It happened two minutes after the bizarre encounter with the man from Avonia.
The adventurers and Seth had continued their journey when they noticed a great shadow of blackness covering the road.
Seth looked up. His eyes trembled as he spotted a swarm of wings hovering in the sky. These clusters produced a five kilometers shadow on the land.
"What the f*ck is that?" Seth voiced out.
Caleb glanced behind him immediately as he heard Seth exclaim. It was then he noticed the shadow. In an instance, fear possessed him!
"Get down!" He jumped off his horse and lay on the ground.
No one thought to retort. They obeyed him without further ado.
Seth grabbed the crossbow hanging from the saddlebag.
The monsters in the sky lowered their altitude. It seemed as if they had discovered the adventurers as they flew in the adventurers' direction.
From his position on the ground, Seth thought as he spied at the monsters. 'F*ck. You gotta be kidding me. These sh*ts are ugly.'
Their appearance resembled malformed creatures. They had the heads of gigantic bats with rows of jagged teeth appearing beneath their mouths. Their black eyes mixed well with the theme of the night, and their demonic wings were twenty feet long.
As for their hindquarters, it was their worst feature. Every muscle and fiber in them had merged to form five tails that reminded Seth of forsaken howlers' tails. Instead of an eye at the back of the tail, these creatures' tails possessed sets of teeth.
Trystan laid beside him. When he heard Seth's curses, he commented.
"Those are Oneriths. Think of them as the aerial version of howlers."
"They are coming closer!" Burke shouted.
He gripped his large ax and stood up while exclaiming. "To hell with this sh*t! A man never cowers!"
"Oh sh*t, Burke. Why are you so stupid?" Raina facepalmed, but she also stood up.
The rest followed their lead.
The oneriths advanced closer to the adventurers. The fastest of them bared their teeth at Caleb. He reacted with a clean swipe that severed the head of the onerith.
Caleb used no mana. Simply with pure strength and skill, he vanquished an onerith. Such was the quality of a veteran adventurer.
However, when faced with three oneriths, Caleb struggled to fend them off.
One onerith lunged at him hurriedly. Caleb took a calming stance and raised his sword high. He waited for the onerith to enter his 'zone'.
Milliseconds turned into seconds, and when it was time, Caleb brought down his sword with all his might.
His usage of mana caused the surroundings to brighten, bringing great disturbance to the oneriths. Caleb's sword danced in the air as it found its way to the incoming onerith
*Whoosh!*
Another head rolled on the ground.
He looked at the horde of oneriths advancing towards them and sighed.
"I guess we have to fight."
Pumping up his body with mana, he pointed his sword horizontally and concentrated his mana at the tip of his sword.
His mind replayed the moments he had executed the same spellcode. He had vividly memorized the pattern of mana.
His mouth moved before he could think. "[Blue Disaster]!"
What came out of his sword was a ball of blue mana that generated fierce wind blades. These wind blades sliced the incoming oneriths into tiny bits of flesh. Every second passed by and the wind blades multiplied in numbers.
The blue ball of mana fluttered into the horde of oneriths. It exploded immediately, generating a whirlwind that absorbed all the oneriths.
By the time it stopped, there was no single onerith left. The horde, boasting of about forty oneriths, had died to a single man!
Raina walked closer to him and spoke, "You really are a flashy guy."
"I had no choice. We have to hurry. If anything bad happens, we can rely on you, right?"
"Yeah… don't jinx it!" Raina slapped his shoulder.
It felt wobbly. Caleb was never one to possess a large mana reserve. Right now, he had used 50% of it for his ultimate spell. It was safe to say he was not in his best condition.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but it seems we are not done." Seth interrupted the relaxed Caleb.
The shadow still loomed over them!
When Caleb looked ahead, he saw another horde of oneriths heading in this direction. He then spotted a third horde just behind this horde of onerith.
Seth gasped. "This is not just a horde. Multiple hordes are coming our way. What do we do?"
Running didn't seem like an option when dealing with winged creatures.
Raina circulated her mana as she said, "We fight!"
She revealed another blade on her waist belt and grabbed it. With two daggers in her hands, Raina's orange eyes gleamed as she got ready for what appeared to be her last battle.
The incoming horde reached their location. The oneriths dashed at Raina, who had positioned herself at the front.
Water whirls coiled around her arm. She could feel herself being empowered little by little.
With just a thought and a spell code, dozens of water bullets actualized in the air and shot at the horde. Unlike the water bullets of amateurs, hers provided a penetrating force that could kill an onerith if aimed well.
Raina stood her ground and battled with the horde by herself. The water whirls around her arms gave her the flexibility she need to weave past multiple oneriths and kill her prey.
Whenever she purposely threw her dagger to kill oneriths, she would manifest a water whip that grabbed the dragged and pulled it back to her. So, Raina proved to be almost unstoppable in battle, especially coupled with her water bullets.
Her attacks were not as flashy as Caleb but they were efficient.
All of a sudden, an onerith sneaked behind her and stabbed her leg with one of its tails. She dismissed the pain and cut the tail, but over ten oneriths had already slipped past her defense.
They ignored her and attacked the others.
.
.
.
.
Just as one onerith could bite Seth, he pressed the trigger of his crossbow and shot an arrow at it. The onerith moved at an impressive speed, so fast that changing its trajectory proved difficult.
The arrow pierced the onerith's left wing, missing the original target, which was its chest region.
As it fell to the ground, Seth spoke in his mind, ' [Vampiric Drive]'.
Possessed by bloodlust, he grabbed the wing of onerith and attempted to tear it apart. But this was a tough task, considering that the onerith was still alive.
He did not know when he was stabbed in the back by the onerith. Blood spilled out of his mouth, but Seth still continued with his attempt to tear the onerith. Fueled by a great burst of strength, he gripped both wings and tore them apart from the main body of the onerith.
Seth's claws raked the onerith's head. He embedded his right claw into its body and punctured the onerith's heart.
"Hahaha, take that, you—"
Something toppled him to the ground. It was another onerith, which had sneaked up on him when he was distracted. The onerith bit into his skin. It used its five tails to pin Seth to the ground and continued its bloody actions.
Seth's armors failed to protect him from the onerith's teeth. He was losing a lot of blood.
Seth tried calling for help, but everyone was occupied. Caleb sustained countless injuries while Burke struggled to cut the onerith that wrapped around his body, biting its neck. Trystan was way worse. The silent man was swarmed by a horde of oneriths.
'Is this the end?' Seth thought.
He was always an unlucky fella, so he didn't complain about this unfairness.
There was no shout of willpower or sudden power-up that could save him. He was going to die… and maybe come back to life or, just maybe, get trapped in the negative plane.
The onerith on top of him punctured his body multiple times until Seth's eyes closed. Its face moved closer to Seth, smelling his scent.
Strangely, the onerith didn't eat him. It flew past him, advancing towards somewhere unknown.
The other oneriths that weren't occupied flew past Seth, following the onerith that killed Seth.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes!
Seth awoke with a loud gasp for breath.
He took another minute to settle his disoriented mind before mumbling. "I finally understand it now. There's no time for that. Hmm–I see."
One look at his surroundings was enough to make him peer into a secret. He should have noticed the strangeness of their dilemma long ago.
"Do not fight the oneriths. Ignore them. Drop your weapons!"
He shouted at the others, not knowing if they were alive since the oneriths occupied his sight.
He lay on the ground and looked at the night sky. Many onerith passed him, but none attacked.
"What the f*ck are you saying?" shouted Raina.
"Just do it. Trust me. What options do you have, anyway?"
"Hey, it's working!"
Trystan was the first to listen to Seth. He found the validity in his claims.
Gradually, the others did the same and rid themselves of the oneriths. It became silent as they watched the oneriths flutter past them. It took a great deal of control not to grab their weapons and jump at the fiends.
Half an hour later, the sky was free of any onerith. The group gathered together. They gave Seth strange looks.
"Rhazien, what happened?" Caleb asked.
Still dealing with his battered body, Seth replied, "It was never about us. I think the oneriths have a mission. We were just in the way. Their movements are organized, and I fear something wrong is about to happen. But at least we are safe."
The group ruminated on his words. Seth was right. The hordes acted strangely.
Getting up, Raina could see the last onerith on the horizon.
An electric shock coursed through her as she immediately understood. "That direction… It's Cravel! They are heading for Cravel!"
Caleb snapped his fingers. "Of course, we were just coming from Cravel! That's why we encountered them!"
He jumped on his horse and glanced at the others. "Let's go. Cravel is in danger. We need to help them"
Raina eyed him seriously. "We will do no such thing. Caleb, we almost died. If we go back, I assure you, we will die. Cravel is already lost. Nothing can survive those hordes."
Raina and Caleb were far stronger than the gate guards. Even the adventurers in Cravel were weak in their eyes.
If they struggled with the hordes, there was no one in Cravel that could end the hordes.
Caleb stuttered. "We have friends there. Are you saying we should leave them? Abandon our friends?!"
"They are already lost." Trystan struggled to speak. His injuries were quite severe.
Meanwhile, Seth stood deep-rooted in the ground.
'They are already lost.' He kept on repeating Trystan's line in his head.
'Darla and Miss Helen… they are dead.'
There was no doubt that two regular humans would die in front of the hordes.
Seth clenched his fist as a wave of complex sadness filled his head. His throat felt stuffy. All he wanted to do was scream, but he couldn't afford to do so.
'They are dead.' Seth repeated.
The only people that showed him kindness were dead.
It was always fun cleaning with Darla. Yet, he would never be able to do that again.
'Ha, they are dead.' A drop of blood dripped from his eye.
Sounds erupted in his mind as he absorbed the certain fact of his benefactor's death. Something clicked. In the next moment, the frozen world around him went back to normal.
Seth hid his sorrow at the bottom of his mind. He hoped it would never reach the surface in the near future, for he wasn't ready to face it.
After a period of silence, Caleb rallied the group. "Let's go. We shall pick a place to rest after we have established a suitable distance from Cravel."