Jabari Aziz was easily recognized as the top adventurer at Guild Post #14.
Not only was he a natural leader, he was also a mid-leveled Jade Ranker, and together with his two powerful party members, the other four Jade Rankers at post fourteen couldn't compare even if they joined forces.
That's why it really was good luck that he and his party were around when the Emergency Quest came in, after all what realistic chance did a hundred or so Stone Rankers and a handful of Geode Rankers stand at holding off this horde that was at least 5 times more powerful than them?
Jabari had carefully crafted the basic shape of the formation despite the pressure and limited time, managing to create a setup in which only half of the horde would be able to actively fight against the defending adventurers at any given time, which would help ease the pressure put on those with little fighting experience.
Stone Rankers were often disregarded by any experienced adventurer, considering that only the bottommost rank held any people who had never killed a monster before, which was the most basic requirement of being someone who dealt with monsters.
Jabari then made sure the various leaders around knew to move towards certain areas depending on the horde's distribution. Those with lower-end Stone Rankers took on as many of the [Clawed Goblins] as possible, while the more deadly [Giant Chipmunks] and [Luscious Wolves] were left to middle and high-end groups respectively.
With the formation, the Stone Rankers who were originally going 1 against 10 should have been much better off, but there still ended up being casualties.
There was nothing he could do, time was limited and he had to help the Geode Rankers who were outnumbered 1 against 5. For the Geode Rank monsters it was a lot harder to deal with being outnumbered, they were smarter, stronger, and generally larger.
While the average Stone Ranker could fight multiple monsters at their level, that was because of Stone Rank monster's typically small size. Geode Rank monsters were much larger and decently smarter too, some types being even bigger than humans.
Since the Geode Ranker's fight was on a smaller scale, the helpfulness of a formation was reduced, especially considering the more unique fighting styles that adventurers tended to develop as they rose in rank. Holding them down with something like a common formation would only hurt their battle efficiency, mostly only being experienced in solo, as well as small group combat.
Considering those gross limitations, Jabari had resolved to compensate the difference with his own power.
After the onset of the horde, he instantly launched forward before anyone else, as he activated one of his Jade Ranked skills: [Graceful Giant].
Like a lightweight dancer, the fully armored 6'6" man with a massive tower shield weaved his way through the raging monsters while displaying dumbfounding grace to the force of Geode Rankers behind him.
Just like that, Jabari had arrived inside the core of the crowd of monsters without even coming close to being touched.
[Shield Sweep]!
Jabari rapidly switched to a horizontal grip, leveraging all of his weight to swing his massive shield around in a wide arc, not even needing a second to build up momentum.
The effect of the skill effortlessly split apart the three monsters in his immediate vicinity, a menacing bear, a kangaroo with thick muscular legs, and a man sized winged-rat were all cut in two at once.
Not only was the speed and power of the movement greatly increased by the skill, it even enhanced the slicing ability of the shield's edge.
Flowing through battle with [Graceful Giant], Jabari casted [Shield Sweep] twice more, slaying a total of ten Geode Rank monsters within the first twelve seconds of the fight.
[Graceful Giant] would continue to drain stamina until he deactivated it, and so stacking its effects with as many casts of [Shield Sweep] was the most energy efficient way of doing things.
Having successfully drawn the aggro of almost every single Geode Rank monster, he continued to move around and through their ranks, as the other adventurers finally arrived alongside his two partners, who had already began taking out enemies.
Towards the edge of the conflict, a certain three-meter bladed centipede stuck low to the ground as it moved away from the main horde, utilizing a stealth skill as it slithered silently towards more suitable prey.
.
.
.
I continued to relax, a large portion of my energy finished recovering and relieved my exhaustion. It seems I couldn't catch a break, as someone new was already screaming again, however I quickly realized it wasn't anyone from my party, and that it definitely wasn't a good kind of scream either.
I opened my eyes and sat up to witness a three meter long centipede with deadly features appear out of nowhere, fading out of some kind of camouflage and launching forward as if its movement had been restricted until now.
This was all occurring to a group of adventurers next to us, the centipede proceeding to lash out at a fighter who wore spiked gloves. The attack from the centipede sent blood spraying up into the air, and it was clear that they had just been fatally injured... if not instantly killed.
Brad reacted almost immediately after, yelling towards the group who had been attacked:
"ALL OF YOU, GET AWAY FROM THAT THING, RUN TOWARDS US!"
Luckily for everyone else in the fighter's party, the centipede stayed focused on the same guy for a few seconds, giving them an opportunity to get over their shock and hesitantly abandon him as they made a break towards us.
Brad's partner, the sword and shield user spoke, "Brad... dude you know that's definitely a Geode Rank monster right? We can't handle that thing..."
Brad responded solemnly, "Well, I doubt running away will do us much good either, we're the next closest prey after all. That thing could easily chase down any one of us."
His partner lashed back, "Better some of us to escape than none!"
Brad went silent for a moment.
"Okay, you can run if you want, but I think we've got a better chance of trying to defeat it."
The other group continued to desperately run towards ours, another nearby group began heading over after seeing what was up, Brad and co. kept debating the best course of action, and I...
What was I doing?
Quick maths that's what!
If that attack that destroyed those [Clawed Goblins] was created using the last <10% of my enhanced Sorcery, that meant that I could now pull off way more than 10 of those, factoring in my full recovery and three point increase in the stat.
Also, if I killed it...
Wouldn't I be filthy rich compared to what I was now?
"Brad, let's do it, I think I can pull off that attack I did earlier again."
He turned to face me, "That's great and all, but I don't think that'll be enough to take it down..."
My eyes glimmered and shined as I hatched my first plan to abuse my newfound power, "don't worry about that, you guys just hold it off long enough for me to get behind it."
I began running off, not towards the centipede but in a completely different direction, aiming to make a wide enough circle around that the monster wouldn't notice me coming up from behind it.
"Wait! Einer! ahh he's already gone... okay everyone! Either way we would have ended up fighting it, let's try to keep its attention as much as possible so Einer gets a chance to try whatever he's got up his sleeves!"
The group that was headed over provide assistance was already within earshot, the guys running for their lives... not as much. But, it could be said that they had already attracted its attention as much as was physically possible, therefore they were already in on the plan! That's definitely how that works!
As soon as I was a good distance away, I turned to get a glimpse of the centipede and began to run parallel to it, but in the opposite direction it was headed. Once it had passed me, along with the adventurers it was tailing, I changed course yet again and started running back towards where Brad and the others were.
I was now behind and slightly to the side of the rampaging oversized bug, and I was going to need at least a half minute catch up to it without it seeing me.
'I hope they can hold off for that long... also now that I think about it properly I'm screwed if this doesn't work!'
Nice!