In the distance I could see a gigantic explosion. I had no idea what it signified, but I could feel the immensity of the power that went into it. My pitiful amount of magic was nothing in comparison to the raw power that was in that one single explosion. It awes me to the core. But at the same time I had a sense of loss. As if I had lost something, something that I would never again have. Yet at the same time I could feel a rush of mana flowing into my body, it was as if chains had been lifted. I was once again recovering mana. I shrugged off the feeling. Now was not the time for emotions. I had not seen any other parties around us for awhile, and felt that I could finally let loose. I could cast my newly upgraded grenades at the Velocinids to my hearts content.
But when I shadow stepped out of our protected fortress of fire I was greeted by a scene I was not prepared for. Other than the few Velocinids around us, the rest of the field was empty. There was not a single living thing alive.
As I turned to look back at the city by jaw dropped. On the wall stood two figures. One was a large Arachne, in her hands were two giant greatswords. The other was figure casually swinging a quarter staff at the arachne.
It was strange, but from where I stood it seemed as if the figure was pus.h.i.+ng the arachne back, but the amount of effort that was put it seemed to be minuscule.
I could not see behind them, but I knew it was time to return. I informed Hylia of what I had seen with our connection and she quickly relayed the information to the other party members. We made quick work of the remaining spiders, and quickly set our sites on the city before us.
Four figures could be seen moving towards us. They seemed exhausted by the way their bodies staggered, but they continued to move forward. When we could finally make out their features i was surprised to find that it was the members of the shadow squad.
Their clothes looked torn, and their was blood and cursed all of their bodies. It made no sense, they were supposed to be with the citizens. Why were they here?
We ran to meet them. The boys were too tired to speak, but Hylia used her telepathy to eventually work out what had happened. Horror filled our minds as Hylia relayed what she had learned. I quickly took out some supplies and handed it to the boys. They needed to rest, they deserved it.
We did not hesitate as we rushed towards the city. Leisha had picked Sierra up at some time, and carried her on her shoulders as we ran. For once Hylia did not ride on my shoulders, rather she led the way.
It only took a few minutes for us to arrive at the city, or rather what was left of it. Most of the city was in ruins, scattered around the city could be seen several C ranked parties fighting what appeared to be human bug hybrids.
I cursed in my mind, hoping the kids had exaggerated their stories. But, from the dead bodies I saw in could confirm this was not the case. On the ground laid both human and bug men corpses. Both were being eaten by bug men. We slayed them whenever we could, killing almost a hundred before we found the first survivor. It was a dwarven mage, one of his arms had been bitten off, and it seemed he had used a fire spell to cauterize the wound.
He used his only remaining arm, his left arm, to hold onto his staff. He seemed surprised when he saw us, his exhausted face did not relax however. He simply nodded at us and joined our group. There was safety in numbers after all.
The Wizard was rather useful before he had lost his arm. He had just ranked up to full ranked Wizard, and was very c.o.c.ky. However he had done all of his casting with his right hand. His gruff voice whispered to us.
"I had to spend what little coins I had on dual casting. The most basic one. If I hadn"t saved those coins for an emergency I would be dead right now. Listen well ladies, if we can manage to survive this always save some coins for a rainy day."
All of us nodded. This dwarf was not by any means young. He appeared to be middle aged for a sweet, which placed him around 100 years old. His situation was proof of his words. In particular I had no idea that a loss of your main arm would result in the loss of ability to cast spells normally. It was a new development for me, and made me rather glad that I had already bought perfect dual wielding.
The dwarfs power had recieved a slight handicap, but thankfully because of his habit of saving coins it only affected his casting speed. The power of his spells was something that completely outs.h.i.+ned us. As long as we were able to hold off the bug men he was able to easily kill them.
As we traveled further into the city the worse things had gotten. There were far more bug men, and not nearly enough adventurers. We managed to rescue a total of 3 more adventurers, none of them were in good condition.
There was a half beastman archer. She was a half feline much like Hylia, but her ears and tails were a silky black. She had cuts and bruises all over her body, and a deep gash that traveled down her face. Thankfully Sierra was able to heal her wounds with her aura and a fireball, but the scars would remain. That was far outside her capabilities.
The second was a Human swordsman. We found him in the middle of a small horde of bug men. He seemed compleltly absorbed by all of the opponents, and was oblivious to everything around him. When we finally managed to rescue him his eyes were completely dim, it seemed as if he had used most of his mental abilities to keep up with his previous fight. Still he managed to fall into the group, though he did not say a single word
The Last we encountered was one of the rarer races in the city. It was a gnome. She had a dagger in either hand and was jumping from shadow to shadow as she sneak attacked the bugmen. Her battle style was simple and effective, showing the effectiveness of hit and run tactics. She was not injured, only exhausted.
These four were the only survivors we managed to encounter in the entire city. Besides these four the entirety of the C cla.s.s adventurers had been wiped out by the bugmen.
Eventually a loud screeching could be heard in the air. The bugmen stopped what they were doing, before they all ran in a single direction. That direction was the area we had seen earlier, where a lone man was facing a giant arachne. A sense of dread filled me as we began to follow the bugmen.
The battle continued to rage on the city walls, but the lone figure who was fighting the arachne was not fairing as well as it seemed. His actions seemed relaxed and carefree, but I could tell he actually put a lot of though and energy into each one. The man was powerful, but he was not a G.o.d. Wounds had begun to appear on his body, and he was bleeding from various spots all over his body.
The arachne was in no better shape. She was breathing hard, and had a rather large wound in its abdomen, that exposed its organs. This wound must have been the cause for the roar, and the reason the bug men seemed to be swarming the old man.
I knew we had to take action. The C ranked adventurers we had saves acted before I could speak. They rushed into battle against the bugmen, desperately trying to save the guild leader.
The Arachne grew more confident with the arrival of its troops, its swings becoming more fierce, as it became even less wary of its surroundings. I knew we had to take action. but not against the horde. We needed to kill the arachne. Only then would this be over.
I relayed my plan to Hylia as I stepped into stealth. I did not wait for her to tell the others as I shadow stepped in front of the arachne. My vital.senses screamed that the wound was the best spot to attack, so I did just that.
I did not attack with my blade however. No, this would be probably the only chance that my grenades would benefit from vital strike, and I was not about to waste this chance.
I cast ten grenades I to the gaping hole in the creatures abdomen before shadow stepping away. The resulting explosion was huge, its power sent shockwaves through the city wall causing large cracks to spiderweb on it. The blast knocked back the flying bugmen, giving some reprieve to the old man.
Most importantly the c.u.mulative stacks of boosts on my grenades made the damage enormous. Enormous enough to cause fatal damage to this Boss who was already on the brink of death.
Its abdoment complelty exploded, Seperating its upper body from the lower. Pieces of flesh could be seen flying, and an accidic blood began to rain down on us. Sierra quickly protected us from the rain with he fire s.h.i.+elds. But the bugmen were not so lucky. Their bodies quickly began to melt under the blood of such a strong creature. With only over 100 managing to escape into the dark forest.
I could not help but look around, The 9 of us, plus the four boys outside the city, were the only survivors. Then it hit me. Something I should have worried about much sooner. I looked to the guild master, who was leaning heavily on his quarter staff. "Old man, Where is my mother?".