On the beach near the giant bubble, mercenaries and monsters were fighting to the death. The monsters came one after another, sometimes grouped up, other times hundreds of meters apart, so the defense force had no choice but to split up and run after them.
There was no rhyme or reason to their attacks, so the mercenaries were forced to adapt on the spot.
“Sea urchins up ahead! Snakes to the left! I said left. Are you listening to me!?”
From a comfortable spot, 100 feet behind the mercenaries, Dominic Junior was enthusiastically shouting orders while waving a golden staff with a decently sized blue crystal on top. Of course, nobody listened, but this did not stop the 19-year-old from trying.
Fortunately, there were few monsters attacking in those first few days. As the one-armed mercenary had promised, there was no need for training or formations. The sheer difference in numbers was more than enough.
Then, on the seventh day of combat, a one ton clown fish dropped from the sky right in front of Junior. His second in command pulled the kid out of the way and sliced the beast with her rapier before the monster jumped backwards around 200 feet.
Seeing the giant fish hopping towards them, Finn and Luca shot it full of arrows. Unfortunately, due to its mass and speed, it managed to hop a couple more times until it got past the barrier.
“It’ll be back,” shouted Finn. “Luca, have a couple of your guys keep their eyes up.”
From this moment on, monsters started not only rushing from the front, but many of them dropped like missiles from the upper part of the bubble. If they had tried this further up ahead, the giant crystal would have eviscerated them, but here, everything was fair game.
“Urchins!”
Suddenly, three giant balls of spikes rolled at around 60 miles per hour towards the teens’ groups. Melee fighters could not approach them and archers could barely damage them.
Yeren punched the ground and the creatures smashed into pillars of earth.
“Shoot!” shouted Luca, and the mages and archers released a volley of projectiles.
The creatures wriggled for several minutes before they finally died. The archers and warriors changed targets to a group of sea snakes, and Annie ran towards the urchin corpses to recover arrows that could still be used.
The snakes had between one and five heads. The more heads, the slower they were, but also the more dangerous.
While Michael distracted the head in the middle, Natalie and Tommy pierced the eyes of the ones to the side. After cutting off their heads, Michael pulled the final one to the ground before his friends chopped it off.
‘Can I do nothing but support?’ Michael clicked his tongue. Thick veins bulged on all of their bodies.
“Shut it down between fights,” said Natalie. “Or we might fall from exhaustion.”
Suddenly, a group of 50 carriage-sized tuna fish rained from the sky. They smashed into the sand like meteors before jumping back and shooting water bullets at the mercenaries.
‘That’s some fine coordination for some mindless beasts.’ Finn took note, while using his enhanced body to dodge the bullets by a hair’s breadth.
“Protect the count!” Junior’s knights lifted their shields while his second in command dealt with any monsters that got close.
“Protect me!” he shouted. “Hey, you bastards! Get back here and help!”
Luca pretended not to hear and readied his bow.
“Wait!” shouted Finn. “If we lose any more arrows on these fish, we’ll have to fight them barehanded.”
“Why are there so many?” Begrudgingly, Luca lowered his weapon and let the warriors do the work. They managed to kill nine tuna fish in total before they managed to hop back into the ocean through the bubble.
In the aftermath, more than a dozen mercenaries had been trampled and several more had been injured by their water bullets.
“They’ll be back,” said Natalie. “Finn, we need a plan.”
“Midgets make plans.” Yeren laughed out loud while tackling a clownfish and punching its gills. “Warriors fight!”
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His group let out a roar, and together, they ripped through snakes and stragglers at an impressive pace.
“We must get more groups together,” said Finn. Most of the mercenaries were split and acted independently. “There are too many monsters today.”
However, before the teens could take a single step towards the other mercenaries, a new army of monsters rained from the sky.
This one was made out of simple clams, as small as those on earth and probably just as delicious. There were thousands of them, so many in fact, that they almost blotted the already dim light provided by the bubble.
‘What’s going on?’ Finn took in the battlefield and his frown became deeper and deeper. ‘Their numbers just keep growing...’
“Should we grab some for a barbeque?” Yeren’s second in command tried to eat a clam raw.
“Mages!” the one-armed mercenary was heard shouting from afar. “Help!”
Suddenly, a tongue-like muscle shot out of the clam, stabbing the beastman in the throat. The giant’s teammate quickly pulled it off, but he was now bleeding helplessly while more clams fell on top of him.
“Bastards!” Yeren bellowed while stomping the clams and smashing through as many as he could with his fists.
“Cut them!” Natalie shouted while over two dozen tendrils tried to skewer her. She managed to cut half of them by raising her blood flow to the maximum but she was still lightly cut five times before she could finally fall back.
The only bright side was that the clams did not drop everywhere at once. As if someone was throwing buckets of them from the sky, they fell in clusters in random places along the beach.
“Run towards the knights!” shouted Finn. They were the closest large group in the vicinity.
The three teams sprinted towards Dominic, cutting as many of the monsters as they could along the way. Fortunately, Junior was still standing, but half of his guards were skewered and dead. The clams seemed to feast on their blood, the corpses shriveling while their tongue-like muscles grew hideously in width.
“Defend the count!” Junior’s second in command shouted while struggling to cut all the clams that were falling.
Unfortunately, not even the teens’ addition to their forces was enough to combat the sheer numbers of the enemy. The monster rainfall looked like it was about to end, but Junior’s forces would likely end with it.
“Keep them away!” he shouted while shooting fireballs out of his fancy staff.
However, the teens were too busy to care for his safety. Michael ripped clam after clam off of Tommy, while Tommy sliced off as many as he could off of Michael. Natalie, Annie and Finn were doing slightly better, but even with a knife in both hands, Finn was struggling to keep up.
“Run right!” Since his bow was mostly useless, Luca kept an eye on the ceiling instead. “Get back!” By carefully observing where most of the clams fell, he tried to guide them to where there were fewer enemies.
“There are snakes incoming!” one of his subordinates shouted. Long monsters with several heads each started circling the group trying to cut off all exits.
‘But they should be dumb monsters,’ Finn’s eyes went wide.
“Watch out!”
Suddenly, the sky became black. The final spurt of the clam onslaught was upon them. As if trying to go out with a bang, a literal carpet of tiny monsters fell from the sky right on top of the group’s position.
“Kill these bastards!” Yeren shouted while stomping the ground and creating pillars of stone to slow down the snakes. Finn and all the other archers emptied their quivers. There was a dent in the falling carpet, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Fight!” The giant rushed forward and tackled several snakes at once. They bit into his flesh as he tried to strangle them one by one. “Let’s make our fathers proud!” he roared before biting a chunk out of a snake’s neck.
His comrades rushed in to help him, but it was far too late. All they and Junior’s knights could do was hold the snakes back. The clams would soon fall upon them and everyone would be dead.
“No!” Dominic shouted while shooting fireball after fireball at the sky. Annie wanted to help him, but she did not know how.
“Stay away!” screamed the boy, but the carpet drew closer.
‘No!’ Annie gritted her teeth and her eyes started glowing.
“Stay back!” shouted Junior and his crystal grew brighter. Annie was about to shoot when suddenly, light emanated out of the skinny mage from the soles of his feet to the top of his skull.
Annie stopped her magic and took a step back.
The energy inside the boy kept building up until it burst out of him and into his crystal. The crystal then lit up brighter than the sun, and then exploded into flames.
A wave of fire burst parallel to the earth above the teens’ heads. It roasted all clams within a 100 feet area and burned straight through most of the snakes’ necks.
Dominic collapsed as did the creatures biting Yeren. The blue crystal on the giant’s golden ring disintegrated into pieces. His back was charred, his body was full of tiny holes, and gallons of blood flowed from where the snakes had bit him.
“Boss!” his teammates shouted while rushing to his aid. The chieftain’s son, the young titan, dropped to his knees. His body did not fall any further, but the light in his eyes slowly dimmed.
From the wall, reinforcements could be heard running towards them. Showing one last victorious smile, young Yeren died knowing his friends would live.
[50 feet beyond the city’s barrier]
The bubble’s light did not reach at this distance, but the goblin could see through the bubble just fine.
The enemy’s forces were all but obliterated. Soon, they would send reinforcements, but from the very beginning this was the plan.
The goblin hugged his black crystal tighter and showed his teeth as he laughed out loud. More monsters arrived behind him, but he signaled them to wait.
More attacks would accomplish nothing. The day was won, and it was just the beginning.