On the next day, the group of adventurers met in front of the guild before setting up on their journey toward the quarry. Charles kept quiet, focusing on the fight to come, Norte was also silent but it looked more as if he was going for a stroll. Brian was trying to flirt with Aquamarine, telling her how everything would go well because of him. Aquamarine was trying to ignore him, but she seemed less worried than the day before. Maybe because their group had managed to gather another adventurer in the person of Edward and she judged that it would be enough to face the monsters. Not knowing the others well, Edward kept quiet too.

The group soon came into view of the quarry, a rocky cliff was standing upright. It had been exploited, rocks had been cut into same-sized square blocks. Several of them were laying abandoned at the bottom of the quarry. At one place, scaffolds had been installed so that people could get on top of the cliff to facilitate the extraction of the rocks. The forest was situated just a few hundred meters from the quarry.

Thirty or forty humanoid silhouettes were roaming between the quarry and the forest. Just like the receptionist from the adventurer’s guild had said, they looked like wolves made humans, except a bit taller and around two meters tall. They were standing on two legs, with the head of a wolf, grey fur all over their body, sharps claws, and a muscular chest.

Charles spoke up. “Edward and I will go to the front. The three of you should stay behind us. We will be able to stop some of them, but they are too numerous so they will get past us. You will have to be ready to push them back. We will distract them as much as possible so they focus on us rather than you though, so you shouldn’t have to engage in a melee, just keeping them away from you will be enough.”

The rest of the group nodded in agreement.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Charles told them before running toward the monsters with Edward.

The Lusus naturae didn’t notice them immediately, they were eating the leftover corpses from the unfortunates that didn’t manage to flee away. Then, one of them saw them and howled to alert the others. The whole group turned toward them before charging at them, several of them even going on all four to run faster.

They are not that fast, I would say they run at the same speed as me, so they are a bit slower than Bloodmaws. However, since their power allows them to accelerate suddenly, I can’t judge them on their current speed.

When Edward deemed that the distance was close enough, he didn’t wait to give them the first move and he teleported right in front of the closest monster, ramming into him. They both tumbled onto the ground from the impact, but Edward used this opportunity to pierce the monster two times in quick succession in its chest, absorbing some of its power in the process. After they fell, only Edward got up while the humanoid wolf stayed down gurgling blood.

Behind him, Charles engaged his first opponent, both getting blurry in Edward’s vision. The next moment the wolf was having a sword piercing his chest and Charle’s armor was showing new shallow claw marks. Edward sensed something with his aura and quickly brought his daggers in front of his face. The daggers blocked in extremis one blow coming at him and he was sent back to the floor from the impact.

One of the Lusus naturae got on top of him, only to blink in confusion as Edward disappeared right in front of him to reappear above it. Edward turned in midair and stab the monster’s head, killing it on the spot.

That was close. Those monsters are not hard to kill, but they are glass cannons, they can do lots of damage in an instant. I blocked that blow only thanks to my reflexes. I can heal by absorbing monsters’ blood, but it won’t save me if I’m killed or incapacitated in one hit.

Edward turned around to check on the rest of the group. A dozen Lusus naturae had gone past them and were currently charging at Brian, Norte, and Aquamarine. The adventurers were ready and use a combination of wind and water to stop the monsters preventing them from coming closer. They alternated between heavy waves and thin compressed slices of water or wind to kill their opponents. Seeing as the situation was under control for the moment, Edward focused back on his immediate surroundings, he couldn’t let himself get distracted.

One monster who had been five meters away suddenly appeared right in front of his eyes, Edward threw himself aside, doing a front roll to avoid the incoming blow. I’m suddenly glad I fought Bloodmaws before, it kept my reflexes sharp. As Edward was getting up from his roll, he sensed the Lusus naturae towering in front of him ready to strike. He had no choice but to teleport away to gain some respite since he was in no position to defend or to strike.

Another monster run at him while his teleport was on cool down. Edward decided not to engage him and did a side step at the last moment to avoid it. With his teleportation available again, he teleported behind a Lusus naturae that wasn’t paying attention to him and he finished him in two blows.

This is the way. I’m in a melee. There is no need to face them frontally. I can simply weave between them to strike them while they are not expecting me. Edward didn’t have the time to fully absorb their energy when he killed them, but he couldn’t linger to drain them while he was still surrounded by enemies.

As he was killing the monsters this way, at one point, he realized that there were no monsters in his direct vicinity. I didn’t kill that many of them. Where did they go? Shit! The rest of the group. He turned around. Charles was facing three different monsters at the same time but he wasn’t in real danger yet thanks to his heavy armor. However, the long ranges adventurers were surrounded by the Lusus naturae. Since the monsters weren’t able to pinpoint Edward, more of them had focused on the group.

With this many around them, they had to prioritize delaying and pushing the monsters back instead of killing them. With this tactic, they were able to hold on for now, but that didn’t diminish the number of monsters. Eventually, they would run out of energy or make a mistake and be swarmed by the monsters.

Edward run toward them and blasted his aura for one second before retracting it in order to gain their attention. One second was enough, he didn’t want to disturb the powerful creatures from the forest. Half of the monsters turned towards him, disengaging themselves from the group of adventurers. Seeing so many of them focused exclusively on him, Edward used his spell to accelerate his perception. “Rèng khwāmrĕw!”. That wouldn’t help him to move faster, but that will enable him to see the Lusus naturae even in their accelerated state, this way he would be able to decide where to teleport to.

Even though he was accelerating toward them, Edward felt as if he was running in slow motions. It was the same for the monsters until they used their power. This time Edward was able to follow them. It was as if time had slowed down for everybody but them, this was how fast they were moving. Curiously though, their movements were relatively simple, they didn’t try to surround him or anything, they were only coming at him in a straight line. Some of them were even having trajectory that would miss him but they continued as if they weren’t able to realize it.

Why are they behaving this way? Is this a limitation of their power? They are only able to accelerate for short bursts of time, until now I thought it was an inherent limitation of their power, but maybe this is not the case. Edward could see that all the monsters weren’t even looking at him, their gaze fixed straight ahead as if they weren’t able to look at their surroundings. They are not able to control themselves while in the accelerated state! Their perception is not able to follow the speed at which they move. That’s why they are able to only makes simple movements during their acceleration.

Edward was able to follow them thanks to his hasten perception, however, he had the exact reverse problem compared to the monsters. He could follow them, but his body was still moving in slow motion. Moreover, his mana was decreasing exponentially the longer his spell was in use. He wouldn’t be able to avoid them, but he already planned for it, his teleportation power was available, and he could still use it even if his body wasn’t moving. He waited for the monsters to be close enough to him before teleporting behind them, stopping his enhanced perception spell at the same time.

He was now behind the monsters while they were confused about where he had gone. He swiftly turned back and rush to them, stabbing them before they could regain their bearing. He managed to kill two of them before they could react.

When they realized where he was, seeing the strange gleam in their eyes, Edward placed the daggers in front of his head. He had no sooner placed them in position that he was sent flying by a flurry of hits. He let out a breath as the pain connected, the armor had held on, their claws not able to pierce it, but it was still a light armor and the strength of the hits had gone through it. Edward could feel the concussions and bruises forming on his chest.

The long-range users had kept dilly-dallying until now due to the great number of monsters. Now that the pressure on them had decreased significantly. They changed their attacks, going on the offensive and rapidly increasing the number of fallen monsters, only bisected corpses remaining on the ground. Edward was still surrounded but he had bought enough time, he teleported back with the other adventurers to gain their protection. Meanwhile, Charles had finished the three Lusus naturae he was facing and was also running back toward the group to take care of the remaining enemies.

The monsters howled in fury as their prey escaped once again, charging against the adventurers with renewed animosity. Edward was able to regain his breathing with the first wave of monsters being pushed back by water and wind. He teleported back into their midst where they weren’t expecting him, assassinating one opponent, and teleporting back into the group of adventurers. The blood he absorbed from his kill actually healed his bruises.

Using this tactic and with the already reduced number of monsters, they managed to slay them all. Charles had been able to sustain the whole time while being outside of the group, continuously facing several monsters at the same time.