And (N)one Shall Remain

Rather than rush to Moira or Nadine’s aid, Alissa headed towards where Silvia fought instead. She figured that Moira and Nadine had the situation pretty well under control, while on the other hand, Silvia was in a more risky situation compared to Maribel. Maribel relied on her agility to evade the beast she fought, but Silvia was relying on bluffs that relied on the injuries she inflicted with her active skill.

 

Alissa crashed into the side of the occupied beast just as it leapt back to avoid a thrust from Silvia’s spear, the broader of her weapon’s spearheads piercing into the surprised beast’s side down to its guard. From there, Alissa shifted the way she gripped her spear into a position more akin to a couched lance and pushed ahead and downwards at the same time.

 

As a result, the spearhead’s bladed sides ripped straight through the beast’s side, spilling its various guts viscera on the ground in a messy, bloody heap.

 

The beast gave a pained roar even as its limbs lost strength and it collapsed. Silvia naturally took the opening and rushed in to deliver a final blow, the point of her spear piercing deep into the beast’s head through one of its eyes. All the beast did was to give another weak whimper before it shivered one last time and ceased all movement.

 

They exchanged meaningful nods with one another as Silvia rushed to where Moira was fighting, while Alissa headed off to help Maribel. With their help, the beasts those two were fighting were soon slain as well, around which time Nadine also happened to have finished with the beast she fought against. That took care of the weaker beasts, but left the strongest ones for them to tackle.

 

At the other front, Ethan and the rest were fighting hard against the remaining six beasts. They mostly managed to hold the beasts back, but couldn’t really hurt the beasts that much. Instead, it was them who took injuries from the fighting, only somewhat relieved by Leda’s healing. Projectile weapons proved to be less useful as they failed to pierce the tough hides of the higher leveled beasts, and they were also too agile and clever to allow a shot to hit a vital spot like their eyes.

 

In fact, the only sign of serious damage was on one of the females Bronwen was handling, which limped slightly with its front left leg, where there were some signs of charring. Joshua had struck it with an empowered lightning bolt but had not expected these beasts to be attuned to the earth and was capable of grounding most of the damage he did.

 

That threw a wrench in their plans as Joshua was more proficient with using the lightning element in a fight, whereas using fire was likely going to be more detrimental to themselves – the prairie was full of dry grass everywhere so any fire could easily rage into a massive wildfire – compared to the beasts, so he also had to avoid that.

 

It was only when Alissa and the rest came to their aid that the situation came under control. Ethan just straightforwardly foisted the two females he was blocking to Alissa and the rest. He took quite a few hits from the beasts’ paws already and was already using [‘Tis just a Flesh Wound] to help himself withstand the pressure, so they arrived at a good time. 

 

Similarly, Bronwen allowed the already limping beast to scurry off towards Alissa’s group, while Leda took that opportunity to heal some of her worse injuries. The way the three defenders constantly took injuries while they blocked the beasts had taxed her quite a bit, and she was already running rather low in mana from healing so much as it was.

 

The biggest of the beasts, the [Saber-Toothed Liger Ravager Lvl57], seemed to have noticed the worsening situation, and it roared deafeningly. The roar itself looked like it was an innate skill of the beast’s, as Alissa noticed that all of the beasts were [Invigorated] right after that. That reminded her of the matriarch she fought in her first dungeon and brought back bad memories.

 

Instead of working together with the others to take care of the three females headed their way, Alissa made short work of the limping one – easy enough since it was slowed by its limp – by piercing the side of its neck after evading a pounce. Her stab sliced through one of the large arteries that ran alongside the beast’s neck and caused it to hemorrhage heavily, dropping the beast within moments.

 

Then she left the remaining two beasts to the others and rushed towards where Ethan was holding off the biggest of the beasts.

 

“Came to join the party at last?” quipped Ethan even as he pushed the beast away with a strenuous heave. The beast’s claws were raking the top of his shield, and Alissa noticed the gouges it left there. It must have been hard on him to have to keep the attention of not only the biggest beast but also the other two for so long. “This one’s a toughie. I’ve managed to smack it a few times but none of my hits seem to even phase it.”

 

“Then we’ll just have to hit it harder!” replied Alissa back as she took up position to Ethan’s left. Her spear was mostly used for thrusts, so she was less bothered with having someone on her right side, whereas Ethan needed more room to swing his pollaxe properly. “Smith! Did you hit this thing with your magic yet or are you just diddling yourself back there!?”

 

“I tried!” replied Joshua back with some frustration. “These things have some way to ground my lightning, and I can’t use fire unless you want to see this whole place go up in flames!”

 

“Then use something else, for fuck’s sake!” she shouted back even as she prodded the [Saber-Toothed Liger Ravager Lvl57]’s side with her spear. Alissa felt almost as if she just tried to stab a really hard rock instead of something made of flesh and blood, and saw the difficulties the others faced with the creature. It might not have much in terms of fancy skills, but it was extremely tough and durable, and judging from the rents and gouges on Ethan’s armor, hit pretty hard too.

 

No wonder the arrows and javelins had not seemed to do much against them.

 

“Give me a bit!” Joshua yelled before he closed his eyes and seemed to focus hard. Even from the distance Alissa could feel the way the mana shifted around Joshua, and from the way the beast intensified its attacks, it likely could feel the building threat as well. She noticed how some rocks floated from the ground and moved towards Joshua in the glance she took, before the beast occupied her attention once more.

 

She blocked another swipe of its claw with her shield – the claws leaving marks on the solid metal surface of her shield in the process – and tried to stab the beast in the throat, but found that its mane functioned like some sort of natural armor. Her stab didn’t harm the beast in the slightest, and it even snapped at her, though fortunately she had already pulled her arm back by then.

 

“Make way!” she heard Joshua yell from behind and leapt to the left without a second thought. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Ethan doing the same, towards the opposite direction. Mere moments after they leapt aside, something blurred past her vision, followed by a loud smash and a yelp of pain from the [Saber-Toothed Liger Ravager Lvl57].

 

A ball of solid rock the size of a human torso had just been hurled at the [Saber-Toothed Liger Ravager Lvl57]’s head at nearly the speed of sound and had stunned it from the impact, though the same impact caused the rock to shatter into tiny pieces. Still, although the rock failed to break the creature’s skull – which was clearly the harder of the two – it still caused the beast’s forehead to bleed, and threw it into a momentary daze.

 

Neither Ethan nor Alissa missed the opening.

 

Alissa immediately activated all her active skills at once as she flipped her spear around and stabbed using the spike-like end towards the beast’s right eye. The beast was still conscious enough to attempt to avoid her blow, but Ethan activated his [Heavy Blow] and bodily slammed into the other side of the beast’s head, shield first, keeping it in place for Alissa’s strike.

 

As a result, the spearhead directly struck the beast’s right eye and went into the eye socket, where it was briefly stuck at the bone until both Alissa and Ethan heaved from opposite sides, forcing the sharp point to pierce through the bone and into the beast’s brain behind it. The blow was mortal, but the beast had so much vitality that it didn’t immediately drop dead. 

 

It still had enough life in it to wildly swipe at the two of them and send them flying, then tried to chase after them before it wobbled and collapsed on its side.

 

The [Saber-Toothed Liger Ravager Lvl57]’s death throes left Ethan with a broken shield and Alissa with a rather nasty gash on her left arm where she failed to catch the beast’s claws on her shield, but it was nothing that particularly concerned either of them. They quickly regained their footing, picked up their weapons, and went back to the fight, helping the other take care of the remaining few beasts.

 

With all of them – minus Joshua, who was wheezing and panting as he had exhausted the vast majority of his mana pool in the previous strike – working together, the remaining beasts stood no chance, and were quickly killed off. One of the females escaped, and the party let it be since they had nobody who could both chase down and kill the beast on their own anyway.

 

The party of twelve were pretty beat up and exhausted, the remaining injuries on their bodies not yet healed because Leda had run out of mana and had just collapsed as soon as the battle ended. Still, it was a fight they won, and they started to relax and drop their guard as the rest of the group – led by Sir Inolet – drew closer together with the harvesters.

 

That was when a barrage of arrows suddenly flew in from the other side – the direction the beasts had come from – and caught them off guard.

 

Alissa managed to throw herself to cover the still-recovering Leda, blocking two arrows with her shield even as another clanked off her breastplate. A fourth arrow caught her on the left arm, just above where the beast had clawed her, but she persevered and shrugged off the pain. Not like it hurt her more than what the wound caused by the beast did anyway.

 

Most of the others managed to avoid, block, or otherwise handle the arrows with two exceptions. Silvia happened to be looking towards the rest of the group when the barrage happened, and she noticed too late because of it. Two arrows struck her in the back and sent her to the ground, though Alissa noticed the young woman struggling to get up afterwards.

 

The same could not be said about Joshua, however, who only had the time to look surprised before three arrows took him in the throat and chest and sent him sprawling on his back. If he didn’t have [Respawn] to fall back to, Alissa would have been been worried about his fate, but at least she knew that he wouldn’t die permanently thanks to that skill.

 

At the same time, around a dozen cloaked and hooded figures seemed to shimmer into existence in the distance, as they pulled out various weapons and rushed towards the party. Alissa managed a quick glance with [Analysis] at the incoming foes, and realized just who they were from their class names.

 

They were demons, and she saw five fourth-tiers amongst their numbers.