Zach's face was twisted with worry as he looked at the Mannequin.
As if the Mannequin understood him, it glanced back at Zach before turning to Yanael and the fighters around her. Its first couple of steps were unsteady like it was a newborn foal. But as it walked and the scars from the tubes began to fade, the Mannequin's steps gained more confidence.
Although the hall was large, it didn't take long for the Mannequin to arrive at the first fighter. The Mannequin extended its hand into what looked like a very dull blade and poked the fighter in the thigh.
It did nothing to the fighter. The Mannequin's hand just bumped against the fighter's bristle-like hair without less effect than a mosquito bite on an elephant.
However, it was enough for the fighter to notice the Mannequin. It raised its battering ram of an arm and whacked the Mannequin into the stone wall. The impact created cracks and a Mannequin-shaped indent.
Zach winced as the Mannequin also had cracks running along its body.
But the Mannequin's sacrifice wasn't in vain. The distracted fighter revealed a gap in Yanael's encirclement.
Yanael didn't let that opportunity go to waste. She stepped on the fighter's knee before leaping up and stabbing the distracted fighter in its thick neck. She climbed over the fighter, escaping the encirclement and drew out her crooked sword with a spray of muddy blood at the same time.
The fighter reached up to clamp its wide hand over its wound to stem the bleeding.
Due to how thick and tough their necks were, the fighter would probably survive even that kind of injury.
However, by raising its hand, the fighter's lower body was unprotected. On her way down, Yanael severed the tendons in the fighter's knees and heels with a few quick slashes of her sword.
The fighter sank to its knees with a cracking thud.
'The bigger they are, the harder the fall…'
As if to support Zach's thought, Yanael kicked the fighter in the back. Unbalanced due to its top-heavy and front-loaded build, the fighter toppled over and buried its face in the ground. Before it could use its muscular arms to do anything, Yanael jumped up and stabbed it in the back of the head.
It died.
The other fighters reached to grab or attack Yanael, but she swiftly stepped away and moved between the thick arms like a puff of air with the help of her wing. The fighters' fists slammed into their fallen comrade, creating large dents in its body. But they didn't care and moved to chase Yanael.
Zach frowned and looked at the fighters.
It was strange.
It didn't seem like they were acting with a lot of thought behind their actions. But they moved to surround, intercept, and wear down Yanael. That should have required some degree of intelligence beyond knowing how to move one's limbs. It also required cooperation, but Zach couldn't see any of that from them.
It was like they were moving on instinct to apprehend or secure the threat that was Yanael.
Zach crossed his arms and rubbed his chin.
'Can't I take advantage of that?'
Zach took another look around the room to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon. But he didn't find anything he could move.
'Well, it's not like I need a weapon.'
Even if he had a sword as good as Yanael's, he wasn't strong enough for it to do any damage to the fighters' tough bodies. Instead, it would be better if he didn't have anything weighing him down since he would be risking his life.
Zach took a bet.
"Yanael, I'll grab a few and run around! If I'm right, they'll follow me without caring about their comrades. I'll also use them to break free Sentinel."
The bet was that the fighters didn't understand what he was saying.
Yanael didn't respond, but Zach saw her nod, so he wiped his palms against his pants to get rid of the sweat before starting up in a light jog. He came up behind the flock of fighters trailing behind Yanael, chasing her around the room.
Zach picked up the pace and in quick succession, jumped up and smacked three fighters on their buttocks. One by one, they turned around, their hairy faces following Zach's every move as he backed away.
He had secured the attention of three fighters and distracted them from Yanael.
He didn't know why it was so easy to change their target when they should be focused on Yanael, but he couldn't be bothered with such a trivial question when he had three lumbering giants who could kill him with a flick of their fingers after him.
Zach turned around and began running like his life depended on it.
The fighters were only a couple of times bigger than him, and they didn't look like they were made for speed, only strength. But they were still fast enough to cling to Yanael.
Zach, who was not an S-rank angel with a wing to help him, had a hard time outrunning the fighters. No, he didn't have just a hard time. He couldn't do it.
The fighters were gaining on him as they bumbled through the hall. It wasn't entirely outside Zach's expectations, but it was too soon.
He needed to make it further before letting them get in range to attack him.
Zach stopped glancing back and focused on his target. The Sentinel wasn't far away now.
Zach felt the heavy footsteps of the fighters in his feet. Each step they took made Zach wonder how they were making solid stone sound like that.
Finally, Zach arrived at the Sentinel's prison of chains right when the nearest fighter raised its fist midstep.
Zach quickly laid down and slid on the floor under the Sentinel as the fighter's fist rammed into the chains tying the Sentinel up.
'I hope Sentinel is tougher than those chains.'
His plan would be for naught if the Sentinel broke first. But Zach was hopeful.
Zach hurriedly got up and looked back to see how effective one strike had been.
But before he could look for any damage to the chains, the smelly breath of the fighter next to him forced Zach to turn his head.
The oversized stone-like fist of the fighter was the only thing that filled Zach's vision.