Everyone in the second group felt their hearts sink into the swamp. That was exactly where the first group was supposed to be, and they had already entered battle.
Who were they fighting? How many enemies were there? Did they stand any chance of winning? No one had the answers.
But they knew exactly what they had to do. They reacted almost instantly and rushed forward to help their comrades.
The moment they moved, they heard the whistle of an arrow flying over their heads.
No one in the second group even looked back. They were certain Grey had fired it.
Over the past two weeks, they had witnessed his skill more than once and no longer dared to underestimate their leader just because he couldn't cultivate.
Unlike everyone else, Grey had received professional training since childhood and had pushed his body to its absolute limits. Even when Senior took control, his movements were far more confident than anyone else's. Muscle memory was no joke. His body had become so accustomed to handling weapons that if he admitted this was his first time killing, no one would have believed him.
When the second group finally reached the battlefield, they at last saw who their opponent was.
The first group, led by Garen, was desperately holding back a pack of Green Fang Hyenas. Several beasts already lay dead, but the smell of blood only drove the rest into an even greater frenzy.
Green Fang Hyenas were not particularly powerful magical beasts, but they made up for their weakness with sheer numbers and viciousness.
They were the local scavengers and would eat even the most disgusting things. Rotten meat, old bones, river trash. Their stomachs could digest almost anything.
Even so, Green Fang Hyenas sometimes craved fresh meat, a true delicacy to them. Once they decided a target was weak and an easy kill, they would never let it escape.
That was exactly what had happened now. The moment the pack caught the scent of a vulnerable group of teenagers, they believed fortune had smiled upon them. After all, they possessed no intelligence, and their instincts told them that human children could not possibly be very strong.
During the few minutes it took the second group to arrive, the number of Green Fang Hyenas had grown to nearly fifty, and more were joining with every passing moment.
The hyenas kept converging on the battlefield, just as Grey's subordinates rushed in to aid their comrades.
Garen's muscles bulged, and his eyes burned red with fury and fighting spirit. He never stopped swinging the spiked club Grey had given him, not even for a second.
He didn't even bother aiming, yet every strike found its mark. Some hyenas died from a single swing, while the luckier ones escaped with broken bones. One should never underestimate the strength of a barbarian who had been raised from childhood to become a mercenary.
Even so, the first group found itself in a difficult situation. The other teenagers had already suffered injuries of varying severity.
Lily hurriedly unleashed a concentrated wave of confusion at the two hyenas whose jaws had sunk into a boy's flesh as they tried to drag him out of formation.
The next instant, both beasts were dead. One took an arrow through the neck, while the other's belly was ripped open.
Lily glanced back and saw that Kai and Achilles had arrived from the other side. Kai fired an almost perfect shot, while Achilles hurled his sword at the hyena the moment he realized his friend was in danger.
She wanted to curse the scouts for their negligence after they had failed to notice such a large pack, but Lily quickly realized it wasn't their fault.
The Green Fang Hyenas had come from another direction, and there was no way two people could have spotted them in advance. Their dull green coats blended perfectly into the surrounding forest.
Pushing those distracting thoughts aside, Lily and the second group threw themselves into the fierce battle.
The clearing turned into a bloody slaughterhouse in the blink of an eye.
The cackling of the Green Fang Hyenas echoed through Thorn's Tabernacles. The sound was so revolting that it seemed as if someone was laughing, choking, and wheezing all at once. It grated on their nerves, as though it were crawling beneath their skin.
The mud beneath their feet squelched with blood, entrails, and clumps of grayish-green fur.
One of the hyenas, driven mad by the smell of blood, leaped straight at Zebra's face. He barely managed to throw up an arm in time, but the beast ripped away a chunk of flesh, tearing off strips of skin along with it. Zebra screamed so suddenly that Lily's ears rang from the sound.
But there was no time for pity. Without a moment's hesitation, she slashed at the beast with her knife, trying to save the poor boy.
With a growl, Achilles slammed his shoulder into the side of another hyena, knocking it off the path of its leap. The next second, he drove his short blade straight beneath its lower jaw. Before he even had time to pull it free, he kicked another beast square in the snout.
Kai fought with far greater composure.
He didn't try to conserve his strength. His bowstring was drawn almost without pause as he fought to clear a path to the others, relentlessly striking down the most dangerous predators.
Gritting her teeth, Lily sent out wave after wave of mental confusion and panic.
Her ability was deadly against a single target. Against a frenzied pack, it was almost useless. But even a brief moment of disorientation could buy them enough time for reinforcements to arrive.
And that was enough.
"Left!" Sunny shouted.
Garen didn't even turn his head.
His spiked club swept through a wide arc and crushed the skull of the hyena that had nearly reached his thigh with a sickening crack. Blood and bone fragments splattered across his face, but the barbarian only bared his teeth in an even fiercer grin.
He no longer looked like a teenager. He looked like a young beast unleashed from its cage.
He stood at the front like a living battering ram, taking the brunt of the assault. Every movement was crude, straightforward, and terrifyingly effective. When another hyena lunged at him, Garen realized he wouldn't have time to swing his club. Instead, he seized the beast by the spine with his free hand and slammed it into the ground with all his strength. Its backbone bent at a grotesque angle.
But even Garen couldn't be everywhere at once.
There were simply too many hyenas.
They darted between the trees, burst out from the bushes, and lunged at their legs, trying to drag the weaker ones out of formation. Their eyes gleamed with hungry madness, and their green fangs flashed inside blood-soaked jaws as though coated in poisonous mold.
At some point, the teenagers could no longer tell where one fight ended and another began. Everything had merged into a single, savage chaos that threatened to swallow them whole.
Even the arrival of the remaining groups failed to turn the tide.
There were only around twenty teenagers, while the hyenas far outnumbered them. More and more beasts kept pouring onto the battlefield without end.
Grey stood in the front ranks, slashing with his dagger. Every strike was terrifyingly precise. Each thrust claimed at least one life.
Right now, Senior was the one in control of the body, and his fighting style was noticeably different from Junior's.
Junior had always relied on technique. He had mastered countless combat moves, and unless his opponent completely overwhelmed him in raw strength, they stood no chance against his relentless assault.
Senior, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as skilled. He simply watched the battlefield and struck only when his target could no longer dodge. In truth, he wasn't a fighter but an assassin. Rather than rushing to save a wounded comrade, he would seize the opportunity to kill another enemy with a single blow.
Another five minutes passed, and Grey felt like cursing.
A battle this intense couldn't last much longer. His subordinates were already breathing heavily. Many had suffered injuries of varying severity, yet the endless tide of hyenas showed no sign of stopping.
It was as if they didn't care about their own lives. Every hyena that died only drove the rest into an even greater frenzy.
"Close the formation, damn it all!" Grey roared at the top of his lungs. "If anyone dares to run, I'll personally cut off their head!"
Roars. Cackling. Branches snapping and leaves rustling. The sounds merged into an endless cacophony, yet the teenagers obeyed their leader almost instinctively.
"Give me a weapon!" Dave shouted. At some point he had managed to spit out the gag while Reus was busy fighting. "I can help! You don't seriously think I could escape in the middle of a battlefield like this, do you?"
"Shut up and get lost." Grey wanted nothing more than to tell the prisoner to go to hell. Right now, he wasn't even thinking about him. Their situation was already as bad as it could get. There was no reason to throw another variable into the equation.
"If you really want to help, then pray to your god that your luck isn't complete garbage. If we hold them off, you'll survive with us. If we don't, then your luck is just that awful. We've spent two weeks in Thorn's Tabernacles without a single attack from wild beasts, but the very day you showed up, everything went to hell."
Grey drove his dagger into the neck of another beast that had been about to pounce on Sunny, then turned to his first subordinate.
"I bet you're thanking the heavens we didn't bring Aileen and Irene with us?" Grey joked, hoping to lift everyone's spirits.
"Yes, sir!" Sunny shouted with a grin. It looked rather vicious with his face covered in blood, but it also carried unmistakable relief.
"I'm glad I could cheer you up. Now use that brain of yours and tell me something. Do Green Fang Hyenas always fight this desperately? Shouldn't they realize we're not easy prey and retreat?"
The question had been bothering Grey ever since the battle began. Unfortunately, Junior wasn't very knowledgeable about the local flora and fauna, so he didn't know the answer. That was why Grey decided to ask a local.
Surely he would know which animals posed the greatest danger in Thorn's Tabernacles, as well as their habits. After all, knowledge like that was the foundation of survival and shouldn't be any kind of secret.
Just to ask that simple question, Grey had to work up a sweat changing positions without breaking their formation.
Thank the gods, Sunny didn't disappoint him. He dragged an injured comrade into the center of the formation and answered quickly.
"That's right, sir. I'm confused too. Green Fang Hyenas are notorious cowards. Everyone in Thorn's Cloaca knows that the moment they sense even the slightest danger, the whole pack runs faster than a heretic fleeing the Inquisition.
"We've already killed dozens of hyenas, yet they're only getting more vicious, as if we had insulted their ancestors. This kind of behavior isn't normal."
Grey frowned deeply. Sunny's answer only confirmed his suspicions, but it brought him no comfort.
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