Seeing their comrade killed by weak humans the other Betas all became enraged. They released a bloodlust-filled howl, which made all the nearby beasts go crazy.
The beasts relaunched their attack onto the human's formation. This time just trying to break through it, not caring if they die or not. The Betas also joined the charge causing the formation to break in just a few seconds.
From this crazed charge many beasts died, but so did many soldiers. Causing the once small gap in the formation, to expand massively. Making it seem more like a section of the formation had fallen.
Luckily the reinforcements from the center arrived as this was happening. They managed to keep the beasts limited to a melee. This helped the rest of the formation to remain stable, while a desperate fight was focused on this area.
Standing up tiredly Eldrian cursed, vexed at how the situation refused to turn for the better.
Looking around he saw that around 20 meters of the formation had been broken, and was now being fought as a melee. Clearly reforming the formation was out of the question, but the beasts were still limited in the melee. The melee was very much against the humans' advantage as it allowed the beasts to use their speed to their advantage.
Along with this, a beast would occasionally try to simply run out of the melee, causing the soldiers to have to reform a line outside of this melee to prevent this from happening. These soldiers would go forward when a beast tried to escape and was made up of the tired and injured soldiers.
Slowly the tide seemed to turn to the beasts' favor.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Eldrian complained, causing Vivian to look at him and smile. An encouraging smile saying, 'I get you.'
They were currently not inside the melee, allowing them to take a moment to recollect their thoughts. The fight against the Beta had moved them a ways back into the middle of the entire formation.
After taking a few seconds to clear his head, Eldrian started looking around trying to ascertain what their chances were.
The new reinforcements seemed to be far better than the average soldier. Just two of them managed to keep a Beta busy, while three would be able to kill it in about as long as it took Eldrian and Vivian to kill the first Beta.
Unfortunately, the reinforcements were only over 50 soldiers, while the Beta's alone was around 10. Meaning these soldiers could not spare the men to take each Beta on with three people. Since there were still other beasts they couldn't ignore.
As Eldrian was observing this he realized there was a distinct lack of arrows flying overhead. Turning to look to the back he saw that they seemed to be out of arrows.
Eldrian was surprised at how quickly he realized that they had stopped firing. It was a small thing in the battle, but he could always see an arrow fly overhead every few seconds. After having looked around for around 10 and not seeing an arrow flying he got curious.
As Eldrian looked at the archers he saw them putting down their bows. They then took out their melee weapons, mostly being swords. After readying themselves by forming groups they rushed of the hill, splitting into different parts.
Leaving only a few who still had arrows, along with the mages. They ensured the back of the formation was not compromised, while the mages occasionally sent a spell into a group of beasts. They never sent it to any place that resembled a melee, seemingly unable to control it well enough.
Having seen a few groups of archers rushing to them, Eldrian turned back to look at the melee. Some hope having returned. He felt that the archers offering relief would be a good thing. But he was unsure if them firing or helping in the melee would be better. Nonetheless, he was glad they came forward and did not just sit back after running out of arrows.
Looking at the melee Eldrian was surprised to see that the reinforcements were doing better than he had thought they would. They had managed to form a crude half circle around the broken section of the formation.
The wounded and tired soldiers stood at the perimeter, while the new and fresh soldiers went in to help with the melee. Now it was not a haphazard line of wounded, it started resembling a new formation.
...
"Seems like the Chosen can be good for a few things." A soldier said as a wide grin grew on his face. He was mainly referring to them working well as bait, but he also acknowledged that they could buy some time in a fight.
"Don't look down on them, they did save us." A stern-looking man in silvery armor replied. He frowned as he saw the stupid grin on the soldier.
"Ah, yes sorry sir." The soldier timidly apologized as he felt his next week would be hell if he did not.
"Good, now go and help them fight." The stern man said before turning his gaze to Vivian and Eldrian.
'So she is really here. Crazy...' He mumbled, making his way over to these two.
...
"So, are we going to go help?" Eldrian asked as he saw the beasts slowly getting an advantage. The change was not big, but it was certainly happening. In the beginning, every beast was surrounded by two soldiers. At least every Direwolf was. But now only the Betas were still getting this treatment.
Granted the amount of Direwolves had gone down significantly. But not to the amount where they could be discounted.
Vivian looked at Eldrian strangely, asking. "Are you insane? You almost died just now."
"I won't die for good. I want to ensure our victory, so everyone else can live." Eldrian replied as he looked at the injured soldiers who were putting up a desperate last line. He felt a sadness grow inside him as he looked at them.
Many of these NPCs had extremely ugly looking wounds. Yet they stood and held, bloody tears flowing down their faces. Eldrian saw sorrow clearly on their faces. Before they had simply hidden this with rage, but now that they were the backline. Along with the pain from their injuries, they could no longer hold their sadness.
The archers had almost reached the half-circle, which would change the advantage to the human side again. Still, Eldrian felt it would be very useful if they could kill another Beta. The soldiers were too few to accomplish this without help.
Vivian gave Eldrian another strange gaze. This time seemingly wanting to understand exactly what he meant. But before she could she was interrupted by the leader of the reinforcements.
"Vivian, great to see you. And uninjured at that. I am very glad, your dad would kill me if it was otherwise."
Eldrian turned in surprise to the guy who had approached them. He had come from their back so they had not seen him until now.
The guy had very good-looking armor. Silvery plate armor covered his chest, shoulders, forearms, and legs. He was also wearing an open-faced helmet made of the same material, emphasizing his silver eyes. Eldrian had never seen someone with silver eyes and it really pulled his attention.
He felt like it looked similar to the mithril he had seen at Boran's. While the guy's armor certainly looked like real mithril, making Eldrian conclude that he was not an ordinary person.
"John, so it is you who came to our rescue," Vivian responded after a few seconds of shock. She had not thought she would run into someone she knew. And she knew John very well, they had often trained together when he was still in a lower position. But as he advanced he had less time to train with her, resulting in her not having seen him in months.
"Do I have this young man to thank for your health?" John asked as he extended a hand to Eldrian. Eldrian took it, shaking John's hand.
"I guess you can say he did help me," Vivian replied shyly.
'Is she embarrassed?' Eldrian asked himself before he was pulled out of his thoughts by John.
"That's great, you're strong then. Right?"
"Um, I wouldn't say that..." Eldrian mumbled.
"Nah, I saw you kill that Beta. Sure not the best performance ever, but for newbies, it was an amazing feat."
"Thanks."
"Why did you come here, John?" Vivian asked, finding it weird he had not rushed with his troops.
"Orders, seemingly an Alpha is on its way here. Along with its personal bodyguards."
Hearing this Vivian paled believed John was saving his stamina for later. Which meant the situation was still very dark for them.
John saw the lack of a reaction in Eldrian, which strongly contrasted to Vivian's paleness. He therefore explained. "From the report, it will bring around 16 more Betas when it arrives. This will be when the final battle starts."
"Wait, why is it only on its way now?" Eldrian asked feeling it did not add up.
"Ah, yeah you were probably too focused on fighting," John replied before turning to look at the melee, seeing that everything was still under control he continued.
"The other pack has joined the fight, and this Alpha comes from there. That pack had a total of two Alphas, one went to where Old Sword is still fighting while the other came here."
"They probably want to keep him busy while breaking the formation. It is a good gamble, but William has gone to help Old Sword, so it should be their undoing soon."
"We, just have to hold out against the Alpha."
"Okay... I am going to ask, why we?" Eldrian asked, feeling like they were not just a vague term he had used.
"Oh, seems like you are sharp. Simple you two should be the strongest fighters, outside of my troop."
To which Eldrian nodded mindlessly, not agreeing by wanting John to continue.
"Fuck it... You guys are going to help me keep the Alpha busy while my soldiers hold the Betas back." John said, not wanting to dance around it anymore.
He knew Vivian was very strong, and having seen Eldrian in action. He could confidently say he had never seen someone new to fighting react so quickly. He hoped Eldrian would make an opportunity for him or Vivian, which they could use.
Hearing this Eldrian nodded again, not really caring too much. He believed they should be able to do it with the extra help. He now knew what it meant to fight a Beta, and from John's confidence, he assumed John should be about as strong as one or maybe a little stronger.
Therefore Eldrian thought he would keep it busy while they whittle it down, slowly.