A powerful howl shocks everyone there. With the Leader now joining the fray, the fight went from hard to apocaliptic. Everyone looks at each other, panic visible on their faces. Armando is the first to snap out of it, punching himself in the face.
"We need to take this thing down if we want a chance," he exclaims.
"We're gonna need someone to keep the Hounds occupied while the rest takes care of the Leader," adds Lin.
After a few seconds of silence, Silver steps forward, "I'll do it. I'll take on the littles while y'all take on the Leader."
Before anyone can say anything, he liberates a huge quantity of Mana. This makes the Devil Hounds take a step back and stare at him. Silver lifts his arms, trying to make himself as big as possible. This seems to work, as all six Hounds bark violently before rushing him.
For the fight with the goblins, it came on his own, but this time Silver realizes that he has to master his ability to see the paths of intentions; otherwise, he's going to die painfully. So he closes his eyes and drowns out the sounds around him until he can only hear his heartbeat. He focuses on it while slowly opening his eyes. For the outside world, only a second passed, but to Silver, time seemed dilated, slower.
This time he evades all the attacks while looking at Armando. He nods at him, indicating that he has it. Armando grimaces; he would be the better candidate to be bait as he is the fastest person here, but the monsters seem exclusively focused on Silver. He shakes his head then makes a hand gesture to Lin, who nods as they both rush towards the Leader.
As Silver expertly evades the attacks, the Mercenaries start to shoot the monsters. Once the Hounds start to feel damage from the attacks, they turn towards the Mercenaries, but Silver then reminds them as to who they should target by punching or kicking them. He cannot afford to lose aggro, or the Mercenaries will be in direct danger.
***
At the same time, Lin and Armando evade lightning bolts coming from the Leader while concentrating their Mana. When they finally arrive at striking distance, the electric onslaught stops for a second. The two humans look at the Leader in its solid blue eyes, wondering why the attacks had stopped.
Well, they can't wonder for long before the monster takes tries to swipe them with it's enormous paw. They jump back before Armando sprints at the monster's side while Lin accumulates more and more Mana on his sword.
"Fire Erupting Sword !"
Fire erupts from the guard, engulfing the whole blade. he jumps towards the monster and slashes at it. The Leader steps back but at the same time-
"Fatal Slice X !"
Armando almost appears next to the beast before striking it with his twin daggers in an X motion. In immediate response, the monster launches multiple lightning strikes around it, wounding Lin as he is struck on the shoulder.
Both men step back as the area is now filled with electric arcs coming off the Devil Hound Leader.
"You ok ?" asks Armando, seeing the shoulder of his friend still smoking.
"I'll be. What about you ? Your boots seem to start to fade."
Armando looks at his feet: his green, glowing Mana-made boots are starting to fade.
"Shit. Hermes' Boots," as he says that they start to get more defined once again. Armando's Mana reserves are starting to be low, even though he is actively absorbing as much Magia as possible.
"Wind Fury Slice !" exclaims Lin as the fire on his sword is replaced by powerful wind. He does three slices in the air, sending them towards the monster, but they only hit the electric arcs, causing some small explosions. Right now, the Leader seems completely untouchable.
***
Another paw strike, another dodge from Silver. He tries to retaliate, but the monster is already out of there while another one attacks him at another angle, but it's pushed back by a volley of bullets.
Silver's eyes start to ache, but he can't stop now. He takes a quick look towards the Leader only to see his teammate in what seems like a stalemate. Shit, it's getting harder and harder to keep hope.
As his concentration slips for a moment, one of the Hounds bites his shin. He would like V to help him but she's currently protecting the Mercenaries from the monsters that are not actively attacking Silver right now. As for Sarah, she is still a bit knocked out by that concentrated howl; her Mana Manipulation is still not fully operational.
He shakes his head, focusing back on the fight. Well, right now it looks more like a dance than an actual fight, his hits never managing to connect. Damn, all he needs is one hit to change the situation. He cannot even use attack intent to counter with this many opponents, risking getting attacked by the rest if he only focuses on one.
But it seems that the strategy is starting to work; the Hounds are starting to fatigue after all those attacks and being shot at multiple times. But they're not the only ones; Silver starts to feel more and more exhausted too; he almost stumbles while dodging an attack.
"Let's go !" yells a feminine voice behind him.
Silver trunks back, wondering what's going on, only to see one of the Mercenaries running towards him. Immediately one of the Hounds locks on her and sprints. Silver can only watch in shock and horror as the Mercenary gets mauled to death by the monster; at least that's what should have happened.
As the beast is mere millimeters from her face, she ducks, revealing behind her another Mercenary with a... shotgun ?
He cocks it before shooting the monster head, sending it flying backwards. The loud sound distracted the monsters enough for the other Mercenaries to open fire on them. Finally, the needed opening !
Silver rushes towards the downed Hound and concentrates on it. The world starts once again to turn gray, revealing red dots on the beast. Silver selects the one on it's head before focusing his whole strength and hammering the monster's skull with his fist.
All the other Devil Hounds start to growl, half in pain and half in rage. With that, the wind turned: they have a chance. Silver gets up, ready to fight another one, before he is hit by a powerful energy beam, sending him flying multiple meters in the air.
Almost not realising what had just happened, he looks towards the Leader's fight only to see his teammates horrified.
***
Armando and Lin can barely get any offence in; the Leader managing to block or evade all their attacks, helped a lot by it's electric area around it. They both seem out of fuel at this point, injured, and out of breath.
They prepare for another attack when they see the Leader growl menacingly. At the same time, all the other Hounds do the same; something must have happened. The Leader points it's head up, almost as if it was gonna howl at the moon. But no sound comes out.
As it's head goes back down, it's jaw is coated in light blue energy. The duo realizes at the last second what's happening before jumping to the side, dodging the powerful beam. But the attack wasn't directed at them.
They follow the trajectory of the attack to see it strike Silver, sending him flying as if he weighed nothing. They struggle to stand again in shock, but the Leader is already on them. They barely evaded it's claws, but Armando is bitten.
He screams in pain as Lin attacks the monster repeatedly, barely damaging it. Armando hits the monster with the hilt of one of his daggers, but it refuses to let go. Seeing it charge another beam, he immediately changes his grip and stabs the beast in its eye.
It releases its hold while Armando tries his best to stab the dagger deeper. If he could, he would use Mana to power up the strike, but he is too exhausted right now to. Sadly, he cannot catch his breath as he is struck by a lightning bolt directly in his chest, sending him backward.
The attack completely paralyzes him for the moment and the Leader does not want to miss this opportunity, preparing to flatten him with its paw. Right at this moment, Lin jump-kicks the dagger still in the beast's eye cavity, sending it deeper in it's skull.
The monster screams in pain and takes a few steps back before unleashing a volley of lightning bolts, trying to preserve itself from more damage. Lin uses this opportunity to help Armando back up as he takes out another dagger from his Dimensional Pouch. It's the last stand.