"Calm down." I gave Harvey a bottle of water and forced him to take a sip. The poor guy looked like he was going to throw up. "Take a deep breath."
Harvey nodded and obeyed, accepting the bottle and inhaling heavily. He was still pale, but he seemed to be in better shape than before. I recalled that this wasn't his first time seeing corpses. He was there when the Crastrate killed our former society members. He was no stranger to death, but even so, seeing a young, innocent child being fed upon by a grotesque monster would leave him shaken.
He swallowed and glanced up determinedly at us. Behind, Bu Fan sneered, obviously thinking of Harvey as useless and weak, but I ignored the arrogant bastard.
"A single Cyclops Rat at the gas station, right?" Craig already had his spear out. Sheila also had her spear and shield out as well, the two Crimson Spear society members getting ready for battle. "Should be an easy kill. Our job is to clear the route of monsters, right?"
"Wait." Teacher Fielding raised a hand and turned back to Harvey. "You said you only saw one Cyclops Rat, right?"
"That's correct." Harvey nodded, a little calmer now. "I say we nail the bastard."
"Yeah!" Craig concurred enthusiastically.
"No." Teacher Fielding straightened his spine. "Cyclops Rats usually move around in swarms. There shouldn't only be one of them. There should be more lurking about." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "This is most likely a trap. The other members of the swarm should be lurking nearby. If we attack recklessly, we'll only walk right into an ambush."
As expected of a teacher, he really knew his stuff. Even though I had read about Cyclops Rats and knew they always moved in packs, I didn't anticipate them being cunning enough to set a trap to ambush unwary human attackers.
"Harvey, you stay back and take up a position. I want you to keep your eyes and ears out, to detect any sign of the other Cyclops Rats. The moment you find them, let us know immediately. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir!" Harvey immediately departed, disappearing into one of the buildings.
"As for the rest of us…" Teacher Fielding grinned as he turned toward us. "Let us set up an ambush of our own."
*
Craig, the most enthusiastic one out of us, threw his crimson spear forward and nailed the Cyclops Rat. It was so intent on its meal that it didn't even notice his presence. The spear impaled the shrieking monster and tore a hole through its body. The bloody remnants of its body flopped down, a mist of blood descending upon the splattered ground.
I tried not to look at the corpse of the poor child. Craig, on the other hand, calmly strode forward to recover his spear. Sheila moved quickly beside him, to give the illusion that he was not alone. The two of them entered the gas station alone.
"Bastard," Craig muttered as he yanked his spear from the floor, giving the Cyclops Rat's carcass a glare.
"They are here." my smartphone crackled to life as Harvey spoke up. "Multiple signals, heading toward the gas station. Nine o'clock position, six o'clock position and four o'clock. About thirty in total. There are another five coming from the manhole about two meters south of the gas station."
Harvey had really adapted to his role very well. I wasn't sure what he was using to detect the Cyclops Rats' movements, but it certainly wasn't his magic alone. He was generally a swordsman, but it seemed that he learned the basics of Divination Ba Qi. He would made a final Marine if he ever traveled to a world full of pirates.
However, he shouldn't have gotten that far yet, so I assumed he must have some equipment that allowed him to detect the monsters. Later, I would learn that they were video analysis software that he usually used for school matches, but modified slightly for use in reality. That guy had always been smart, and like me, he was a nerd. Just with different hobbies.
"Stay sharp," Teacher Fielding ordered. "Craig, Sheila, the both of you hold your ground. The moment they show up, we'll strike."
"Heh! We'll try to leave a few for you, teach."
"Don't come too late or you'll miss all the fun," Sheila added, infected by her president's excitement.
There was a crumpling of metal as one of the Cyclops Rats clambered atop an abandoned school bus. Craig turned toward it, his spear ready, but it was being accompanied by a couple more of its brethren. Beside him, Sheila turned in the opposite direction as another Cyclops Rat smacked a motorcycle out of its path to crawl toward them. Behind it, another five or six black-furred monstrosities, each with a single glowing red eye, were barely visible.
"They are here."
"Fire Team A, Fire Team B, go!" Teacher Fielding instructed.
Alicia, Jin Hao, Aoi and Theodore Hammond appeared to the rear of the first group, with the first three delivering a hail of deadly fire from range. Alicia was firing with her dual pistols, obliterating the lead Cyclops Rat before it could descend from the bus, its corpse folding forward as bloody craters were etched across its body. Its single eye exploded, an armor-piercing round from her guns obliterating it in a single shot.
The rest of the Cyclops Rats milled about in confusion, twisting and turning around as they struggled to locate the new source of fire. Jin Hao and Aoi sent out their own ranged devastating spells, raining down fireballs and icicles on the beleaguered swarm. Another two Cyclops Rats went down, incinerated or sliced apart by the magical projectiles.
A fourth Cyclops Rat rallied and charged toward them while the three of them were still firing upon their respective foes. However, Theodore stepped forward and swung his Mjolnir. There was a crackle of electricity as an explosive thunder echoed through the road. The Cyclops Rat was pulverized by his divine hammer, reduced to a smoking pile of meat and blood.
As for the Cyclops Rats making their way through the motorcycle, they were suddenly bathed by a torrent of flames. Dong Fang Yue Chu was washing the entire in a massive inferno that ignited the vehicles engulfed within it, detonating their fuel tanks and shredding the blazing Cyclops Rats with deadly shrapnel. One of the Cyclops Rats, which had escaped his flames, lunged at him, but Lily Liam stepped in and stabbed it with her sword. In a single stroke, she cleaved the shrieking creature in half, and then smacked it away with her shield.
From a distance, I summoned Orion and unleashed a volley of arrows that knocked another batch of Cyclops Rats onto their backs. They screeched and flailed about, impaled in a few dozen places. Before I could finish them off, Harrison Reed stepped in, and with a few well-placed kicks, he obliterated their skulls and vital points.
No, I wasn't offended that he stole my kills. We had already agreed on this strategy beforehand, in order to conserve our mana as much as possible. After all, we both suspected that the Cyclops Rats wouldn't be the only monsters infesting our route toward the emergency shelter. So I simply shifted my aim and fired upon another batch of Cyclops Rats, incapacitating them and rendering them vulnerable for Harrison to deliver the finishing blow.
Even though we had reinforced the position around the gas station and ambushed the Cyclops Rats who thought they could lure us into a trap, Craig and Sheila were far from idle. They were engaging the Cyclops Rats that were emerging from a manhole not far from their position, slicing them apart with their spears and causing the foul-smelling rats to fall back into the sewers with high-pitched screams.
"Four o'clock position! They're coming out from the café on your left, Senior Craig and Senior Sheila!"
Harvey shouted a warning, having remained in his safe perch to monitor the battlefield. The final batch of Cyclops Rats were streaming out through a shattered glass wall that used to overlook the streets, granting the customers a nice view of the city as they slowly sipped their warm cups of coffee in leisure, but the two Crimson Spear Society members were still busily engaging the enemies that were swarming upward from the manhole. Craig stepped forward to take the brunt of the attack while Sheila withdrew to cover his back, getting ready to face the new threat. The two of them were now fighting back-to-back against an endless swarm of monsters.
Harrison and I moved to reinforce them, but we were having to deal with enemies of our own. At least ten more Cyclops Rats had shown up to engage our group, and while Dong Fang Yue Chu and Lily had taken half of them off our hands by confronting them, we still couldn't back them up in time.
"Reserve Fire Team, go support Fire Team 0!"
A torrent of flames blasted through the gas station and set the approaching Cyclops Rats ablaze. Lightning bolts descended, electrocuting the already flailing Cyclops Rats and searing them into ash. Those that survived were promptly torn apart by wind blades as Zhang Hou Zi closed the gap, ruffled by the huge gusts that blew around his levitating body. Below, Bu Fan unleashed fire from one hand and lightning from another, decimating the fresh group of Cyclops Rats. Whatever Cyclops Rat closed in on him were cut apart by Zhang Hou Zi, and Bu Fan casually raised a hand and incinerated a Cyclops Rat that tried to pounce on his buddy from above.
I had to admit that despite his arrogance, Bu Fan was still a topnotch mage. His spells were powerful, his flames rivaling that of Dong Fang Yue Chu. And he even had lightning magic that was just as destructive as Theodore's. The bastard was really a cheat character. in any other story, he would be the protagonist, and most likely find out that he could master two more elements when he tried to get into university.
Chinese web novel protagonists really had it easy.
A noise drew my attention toward a building. Harvey was forced to evacuate his position as a stray Cyclops Rat stumbled upon him. Fortunately, Harvey managed to detect it before it could eviscerate him, and despite slashing at his assailant with a sword, he only dealt superficial wounds. Before he could finish it off, a second Cyclops Rat joined his brethren and he was forced to retreat.
I had just incapacitating the five Cyclops Rats that Harrison was currently finishing off, and I swiftly shifted my aim to take down the Cyclops Rats pursuing the fleeing Harvey. However, before I could fire anything, the two Cyclops Rats vanished in explosions of blood and gore.
Teacher Fielding had pulverized the both of them with a couple of punches.
"Go! Join the group!" he ordered. Harvey nodded and scrambled toward us. I covered his retreat by shooting down a couple of Cyclops Rats, which Teacher Fielding stomped into oblivion as he slowly made his way toward our position, but there was nothing more for me to do except wait for Harvey to join us. Harrison had completed his grisly task and was also strolling back to us, his eyes cautiously scanning the surrounding area for more threats. Dong Fang Yue Chu and Lily were also withdrawing, after having dispatched their foes.
Alicia and her group were mopping up the last of their foes, and the trickle from the sewers had halted, allowing Craig to join Sheila, Bu Fan and Zhang Hou Zi in destroying the group of Cyclops Rats from the café. Just as a cautionary measure, Craig sealed the manhole with a crimson barrier, just in case any more of them decided to emerge from there.
"Nothing else is in the sewers in the vicinity," Harvey reported, having laid out his device to track movements. "Nothing living, anyway."
"Good job, everyone." Teacher Fielding approached us, not even breaking a sweat after destroying the Cyclops Rats. Well, they were mostly rank F monsters, so they were pretty much fodder, especially when compared to a veteran like him. In fact, the majority of us had fought higher-ranked monsters and survived, so this wasn't much of a surprise. Even so, we couldn't let our guard down and be complacent. He nodded approvingly as he surveyed our dirtied state to ensure one of us were hurt. "A minute's break. Drink some water, recover some strength, and then we move on."
"Yes, sir!"
Appreciating the chance to take a breather, I dropped to the ground to recover my breath. Glancing at the distance, I saw that the Silver Wing Wolf King was still perched atop the spire of the tallest skyscraper in Jing Tian City. The bastard probably didn't even notice the small skirmish that had taken place here.
Someday, I was going to nuke that bastard…and then I was going to hunt down those Dark Church fuckers who set these monsters loose in my city, and made them pay dearly for ever thinking they could screw with us and get away with it.