directly fighting, though not using their full strength. It was much more roaring and shouting and slapping than a full-on battle, but it did present quite a good opportunity for Beth and Blood, and Team Dream Snake as they finally caught up and readied themselves, to strike while the enemies were distracted.

Dean pointed up at Beth and then Blood before pointing into the clearing, dipping two fingers down and then clenching his fist, to which Beth and Blood nodded. They hadn't covered hand signals with the team, but the meaning was pretty obvious, and they watched as Dean made a series of gestures at the rest of the team before holding up his left hand toward Beth with fingers splayed. He ticked down each finger one-by-one, giving them their starting timer, and Beth crouched slightly and took aim at where she would land first. She prepared herself by starting to slightly burn her boosting skills while getting ready to activate her Presence if necessary, contrary to Dean's scolding. She didn't see any reason to forgo her biggest and most powerful tool just because others weren't good at using it or weren't comfortable with her use of the ability.

Dean clenched his fist and thrust his arm forward before starting to move towards the monsters, but he was far behind Blood and Beth. The two leapt forward and down, slamming into the center of the clearing as Beth pulsed her boosting skills briefly to the max, hitting two of the monsters hard enough to cripple them immediately. The things they were fighting now were all strong enough that even a "regular" enemy wasn't easily killed in a single hit. Beth could basically only do it with either a fully charged Crush while she was running her boosting skills at maximum, or by utilizing her Presence to essentially double her stats.

The fight quickly turned into a slaughter, with Liz able to dish out massive damage to the grouped up enemies, taking advantage of the closed-in nature of the clearing they were in to pour on the damage. She even used fire spells to great effect, the bear-like enemies burning quite easily, to Beth's surprise, though the stench of their scorched hair and melting fat was quite noxious, causing everyone present to wrinkle their noses and cough, eyes watering and tongues burning from the fumes. Beth and Blood tore apart everything around them, a veritable hurricane of destruction, the two of them not just matching but exceeding the killing efficiency of all of Dream Snake combined.

The battle wrapped up as Beth gutted a phyke before reversing her blade in a smooth motion to slit its throat, stepping back and to the side as the monster fell to avoid the gush of hot arterial blood. Dean gave her a nod as she rejoined the team, likely happy that she hadn't used her Presence during the fight, but the advantage that the element of surprise had given them, combined with their overall level of strength, meant she hadn't really felt it necessary to call out the extra burst of power.