Naturally, all three of them were familiar with the creatures known as 'Rieklings'. Lone was knowledgeable about them due to his knowledge of the myths surrounding them back on Earth. Sophie, on the other hand, knew about them thanks to several of the games she spent her time back in her dimension playing having hosted them in it. Breena was aware of them due to having encountered the fierce beasts while she was Daisuke's slave.
"As far as I know, Rieklings are actually very weak, but their biggest strength is usually their numbers and their Chieftain. Does that same logic still apply to the monsters ahead of us, Breena?" Lone asked his bodyguard without shifting his gaze from the distant tribe of what was basically a tribe of more violent and slightly stronger goblins.
"Y-Yes Master, Rieklings are only H-Rank monsters, but even A-A-Rankers have been killed by their overwhelming numbers and powerful Chieftains. H-How many huts can you see, M-Master?" Breena answered timidly before she asked Lone. She only asked because she knew that Lone would more than likely kill the Chieftain himself and leave all of the regular Rieklings to herself and Sophie.
"Ah, thanks. Hmm... about five-hundred?" Lone guessed after he had quickly scanned the huts he could see in the distance. Now that he was looking closer, he saw quite a large number of Rieklings walking about.
"F-Five-hundred?!" Breena shouted in response. This cry alarmed Lone, so he spun his head around and looked at the teenaged Foxkin with a quizzical gaze. Her tails were rapidly swishing about which Lone and Sophie had concluded was a result of her being too anxious. Breena took a quick moment to store her new fears.
This was an ability she had managed to learn how to do, but much like the earlier state of Lone's Lightning Wave, it had yet to form a skill. She could collect and gather all of her fears to one spot in her spirit. The fears just sat there and did nothing, but she had to concentrate to keep them at bay. The only way this collection of Breena's fears didn't go out of control, was by her venting them during battle, which lessened the burden. She was desperately hoping for a skill to be created soon, so it would become easier to control this dark force that was slowly corroding her sanity.
"E-Each hut usually houses about fif-fifteen Reiklings..." Breena mumbled after she had regained her calm. Such a number per hut meant that there would be roughly seven thousand and five-hundred Reiklings. Lone frowned at this.
There was absolutely no way that Sophie and Breena could kill that many. Sophie had recently increased her stats a lot to match those of an ordinary F-Ranker's, so she could maybe, at a push, defeat fifty Rieklings as the best outcome while Breena was now an H-Ranker and quickly reaching the level threshold for an F-Ranker. Although she was now an H-Ranker, she was specialised in one on one fights, so her limit was probably four or five Rieklings.
"Okay, well, I guess I'll just kill most of them and leave a few for you guys. There is no way in hell you two can beat so many H-Rank monsters. I'll be back in a few minutes," Lone said before he immediately began consuming his stamina to run through the air leaving the two girls in awe. Both of them had no idea how Lone would kill so many creatures in 'a few minutes', so they could only watch as his figure gradually started becoming more distant.
Lone was soaring through the air, and he felt exceedingly free. If he had to choose a favourite skill, he would have to say that this was it. Sky Walking. It just appealed to him so much for how free it is considering how constrained Lone was during his later years on Earth. Unfortunately, he had reached his destination a bit too quickly for his liking, but nonetheless, it was time to start the show. Lone sucked in a huge breath of air.
"ALL SOLDIERS... ASSEMBLE!" Lone's shout was so astoundingly loud that even the distant Sophie and Breena could hear it.
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'Yes, that was so cool! Look at all of them crowding below me. Fucking hell, there's so many of them... ' Indeed. Lone had shouted to gather all of the Rieklings into one location because, despite the power of the skill he was going to use to kill them, it consumed a huge amount of mana and Lone knew he'd have to use this skill a lot if he was even going to dent this army of Rieklings.
"Woah, really, spears?" Lone exclaimed while he dodged several objects that he assumed were spears. Lone caught one and mumbled upon inspecting it, "No, not spears, harpoons? I guess it's a bit much to expect them to all have actual weapons. What the... should I laugh at this or what?"
Lone's ponderings had been interrupted by him seeing most of the thrown harpoons coming sailing back down and impaling several of the Reiklings, instantly killing them.
"Not the most intelligent creatures, are they? I guess there are at least a few thousand here, time to get started," Lone said to himself before he took out two mana gems from within his dimension. One for each hand. He had recently been able to create them at a cost of thirty thousand mana each. He could only do so after he had studied the one he had purchased from the auction house five and a half weeks ago extensively.
"Hey, Sophie! How will Master kill so many monsters?!" Breena asked the nearby Sophie with worry and panic clear in her voice. She had yet to see Lone kill more than a few hundred enemies at once, and doing so had left him exhausted half of the time, so her worry was very understandable.
"I don't know," Sophie replied which startled Breena. If Sophie didn't know, then why was she still acting calm when the man she loved was walking in a slow circle above what could have only been thousands of Rieklings, but her question was soon answered by Sophie's follow up statement. "I don't need to know. I trust him. He said he'd kill them and be back, so I believe he will."
Breena was left speechless at this answer. How much trust in a person do you need to believe their words to such a point that it seemed almost like blind worship?
"Breena! Focus! A bunch of stragglers are coming towards us!" Sophie shouted at the dazed Foxkin who was only a few feet away from her. She then gently rubbed the small green butterfly brooch that was pinned to her jacket before she unsheathed her swords, Slesh and Chakoo. Sophie had recently developed the habit of rubbing the gift she had received from Lone as a form of good luck before every battle.
Breena quickly exited her prior daze, and upon seeing the thirty or so Rieklings approaching them, she immediately began consuming her stamina, and she leapt swiftly into Sophie's shadow and prepared herself inside of it. Although Lone had told her previously never to use her Shadow Melding without his supervision, she now had full confidence in her control of her fear thanks to her budding skill, so she now viewed it as impossible to get frightened enough for her concentration to be broken.
Sophie was slightly surprised by Breena's actions, but she chose to ignore it, and she rushed towards the approaching monsters. Upon reaching them, she chopped, stabbed and slashed and killed the creatures rather swiftly despite the disadvantage of the cold restricting her movements. And any Riekling that got too close to hitting her found a knife in its throat or a Foxkin on its head snapping its neck with her knees before she immediately disappeared into the shadow of another Riekling or Sophie's shadow. The two girls worked exceedingly well together despite the vast difference in their fighting styles.
Just as the last Riekling of the group was killed, Sophie spotted another unit of the creatures quickly running towards Sophie and Breena, who was collecting the daggers and knives she had thrown at the now dead Rieklings. Sophie's face suddenly sported a bloodthirsty grin. She was getting so much pleasure from killing, not from the murder in and of itself, but pleasure at the fact that she now had the power to fight, the power to take control of her situation, the power to help Lone.
However, just before the two girls were about to charge at the new enemies that they had spotted, they heard a series of thunderous explosions.
Lightning. An endless sea of lightning. Sophie was taken out from her earlier moment of glee only to be left in shock and absolute terror at the level of power being displayed. Breena had, likewise, lost control of her fear due to the insurmountable horror she felt while she watched thousands of Rieklings in the distance turn into nothing but smoke. Not even ash was left behind.
"HAHAHAHAHA UNLIMITED POWER! LIGHTNING STORM! LIGHTNING STORM! LIGHTNING STORM!" was what the two girls could hear past the deafening sound of the crackling lightning.
Indeed, Lone was currently taking advantage of the mana gems to repeatedly cast the magic skill he had learnt from the young Magician, Emma Malik. His mastery of the skill was rapidly growing and the number of Rieklings was very quickly dwindling.