The creature is a deformed human. Half of its face is disfigured by fleshy bumps, resembling the Imp Erley fought earlier. The parts that aren’t disfigured are missing chunks of flesh. One arm is shaped like a scythe, while the other is split into multiple writhing tentacles.

The deformed human lets out a deafening screech and lunges at Erley with astonishing speed, its scythe-like arm slicing toward his head.

Erley reacts at the last second, leaning to the left and narrowly dodging the attack. He swings his crude sword in a counterattack, but the creature is already behind him.

The deformed human was already positioned behind Erley, Turning around Erley tries to cut him down however the deformed human easily dodges the attack and lands a counter attack of his own.

A boom is heard, smoke coming out of the building, part of the wall broken. Flying out Erley hits his back against the ground and rolls a couple meters to where the convoy was situated minutes ago.

However the convoy was not there, looking back Erley sees the convoy fighting around 10 of the deformed humans.

'Shit..'

Jumping out of the smoke the deformed human lands in front of Erley. Another ear-piercing screech escapes his mouth. This time, more deformed humans answer the call, emerging from the shadows.

'He's probably some sort of leader.'

There are around nine of them. Their arms are more human-like, though their bodies are still covered in fleshy bumps and missing patches of skin.

'What do i do... should i maybe go and support the convoy? or try to fight this all alone..'

Before he could make a decision the leader rushes him again.

This time the other deformed humans rush in from the other sides, trapping him in a circle.

Surrounding Erley in a tightening circle. More deformed humans pour into the area, some breaking off to attack the convoy while others focus on him.

'Shit i'm surrounded!'

Erley blocks another attack from the leader, the force sending him skidding back a few meters.

'What-'

Erley moves swiftly to kill a couple of the deformed humans attacking him from all sides.

'Do i do..'

The deformed humans stop for a second, as if they were assessing their prey's power.

'Are they.. thinking!?'

The deformed humans pause for a moment, as if assessing their prey. Then, all at once, they surge forward. Erley swings his sword in a wide horizontal slash, but this time, some of them dodge.

Panicking, Erley tries to leap out of danger, but it’s too late. One of the deformed humans lunges from his blind spot, sinking its teeth into his shoulder. Another, on all fours, bites into his leg.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

'Fu-'

Erley struggles, switching the hand of his sword to free himself from the one biting on his shoulder. He pulls the blade free and drives it into the creature biting his leg.

But it’s too late.

Even a second counts in such a situation.

The leader already charging, its scythe-arm raised for a killing blow.

Erley’s world slows down and darkens. glowing points of light appear in his vision.

'Are those... Weak points?'

He kills the deformed human on his leg, but the leader is already upon him. The scythe-arm swings forward, aiming to cut him in half.

However there was nothing.

Nothing but air.

The heads of five deformed humans to the leader's left side fly into the air. A figure dances between them, moving with lethal precision.

Seven deformed humans go down in a matter of second.

The leader turns, its back now exposed. Standing amidst the corpses is Erley, his back to the leader. He glances over his shoulder, his expression empty, as if he isn’t even thinking.

The deformed humans on the right side were already regrouping around the leader, covering all his sides, some of them rush towards Erley.

'I have to kill the ones of the left first.'

The leader rushes towards him, however now his movements seemed.. slower. He easily blocks his attack of tentacles with his sword.

His scythe arm follows up with a low attack directed to his right lower body part. But its parried by Erley again.

His tentacle arm ready to attack again, but it was too late. Erley was already moving his sword to destroy all of his tentacles.

The leader tries to retract his tentacles, he loses 3 of his 5 tentacles, blood spraying from the severed stumps.

The leader's posture is broken.

Erley spins, his sword cutting the leader in half with a single, clean strike. The upper half falls to the ground

His eyes meet the other deformed humans. His eyes above the lower half of the Leader.

The remaining deformed humans hesitate. Some try to flee, while others rush Erley in a desperate attack.

Erley sees it, all of the weak spots, every movement, everything was in his sight, he was analyzing every single thing.

He moves with incredible speed. Cutting down the ones that were rushing to kill him, moving swiftly between them he cuts one of the deformed human head.

'One'

He moves to dodge the claws and bites of another six of them, several arms and heads severed in the process.

'Seven'

More and more falling to his crude blade.

'Twelve'

The convoy is still fighting another horde of at least thirty deformed humans. Myora struggling to hold them back, her movements growing sluggish under the relentless assault.

Rushing forward Erley keeps cutting deformed humans down.

Annie’s spear shatters against a leader’s attack, and she’s sent flying into Moen, who’s barely holding the flank.

Erley flashes his sword, and with one wide horizontal swing, he cuts through eight deformed humans that were rushing him from the front.

'Twenty'

Behind him, the ground was littered with corpses.

'Twenty five'

He doesn’t stop. He moves swiftly, cutting down deformed human after deformed human.

Finally he reaches the second horde that was falling upon the convoy.

Finally, he reaches the second horde overwhelming the convoy. The two groups have merged, but most of the second horde is focused on the convoy.

Hao keeps cutting them down with his greatsword, but there is no stop to them. Both Moen and Annie were out of combat at the moment. Annie had no weapon, and Moen was disoriented due to Annie hitting his back.

Myora and Hao are both holding the line as best as possible.

The circle of deformed humans tightens around them.

Suddenly, Erley bursts into the fray from the inside of the circle of deformed humans. His sword a blur as he cuts through the horde. He moves seamlessly, avoiding traps and strikes while cutting down one enemy after another.

He keeps cutting them down.

Legs, arms, heads blood spills everywhere as the corpses pile up.

All of this in a matter of seconds.

Erley was not stopping for even a moment, moving from deformed human to deformed human.

Assisting him was Hao and Myora, who were getting rid of the inner part of the circle.

From the outside Erley kept cutting and cutting, until there was none left...

Standing on top of all the bodies, Erley turns and locks eyes with Myora, his chest heaving.

His voice steady.

"I told you."

He collapses.