Chapter 29 - Formation Was Damaged
Brynn Gaynor had a simple plan. He assigned a position to everyone and their task was to defend as best as they could.
A few of the 4 Star Warriors would be stationed in the camp center to reinforce the front lines as soon as possible.
As for Sophie, she had to activate the barrier formation only once she felt that the beasts were too many to deal with at the same time.
Azaroth and several other warriors were stationed at the west side, the direction from which the beasts would be approaching.
On the other side, Aiden and his group of students were stationed. Considering that these children were the youngest in the camp, they were given the side which would be less targeted by the beasts.
As for Peter, currently, he was along with Sophie, but he was ready to fight one of the two 5 Star Beasts.
Soon, the camp fighters felt that the earth was shaking, and the sound of thousands of footsteps could be heard.
Brynn Gaynor muttered underneath his breath with a heavy heart, "Here they come…"
From Azaroth's side, the beasts appeared and charged at him with a quick speed.
There were many beasts in this horde. Many of them had been seen by Azaroth when he was infiltrating their territory, whether it was the red-skinned wild boar, the dark striped cat, yellow spotted leopard, bears, rhinos, a few species of snakes, and also all other sorts of beasts.
However, fortunately, most of them were at the 2 Star Rank, and only a few were at the 3 Star Rank.
Meanwhile, on Azaroth's side, he was accompanied by two 4 Star Rank warriors and 50 warriors of 3 Star Rank.
'Just the initial attack has hundreds of beasts, heh…'
Azaroth knew he couldn't use his Demonic Transformation here. Too many witnesses were present…
However, he had no need to use his demonic powers on these beasts. He was perfectly capable of defeating them without using any of his primary skills.
'Phantom Steps.'
Azaroth seemingly vanished from the vision of the other fighters.
Only an intense wind current could be felt as Azaroth used this movement skill to maneuver from one location to another.
In just a few seconds, Azaroth had killed nearly dozens of beasts alone only by punching or kicking the beasts and switching over to the next one.
Naturally, since he had finished with the Heavenly Demon Meditation Technique's second level, his base body was also significantly enhanced.
He was much more powerful than an ordinary 4 Star Warrior.
The other warriors also got to work as they saw how Azaroth was killing one beast after another without stopping.
In their hearts, their respect for him continued to grow to no end.
They all pulled out their respective weapons and pounced at the approaching beasts!
The frontline of the beasts filled with 2 Star Rank Beasts was getting slaughtered by the combined efforts of Azaroth and the other warriors here.
However, soon enough, Azaroth began facing some difficulty as he clashed against the 3 Star Beasts.
In terms of physique, Azaroth did admit that the beasts were the most superior race in the world. Even a demon's physique could only overpower the beasts with the weak or mid-ranged bloodline.
Due to possessing a weaker physique, he won't be able to instakill the 3 Star Beasts.
For this reason, Azaroth had to stop for a second as he attacked the brown bear. This was merely a 3 Star Beast with weak energy, but it had instinctively used all its Ardor to defend its body.
And even Azaroth found it difficult to kill it with a single blow.
A second might appear to be relatively low, but on this battlefield, flooded with the beasts. A single second was all the difference between life and death.
It was even more so for Azaroth, who stood right in the center of this horde.
A bull strongly hit him from the right side and forced Azaroth to skid back.
After this attack, another attack followed as a Rhino charged at Azaroth with his horn glowing with a purple color. In fact, its horn even seemed to get larger as the Rhino charged at Azaroth with a quick speed.
Azaroth naturally didn't remain standing there, and he used the Phantom Steps again to get out of the way.
Getting out of the way was good for Azaroth but not so much for his comrades. It was because the charged horn of this Rhino struck one of his comrades and pierced his arm before its head was cut off by another warrior on Azaroth's side.
Azaroth, though, couldn't be bothered to think so much on this battlefield as he quickly went over to that brown bear's direction and hit it with a strong palm attack.
This time, he made sure to target the bear's chest and put enough power that even if the bear defended itself with all its Ardor, its heart would still rupture because of the force.
Just as Azaroth had dealt with that bear, he instinctively raised his hand and felt something hit his arm.
It was none other than a Flaming Eagle.
It had such a sharp vision and timing that it had successfully attacked Azaroth right when he was about to use his Phantom Step to get away.
However, the Flaming Eagle was merely a 3 Star Beast and could not pierce Azaroth's arm.
Azaroth immediately used his other hand and grabbed hold of the Eagle by its throat.
When the Eagle felt that Azaroth would kill it quickly, the eagle's body lit up in crimson flames.
Azaroth nearly snorted as he saw that pitiful excuse of a flame wanting to burn his hand. He suddenly clenched his right hand and broke the eagle's throat, thus, ending its life then and there.
Naturally, Azaroth didn't stay at the same spot for too long. He immediately used the Phantom Step and threw the Eagle's body somewhere else.
Currently, it could be considered that Azaroth's side was entirely slaughtering the beasts on their side.
~~
Azaroth's side was not the only side that had seen fighting. The north side and the south side had also seen their fair share of fighting…
In fact, even a 4 Star Beast appeared on the south side. It was none other than the Black Bear that had survived Azaroth.
The ones who were fighting it were the Palm Valley School's graduates. It could be considered their luck or bad luck to encounter the first 4 Star Beast from this beast raid.
The 4 Star Warriors from the Palm Valley School managed to hold their own against this Black Bear.
A few of the individuals even began taking pills and recovered their Ardor to fight at their full power.
Brynn Gaynor received the information from all the sides and looked quite pleased, "Good… We have dealt with many beasts with just a few casualties on our side. Inform them all that they just need to hold for another half an hour, and we will activate the barrier formation to let them rest for some time."
"Yes, Sir!"
The information was spread to all the sides in the form of Echo Transmission Skill.
Many fighters were slightly relieved and fought with even greater vigor as they knew that they could rest half an hour later.
'Wind Domain!'
Instantly, in a 50 meters radius around Azaroth, his Ardor's thin film was spread, possessing intense wind elemental powers.
There was a smirk on his face as he whispered to himself, "Time to pack this up."
'Limitless Wind Blades!'
Suddenly, the streams of the winds transformed into blades within Azaroth's wind domain.
Each one was exceptionally sharp as it cut apart the beast's bodies like they were mere tofu. All the beasts in the 50-meter radius felt their bodies struck by these limitless wind blades.
Not a single beast possessed the ability to combat against these invisible and soundless wind blades.
In just 10 seconds or so, the horde of beasts around Azaroth's body was instantly cut into thousands of pieces.
The other beasts who were a little far away from Azaroth's position saw their comrades dying in that wind domain and were utterly terrified of Azaroth.
Azaroth had a thin smile on his face as he stared at those other beasts.
Even the fighters of Azaroth's side seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable as they saw how Azaroth had dealt with nearly hundreds of beasts alone with that one attack.
His power alarmed them and somewhat scared them.
The beasts even took a moment to stop and throw attacks at Azaroth from a distance. They couldn't risk getting into close combat with him.
So… Many Fireballs, Boulders, and even Lightning Blasts were thrown at Azaroth, who immediately used Phantom Step to avoid these attacks.
He wasn't stupid enough to try and overpower these attacks. He wasn't sure if he could overcome the combined might of all these attacks alone, but even if he could, Azaroth didn't want to show off all his strength to the fighters behind him.
The other fighters immediately threw their own attacks to disperse the long-ranged attacks of the beasts.
They didn't want to get hit by these attacks.
Azaroth used Phantom Steps consecutively to leave the range of the beasts or the other fighters. He was sitting over a tree, breathing heavily…
From his position, he could easily see how the beasts and the warriors were fighting on his side and could assist them quickly if the situation turned dire.
'Making a Wind Domain just at the 4 Star Rank indeed takes a lot of Ardor.' Azaroth pulled out a blood-red pill and a viridian-colored pill and ate them.
"They can probably deal with the beasts until the barrier is put up so I can relax now."
As the warriors fought the beasts, using their teamwork to assist everyone around them, most of them successfully kept their lives.
Those who lost their lives mainly tried fighting solo or couldn't eat their pellets appropriately. Their Ardor had exhausted at terrible timing, and they had no one around to save them.
Half an hour had already passed, and a loud echo transmission was heard, "All warriors are requested to return to the interior of the array formation. The barrier will be raised soon!"
Brynn Gaynor looked at Sophie, speaking, "Miss Sophie, please activate the array formation and create a barrier around the camp."
Sophie nodded her head and held a large blue orb in her hands.
After nearly 10 seconds, the blue orb began glowing with a bright light, and the array formation set around the encampment activated.
However, soon enough, a frown appeared on Sophie's face as she spoke with a solemn expression, "Town Lord, there seems to be some issue in the array formation at the southern side. The barrier won't activate at that point."
"WHAT?!" The town lord shouted loudly as he heard her words.
"How can that be, Miss Sophie?! Was it some error on your part?" He asked as if he wanted to be clear just why this had happened.
"No. Edwin drew the formation around the encampment, but I made sure to recheck it twice. I also had Peter recheck the formation once we went to sleep." Sophie spoke with a confident tone.
"T-Then how could such an error occur?"
"Only the barrier formation has been sabotaged. The illusionary formation and the killing formation still works. I believe this was done by someone recently who has been stationed on the southern side. The person didn't understand the killing formation or the illusionary formation and didn't dare to touch them as the backlash would be quite strong if they wrongly interfered. Hence, he just sabotaged the barrier formation."
"Then what should we do?" Brynn Gaynor asked Sophie since he didn't understand much about array formations. And not many in the town did. Even if they found the culprit, their main priority was to repair the formation.
"I will need to remain here to keep the barrier formation active. And the only one who I know who is very familiar with the barrier formation is Edwin." Sophie gave her input on this matter.
She then seriously spoke, "Town Lord, ask someone to relocate Edwin from the western side to the southern side.. Other than me, only he can repair this formation."