As soon as Daniel felt his hit connect, the monster burst apart, turning into a gigantic swarm of normal-sized bats, flying away in every direction.

Of course, he should have expected this. It would have been way too easy otherwise.

Inspecting it while he was in the air had told him that it was level 52. It had been quick since it was ten levels below him. And it was also what told him that it had five special abilities, one for each time it rose past ten levels.

So, he wasn't surprised that out of five special abilities, one was a defensive one. But of all things, it just had to be the type that activated automatically and saved the majority by making minimal sacrifices.

From the blood on his weapon, Daniel could see that he had killed at least one of the small bats. But when his opponent put itself back together in a big whirlpool of bats only a few meters away, it didn't look injured at all.

Daniel knew that these special abilities weren't completely broken. There were powerful abilities and less powerful ones, but there were none that couldn't be overcome.

As long as he hit it a few more times, the damage should get through to it.

As soon as Daniel hit the ground, he pushed himself off, catapulting directly at the bat that was now flying a few meters over his head.

Just before his sword could connect a second time, the bat flapped its wings strongly, shooting up two meters into the air while pushing daniel back to the ground with the gust it created.

Daniel was annoyed. It wasn't like he couldn't have overcome that maneuver if he had put more strength into his jump. But there was a reason that he didn't like fighting flying enemies. The more püower he put into his jumps, the faster he could close the gap between him and his opponent. But if he missed, it would mean that much more time that he would be flying through the air, without being able to do anything to his opponent.

Sure, he had magic spells that would allow him to fly or create steps in the air to push of from. But he didn't like using them. The reason was simple. They were Air elemental. Thanks to his blessings, he had high control over Earth elemental magic and could cast it at a low cost, but the effect on Air elemental magic was the opposite. In addition, both flight and air steps would have to carry the full weight of Daniel and his about two tones heavy sword.

Only for Daniel did his weapon weigh almost nothing. He even had to constantly strengthen the ground beneath his feet just to be able to walk without sinking knee-deep, though it wasn't much of a burden as it was also an Earth elemental spell.

At that moment, the bat let out a mighty screech. A lot louder than anything it had done before, it almost ruptured Daniel's eardrums and caused him intense nausea.

A quick check of his body via Aura allowed him to redistribute it to strengthen his brain and several choice organs. As quickly as it had come, Daniel had the attack countered.

But even if he had been busy for not even a second, the bat had used that time to distance itself and fly towards the forest side of the fort. That, he wouldn't let it do.

Once again he jumped at it, flying with the speed of a missile, his sword ready to strike. But, despite coming at it from behind, it didn't miss his approach. With another mighty flap of its sail-sized wings, it once again explosively increased its flight height.

But this time, Daniel was prepared. Despite it being a bit wasteful, he created an Airstep and quickly changed his direction to fly straight up.

With a powerful swing, he once again brought his blade to bear. But this time, he hit his opponent with the flat of the blade.

Just like before, his opponent burst apart into many smaller versions of itself, but this time, Daniel could see five of them explode in blood and viscera as they made contact with the overwhelming force that was his weapon.

But, different from what he had expected, the smaller monsters didn't unify again like they did the first time. Instead, they stayed in the swarm form, every one of them flying away in a different direction.

Daniel had just reached the highest point in his jump, and it would still take him a few seconds to reach the ground again, so he decided to not waste that time and gave the smaller bats an inspection.

All of them were only level one or two, and if his guess wasn't wrong, they would have a total level of 52 if put together.

Now, the question was, what should he do about them? He wasn't exactly a specialist at fighting and hunting down large numbers of weak enemies. Maybe he could just leave it to the others? Fight numbers with numbers? They shouldn't be terribly strong in that form after all.

Still, while they were still close enough together, there was at least one thing he could do. As quickly as he could, Daniel used his magic to create a handful of pebbles, each about a kilogram in weight, and threw them with all his strength into the swarm, creating something similar to a buckshot from a shotgun, only to make them dissipate half a second later. He didn't want to have them hit people after all.

He managed to throw two more hands full of stones before he finally hit the ground again, eliminating almost half of the swarm in the progress. But at that point, the remaining ones were already too far away from him and each other for that tactic to work much longer. At least not without risking other people's lives.

As soon as Daniel took another look around to decide on his next action, he realized that leaving them alone for the other fighters to deal with wouldn't be possible. But neither would be dealing with them one by one.

In just a few moments, one of the bats had come close to a fighter, overwhelmed them and bit them in the shoulder. Thanks to his Aura enhanced eyes, Daniel could clearly see what was happening next, despite the darkness.

Starting from the head, the bat quickly turned red and then flew away. But the blood didn't stop flowing from the wound, instead, it spayed out almost like from a fountain, coalesced in the air into a sphere, and once the blood stopped, begun to change its form.

A quick inspection told Daniel that, in just a few moments, one bat, had turned into two. A new monster with a status identical to the original had been created. And the fact that inspect even worked on it, meant that it wasn't just a temporary clone either.

Not much longer, he could see the same scene repeating all over the battlefield. One after another, people died, and no matter how quickly Daniel eliminated them, turned into new bats.

In the end, less than a minute after he had killed almost half of the bats, even more than originally rose into the Sky, now every single one blood red, and fused back into one gigantic sphere.

At that moment, Daniel understood. That monster may be ten levels beneath him, but it was his complete antithesis. Even if he activated his incarnation talent, he wouldn't be able to win. Especially not with this many people around.

Just when the sphere of blood was completed, a black shape fell out of it, before it spread its wings. The giant bat was in one piece again, now probably completely healed, and the remaining blood was now starting to hover around it in several big and small spheres.

If Daniel was sure of one thing then that would be that the bat would now be stronger than before. He couldn't tell in what way exactly, but in one way or another definitely.

Just as Daniel took his eyes off the boss monster and let them wander over the people who were still fighting, he saw one person look directly at him.

He gave a quick little wave, but that was already too much. For just a moment, he had distracted her, and now he could only watch as Victoria looked down in shock. Watching as the bloody claw retracted back into her stomach and out her back.

Shocked, Daniel couldn't move. It felt like an eternity as he watched Victoria slowly falling to her knees, and then on her side.

Daniels mind raced. What was it that he wanted? Protecting the city? Saving everyone? Being a Hero?

No. Saving everyone was good. But only as long as Victoria was one of them.

Without wasting even a single thought more, he abandoned every further consideration on how to kill the boss and ran towards Victoria.

In just a few seconds, he reached his destination and fell on his knees. Touching her, he felt for her Aura, quickly being able to tell that there was still time to save her. As quickly and carefully as he could, he cast a series of spells that had saved his own life countless times.

Then, he took her in his arms and ran.