Chapter 68: The final Wave (Part 3). 

(Lucas POV)

Indeed, the potion I gave earlier managed to get him back to his feet but it wasn't enough to bring him to his best condition. If we can't immediately deal with this bird tentacled monster then it won't be long before it wipes out the army of soldiers behind us.

None of the soldiers on our back can properly fight this monster and even if they did it would only result in a one-sided slaughter and that is something we don't want to happen.

"Did you find it?" I ask in earnest as we carefully observed our surroundings while killing other monsters that tried to attack us. Most of them are the mutated form of the pseudo-low ranking magic beast, and dealing with them isn't as hard as fighting with this strange bird but a bunch of them is something we can't win by just the two of us.

"Not yet." Michael responds anxiously.

"Then hurry up, we can't stop them all by just the two of us." I said while blocking the incoming wave of mutated creatures.

We can't let them pass by us, as we don't know if that bird-like creature would take that opportunity to get near our soldiers and attack them while we were occupied in the front.

"You still haven't seen it?" I ask once again as I'm already having a hard time stopping them. In fact, both of us have already been pushed back several meters as we can no longer stop their advancement. From time to time there would be some of them that would bypass us but it's okay our soldiers at the back can deal with them but we also need to take note of their volume.

"I did see it, but every time I try I tried to get near, it always hides among the crowd of mutated creatures." Michael snarled.

The problem with that bird tentacled creature is aside from its ridiculous speed. It also wasn't that big. Unlike the others, that's why it can easily hide its body on this tide of monsters.

In fact, if we would compare it to the size of animals on earth it only has the same size as the ostrich. Although we might consider that as a big bird, here on this word of magic, that is still nothing compared to other creatures.

In this wave of mutated creatures alone, I've already seen several dozens of monsters that are as big as an adult elephant some are even larger than them. They are easy to spot among the crowd, but they are also quite troublesome to deal with, as a normal attack from our soldiers doesn't affect them that much, normally it takes 6 soldiers to bring down a monster this big.

It would be no problem if we were just dealing with a couple of monsters, but given with our current situation, killing those big guys out there isn't gonna be that easy because they also need to be wary of a possible surprise attack from other mutated creatures that's why it takes us double that number to kill one of them.

This is also the reason why it took us a long time to kill an entire wave of them, Florentine city isn't a big city, and normally with the number of soldiers we have which is around 800, it was already considered a big force for a small city like this. But our situation is also quite special because unlike the other territory they only need to deal with humans. Such they can easily expand their army, unlike us.

Due to our close proximity to the enchanted forest, we often have to deal with monsters and as a territory located in nowhere surrounded by danger, the population is something that we're having a problem with, hence expanding our army isn't easy.

Although our soldiers are more trained to deal with situations like this it doesn't mean that we can easily handle them.

If it was just a normal magical beast wave, then it would be no problem even if some of them get inside the city walls because we can confidently beat them but now, we also have to consider the parasites hidden on their fangs and claws. Because if you get a wound from it you also risk getting infected by the parasites and worst become a mindless creature like them. It also didn't help that people who got infected with this parasites didn't show any obvious symptoms until it was already too late.

Without the special ability of Callisto to see the flow of energy then we won't even know that some of our soldiers have already been infected by this parasites and those people aren't even aware of it as they don't feel any discomfort in their body even though they have black large wounds on their back.

This is also one of the reasons why most of our soldiers are having a hard time dealing with them because they are worried about being infected by it. You won't even know if you already got it unless you have already shown the late symptoms of it as you would see your veins starts to turn black.

Even if we say that we have a way to prevent them from turning into one of this creature we still can't permanently remove the fear and doubt from their heart.

You can even see the obvious signs of it around the battlefield as they aren't fighting the way they use to before. They are more careful in dealing with them causing a slower progress on cleaning up the battlefield.

"I found it." Michael suddenly exclaimed in excitement.

"Don't!" I strongly warned him as he try to approach it once again.

"Why are you stopping me? we need to kill that monster as soon as possible. We can barely hold this line, if we fail to do it now our soldiers would need to deal with it alone."

"Are you sure that you can catch it this time?" I ask to confirm if he can do it.

"I would make sure that it can't escape from me." Michael said hesitantly.

"So you aren't certain about it. You better stand guard here and protect me from being disturbed, I'm going to try and surprise it with my aura sword maybe we could kill it this time."

"But you aren't also sure if you can catch it, and do you even have enough mana to use that skill? besides, it takes too much time for you to cast that skill." Michael said grudgingly.

"But that is the only attack we can use to kill it, that aura sword of mine is much faster than that creature, so it shouldn't be able to escape from it, and don't worry about the casting time I won't need to control it's speed this time so I should be able to launch it immediately." I explained to him as I quickly gather the remaining aura from my body and leads it into my palm to form a bluish sphere of aura with a hint of copper on them.

Due to limited time, I only managed to use half of my remaining aura to form this sphere before I quickly control it and shape it into a small rod before letting it spin on its own consuming another large chunk of my power before throwing it to the wave of incoming monsters.

"Sword of Destruction take 2." I whispered in the air as it quickly generates more lightning before I felt that I already reach the desired amount of power as I let go of its control.

"Bzzzzzt" is the only sound that can be heard around me when I launched it towards the hiding place of the tentacled bird creature as it leaves a fading shadow of its lightning in the air.

"Boooooom" was immediately followed by a loud and powerful explosion, upon hitting the center of the incoming wave of monster creating havoc within its side.

Thanks to this, the number of monsters was further reduced to hundreds.

"Hurry and look for it." I earnestly said to Michael as weakness quickly overcome my body due to overconsumption of aura and from the fatigue of battling this creature.

I'm also starting to feel hungry as every cell on my body demands me to eat more food due to overuse of my strength. I also have run out of potions that I can drink as I already consumed all of them to recover my mana earlier.

"It's still alive." Michael said in shock as he pointed his finger towards the outer ring of the small crater caused by my attack.

It seems like it still managed to survive from that, even though hundreds of its brethren have died to its power.

Although it didn't come out unscratched, as its body is now covered in varying degrees of wounds when I finally notice something wrong.

"It can't move it's paralyzed." I suddenly said in joy.

"Quick attack it while it can't move." I said to Michael as he quickly run to it and use his sword art mainly focus on killing that creature.

"Dominions Blade." Michael said as he cut it in half by releasing a crescent blade of crimson aura in its wake leaving a deep gush on the ground as it divides its body into two halves.

"It's finally dead." Michael said with great relief before it was quickly replaced by panic.

Because even before he can rejoice from his victory a change that we didn't expect coming suddenly happens.

The remaining tentacles on the other half of its back suddenly went ballistic, throwing each of its black tentacles everywhere destroying everything it touch and razing the ground to rubbles.

Michael was caught unprepared as he was already injured and exhausted from the previous fight causing him to let his guard down.

"WHAT?" Michael screams as he tried to defend himself from this attacks.

He was hit by not just one of its tentacles, but multiple of it causing his aura barrier to immediately break and him to fly on to my direction.

Although I want to prevent him from hitting me, everything happens so fast, and I'm still feeling weak from the overused of my aura so I have no other choice but to be a meat shield for him.

Although I already prepare myself for the impact it still didn't occur to me that it was gonna be this painful.

Michael's armor has a huge dent on the front of his chest and from the side of his hips, while mine is completely covered in cracks since it happens so quickly, that I have no time to cover my body in aura barrier. I can only rely on my armor for protection. It's a good thing that I'm also wearing my helmet or else the impact would definitely flatten my head into mush.

The rampaging tentacles of the bird-like creature have managed to send us flying, back to the army fighting on our back, which causes them to be disrupted from their fight, causing some of them to get injured from being momentarily disturbed.

"Ha?"  said in a shocked voice followed by a painful howl as he was probably bitten by one of the mutated creatures.

"Ahhhhhh. Oh no! it got me. It got me." He said in a panic.

"Come on, come on someone hurry and give me the antidote potion, I don't want to turn into one of this creature." Said by a young voice in a hysterical manner. It must be one of the new recruits from our army.

"You need to calm down you are distracting the others." appeased by one of the soldiers.

"Here drink this first."

"What was that?" This time the voice comes from a different person and it is much closer to our current location.

"It's young master and sir Michael!" Said by one of the soldiers in shock as I finally saw who it was.

I don't know his name but he was one of the veteran soldiers of my father.

"Hurry and help them, don't let any of this creatures to get near." Shouted by him as he gave orders to the other soldiers while my head still rings from the strong impact.

Although I did prepare myself I'm still not ready for it as my entire body is screaming from pain.

I'm also having a hard time staying conscious as I felt like everything around me is spinning crazily making it hard for me to stay focused.