“MOVE YOUR SCALY BUTTS!” shouted Zundar.

He kicked a few of the Ramia warriors in the butt as they were fumbling around the place. The main force of panicked Ramia warriors tried to create some semblance of a formation under the guidance of Chief Raibread before the Infected could reach them.

Fluffball, already full sized, was running behind the battle line and head-butting those that were lagging behind, making sure they moved into the formation.

“Fluffball!” shouted Akira.

Upon hearing Akira's voice, Fluffball abandoned herding the Ramia and ran to Akira's side.

“Grrr,” said Fluffball, greeting Mileena who sat behind Akira.

“Raibread, I'll leave holding down the center to you. We'll attack from the sides and the rear!” shouted Akira.

Ding!

Leadership skill activated!

Darkness Domain activated!

Allied forces under your command have been buffed!

Leadership had leveled up and is now Veteran Officer lvl 4!

Darkness domain has leveled up and is now stage 3!

“Awooooo!” Akira let out a howling order the echoed across the snowy plain.

The officers all let out howls of their own, the Gargs joined them letting out their coughing barks as they jumped forward and ran past the right flank of the Ramia warriors.

Seeing this the ramia warriors started panicking.

“They're leaving us!” “Those damn mutts are fleeing!” “We're all going to die, that's why!”

“Shut your traps! The enemy is here!” snarled Raibread loudly.

The first wave of enemies to reach the Ramia infantry was nearly 100 slim stony Grunners who slammed into the front line.

Just with this first wave of attacks the front line was already buckling dangerously as the Grunner infected continued to slam into the front line and latched onto the Ramia warriors.

The Grunners clawed through the leather armor and tried to devour the warriors by biting them but were having a hard time due to the Ramia's thick scales.

“Get it off! It won't stop gnawing on me!” shouted one of the warriors. He flailed around trying to smack the gnawing Grunner off of him with his free arm but his feeble attacks were doing little to no damage to it.

BAM!

The head along with the glowing core of the Grunner was shattered by a large mace.

“Get yourself together! There's more coming!” hissed Raibread before he moved off to help others having trouble.

Akira and the rest of the cavalry continued their flanking maneuver, running far around the side of the main mass of infected who were running and stumbling towards the Ramia.

As the cavalry reached the halfway point to the rear of the infected where the dark smoky cloud that the Molten Onyx infected had exited, Akira was able to see the dark figure on top of the large GaiAnt more clearly. He watched as the dark-robed figure pointed to the approaching cavalry.

Immediately a force of Grunners detached from the main body and charged towards the werewolves to block them.

The Grunners running towards them were of the four-legged variant, former snow wolves, foxes, stray dogs, and large feline monsters.

The pack of running Grunners lifted their stony heads into the air and let out silent howls of challenge as they charged towards large Gargs.

“Awoooo!” Akira gave the order to smash through them.

“Klyn, get ready! We're going to have to go near the dark clouds to take care of that person!” shouted Akira as he pointed towards the dark-robed figure standing on the shoulder of the large GaiAnt.

Behind Akira, Mileena slotted two blunt arrowheads into her small wrist crossbow, and then pulled out her two custom-made maces that had sharp blades on the bottom and a large blunt head on the top for smashing things.

Akira was leading the charge at the center of the cavalry's arrow formation, so he was the first to make contact with the Grunners.

They leaped up into the air to try and tackle both him and Mileena off of Grarr.

Bam!

On his left two Grunners slammed into his shield and fell back to the ground.

On his right, a third Grunner also lunged at him...

...and was knocked out of the air by Fluffball who had jumped up and intercepted it.

“Keep going!” growled Akira as they fought their way through the Grunners trying to block them.

The passing cavalrymen and Gargs made short work of the Grunners that were knocked to the ground trampling on them and smashing their cores.

But not all of the Cavalrymen were lucky, a few were knocked off of their Garg mount and torn to shreds.

The dark-robed figure seeing the Grunners fail to stop them waved his hand again and sent out several Puffers to block them. The Puffers began to exhale their toxic gas from their plump small rocky bodies as they moved with stubby legs to try and intercept the cavalry.

Fluffball sent a few icy blue blasts towards them, halting a few.

With a wave of Akira's arm, the Calvary moved to the right curving around the area with the Puffers. They were able to outrun the slow Puffers with the Gargs running at a speed that far outpaced the Puffers.

Klyn and the rest of the holy shaman released the full power of their chants covering the entire werewolf force to try and protect them from the dark clouds ahead of them as well as the growing toxic cloud behind them.

All that was in their way of reaching the dark-robed figure was a hundred or so regular shambling Molten Onyx Infected that were surrounding the Large GaiAnt.

The infected moved forward to intercept the cavalry as the GaiAnt started to move away with its slow but long steps.

Seeing that their target was getting away, Akira urged Grarr to move faster.

Grarr sensed the urgency and instead of plowing through the Infected heading towards them, he gathered his strength and...

...launched himself into the air flying right over the infected, landing right behind them.

Fluffball followed suit along with Dolph and Vilkas. Zundar ignored destroying the Infected and plowed through them to join back up with Akira.

The rest of the cavalry that were unable to jump over were dragged into battle with the infected and were forced to fight them off.

Akira knew this was risky, but right in front of them was most definitely one of the main culprits responsible for the Molten onyx plague.

How could he let them get away?

Akira and those who had managed to follow him chased after escaping GaiAnt.

When they were only a few paces behind it, Grarr jumped forward and slammed his body into the legs of the large GaiAnt trying to topple it.

Fluffball shot out an ice attack at its legs as well.

The large golem stumbled but quickly regained its footing.

Akira could see that the Black-robed figure was now hanging onto the large head of the golem with both hands as he had almost fallen off.

Blink!

Mileena disappeared and reappeared behind the Dark Robed figure on the GaiAnt's left shoulder. Using the sharp butts of her weapons she stabbed forward to impale the person.

The dark figure jumped into the air and with a flip, landed on top of the GaiAnt's head. The dark-robed figure looked down at Mileena who was now moving her arms up to aim her wrist crossbows.

Swoosh!

The large Right arm of the GaiAnt swung up to try and knock Mileena off its shoulder, only to hit nothing but air as she ducked and rolled onto its back where she stabbed her weapons into the cracks using them like ice picks.

Akira launched himself off of Grarr's back and climbed up onto the right shoulder, where he was greeted by a thrusting sword from the dark-robed figure.

Akira was forced to duck and lean to the side to dodge the multiple thrusts.

“What is the [Cult of science's] reason for releasing this plague?” asked Akira in a booming voice.

This one sentence startled the dark-robed figure who had their arm raised in the air and was readying another attack to keep Akira pinned down.

“You know too much! I, Bonestringer will end your life here!” said a male voice from inside the dark hood.

Using the man's hesitation, Akira Pounced towards the robed man and tackled him off of the GaiAnt's head, landing on the left shoulder.

The GaiAnt was still busy trying to grab Mileena but was having a hard time since she was hanging onto its back where it had trouble reaching.

BAM!

The fist of the GaiAnt finally slammed into Mileena crushing her body.

Poof!

Her crushed body dissipated into a cloud of white smoke.

“Missed me!” shouted Mileena, who was now in a different position unharmed.

Two Mileena's appeared at once. One on the right one on the left causing the GaiAnt's small brain to have trouble deciding which one to smash first.

Bam!

It chose the left side again, crushing her into nothing.

“Missed again!” shouted Mileena. “This new skill is amazing!”

Akira was still wrestling with Bonestringer whose hood had fallen off in their struggle and revealed his face which looked gaunt and emaciated like that of a skeleton.

The man was slippery and kept escaping Akira's attempts to lock him down.

Bonestringer freed his left hand and reached out towards Akira. As it neared Akira it started to glow in a misty black light.

Ding!

Akira's Bad gut feeling +2

Akira started to feel an odd force tugging at his entire being coming from Bonestringer's hand. So without a second thought, he kicked Boenstringer away from him using his full strength.

Bonestringer was kicked off the shoulder and fell behind the GaiAnt while Akira rolled off the front of the GaiAnt.

As he fell he was caught by Grarr, who had been near the GaiAnt's feet still harassing it.

The golem immediately stopped trying to smash Mileena. With a kick of its left leg, it knocked away Fluffball who was jumping towards Bonestringer who had crash-landed into the snow.

“GUH”

The golem turned sideways and grabbed Bonestringer with its large hands and then ran towards the dark smokey wall.

Millennia jumped off the back of the GaiAnt and landed behind Akira on Grarr.

Although Akira wanted to chase after Bonestringer he was stopped when he heard Klyn call out.

“We need to get out of here! If we don't leave now we’re going to be surrounded and cut off by the toxic gas and that black cloud!”

For a few more seconds Akira watched as Bonestringer and the GaiAnt disappear into the black cloud. With great regret that he was unable to capture him, Akira turned his attention back to the Puffers.

“Let's get out of here! We still have a lot of work to do!” said Akira.