The claws of the beasts began to chop down trees while they charged. Still, the soldiers around split into groups without flinching and some others surrounded Gaius and Kennil. Kennil was the most important person around and Gaius had enough firepower to kill those things in a single strike.

"I should use my free points into magic, to increase my firepower and get some extra mana," Gaius thought and so he did it.

The beasts finally reached the group and Gaius flinched for a moment when one of the horses raised its frontal legs out of fear and then had its head beheaded by a single swing of the enemy's claws. In the next moment, Gaius instantly killed the same monster with a giant magic arrow on its head.

"Their reaction speed is useless at this distance… I should grab my spear, but perhaps I should lay low and wait for the chance to attack them," Gaius thought.

After checking his parameters for a moment, Gaius confirmed that the beasts granted him twenty thousand points in terms of experience… It has been years since he faced something that could grant him that much. Fighting for his life wasn't only necessary in that situation, it was also very profitable for him…

With the extra power, Gaius could kill the beasts with one-third of his mana each, but he would need a full minute of waiting to have enough for that. It was quite impressive, but Gaius didn't want just to wait and see his allies being killed… he didn't like those guys that glared at him in the last few months, but he didn't like the idea of the plan of the enemies working either.

In the end, Gaius moved around in circles and then fired ordinary mana arrows at the faces of the monsters when they exposed themselves too much while they attacked. It hadn't been enough to kill them, but Gaius blinded them and while they were screaming in pain, the nearby soldiers charged and impaled the beasts with dozens of spears.

Somehow, Gaius still got half of the experience thanks to that, so it didn't take long for him to level up and increase his magic time and time again. It was the only option remaining in that situation.

Things continued like that for a while and despite some losses, thanks to Gaius Mana Arrows on the faces of the beasts, half of them were killed in a couple of minutes. Still, the beasts recognized him as a threat and soon began to glare at him… compared to human blood lust, Gaius couldn't help but sweat cold while feeling all that. He almost could see how the beasts were envisioning his death… the beasts decided to put their goals into action and began to charge all at once toward Gaius while almost ignoring everything else.

"Form a line and stop their charge!" Kennil shouted.

The soldiers obeyed the command and began to tighten their formation around Kennil and Gaius. Gaius hated the idea of being protected like that, though. It made him feel like all his training was for naught… while Gaius couldn’t deny that his power helped him a lot, he put in a lot of work in the last ten years as well.

Gaius couldn’t help but clench his teeth when the demons began to attack one side of the formation… dozens of horses were killed in a matter of seconds and the riders didn’t have time to land and ready themselves for fighting since the beasts overwhelmed them with their charges.

"Their charge is almost unstoppable if they focus on a single spot… to think that they would be smart enough to do this," Gaius bit his lips in frustration while he watched everything.

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"We don't have time to waste here… the war might end if we make sure that the siege weapons will be beyond repair!" Kennil shouted.

No matter what he decides, Gaius had to be fast and precise with his actions. While he grabbed his spear, it wouldn't be a good idea to face those things at close range with the difference in level and their numerical advantage.

Just thinking about it didn't help Gaius think of a solution… It seemed that he was a bit bad when it came to improvising since he was used to acting behind the scenes with his soldiers. He made a mental note to think about it when the time comes and try to improve that, but the only way of doing so was by action and experience, so it was kind of hard.

If thinking things through didn't help, Gaius decided to act by instinct. He approached some of the allies that had extra spears and then suddenly grabbed them. In the next moment, Gaius got up and while standing on his horse, he used his Spiritual Armor and then threw the weapon at the head of one of the beasts… the weapon flew in a straight line and pierced the target, killing it instantly.

The people around saw what Gaius did and couldn't help but feel bewildered… for a boy of that age, it was amazing that he could throw real spears Instead of javelins toward the enemies while the weapons made such a high-pitching sound.

"Let me borrow this, this, and this for a period of… forever," Gaius said while he was taking the spears of his allies without their permission.

Gaius could see in his statuses, but he could tell that his spiritual armor improved his parameters by thirty percent. He didn't know if it was related to his skill or magic, either way, now he could kill those beasts with physical attacks as long as he hit them in the head and they didn't try to protect themselves…

The beasts only realized what was going on when only ten of them were left… The soldiers began to surround the monsters and attack them from all directions. Some of them lost their lives and others lost their weapons while attacking and defending themselves against those massive claws… still, the flow of the battle changed for good and it was only a matter of time before the beasts were ridden off. Still, there was a problem regarding all that… their targets had escaped since the battle against the beasts lasted for a while…

Kennil looked like he was tasting something very unpleasant when he gave the order for his soldiers to retreat. The chances of the enemies having more monsters like that waiting for them were low, but they might have other traps… they didn't come to attack alongside the beasts probably because they couldn't tell their friends from foes, so they used that chance to escape with the remaining siege weapons.

"Relia… you didn't learn anything about the enemies using monsters?" Gaius asked while the other soldiers were preparing to bring back the bodies of the monsters back to the city.

"Monsters? Are you daydreaming, young master?" Relia asked. "No one is crazy enough to bring monsters in a war… no monster can be used effectively in times of war."

"You are dead wrong, and we were just ambushed by them…. Fifty or so of them stopped our charge after we heard the sound of some whistles," Gaius said while scratching the back of his head. "Investigate it."

"Understood," Relia said with a serious tone.

While some were preparing to carry the bodies back to the town, others counted their losses. Kennil had a hard time swallowing it when he heard that they lost two hundred and fifty soldiers and their horses… the battle only lasted ten minutes and that was the result. Kennil knew that they got lucky since those beasts were something else, and yet, he was responsible for those soldiers and he couldn’t help but blame himself for a short while… in the end, he couldn’t let that weight push him down forever.

“We are returning now,” Kennil declared. “We didn’t achieve our goal, but we dealt a powerful blow to the enemies and forced them to run away. They will lose even more from now on.”

Trying to keep the morale was hard, but at least Kennil made some sense with his words. The enemies should have suffered a heavy blow when they didn’t expect a full assault at dawn. However, the appearance of those creatures also left quite the impression on his soldiers and it was hard to say how that would reflect in the future.