More mantises came through the cave. Adrian could count six, but he wasn’t sure that was all of them. Dale blew his five-remaining darts to the mantis, it was hurried, but he managed to hit them all. Adrian noticed that one mantis stood still, without moving; and another one felt to the ground. ‘Paralysis and Sleep?’ He thought as he unsheathed his right dagger.

Mike casted two more [Foul Shoot], but he stopped to recover his breath. Adrian could visibly see the fatigue in Mike’s face, a constrained look that gave out the feeling of pain. He probably used his mana for his first time, and now he had an empty mana pool. Adrian underwent empty stamina and mental power pool, but he had to feel yet a mana one. It seemed even worse than the other ones. Adrian accounted for Mike as out of combat for the time being.

[Foul Shoot] hit three mantises, almost the best-case scenario. Mike had taken into account the fact that he didn’t have a lot of mana and preferred to hit various mantises better than a few.

Between Dale and Mike, three mantises were instantly down. The downside was that Mike was in pain and Dale out of darts. Axel put himself in front of the group as he also noticed this fact. The mantises would have to bring him down in order to attack the rest of the party, and that wasn’t probable. Adrian took advantage of Axel’s [Warden’s Taunt] to approach Dale.

“Here you have.” Adrian tossed his left dagger to Dale. “Use it to protect yourself.” Adrian didn’t have any use to that dagger while his right arm was still wounded. Even if he wanted to use the dagger, his arm was too numb to do so.

The only safe strategy that the party could do now was to cast all the auras, accuracy, damage, and [Celeratio] so Axel could kill a mantis with ease and then, if they had luck, [War-bond Tower] would proc. Axel maintained a defensive posture until he felt a mantis was close enough to get smashed by his two-hander without striking the ceiling.

‘Note: Large weapons do not work well in caves.’ Adrian noted as he saw Axel struggling with his weapon. At least they had been lucky that the mine was big enough to even wield a massive sword like his.

After-ages, Axel managed to kill a mantis. It wasn’t because it was strong, but Axel had plenty of difficulties alternating between defense and offense. And then they were lucky. The two mantises next to the dead one fled in fear thanks to [War-bond Tower] and Adrian backstabbed them with swift.

The fear counted towards not being detected and let him use [Assassinate]. That combo could prove useful later. Adrian also killed the mantises that were paralyzed and asleep. He could not use [Assassinate] in the paralyzed one, but the asleep one it worked perfectly. He used [Rampage] in all four cases, now he replenished a chunk of his pools and had that sweet bonus standing at a whopping 20%. That wouldn’t last long, only 20 seconds from now on.

[War-bond Tower] was incredibly useful as it did proc also with allies, but Axel’s kills looked like they had a higher chance to [Fear] or [Berserk] the enemies. But as Adrian knew, the [Skill] only activated when they were outnumbered, and that was no longer the case. A shame, but that meant they now had the upper hand.

Darts flew next to Adrian, close to his head. Instead of being surprised, Adrian made a thumbs up to Dale, who had recovered some of his darts and shot them. Mike also joined the fray once again as he shot one arrow to a mantis. That arrow had endured so much stress and split as it collided against the monster’s keratin. Adrian was more worried about having to pay for new ammunition rather than one of Mike’s arrows breaking.

Either way, Dale’s darts hadn’t applied any debuff or at least one noticeable. Adrian executed the mantis that was shot by Mike as it had survived. His damage and speed bonus were now at 25%. As only three mantises stay alive and Adrian’s body was pumping loads of adrenaline and endorphin to maintain him working well, he charged with little to no thought whatsoever.

Mike assisted Adrian with killing one of the mantises. He had two to go. As he was going extremely fast, he lowered his time perception. He decided that half perception was too fast, so he set it to a third of a normal human. Between [Rampage] and [Celeratio], Adrian felt as he was speed itself. Maybe he was dramatizing it, but the duo of mantises that were trying to hit him were moving too slow for him. Adrian dodged the attacks, not wanting to get hurt again. He couldn’t activate [Assassinate] but between [Rampage] and Kayle’s aura buffs, he didn’t need it.

Whoosh. One swift, fast stab at the head ended the life of one of the mantises. The one which was still alive tried to stab him as well. It only ended up being a try as Adrian dodge the attack as if it were a limbo stick. Then he pierced the heart of the monster with a charged attack.

“Oof…” Adrian said breathlessly at his 35% counter. Then looked at the Record Message.

Level 2-6 [Archimantis Homicida] x13 has been slayed

Participation Rate: 32%

You have earned 624 experience

Adrian noticed that even after killing more than half of the mantises, he only got a third of the participation rate. To be fair, Adrian had killed some mantises that were already knocked, or he had been assisted. He couldn’t ignore Kayle’s damage aura or Aby’s accuracy one.

“Someone has to have leveled up.” Adrian state as he did some quick math and then remembered that the only ones left without classes were Aby and Kayle.

“Almost, but no.” Aby told him.

“No luck here either.” Kayle spoke after reading the invisible Record interface.