Chapter 33: Scars, a wolf’s unwillingness

The party didn’t even get to walk for five minutes until they stumbled upon their first group of lizards on the new floor. They were eleven in number and didn’t look that much different from the ones up above.

As the lizards also spotted the party of four, they let out a loud screech and started charging on all fours towards them.

Ingvar and Echo opened some distance between each other and got ready to intercept them while Kara summoned a slightly translucent arrow on her bow and drew the string back all the way, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. Edward wasn’t really sure if he would be able to help but still summoned three water blades and made them hover above one of his hands.

The group of lizards didn’t seem inclined to gang up on the front line and ended up with just four of them charging towards Ingvar and Echo while the rest aimed to walk past them and head for the back. Seeing that, Echo didn’t waste any time and let out a loud cry, taunting all the lizards and making them run towards her instead.

Since both the lizards that were initially intending to attack Ingvar also abandoned their target and started charging towards Echo, Ingvar quickly rushed after them to attack them while still under the influence of Echo’s taunt.

A hissing sound came from Edward’s right side and, as he turned to look, he saw an arrow in mid flight. Barely managing to follow it’s trajectory with his eyes, Edward saw it piercing straight through a lizard’s head, killing it on the spot.

Taking this as his queue to attack, he also chose a group of closely running together lizards and launched his water blades at them. He didn’t manage to kill any since they were simply too fast for him, but slightly injured one of the lizard’s legs with a lucky shot.

By the time both Kara’s and Edward’s attacks hit, the lizards were already in close range to attack Echo. This time, Echo didn’t choose to whirlwind like last time and, moving both of her shields to the side, a screen of light covered her entire body in what looked like a bubble made out of pure light. In the next moment, all the remaining ten lizards’ attacks hit the bubble and, white it managed to not resist under the attack, it’s light still dimmed quite a lot, but it brought just enough time for Ingvar to reach them from their back.

Using his twin swords, Ingvar decapitated the two closest lizards at the same time. Because the taunt’s effect was over and his attack attracted the attention of all the remaining eight lizards, he immediately started moving backwards not to get surrounded by them. These level four lizards were a lot faster than the ones on the second floor and, even with his high agility, he wouldn’t be able to move unhindered under the combined attack of eight of them.

Another hissing sound came as soon as Ingvar started retreating and one more lizard ended up pierced by Kara’s arrow, dying on the spot. Since Ingvar was now the focus of all the lizards, Echo canceled her shield and moved towards one of the last lizards in the group which was moving slower due to it being injured by Edward and, as two light swords extended from her shields, she impaled it from the back, killing it as well.

Edward, seeing he was quite useless, got a bit frustrated and send a total of six water blades at the group of lizards chasing closely together after Ingvar, figuring at least one of them will end up hitting. Since his limit of precise control was at most three blades, he sent them in a straight direction and was unable to change the course of any of them without the spell breaking apart. Unfortunately for him, the lizards ended up turning backwards once more, trying to attack Echo once again and causing Edward’s attack to hit in front of them and miss completely.

Ingvar, seeing the lizards running at Echo closely grouped together, started running towards them and crossed his twin-blades into an X in front of him. Slowly, the blades started getting covered by a thin transparent film and, with one swift move, Ingvar sent an air attack in the form of an X towards the group of lizards, ending up killing four of them in one swift attack.

The last two remaining lizards didn’t stop their charge and were soon upon Echo, but she lifted her shields up and blocked both their attacks with them. With two hissing sounds, two arrows pierced the heads of the lizards as soon as their attack hit the shields, killing the last two of them on the spot.

With the battle done, Kara placed her bow on her back and started walking forward. Edward followed after her with an awkward expression on his face. The entire fight, all he managed to do was injure one lizards slightly while the others flawlessly took care of the rest.

Seeing his downcast expression from the side, Kara continued looking forward as she said in an uncharacteristically gentle tone: “Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s only normal to not contribute that much in a fight with monsters two levels above you.”

Her words didn’t make Edward feel that much better and they soon reached Ingvar and Echo’s side.

Ingvar turned towards Edward and, adopting a strict expression, he said: “Edward, your abilities are not bad and your potential is nothing to scoff at, but you really need to stop sulking over everything. Maybe you are disappointed by your performance in the last fight, but everything considered, it was not anything unexpected. Better than to sulk around, you should think about the last fight and figure what you could have done better. Speaking about that, you know why you barely managed to hit only one of lizards?”

Edward was taken aback since he didn’t expect to be suddenly put on the spot and after pondering for a moment, he said: “Because they were too high level and my dexterity was not up to par?”

Ingvar raised an eyebrow and said: “While that might be one of the reasons, there is nothing much you can do about it right now. The most important reason you still missed is that you didn’t find the best timing to launch your attacks. Did you pay attention to Kara’s arrows?”

Edward thought back, but he couldn’t really understand what Ingvar was trying to tell him, prompting Kara to say matter-of-factly: “I used my first arrow the moment they were under the influence of Echo’s taunt and were mindlessly charging at her, this allowed for an easy shot as long as I could estimate the speed they were running at and their direction. The second arrow I used as they were turning around to change target, decreasing their speed by a lot and making them stationary for a moment, allowing for another easy hit. The last two arrows, I launched them at the same time when the enemies were stopped by Echo’s block.”

Edward thought back to the fight and, she indeed launched her arrows at the perfect times to guarantee a hit. Thinking back to the moments he launched his attacks, he launched the first one right after she launched her arrow, managing to at least injure one of them which was not that bad, but his last attack was indeed horrible. He launched it right before they changed target back to Echo, which was not bad, but he missed the fact they were going to change target and launched the attack in front of them, causing him to not land a single attack.

Nodding slightly, he said: “I understand now. I’ll try to pay more attention and time my attacks better with your actions.”

Ingvar nodded and said: “Good. Now about the life force, should we increase one of our levels to four or help Edward reach level 3 first?”

“I think it would be a lot more useful if one of you guys reached four first.” Said Edward, feeling he didn’t deserve the life force since he didn’t really contribute in the fight at all, but Kara was the one to disagree first.

“We should increase Edward’s level to three first, this way he will receive his subclasses bonus attributes, making him able to actually assist us in a fight. Not to mention he will also have enough stamina to use unique class skill. I think a fourth member capable of assisting us is better than one of growing slightly stronger. After that, we can work on Echo’s level since she doesn’t need that much life force and she uses a lot of her stamina while trying to control the enemy movement.”

Since the others also nodded in agreement, Edward didn’t decline and soon started absorbing the life force of the killed lizards, only to discover he was only receiving two points of life force per one, which considering the fact that the lizards were two levels above him, didn’t seem right.

When he asked the others about it after absorbing all the lizards in the room, Ingvar said: “A large part of the life force is lost if the difference between level of existence is too big. Two points is the maximum you will ever receive.”

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Edward nodded in understanding and they soon moved to look for another group of lizards. He now had 44 out of the total of 450 life force he needed to level up.

Their party ended up killing six more groups, numbering up to a total of 49 lizards and 98 more life force for Edward until the ceiling of the dungeon started darkening. Edward only managed to land attacks on around 12 lizards, but with each fight, he started getting just a little better at reading the enemy movement. He was quite sure that once he actually leveled up, he will be able to assist the others as well.

The problem now was the fact that Echo was starting to run low on stamina and divine energy so they started heading towards the stairs and according to Echo, which was able to sense the flow of mana due to her Templar subclass, they were not that far away.

As they were getting ever closer to the stairs, a group of sixteen lizards, the highest number they encountered today appeared in front of them. Once they spotted the group of lizards, it was too late to avoid them since the lizards also spotted their party and charged right at them.

Echo and Ingvar started to slowly move forward, separating from the back line as Echo said: “ I’m running a bit low on both stamina and divine energy so I will not taunt unless absolutely necessary. Try to protect yourselves, Edward and Kara. Ingvar, you’ll also have to take on some of the heat.”

Ingvar nodded and his twin-blades started to slowly get covered by a small transparent membrane as his expression turned serious.

In the back, Kara created a six feet high earth pillar under both hers and Edward’s feet, raising them from the ground so that Echo and Ingvar wouldn’t have to protect them as well and summoned a magic arrow on her bow string while saying to Edward: “Pay attention and attack any lizards that tried to climb up the pillar. Vertical movement should lower their agility enough for you to be able to hit them.” Edward nodded with a heavy look and summoned three water blades around himself as he continue watching the situation in front.

As the lizard and the party’s front line started getting closer and closer to each other, Echo and Ingvar decreased the distance between themselves and got ready to intercept the enemy.

The group of sixteen lizards surprised the party right from the start, choosing to attack Echo and Ingvar only while ignoring Edward and Kara in the back, move that created a lot of pressure on the front line and didn’t really bring any kind of advantage to the back line since they were relatively safe from the start with the addition of the pillar.

Cursing under her breath, Kara summoned two more Magic Arrows onto her bow strings and started releasing them at the lizards while at the same time she started extending her mana over the white floor of the dungeon in their direction. Edward, since the lizards chose to ignore them for now and he was not sitting that bad in the mana department, decided to help by shooting water balls at the lizards, mostly to distract them since the water balls’ speed was not up to par with their agility.

Ingvar opened the fight using a new skill, one Edward has not seen before today. He started running forward while striking forward using both of his blades in a quick series of both horizontal and vertical attacks, while also moving his body swiftly through the enemies’ attacks. Even with the chaotic looking attack, his precision was still top notch and, after killing three enemies and retreating slightly to draw his breath, one of Kara’s arrows managed to hit a lizard in the torso killing it on the spot, while another arrow cut down one other lizard’s limbs.

The situation on the other side was not as good as the one on Ingvar’s. While Edward’s water balls were coming continuously and were causing a decent amount of chaos as the lizards were moving to dodge them, Echo’s fighting stile was a lot more brutal and she entered the lizard’s ranks directly with a whirlwind. Out of the seven lizards that moved to attack her, three were killed by the whirlwind, but since they were so many and their agility was a lot better than the the ones on the second floor, the other four actually managed to dodge the attack and ended up biting into different parts of Echo’s body.

Seeing her whirlwind stop and four lizards, each taking a bite of a different part of her body, Edward also stopped his attack, images of his old party dying in front of him playing on repeat in his mind. He turned to look at Ingvar and Kara, but they were still busy with their own group and not able to help Echo.

“Not again…” muttered Edward as the mark on his hand started heating up with his eyes slowly turning pitch black. To the surprise of Kara that was sitting nearby, Edward got down on all fours and, akin to a wild beast, jumped right of the earth pillar she created in the direction of Echo as the hair all over his body started growing larger.

“Fuck.” Cursed Kara as she shot one arrow towards one of the lizards biting Echo, killing it, and started sliding downwards on the side of the pillar to follow after Edward.

Ingvar also wanted to help the others, but was busy trying to hold on while slowly chipping away at the remaining five lizards on his side.

By the time Edward’s body hit the dungeon floor, the three remaining lizards on Echo’s side, each bit a large chunk out of Echo’s flesh and retreated a few feet away while munching on it. Echo fell to her knees, having some really gaping wounds left on both her shoulders and one side of the abdomen, but there was also a small light film covering her wounds, preventing blood from flowing out.

As the lizards were eating her flesh, with blood flowing out through their teeth, Echo started to slowly stand up, ready to attack once more, but just as she was about to plunge towards them, she noticed from the corner of her vision a feral looking Edward, his body half transformed, running on all four of his limbs like a dog and plunging with his mouth open towards one of the lizards.

Echo also froze on the spot, knowing full well that he was no match for the lizards, but having nothing she could do since her left stamina was not enough for a taunt and her divine energy was being used to prevent herself from bleeding out.

She watched with horror as the lizards gulped down her flesh and turned to attack Edward, mouths wide open as well. Kara from the back launched three arrows, managing to only hit one of the lizards as the other two dodged the arrows and were about to sink their teeth into Edward, one at his neck and the other at the left side of his body.

Right at that moment, as both girls thought Edward was in for a gruesome death, water blades materialized inside the mouths of both lizards at the same time and cut both of their heads straight through in an instant, killing the lizards on the spot.

As Echo and Kara both froze stunned by the unexpected turn of events, Edward fell back to the ground and spit a mouthful of blood with more blood flowing out of the pores all over his body and he eventually passed out.

By the time all of this happened, Ingvar managed to kill two more lizards and wound the other three and Kara, noticing that the situation here was in control, quickly launched three more arrows at the surviving lizards. Ingvar managed to kill one of them before the arrows even hit and the others were killed by Kara with ease since they couldn’t dodge the attack in time.

With everything finally over, Ingvar and Kara quickly moved to check on Edward’s condition, knowing full well that while quite heavily injured, Echo will be fine after some time.

As they reached near his unconscious body and Kara was about to crouch down and check on him, Ingvar grabbed her shoulder with a frown.

“Wait. Something’s not right.”

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