"Get behind him Gorn, I can block his attacks for a while!"
"Liona, come on, what are you doing, shoot your arrows!"
"I'm trying, but Cobolt is in the way, god damn it, get off the ogre you moron!" The woman shouted out as she launched an arrow that hit the ogre, nearly hitting a man that had climbed on the shoulders of the ogre.
The young man with short red hair stared at the arrow that nearly hit him before cursing at the woman. He pulled his dagger out of the ogre before jumping off of it and rolling in order to dodge an attack.
"Hey, what the hell are you trying to do you crazy bitch, you almost hit me!"
"That's because you were in the way, you're supposed to take out the legs moron, not climb on the monster like it's some sort of toy!"
"You two shut the hell up, another one is coming!"
"What?!" Both the archer and dagger-wielding man stared at the second ogre that suddenly came out of the dungeon and started moving toward them.
"Shit, we can only deal with one at a time, two is far too much!" Liona cursed as she and the others slowly moved back, ready to disengage and flee the scene.
Suddenly
Thud!
A spear penetrated the left leg of the ogre.
The ogre roared in pain as he kneeled down and stared to the side.
A young man with long black hair came out of the forest, he wore a black suit of armor and was spinning two daggers around his hands.
"You shouldn't have looked my way, big guy, you left yourself wide open to Adam now."
The ogre simply stared at Lyle before suddenly widening his eyes and turning his head swiftly to the left.
Adam had already assumed a horse stance and before the ogre could do anything, he roared as he suddenly unleashed a barrage of punches.
Punching from a horse stance was quite uncommon during a battle. Not only would the horse stance make somebody immobile during the attack, but the person would also be unable to use his hips and the rest of the body for an attack.
What it did give, however, was incredible stability and allowed a person to punch continuously with the same power.
Before the ogre was able to do anything, Adam had punched his right leg over ten times. Each of the punches was imbued with his ability and caused small blasts of mana with each hit. The main area of attack for Adam was the ogre's right knee, and before the ogre was able to do anything, the knee was destroyed and it was forced to go down.
"Good job Adam, I'll leave this one to you, we have a new one incoming," Lyle said as Adam nodded at him while the four adventurers stared at them.
"You idiot, stop staring, you'll get yourself killed!" The archer, Liona shouted at the leader of their small group, Neil.
He was the tank of the party. Being 2 meters tall and wearing a heavy suit of armor, a huge tower shield on his left hand, and a mace in his right, he was like a walking fortress that enemies would have to pass in order to reach his teammates.
Of course, compared to the 2.5-meter-tall ogres, he wasn't that imposing.
The ogre raised his fist and slammed it down on Neil who woke up from his stupor and was able to raise his shield and block the attack.
Still, his actions were a bit hasty so he was forced down on one knee.
The ogre grabbed the shield with his left arm, but before it could lift it, Cobolt arrived and jumped on his arm before stabbing it with his dagger. He stabbed the ogre right in the cubital fossa, the underside of the elbow.
Cobolt then grabbed the dagger and twisted it, creating a small hole. The ogre shouted in pain but before it could throw Cobolt off, he quickly pulled the dagger out before placing a small metal ball inside the wound.
He was thrown by the ogre as the monster swung his left arm, letting go of the shield.
The moment Cobolt touched the ground, the small ball he had placed inside the wound exploded, shattering some bones and tearing apart the muscles and skin of the ogre's arm.
"Good job Cobolt, that's one less arm we have to worry about!"
"Focus all fire on the ogre, I will block him from approaching any of you!" Neil suddenly shouted as he stood in front of the ogre. His body started glowing with a pale brown light as his skin started becoming rough before stones appeared on it as well.
[ Earth Manipulation: Stone Skin ]
The skill allowed Neil to raise his defensive capabilities greatly while losing some mobility and speed.
It was one of his trump cards that he would use against powerful enemies in order to defend against them more effectively and let his team unleash their attacks on them. In order to draw the ogre's full attention, Neil used another skill, one that was quite common in the world when facing off against monsters.
[ Roar of the Guardian ]
Neil unleashed a roar that drew the attention of the ogre. The skill was one that actually imbued mana into sound and dealt a sort of physic attack on the enemy. The only purpose of the skill was to force the enemy to attack the user and because it was one of, if not the lowest-ranked physic/soul-based skills in the world, it was usually only effective on mindless monsters, enraged enemies, or those weaker than the user.
[ Sky Piercer, Rainfall ]
[ Twin Blades of Sin ]
[ Punishment of the Snake ]
The three adventurers immediately used their own skills as the ogre smashed against Neil who had dropped his mace and was holding the giant shield with both of his arms.
The tower shield he used was 1.7 meters tall and looked like a big chunk of iron, there were no decorations on it, just two rough leather straps that allowed the user to hold it tightly.
The shield was heavy, large, and impractical to be used, but there was nothing better to use when facing a giant enemy and blocking their attacks. Even the furious hammer fist of the ogre was unable to move Neil from the spot as he endured all the attacks while his teammates unleashed everything they had on the ogre.
Finally, about 1 minute later, the ogre slowed down, before finally stopping and falling down to the ground.
It moved its head, albeit barely, and stared at Neil with hatred in its eyes. It tried to move its arm and attack Neil again, but he couldn't.
Neil walked toward the ogre, his mace now being held in his right hand while the stone skin disappeared.
He stood in front of the giant head of the ogre, and the monster immediately tried to bite him, forcing him to take a quick step back before lifting the mace and smashing it down onto the ogre's head.
One hit wasn't enough to kill it, so Neil repeated the same action multiple times until his mace broke the skull of the monster, and blood and brain matter got splattered on his armor.
Neil panted before looking up and staring at the entrance of the dungeon.
Two ogres were lying on the floor, dead.
Adam had finished a while ago and had observed Lyle and his fight with another ogre that had come out of the dungeon.
There was no challenge for Adam when it came to killing the ogre he was tasked to kill. The poor monster couldn't even move as both its legs were destroyed by Lyle and Adam.
He simply needed to watch out for the long arms of the ogre and jump on its back before punching him.
He would then need to quickly jump off the ogre's back as the monster would roll around in order to get him off.
Then, he would simply repeat the process.
Sometimes he would jump on the ogre's back, sometimes it would be the stomach.
The ogre died fairly quickly, not only was it losing a lot of blood from having both of his legs destroyed, but the power of Adam's punches would also cause internal damage. Its organs were quickly damaged and soon, the ogre had internal bleeding, which sped its death up.
As for Lyle, he was fighting against an ogre that was aware of his existence and was focused completely on him.
Compared to Adam who was fighting an ogre they had both attacked when it was unaware of their existence, the fight Lyle was going through was much more difficult.
Still, it was not a problem for Lyle who had fought against his fair share of monsters back when he was a newbie in the organization.
Even though they were assassins, each of the newbies had to go through multiple different training courses, and each one had monsters in them. They were expected to kill humans, but that didn't mean that they would never go up against monsters as well.
There would be times when Lyle was contracted to kill adventurers, and the best way to do that was to follow them inside a dungeon or a hunting grounds before luring more monsters to them or ambushing them during a fight.
Sometimes, Lyle was even assigned to kill monsters as well.