"Okay guys, are you ready?"
Gotang faced the Dreaded Valley with conviction and strength. This is the moment they dreamed of. Months and months of preparation all came down to this. The goals of which were only known to him and a few trusted members.
They all marched into the Dreaded forest in groups of four. Gotang was surrounded by his personal guards. Bang, Ligi, Resi, and Lobo were at the back of the main assault group. Most of the groups arranged themselves as a parabolic curve as they step foot into the dead swamp.
The fog became thicker as they advanced through the swamp. Ligi already took out his shield in preparation. He didn't want to be caught dead without his shield out. Resi was surprised at Ligi. Resi always had a 'meh' assumption on Ligi because he was silent but that shield looked strong. Resi didn't stare but only stole some glances.
Lobo kept his eye forward and followed the group. It was his job to babysit these newcomers and he would have to take the fall if they were in trouble or caused some trouble. He looked at Resi and spoke to him.
"Don't stray away from us."
"Hmph...."
Resi ignored Lobo and took one step out of the formation. He didn't want to follow Lobo's order but he wasn't stupid enough to get out of the safety zone completely.
Bang thought it was troublesome to have someone like Resi, but at least he wasn't endangering anyone. Unexpectedly, he saw some movement from Ligi.
Bang looked at Ligi and saw that he was frowning. There was a hint of anger in the reserved and quiet kid. Ligi's eyes sent electric shocks directed at Resi but Resi just ignored Ligi. Resi's smile was hidden from Ligi as they continued walking.
The quiet place was only broken by the sound of a murder of crows in the distance. Bang didn't know exactly where the crows were because the fog was impeding his sight.
Lobo suddenly stopped walking. Bang looked at the front and saw that Gotang's right hand was up, signaling the group to halt. Gotang looked around the soil and gave some hand signs to the group. They all collectively nodded and waited.
One of the groups in the front suddenly saw something moving in the ground. They weren't surprised as they prepared their swords. As soon as the object sprung out from the ground, it was already sliced in half. Bang looked at the carcass of the unfortunate thing. It was a scorpion. It was a huge freaking scorpion. It was longer than his two hands combined!
"Is that a scorpion?"
Bang asked Lobo. Lobo didn't look back and just stared at the ground waiting for something to appear.
"Be ready. They'll come in a second."
Just like Lobo said, the ground started shaking and different mounds started to pop up out of the ground. One which popped up directly in front of Bang. Knowing the danger this scorpion might posses, he dodged out of the way.
The scorpion revealed itself and showed it's pointy tail. It looked sharp and would probably inject some kind of poison into his blood stream if it pierced him. It had crab-like pincers which gave Bang some flashbacks to the first time he encountered a monster. Thank gods he survived that.
"Be careful, they can spit out poison."
The warning was too late as Bang had already thought he was safe from harm. The scorpion's tail reared back and directed it at Bang. A violet liquid spurt out from the tail and went towards Bang. In the last second, a shield deflected the liquid and it bounced away. Ligi was already cautious when the scorpion appeared, he only needed a warning from Lobo to know that an attack would come.
Lobo quickly went to the scorpion and quickly sliced it using his sword. A quick shout suddenly surprised him.
"AHH!!!!"
Lobo looked at the source of the shout and it was Resi. Of course it was Resi again. He was jumping up and down in quick succession as he fanned his shirt. There was a violet substance near his abdomen. This must be why he screamed. Thankfully, it was protected by his leather armor.
"You!!"
Resi suddenly pointed at Ligi and marched down to him.
"You did that on purpose didn't you?!?!"
The poison that was on him must have been the one that Ligi deflected. Bang didn't know if that was on purpose or not because Ligi just ignored the accusation. Ligi just turned away from Resi and harrumphed.
"YOU!!!!!"
Resi didn't like that his own medicine was being fed to him. Seeing that the danger still hasn't passed, he decided to deal with Ligi in a safe place. Ligi just smiled triumphantly which Resi didn't see.
Another scorpion jumped out from the ground near Lobo and before it could even come out of the ground, it was already pierced. Resi was busy fighting with another scorpion. Bang could tell by the way that Resi used his sword that he was inexperienced. Resi couldn't hit the scorpion and the scorpion couldn't hit Resi with the poison.
The stalemate between them was broken when Resi suddenly threw his sword away started punching the scorpion. He was punching the scorpion to death! That was very dangerous since the scorpion could hit Resi with the poison point blank, but he didn't care. Surprisingly, it worked. He seemed way more comfortable freely using his fists than wielding a sword.
Bang would stay near Ligi and just shield him from the attacks of the scorpion. All they could do was defend and wait for Lobo to kill the scorpion.
This continued for tens of minutes and the scorpions only seemed to grow in numbers as time went on. At this point, there were five scorpions per group. Bang and Ligi had to retreat near the other groups in order to make sure that they weren't attacked from the back. Lobo found it harder and harder to deal with the scorpions by himself so he started working together with another group. Even the troublesome Resi stayed near Lobo.
The attacks of the scorpions slowly became more and more harder to dodge. There was even a time where Lobo was hit by a poison, thankfully most of it was on his leather armor. A small part of his arm started to burn and corrode, Lobo wasn't fazed by it.
As things started to become harder and harder and it felt like they couldn't take it anymore, Gotang suddenly came to their rescue. With one swing of his sword, multiple scorpions died. With the swing of his sword, some kind of liquid came out of his sword and acted as a projectile. Those scorpions hit by this liquid started squirming uncontrollably until they died.
It was an amazing show of power. Is this what a leader is like? Being a beacon of hope in the face of adversity?
The scorpions became less and less until there were only a few of them left that the other groups could handle. Lobo was panting but it was clear he still had energy. Bang and Ligi was tired but not as tired as the others as they only needed to protect themselves. Resi was also clearly tired.
"Resi rest for now. Conserve your energy."
As if it was opposite day, Resi suddenly got energized and he ran into the direction of the other group. They were currently fighting a scorpion that was on it's last leg. They were surprised to see Resi running towards them so they stopped attacking, fearing they might injure him.
Resi surprised the scorpion and punched it from the back. The cornered scorpion retaliated at Resi and started to run after him. Resi dodged every attack from the scorpion. At this point, he had memorized the attack patterns of the scorpion so he was confident in dodging.
On it's last leg, the scorpion seemed like it would die any second now. Surprisingly, the scorpion suddenly pointed it's pincers at Resi as the pincers launched to him. As a last resort, the scorpion was forced to use it's trump card by catching it's prey off guard.
Resi was certainly surprised. He didn't think that the scorpion had this ability. His instincts kicked in and he used his hands to deflect the attack that was coming for his face. He didn't take his eyes from the scorpion, fearing that it would launch another attack but he saw that it died after that last attack.
Resi was relieved that the situation was over but he suddenly heard a shout.
"AHHH!!!!!!!"
Resi turned around to look at the commotion and he saw that it was from the new guys that recently joined them. It wasn't that annoying silent guy, but the other one. It was Bang.
——————
Bang was just cautiously looking at the ground for scorpions until he heard a warning from his system.
"I urge owner to dodge."
The warning was too late and Bang didn't react in time. The pincer would definitely hit his heart if he didn't dodge. He just watched the projectile in slow motion. He will die.
'Overriding owner. Deducting 50 wp.'
The system took over the actions of Bang and made it dodge. Unfortunately, Bang took too much time not dodging the pincer and all the system could do was to redirect the pincer to his shoulder rather than his heart.
The pincer hit Bang and he flew back because of the force. He didn't move and get up. He just stared at the sky.
Ligi saw this and became furious. His emotions were being clouded and all he wanted to do now was to just attack everything and everyone. It was Resi's fault! If that guy had just followed Lobo's instruction this wouldn't have happened!! Because of his surging emotions, he didn't notice the irony and this made him even more furious. Something took pleasure in this situation.
'HA...HA......HA........YES!!! NOW...YOU'RE .....FEELING....IT!!!!!!!!'