When dawn broke, the four knights gripped their weapons tightly and cautiously ventured into the jungle of sleeping monster plants. The frightened townspeople looked at them hopefully before speedily nailing back the wooden boards onto the door.
The quartet: …
After travelling a short distance, Alistair carefully approached a motionless pitcher plant, which had seemingly fallen into hibernation. He signalled to the rest to take cover.
With the quick slash of his sword, Alistair swiftly slit the jug of the pitcher plant opened before darting away for cover. The quartet mortifyingly saw two slimy corpses slide down from the opened pitcher plant, but the plant only shivered and made a short screech before lethargically returning to its sleeping state.
Yurian was hiding behind a building wall with Marianne, and he felt her shivering. He half-hugged her encouragingly, even though his heart had also trembled when he saw the scene.
Enzak, a place once filled with fond memories, was becoming a hellish nightmare for all of them.
Alistair gestured for the group to come to him. "Seems like we can use the daylight hours to clear as many monsters as we can," he whispered. "From my observations, it seems that the larger the plant, the more difficult for it to move actively when the sun is up, so we just need to be cautious when facing the smaller monsters. Marianne to oversee healing and long-distance covering, Sylvester to protect Marianne and do long-distance, and Yurian and I will take charge of frontal engagement."
"Got it."
Together, the quartet cleared the surrounding area of the little chapel.
"Ha!" Yurian punched an incoming sunflower that had legs, causing it to explode. The juices stained the floor as it fell to the ground, joining the rest of its species.
With Sylvester beside her, Marianne transformed her staff into a bow as she steadily fired her light arrows at the monsters. She missed some of her targets, but she gritted her teeth.
'Stay calm, Marianne. Breathe. Just like when you're in school.'
Then, she heard a roar from her left. "Marianne, watch out!"
A massive monster plant that was as big as a shop had suddenly entered the battlefield from a sidewalk. With moss all over its body, it had no eyes but a large mouth that was filled with bizarre thorns.
It roared again with rage when it noticed Marianne and Sylvester. The sound was heavy, senseless, and grating against the ears, and it lifted its barrel-sized fists into the sky before smashing them onto the two knights.
Sylvester flickered to safety while Marianne did an elegant flip into the air as adrenaline shot through her body. Her eyes burned into a bright blue as she summoned a gigantic ball of light and threw it at the monster.
"Erase! Lullaby Cannon!"
The holy light attack fell on the monster and it screeched. It lumbered unsteadily and crashed into the building besides, causing the ground to tremble and the dust to float.
Sylvester charged up his magic guns and fired rapid shots that fizzled with electricity at the monster's head, while backing away to escape its attack range. "Taste this, Lightning Airshot!"
Each blast resulted in an explosion of blood and the monster moaned in anger. It raised its hand again and flung a large debris at Sylvester.
"Sylvester, change!"
The gunning knight switched his target swiftly to his right, where a troop of salivating and teething sunflower monsters were marching towards him, firing bullets with unswerving accuracy into the herd.
Yurian appeared beside Sylvester as if he had teleported, punching the flying debris into smithereens. He then flickered and ran up the barrel-like arms of the moss monster, dodging an acid attack on the way.
"Happy Fist!"
Yurian's eyes shone with a ferocious light as he landed his fist twice onto the temple of the monster, causing the head to decimate into crumbled soil.
"Done."
"Good job, Yurian."
Then, they heard a deep voice muttered.
"Evangelion Blessing: Midnight Hourglass!"