"Everyone, crystal formation." Bill shouted.

All of the adventurers, including the Hunters looked at him for a moment, in confusion.

Crystal? Isn't that a completely defensive formation? Some thought.

The Hunters didn't question their comrade, so they assumed their positions.

The others decided to put all hope on the hunters, they were exhausted and incapable of fighting for much longer.

Crystal formation, commonly used formation to fight ambushers, there is a tale of a Brave princess, one considered a genius in the ways of magic, she had once joined her knights in a fight against ambushers that were sent to assassinate her, while her knights were fighting, and losing against a large number of enemies, it is said that she had climbed her carriage, and from there she ordered her knights to make a circle around the carriage, then she created barrier that only allowed outward attacks, both protecting her knights and permitting them to attack, and as more ambushers approached, she proceeded to bombard them with magic attacks from the top of her carriage. The Warrior Princess Crystal Shima, almost everyone knows her name.

"Mia." Wyvern's claw leader called, with a serious face.

"Got it.", Mia said as she hurriedly chanted the spell. "...Barrier."

She erected a barrier around the adventurers, who had now formed a circle.

She was at her limit, and it seemed like she could only hold the barrier for a couple minutes, seeing from how she slowly lowered her staff, which she was supposed to be pointing at the sky.

"Mark, do you know why we're using this formation? Aren't they coming from the ground?" A male Wyvern's claw member asked its leader.

"They probably won't come of the ground anymore, the hunters can sense them better than us, besides, we're surrounded, look." He said, still serious, pointing at the trees.

He wasn't able to see the rabbits, but he trusted in his leader's words, so he readied his short swords for a couple hundred more slashes.

Bill quickly told all the present mages what to do...

"Mages, get ready to use all you've got." Bill said. "Fighters get ready to Slash at everything." He continued, squinting while looking at the rabbits.

"「Hate reaction」" Bill activated a skill, this skill caused all monsters nearby to be hostile towards him.

The rabbits came running at a terrible speed, they were so many that all they could see was white covering the entire area, they all had only one purpose... Devour everything on sight.

"Mages."

As the rabbits got closer, the mages chanted a spell...

"""... Poison Mist."""

Unlike the warrior princess's unidirectional barrier, holes opened up on the barrier, and from them came a thick purple smoke that covered the area around the barrier.

It was quite hard to conjure a unidirectional barrier, it required a lot of concentration, stamina and mana, and Mia had unfortunately none of those.

Rabbits began to fall, some died on the spot, others retreated a little too late and died while retreating... Or at least that was what the adventurers thought.

"..." Everyone readied their weapons and spells to deal with the rest of them, a third of them had died, about two hundred rabbits.

Then they saw it, a monstrosity that could only exist in a godforsaken place like this.

The hunters looked at a rabbit that seemed out of place, their eyes wide open, and their lips quivering.

"...a black?" A low-rank adventurer muttered, confused.

"...what?" Despair, that was what the mid-rank adventurers felt when they saw a black rabbit standing in the middle of the fallen.

It was twice the size of its kin, with an equally bigger white horn, which had some geometric engravings that were faintly glowing red.

It was staring at them, with eyes full of hatred. *Reeek!!!* It screeched loudly, a sound that could only be described as demonic cry, resounded throughout the forest.

"... They are-" the fallen rabbits, one by one, began to rise.

"Mages!" Bill shouted, pointing at the black rabbit.

"""... Fireball""" They launched a multitude of fireballs, all aimed at a single rabbit.

The didn't move, it simply stood there, as the fireballs came flying at a terrible speed.

"!!!" Its horn glowed, and 7 rabbits jumped up, intercepting the fireballs mid-air with their horns.

"Wha-?" The mages gasped, their fireballs had vanished on contact.

Mia collapsed on the ground, she had depleted her mana reserves, without mia, there was no barrier separating them from the rabbits, no one went to check on her.

The mid-rank parties held their weapons tight, they prepared themselves to what was coming, they all wanted to run away, but couldn't.

I wasn't hired to fight this abomination. They thought, gritting their teeth, and cursing their luck.

They weren't completely surrounded, there was a gap in the encirclement, it was big enough to escape if they were fast enough, but none of the parties choose to run, not because of honor or their adventurer pride, but because they knew that, that gap was an obvious tra-

"Maja!" The leader of one of the low-rank parties "Desert bear" called, as he ran at full speed in the direction of the gap with his companions, they had decided to try to escape, but one of them had stayed, a female mage.

"Hahaha." They laughed in relief, they had escaped, the rabbits didn't even move to stop them, the gods were in their side, they were safe, or at least that was what they thought...

"Ahhh..", "aahhoogg.", "helllp, ahh." Their distorted screams could be heard coming from beyond the trees, their companion Maja, didn't bat an eye and kept her eyes on the threat at hand, their agonizing death was sad, but not enough to make her let her guard down in this hostile environment.

Pathetic bunch of goblins. She thought, trying to force herself not to feel any grief.

The black rabbit grinned, their deaths seemed to amuse him.

Bill gritted his teeth, they were at a huge disadvantage, this would have been easy if... That monster wasn't there, he thought.

"Guys, i have an idea." Red Ogre's leader said softly.

"Any idea is welcome, bro." A leader of a mid-rank party said, with a grinning, he seemed to be losing his mind.

"What if we..." He seemed hesitant at first, but quickly explained what was in his mind.

"That's..."

"You're crazy?"

"Hahaha, are you out of your mind boy?"

"Hmm."

"..."

"Are you dreaming? Wake up, that's suicide."

The other adventurers ridiculed his idea, which was to be expected, he suggested that they throw themselves into the sea of danger, no sane person would ever think of doing that.

"That... May actually work." Said Bill, hesitantly.

"What do you mean? We'll obviously die." Someone said, eyes wide open.

"You can't be serious."

"You're kidding, right? Look how many they are."

They protested, but bill quickly explained that, that was Their only way out.

They needed backup, there were simply too many rabbits, they didn't believe the plan would work, but it seemed plausible enough to at least try, they would die a horrible death if they failed but...

We would die anyway. They thought.

"We go that way, get ready." Bill said, pretending to be calm, he was sweating profusely, and unsure if they would really come out of there alive.

The Hunters and adventurers were in the same situation as he was, unsure, afraid and tired.

"Let's go!"

They all swallowed their saliva loudly, then began running straight into the rabbits, the mages, there were 15 of them, 4 of which were priests, were in the middle of the group, the warriors, thiefs and hunters totaling 15, were around the mages in order to protect them as they cast their spells, one of the hunters took Mia on his arms and unlike the others, he was in the middle.

This was a formation that demanded full cooperation of everyone involved, and a single mistake could doom them all.

"Mages!"

"Yes!" They began to chant their spells.

"!!" They had gone in direction opposite of the black rabbit and the village, they were... Going even deeper into the forest.

The black rabbit grinned, thinking that they can't escape, and judging their actions meaningless, but nevertheless amusing, its horn glowed bright red, and the rabbits that were blocking the adventurers path began to run in their direction as well.

"...Barrier." unlike the big and strong barrier Mia makes, this one was a partial one that only protected their rear, but that was all they needed to escape.

Wyvern's claw's leader gripped his sword tight and shouted...

"Haaaah!" and the other followed.

"""Haaaah!"""" They all shouted, eyes wide open, as they launched themselves into the rabbits.

Bill was the front most person, as soon as they got at striking distance, the rabbits began to launch themselves like missiles at them.

"Rah." Bill bisected one rabbit from the horn down to the tail, a cut so precise and clean that would make master chefs feel proud.

"Haa." The others began to cut them down at incredible speeds, the a wave of rabbits came flowing, in an almost gracious manner, and only blood soaked pieces retuned to the ground.

One by one they jumped up, in hopes of injuring their prey, and one by one they were bisected and sliced, their lifeless bodies falling into the ground, painting the scenery a crimson red.

"!!!" 7 fireballs came flying out of nowhere, in the direction of the hunters, but thankfully for them, they had a barrier protecting them from behind, it wasn't enough to completely stop them from getting burned, but no one died, they only suffered some burns that they could certainly heal later.

Some of the mages recognized the mana signature in those fireballs but they didn't dare to distract the others.

"Reeek!!!" The black rabbit, realizing that could indeed escape, sent more rabbits their way.

More Horned rabbits joined in, being slashed all the same, but this time they did manage to cause some damage.

"Ahhh." One of the mid-rank adventurers cried, his left foot had somehow been cut off.

He fell on the ground, but quickly stood up and began hopping with his remaining foot, he didn't even had time to stop the bleeding, the others all had pained expressions on their faces.

They couldn't leave him to die, but couldn't also take him, everyone was busy casting spells or cutting the rabbits down.

He also knew that, that's why he didn't even acknowledge the bleeding on his foot.

He knew death was only a matter of time.

At least... I'll serve as a diversion, right? He thought to himself, in times of great stress, humans will delude themselves to any ilusion that can make them feel better.

Mathew, get a hold of yourself, SURVIVE, no one will come and save you. He thought to himself, snapping back to reality.

Mathew, a mage, took the courage to use a pretty strong flame to burn his own foot.

"..." He grit his teeth as he used flames to cauterize and close his injury, saying that it was painful would be an understatement, combining his scorched skin from the previous fireballs, the pain of having his foot ripped out of his leg and the pain of fire burning his now open wound, it was needed serious determination to not simply give up on life.

Fortunately for him, the adventurer group wasn't moving too fast because of the constant flow of rabbits, and thanks to him falling he was now in the back, where the barrier was.

"Mages, now!" Bill instructed, and the mages launched a combined attack. "Force blast!" All the rabbits that were close by got launched backwards for about 7 meters, then they launched a follow-up.

"Cover your eyes." the mages said.

"Blinding Lux!" They chanted, a big orb of light appeared above them, then it shone very bright, bright enough that all the rabbits got temporarily blinded.

"The front is free." Bill said loudly.

"The rear is alsho free." Mathew sloppily said, everyone looked at him, he was still alive, they all had lost hope of him surviving.

They didn't stop running, exhausted as they were that was quite the feat, after running for a couple more minutes they stopped, not because they felt it was safe, but because they couldn't run anymore, they didn't have the strength to run.

The priests quickly moved to heal the injured fighters.

"Heal!"

"Heal!"

"Heal!"

They used all the mana they could spare.

"Thanks." Mathew said to a female mage, Maja, as she tented to his injuries.

"I'm sorry, i-" she tried to apologise...

"No, don't worry about that, i understand... I was. too far and you couldn't heal me in that situation." Mathew assured her that she had no fault, he knew what she was feeling, so he said that smiling.

From the 15 mages, 4 were priests, because their proficiency with Holy magic they were instructed to only use their mana to conjure healing magic, thus becoming the healers of the group, they were supposed to heal everyone that got hurt during that break through, but because of the constant movement, fear, stress and the occasional bite, they weren't able to completely heal everybody, and some people were only able to receive treatment once they had stopped to rest.

"..." She got silent, and Mathew didn't want to bother her, so after she finished treating him, he went to talk to his party leader.