Chapter 24: Death smiles at everyone as tragedy strikes. Wolves end up smiling back.

Walking for not even five minutes, following Minx’s low growling, a group of 16 green lizards soon appeared in the party’s sight. As soon as the lizards noticed Edward’s party, the immediately put some distance between one another and started charging at them.

Edward immediately formed two water balls and got really to assist Brendan and Steven. Aidan also moved from the back to the middle of the party since their numbers were quite high and got ready to block any one that might get past Brendan and Steven.

The lizards were quite agile, at least double the speed of the ones on the first floor. The two groups just came into contact with one another but Steven and Brendan were having trouble even blocking their attacks, not to mention striking back at them.

Edward knew that in this rhythm, the front line will get overwhelmed really quick and turned towards Minx. Deciding to ignore Brendan’s words from before, he said: “Minx, you go and help as well. Keep your form small and distract them while not getting too close to the others.”

Minx let out a growl and left Mya’s side to charge towards the lizards. Edward also launched the water balls he was holding towards two of the lizards, but the spell moved too slow, the lizards ending up easily dodging them.

“I hate agility types..” Muttered Edward as his mind went back to that flying beast that made easy work out of him and Minx. Knowing this will not be an easy fight, he decided to use Water Slicer. The mana cost was a bit on the heavy side, but it was the only way he could think of to guarantee a hit on the lizards.

As Water Blades after Water Blades started appearing on top of his hands before getting launched at the lizards, his mana was also draining at an alarming rate. It took an average of three Water Blades to hit a lizard. Two will block it’s dodging sides and the other one will head for the body of the lizard. The bad thing was that, even if he constantly managed to hit them using this tactic, sometimes the attack will not be a killing blow and just cut one of their limbs, requiring him to send another attack to kill the now slowed down lizard.

Minx was also no match for them, but she would still stall them for a little bit of time.

While Steven, Brendan, Aidan and Minx were doing their best to stop the lizards from reaching Edward and Mya in the back while also taking care not to get injured themselves, Edward was actively consuming mana on killing them at an alarming speed and after killing just 9 of them, he started feeling drowsy. Quickly summoning his tablet, he found out he only had 3 mana left, which was not enough for him to continue fighting.

‘Fuck!…’ swore Edward in his mind before yelling out loud towards the others: “I’m out of mana!”

There were still 7 lizards left, one of them having it’s front limb cut off by Edward, but taking them out would be a challenge. They were not stronger than the remaining party members, but were definitely faster than them and having a strength advantage was useless if they were not able to hit them back.

As Edward was kneeling on the ground, trying his best to keep himself from passing out, he heard Aidan’s loud voice from the front: “No choice, we’ll start trading with them.”

Edward didn’t understand what Aidan meant, but the others did and he soon got to see the most cruel way of fighting he ever bore witness to. The three of them stopped defending, letting the lizards attacks land while doing their best to avoid getting bitted in any vital spot before using that exact moment to plunge their weapons in the lizard’s bodies.

After a single wave of trading attacks, both Brendan and Steven got wounds on their arms, deep enough one could almost see the bone, while Aidan ended up losing a big chunk of flesh from right above his right knee, but they effort paid off and they indeed managed to kill three lizards of the lizards.

Out of the corner of his eye, Edward noticed Mya rushing towards the hurt members with tears falling down her cheeks and managed to grab one of her legs as she was dashing past, causing the girl to plunge face first into the ground.

Mya was undaunted as she turned to look back at Edward and said with tears falling down her cheeks: “Let me go. I need to help them.”

“You will just die and there will be no one to heal them once the fight is over.” Said Edward as he strengthened his hold on Mya’s foot and continued watching the fight in front. Mya continued struggling, but Edward made sure to not let go no matter how hard she fought back. There were four remaining lizards and he knew that she was dead if any of them ended up attacking her.

By the time the verbal exchange between Edward and Mya ended, the second wave of lizards attacked. Aidan, who was already on the floor, used his right arm to block the attack of one lizard, inserting his sword arm into the lizard’s mouth before bashing it with the shield he was carrying into his left arm. It appeared to be a skill because as soon as the shield hit the lizard’s torso, the strength behind it was so big it pushed the lizard back for three feet or so in Minx’s direction, but it also used one of it’s limbs to claw at Aidan’s foot as it got pushed away, leaving another gashing wound down on his leg. Minx ended up killing the slightly stunned lizard in one bite as Aidan fell on his chest, unable to stand up right now.

Brendan got lucky as one lizard attacked from his already bitten arm’s side and he just blocked it’s mouth with his arm before using his other arm to stab his sword into the lizard’s chest, killing it on the spot.

The only unlucky one turned out to be Steven since he ended up pincer attacked by the two remaining lizards. He managed to block their initial attack, but after ripping both of his arms off, one of the lizards let go of his arm and bit cleanly into his neck, taking a big chunk out of it.

“NO!!” a loud yell resounded from Brendan who dashed in his brother’s direction and decapitated the lizard who was busy biting into his brother’s neck. Minx also dashed forward and engaged the only remaining lizard in a bloody fight, but it was already too late for Steven as his body fell lifelessly to the ground under the disbelieving eyes of the other party members.

Edward let out a sigh as he closed his eyes and released Mya’s leg, but she appeared to be too traumatized to even move anymore. Soon, Edward’s attention was attracted by a small whimper coming out from the direction Minx was fighting the last lizard. Opening his eyes and seeing that the lizard just took a bite out of one of Minx’s hind legs while Minx had it locked down with a bite of her own, Edward formed a Water Ball using two out the three mana he had left.

‘I can’t see clearly…’ through Edward as he tried to aim, but his vision was already quite blurry and the fight was a distance away from him. Not wishing to hit Minx by mistake, he ignored Mya’s presence nearby and said: “Fenrir, please help me aim. I know you can still see.”

[A bit more to the left.] sounded Fenrir’s voice from Edward’s arm. [Stop. Now up a bit more.] after Edward aimed carefully following her directions, Fenrir said” [Straight forward. Now!]

Edward didn’t waste a single moment and launched the Water Ball, piercing a hole straight through the lizard’s torso.

[It’s dead.]

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Fenrir’s words were like honey to Edward’s ears and he let out a sigh of relief and let his body fall down flat on the ground. Now it took all the strength he had left just to prevent himself from falling asleep. He knew that letting the wolf out here would just end up being an even greater tragedy.

Mya looked at Edward for a few moments, not understanding where that woman’s voice was coming from, before remembering the situation and dashing towards the others. She first ran to Steven, but after channeling a healing spell and that proving useless, she just fell dejected to her knees, tears continuously streaming down her cheeks.

As the remaining members of the party were frozen in grief, Minx limped her way towards Edward’s body and looked at him with worry.

“Girl, I know it’s unfair for you, but I need to you to carry me to the others. In this rhythm things will get even worse.”

Minx didn’t let even a whimper in complaint as she grabbed Edward’s tunic using her teeth and started dragging him towards the others on the dungeon’s hard floor. Once he was near Mya, Edward said: “There will be a time to grieve Mya, but now it’s important to heal the others. Their wounds are also not light.”

Mya turned towards him with a blank look, obviously too traumatized by everything that happened to process his words. Seeing the blank look in her eyes, Edward let out a sigh and, gathering most of his remaining strength, slapped her as hard as he could in an effort to wake her up.

The slap was quite weak since he was already spent, but was still enough to bring so clarity back to Mya and she quickly looked at Brendan and Aidan. Without saying a single word, she slowly stood up to walk in Aidan’s direction, only to be stopped by Edward’s words.

“I need you to trust me and heal Minx’s leg first. If not, things will get even worse…”

Mya stared into Edward’s tired eyes for a moment before nodding silently and casting a healing spell on Minx’s leg. Her strong regeneration as a magic beast combined with the spell meant that before half a minute passed, her leg was completely healed.

Seeing that Minx was completely recovered and Mya stopped her spell, Edward thanked her before saying: “Now I need you to place me on Minx’s back. Minx, I also need you to increase your size to medium.”

Minx immediately increased her size but Mya just stared at Edward, grief, confusion and fear obvious in her eyes.

“I’ll come back quickly, but I need to recover my mana. Please Mya, trust me.”

Mya, seeing the honest look in his eyes, relented and picked up Edward’s tired body before placing it on Minx’s back.

“Mya, heal the others and make sure not to leave this place. I’ll go and recover my mana before coming back here. Whatever you do, make sure no one leaves this places unless absolutely necessary.”

Seeing Mya nod, he instructed Minx to start heading away in the direction they came from while avoiding any lizard she felt using her strong senses as a magic beast. Minx complied and after running at full speed for over five minutes, he was at his limit and said: “Minx, one last thing. Make sure I don’t hunt the others in my wolf form, please….”

As his word ended, he let himself drift to sleep only to appear inside his mind.

Quickly sitting up from under Fenrir’s huge body, he asked: “What is going on outside?”

Fenrir stood quiet for a while before saying: “I have both good and bad news. The wolf is not going after your party, but has felt another wounded party fighting a group of lizards not that far and is stalking them, waiting for a chance to attack…”

Edward sighed and asked: “How is the situation with that party? Any chance for them to escape?”

“They are already barely surviving their fight with the monsters. Even if they win..”

“I see. Let me know if anything else happens.” Said Edward as he laid down with a sigh. There was nothing he could do now and that unfortunate party’s fate was out of his control.

It wasn’t long before Fenrir’s words sounded once more: “He ate them all, together with the lizards they were fighting. You should return to your body soon enough..” It didn’t even take 30 seconds and Edward was back in the real world, body covered in blood and his tunic ripped to shreds.

With a sigh, he grabbed a cape he found laying around, probably from the adventurers devoured by the wolf, before using it to cover his body and climbing onto Minx’s back.

“Good girl, now head back towards the others and as last time, avoid any lizards that might appear on the way.”

As Minx started running back in the direction she came from, Edward started using magic to clean himself up a little. There was still blood on his underwear and the cape he picked from the ground, but at least he wasn’t completely covered in it anymore. It didn’t take long and he was already back to the place the fight between his party and the lizards took place only to notice another hearth-wrenching sight.

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