Part 19 (Unedited) – The horde
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It was rather nice out in the spirit world today. There was a gentle breeze, soft grass all around, and the sky was an absolutely stunning shade of violet. A perfect day… or it would have been if I wasn’t being chased by a horde of beetle wolves.

How many were there? I glanced back and quickly looked forwards again to keep myself from panicking at the sight of the army chasing me. Looked like at least a hundred. At least it wasn’t a thousand though, in fact there couldn’t have been more than two hundred by my guess.

Okay, okay. I had a rough idea of how many there were, now I just needed a plan to deal with them. So, how should I deal with a group. I’m not exactly specialized for dealing with groups like this, considering I had no area of effect attacks. I had the fog, but that is best against armies that require coordination, not hordes of beasts.

Come to think of it, what was a best suited to fight in general? I had speed of course, but my attack power was sorely lacking. If anything, at the moment I was just best suited to scouting. My unicorns could be used for cavalry but you needed a whole lot more than one, and foxes didn’t exactly fit in with cavalry. The foxes would be better suited for hit and run skirmishing tactics.

Ugh, that basically meant my current group was a disjointed mess with no real specialties to take advantage of. If I survived this, I would really need to rethink my strategy.

Bleh, focusing on what I need to improve in the future would not help me in the present! Gotta get my head in the game and think. Those insects didn’t seem to have eyes and considering they lived underground, I had a feeling they didn’t actually need to see. That meant my fog was mostly useless, however the strength buff would still be good.

“Hey bud, I’m gonna need a bit of your fog around here, but keep it thin so we don’t blind the foxes.”

I doubted Avalon could understand words, but he seemed to understand me as a thin blanket of fog began to roll out around him. I signal my foxes to come closer to me as well as I fall deep in thought. Obviously I couldn’t fight all of them at once, but I was starting to notice that we were actually a bit faster than the beetle wolves. Perhaps we could strafe the edges of the horde and pick them off?

Carefully, I start putting Avalon and my foxes on a path to let us get around and towards the sides of the group. It’s hard work considering they are all pretty much charging straight at us, but after a bit I notice that they are actually almost completely focused on me. Which means…

The two foxes split off from me and disappear into the grass around us. After a moment or two, I spot a flash of silver nab one of the beetle wolves and drag it out of the horde. The beetles around it barely take notice of their fallen comrade.

Alright! This could maybe work. Only problem was, I had a feeling we would get tired long before that horde was done following us, not to mention we could only run so far before we hit terrain Avalon wouldn’t be able to properly navigate.

Come to think of it, running out of room to run shouldn’t really be a problem should it? This large of a group must need a lot of food to feed it, so I doubted they would actually chase me very far. More than likely they relied on quickly ambushing then overwhelming their food, not following it over a long distance.

Finally, a plan began to form in my head. First step, shake off the group. I called back the foxes and rode Avalon far ahead of the horde. It wasn’t long until they were out of sight and I was back safe in my domain.

This had been a pretty clear warning that I would need to be a lot more cautious in the future. Had I not been faster than the bugs, my team and I would have been dead. Adrenaline was still coursing through me from the near death experience, and I had to take a moment just to calm myself down before preparing for the next part of my plan.

Once my head was clear and my heartbeat and normalized, I double checked my creatures for wounds and prepared to head out again. My first attempt hunting might not have gone well, but this time I would be ready.

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