The monsters spawned by that slimy liquid had a lizard-like appearance and a humanoid shape, their legs were shorter than normal humans and their arms and torsos were longer. They were slightly smaller than the average human, but their long arms and thick, powerful legs more than made up for that disadvantage.
Their running speed was swift but not that impressive, so those with bows and magic present had ample time to take their target, but they soon realized that firing at all the monsters was simply a waste of ammo, after getting over their panic they selected which targets would pass and advance towards their defense.
After almost a minute under fire from the mages and archers that were still joining the fight, around 15 lizard-men who survived the spawning period charged at a fairly swift speed that barely matched with their short legs, some mages decided to change targets and aim at the running lizards in order to maximize the number of injuries on the monsters after realizing that they couldn't see the end of that black liquid, which had an unknown length hiding on the underground of the dungeon.
After the warriors holding longswords saw that their enemies' weapons were spears they immediately took cover behind their brothers who held shields, if there was one thing that their experience told them was that swords and spears were not a good match, at least not for the swordsman.
Not only that, the frontliners were also afraid of the black liquid that gave birth to the monsters, fearing that it would move to eat them if they went too close in order to slay the lizards before they were fully formed.
And as some of the warriors holding shields expected, - Lyrus included - when the enemies were around 3 meters away they jumped forward with full force, surprising and frightening them. The monsters used that explosive momentum to apply a devastating thrust against the human side.
Lyrus saw that the thrust was headed to his right shoulder and used the edge of his shield to parry the attack, advancing forward and slashing at the lizard man's legs, almost completely severing them off by the time the monster fell to the ground.
Seeing that the next lizard would take a few seconds to arrive, Lyrus checked the damage that the earlier thrust did to his shield and how the other people were doing. His shield lost a bit of its wood at the edge where it received direct damage, small cracks spread through its broken part.
He realized that if he had let the tip of the spear struck instead of the blunt edge close to the shaft the spear would probably be stuck to the shield and stay in his way. Suicide attacks are a scary strategy when the ones using them are not afraid of death.
He looked at the people beside him, he saw some of them holding the big shield lent by the village army, they apparently took the hit head-on and the shield only suffered a little dent. He should've thought about that before, 'perhaps I'm already getting senile', he thought jokingly.
In the first wave, 11 monsters got injured before reaching the line of warriors, they caused no injuries to anyone but left quite the damage in their shields, mostly those made out of wood that weren't really made to go through long-lasting battles against heavy hits.
During that monster charge, the monsters kept spawning. Lyrus counted that at least one monster was formed every two seconds, taking 10 to 15 seconds for every monster to form. Although the archers and mages could kill them all during that time they didn't want to waste everything at the beginning, after all, the archers didn't have infinite arrows and the mages were easily exhausted after 20 or so spells.
Taking every detail of the battle to his attention, Lyrus' eyes lost focus, his mind trailed off from this world and time came to an agonizingly slow pace, another monster was 4 meters away from him and was already preparing to jump just like the other lizards before.
Although it didn't look like he was taking this fight seriously from the unconcerned look in his eyes, he was at his most serious moment right now, figuring out how to upgrade this skill even further mid-battle while letting his muscle memory fight in his stead.
The man-lizard jumped after reaching 3 meters and gave a powerful thrust at the hunter, it wasn't a problem for Lyrus right now, who was thinking about what that black liquid did to instantly convert any kind of material into part of its body and then turn it to flesh and organs in a matter of seconds.
While asking this interesting question to himself he moved, seeing that the strike was slowly heading to his waist now, he also slowly stepped to his right while positioning his shield and sword, the shield blocked the spear in its center - where an iron full-moon held it together - and then quickly advanced, sword slashing downwards to cut deep into the enemy's shoulder and lodge itself inside the monster's arm, during the attack his sword-holding hand was the only part of his body to leave the shield's defense.
This kind of scene kept repeating for 5 minutes - during which every single archer and mage regrouped at the battlefield. Lyrus realized during that time that the black liquid did, in fact, use its own body in order to make monsters, it also 'jumped' once during that time, rocketing its body a dozen meters upwards and almost eating a warrior that advanced much too far.
He guessed that this movement is what destroyed the dungeon, realizing that this was also the only way it moved until now and that in order to do this the thing had to stop its 'monster production'.
It was then that Robert shouted. "To the right flank! Focus there!"
Instantly realizing that this was a warning for them, the archers and wizards looked to where Robert pointed and realized that a bigger lizard, wearing a leather rag clothing in contrast to the other nude lizards. Just like the goblin army, the lizards also had a leader; the leader was already complete past its broad shoulders and just started to acquire a jade-like hue along with a longer crocodile head.
The ranged unit immediately fired at the leader, blasting it to death before it could give its first steps.
But after 2 minutes it happened again, this time most of the normal monster surrounded the monster that looked to be stronger and defended it from the magic and arrows.
Fortunately, Alice was having none of it and drew her bow without any arrows, activating her soul skill and creating an azure colored arrow-like beam as bright as the sun in but a second, she then fired the arrow at the strong looking monster.
Although a normal lizard had just started forming and was in the way of the arrow, the projectile shot right through it, detonating the black blob and reaching its target, the body of the soon to be lizard leader that had just gained its color didn't get close to stopping the arrow that also pierced it, exploding a few centimeters after it and taking another 2 still surging sticky blobs.
One of the warriors saw this and made his wish to hug whoever did it public; however, he never got an answer.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Lyrus guessed that this slimy thing was a living being that could adapt its way of making monsters. And as if to prove him right, at the next minute another lizard leader was created, but this one exited the liquid by running on all fours, hiding its own birth by forming itself while lying down.
It dodged one or two spells and arrows that aimed at it and then stood tall, rushing at Lyrus.
The hunter could now have a clear look at the monster coming at him, the main reason for it to be taller than the rest of its kind was that its legs were longer than them, aside from that, the main differences between it and normal lizard monsters was the leather that hung at its waist and torso and the dual spears it was holding, one a little shorter than the other.
Lyrus got worried about the dual spears because he doubted that the monster could do something so complicated as dual wield weapons, spears no less. And perhaps he was the wisest person on earth today because he was right. Again.
When it was only 8 meters away from the hunter the monster held its shorter spear in a backhanded stance and threw it at him. The hunter that was still in slow-mo parried the thrown spear in a way that threw it aside, falling to the ground not even a meter away from him.
The monster reached Lyrus only a second after but was stopped on its track by a long spear that was brought from the previous battle, the lizard leader looked at Robert who was just behind Lyrus and jumped backward, it then gazed throughout the entire battlefield, trying to find an unprotected warrior on the far side of the line.
But Lyrus wouldn't let him do it, his muscle memory acted by itself while he was wondering how much mass that slime lost making these guys, he quickly advanced forward and slashed at his enemy, both himself and the lizard were boringly slow in Lyrus' eyes. The monster responded by thrusting the spear with one hand while jumping backward once again.
Lyrus moved his shield in a way that bashed the enemy's spear to the side, his body kept the same automatic advance and slashed diagonally. The monster sidestepped but had its left hand's wrist cut in reflex to protect its body.
"Crap!"
However, Lyrus advanced too much for that, 3 lizards came to reinforce their leader and leaped at Lyrus, who couldn't defend against them all with his slow body.
He sidestepped to avoid one spear, parried another with his shield and tried to do the same thing with the last one by using his sword. Alas, the thrust was far too powerful for him to protect himself by holding a sword with one hand, the spear managed to keep going even after being hit by the sword and pierced his right shoulder, the blunt tip broke his collarbone but thankfully the spear blade didn't penetrate deeply into his body. Lyrus feared that if it weren't for the gambeson the spear would have completely entered his shoulder, the tip appearing on his back.
"Ugh..." In a small cry of pain, Lyrus lost the strength to hold his sword and without thinking twice, he swiftly leaped back in the direction of the line, the monsters following him.
A rock spell cast by a mage broke the shoulder of the first lizard to attack - who was also already preparing to jump at the hunter again - and threw him to the ground, the other two, however, reached Lyrus accompanied by the lizard leader and attacked the hunter.
He sidestepped and avoided another spear, using the edge of his shield he blocked another thrust of a normal lizard, but the recoil of the thrust left him a beat too late to completely block the attack of the leader, ever so slowly, ever so closely, it went for Lyrus' waist. The shield violently struck at the spear, sending it off target. But instead of missing him, the spear pierced the upper part of his right leg, almost hitting his knee.
Lyrus gave one last jump backward with his good leg while almost screaming in pain, falling to the ground, losing focus because of his injuries and making time flow normally once again.
Robert caught up to him at that instant and threw the short spear that belonged to the lizard leader back at him, the monster appeared to be enraged for being hurt and was too focused on Lyrus to realize in time that there was a spear heading for it.
The spear tip stuck to the monster's chest and fell out of its body only after the beast hit the ground, to never get back up again.
Lyrus who had let the world flow back to its normal pace, gave his somewhat damaged shield to a warrior beside him, the soldier would probably need it more than him now.
With the help of Jane, who was close to being exhausted by using her magic, the hunter went - almost stumbling - behind the line, where other few warriors were much too injured to fight. Jane left him there only saying through heavy breaths "Don't die on us!"
Lyrus took this chance to see the status of the troop and liquid monster, trying to ignore his heavy breath and furious heartbeat.
Of the 40 or so warriors that made the line at the beginning, 8 were seriously injured and 5 died, their bodies lay still on the battlefield; apparently, another lizard leader was released while Lyrus was fighting his own, this one managed to pass through the line and reached the mages, killing a few before losing most of its upper-half when shot by Alice's soul skill.
But because of that, the girl got far too tired to concentrate on shooting, she gave her quiver to someone else and joined Lyrus before fainting right beside him.
The good news was, the monster that Lyrus decided to simply call slime was much smaller than it was at the start, its body was completely out of the dungeon's underground and was barely a meter outside the dungeon's area.
And thankfully, after another two minutes or so, only a slimy puddle of the monster was left, a mage threw a fireball at it and the slop was completely evaporated. With this, everyone went to give first aid to the injured and move the corpses of their former teammates.
'Why do things always happen when they're the least expected?' Lyrus thought bitterly. The thought of one of his friends dying in there passed through his mind, he couldn't help but compare the sadness that he would feel by losing a trusted teammate in this situation and what happened to Cawton and Vanessa, he felt bad for a moment for comparing the loss of one of his friends to the other, but still came to the conclusion that few things would be worse than the way he lost his teammates at that time.
'And, if nothing else, it's still part of my essence; 'human nature', as the saying of Arcas goes. And I need to know everything that passes through my mind, everything that is as superficial as a small puddle to as deep as an ocean, only this way can I know who I truly am, what is the true purpose of my entire family.' Lyrus thought solemnly, determined to walk all the way, crawl if he needs to. This determination was what allowed him to practically ignore his heavy injuries.
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Lyrus was sitting on his bed, looking at his friends in front of him while thinking that the fact that Childish Alice being worried can indeed make for an interesting occurrence.
Jane wasn't in the mood to let Lyrus continue in his own world while she was worried about him, though.
"So, how bad do you think your wounds are?" She asked, a bit irritated.
"Not that bad, at worst I will probably never step on a battlefield again." Answered a calm and positive Lyrus, who could barely feel his entire arm, and leg from the knee downwards.
"That's supposed to be 'not that bad'? Do you think grave wounds only happen when you lose a limb or something?" Robert asked jokingly.
"What if I died back there because you were making out with that ugly lizard? Would you still say that your wounds were good?" Alice exclaimed this and the whole group fell silent for a moment.
"Please don't." Said Lyrus while looking at the smirk that appeared on Jane's face.
"You swing that way? Sorry, I didn't know!" She said, clearly satisfied with getting back at her teammate for getting hurt.
Lyrus sighed said wished a good night to everyone, 'Pray that no slime eat you in your sleep.'
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Two months later, just after Lyrus' family called him back home.
Just as he thought, unless Lyrus somehow becomes a grandmaster - completely transcending his human body - he would never be able to wield his sword like before without feeling pain and discomfort on his shoulder, he should've listened to the doctor.
And no more running on the battlefield for a year at maximum, his leg would completely heal around that time, he didn't doubt the medic when he said that Lyrus got lucky he didn't lose it when that spear almost hit his knee.
But that was a problem that was not at the top of his list. After he gets healed, he would work on his 'skill' once again. Although at a cost, he realized that leaving the control of your body to itself is not a good idea, taking this important fact into consideration, Lyrus decided to make sure to take full hold of his abilities, so that he can finally discover the Lavridge's purpose, he felt that by even further inside his mind, he would find a clue at what it all came down to.
And so the warrior went home, received the honor of the title 'Sparrow', symbol of his mother's family and now proof of his deeds in taking part on numerous battlefields and making part of history for his family.
His adventures are not over. But the rest is a story for another time.