RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 195

Kiriti was appalled at the outcome. He and the other members of the guild had expected there to be a number of beasts that would attack them and prepared for it, but never expected that their own efforts would be responsible for injuring their forces to the largest amount. The barrels used to explode the place was supposed to make the attack easy, but it ended up having the opposite result.

Notification began to sound in everyone’s ears that their companions were dying within seconds. The explosions followed by the roars and growls of the beasts which ran towards them were frightening enough. The following announcements that their companions were dying at such fast rate was just demoralizing.

Some of the long-distance attackers started to release their attack continuously at the incoming horde. Almost blanketing their teammates with their attacks along with the beasts in panic. This was all before the really strong beasts like the langstonia joined the fight.

The langstonia were similar to gharials with large snout, scales and strong tail. The distinguishing feature was that they had for thick 3 feet long legs that allowed them to move at higher speeds and they could also jump a couple of metres high to land on their prey. They were like the Salamandrids, but they didn’t cause any fire damage on touch and had low magical defence. When they joined the fray, even the guardians who had most defence were mauled by the beasts.

Luckily, the numbers of these langstonia were very low. The bomb barrels were mainly aimed to fall amidst the langstonia, and they received the worst damage of all during those explosions which killed more than half of the langstonia. The surviving ones were also low in health and crippled which made it easier for the players to kill them.

The ones in charge of the mission like Kiriti and the other were trying their best to command the groups to fortify their defences and attack the approaching monsters. It was a panic scenario, but within half a minute or so, most of the players realized that their best option was to stay together and fight against the horde of beasts.

After a few minutes of fighting, the situation slowly subsided. The beasts have all been dispersed or killed, but the casualties among the players weren’t low either. Apart from the independent players a number of the players from the Raiders and Ronins both died. They lost over 50% of their force and this wasn’t even the main reason for them having gathered these many players.

Balthazar had stayed away from most of the fight. As the barrels were thrown, he went into stealth and sneaked off to the side and up a tree when the others were focused on the fight ahead. He covered himself with a shield and safe from the poison shower he expected. Luckily, he wasn’t even range of the area where the poisonous chunks of toad showered the players.

To avoid any damage, he chose his targets selectively and used his crossbow to attack for the first half to get a little bit of experience and he only came down after he noticed that the beasts were diverging into the forest. The explosion had startled the beasts very much that all the surviving beasts ran away from those spots resulting in a stamped. As the players began to kill more of the beasts, the beasts slowly ran away to the sides in directions which were safe.

Balthazar also moved to the side in the direction that the beasts were running away. This was the best time for him to attack isolated monsters and gather their carcasses. By the time, the panic subsided, he was already had a few samples, but he also lost his disguise. In the confused struggle between the beasts and players, he had attempted to kill a langstonia which caused him some damage. So, he stayed away from the others in stealth till the cooldown of the disguise skill is cleared.

They managed to successfully clear the beasts surrounding the advanced party, but all of them were hesitant to proceed further in the marsh. They didn’t think they had enough chance to survive the situation ahead. Karma was the most adamant as it was his quest that had brought them to the marsh in the first place. He argued that all their effort would be in vain if they didn’t proceed. He also told them that a loss in experience isn’t much as they had earned quite a bit of experience during the previous blasts and following charge by the beasts. In fact, all of them crossed into level 16 during the explosions.

In five minutes, they had decided to move forward along with the advanced party. The independent players who just joined for the money that the guild promised, didn’t want to move forward towards the centre of the marsh but rather continued hunting at this region where they had a decent chance of increasing their experience. But knowing that they would get the pay only if they completed their objective or died during it, they continued to move forward under the hopes that they would get a chance to improve their experience more.

Still, there were few who decided that they didn’t want the remuneration provided by the guild and separated as they felt it a waste to throw their lives away by going deeper into the marshlands. These players accounted for about 15% of the remaining. Usually, the guilds would kill them if they left the mission, but they left them alone as they had already lost quite a few numbers and felt it was detrimental to their mission if they lost more in a fight. They only had thoughts to deal with the deserters later if possible.

Though they had a decent increase in experience, the number of useful parts of the beast that were found was very low. The place where the explosions took place was filled with burnt up carcasses of beasts which were of no use to anyone. This is the reason using barrels of gunpowder as bombs was considered useless by players in his previous life. It was a common consensus that it wasn’t worth the price.

As they had started moving before the cooldown of his disguise skill, Balthazar had decided to join the players who stayed back. Puba had already died as he was on the front lines during the stampede. So, he directly informed Kiriti who kicked him out of the group and warned that they would open fire if he pursued them. Kiriti was a careful person who had doubts against all the better players that joined their group. He had a few assassins covering their rear just to be careful.

Balthazar didn’t immediately pursue the group into the depths of the marshlands as he believed that they would be on the lookout for pursuers. He would have definitely put someone to check the rear if he was in their situation. Still, it wouldn’t be that hard to follow them from a distance. He had a scope which he could use to extend his vision range and it wasn’t hard to follow the trail of a group as large as them.

Though the water which was a foot high will eliminate most signs of fighting like blood, flesh and broken branches, he could still move in the area without much issue in stealth. He also had experience in tracking in his past life and it was much easier to track such a large group from a long distance. Apart from being in stealth, he could also breath underwater courtesy of the goggles that he received at the BlackRock town.

Though he only joined them to make his travel easier at the beginning, he was currently curious to know what would cause a guild to make such huge movements. After he saw the advanced party and the shield in which they were hiding, it was clear that the guild had found something useful or a quest to find some ruins or important place. So, he had decided to pursue them.

The explosions had caused the surround beasts to keep away from them and the pace of the party was much faster than it was before due to the lack of beasts. There were some occasional langstonia which cause a few problems, but the large firepower generated by all those players together cleared off the beasts in no time.

As he was following them, he noticed a few players that were covering their rear. He began to spread the venom he got from the toads on some of his arrows as a precaution and increased the distance between them. It wasn’t a problem to him as he had the a very high perception and a scope. So, it wasn’t hard for him. He also had a nighthawk as a pet which he could use to scout the areas if he lost track of them, but that was a last resort. Being a town on the border of the fae region, the players had a habit of being guarded against aerial surveillance.

Soon, the party reached a location and stopped and started to clear the beasts by moving laterally. The land there was already under water for more than 2 feet and covered the legs of most players. He decided to disguise as another assassin that he saw when they were moving and joined among them as a scout to get a closer and better look. He noticed that half a kilometre ahead was an entrance of a cave half submerged in water. He guessed that it was at least three or four feet deep. He was sure that it was the destination of the group.

There were a few assassins who were already moving towards the cave and they were checking the area for beasts. He joined them and moved a few hundred metres towards the cave when he saw something that surprised him. Right outside the cave there were small black rock like structures from which water bubbles came out at fixed intervals. Sometimes a burst of water like a waterspout were also seen. As he saw them, he immediately realized that these were not natural occurrences but the very things that he had been searching for.

The knuckers tend to dig pits in the water where they lay with just their snout above water. These were part of the description that he heard of the knuckers in his previous life. He chose one at a corner and went closer to examine and confirm it.

[Knucker] (Elite monster)

Level 20;

HP: 50000/50000;

It would be considered a very high HP for a level 20 beast by most based on the other monsters, but Balthazar knew that any dragon related beast would have a better life rating and stats than other beasts. Still, he also felt doubtful in his ability to handle one now. Moreover, he could clearly see that there were five beasts in vicinity. There could be a few more in the cave which he couldn’t see clearly.

He was sure that he wouldn’t be able to do much against them. He had to look for another location for a knucker. Species like knuckers from dragon lineage tend to be rulers of the place they were in and had high intelligence and would use proper cooperative tactics. They would also have high physical defence and magical resistance. Attacking this place was suicidal. He doubted that even with the big team taking on five knucklers would quickly pile up the casualty count.

He quickly made his way away from the cave and towards the rest of the players. He joined the rest of the players and began to converse with a few other players whom he found out to be from the guild to get a better idea of their plan.

After a couple of minutes, he realized that they planned to get into the cave and the only thing they have was a few more of the barrel bombs which they were counting on to get rid of more monsters that might attack when they enter the cave. It could be considered a reasonable approach as the number of beasts near them were quite low. The presence of the knuckers had the other beasts to maintain a certain distance from the location. They had no clue about the beasts that were guarding the cave, and all this was just a precaution as Karma had to get an egg from the cave and he was already informed that a formidable entity guarding the cave.

Realizing that they were about to do something a lot more stupid and reckless than the previous time, he began to move towards the back of the group to go into stealth and go back to the town. He managed to get to the end when people started to shout in alarm.

“A level 20 beast. Level 20 beasts run,” started shouting one of the assassins and a second later he was sent flying towards the side by a stream of water coming off from one of the knuckers. As it stood up one could see that it was long and serpentine in shape with four thick legs. It was like the langstonia except for a long neck and long tail each of which spanned for at least 2 metres while its body was another two metres long. The head had a pair of tusk protruding out of a long snout like that of a dragon with frills by its neck and a pair of long fin like structures on its back between its limbs where there should have been wings for a dragon.

The sudden appearance of the knucker and the flying player put everyone on alert. Before they even began to fire their attacks, another head popped out of the marsh a few metres beside the first and began to roar and spout streams of water from its mouth attacking a few other scouts who were close to the area. It was followed by another three necks popping up.

Balthazar quickly ran away in the opposite direction before any of the attacks would come his way. He ran a certain distance and went up a tree to stay in stealth. Though the knuckers had legs they didn’t use them as much as the fins on their back. The glided along the top surface of the water with help of the fins. They were faster than the other beast and players and used their limbs, tail and neck to smack away all the players who went to scout the area near to the cave in a minute.

During this time, the long-distance attackers had released their attacks to save their companions, but it was of no use other than irritating the beasts. The attacks of these players who were at level 16 or below didn’t even cause much damage and the knuckers followed up with water attacks which had a very long range. After a few seconds of individual attacks, the five knuckers even joined to form a line and put their necks at the surface of the water while beating their fins causing a large wave to form and move towards the players.

This was an attack that even Balthazar hadn’t heard of. He had heard about the difficulties in fighting a knucker and their weak points, strengths, description and habits, but he had never heard of them fighting together. It probably did happen in his previous life, but people would have probably kept it a secret of he failed to know of it as he joined the game quite a lot of time after the marshlands were conquered by the players. It was new and he was amazed by it.

When the players saw it, they tried their best to evade the large AOE attack. Even the fae players that had kept themselves secret realized that there was no point in hiding further and tried to escape by pulling off their cloak and using their wings, but the wave just grew in size and struck them too. It was about 10 metres tall and blocked all attacks by the players and swept them back causing them damage as it pushed them back for a hundred metres easily.

Balthazar was really glad that he had decided to retreat, else he would also be among the players who were struggling to get up. The wave was enough to kill 5% of the players assemble there. After the wave attack the knuckers through a few more water stream attacks before going back towards the cave and submerged themselves underwater. The attacks knocked down everyone. Even Karma, Kiriti and the other members of Valhalla Raider and Ardent Ronins were soaking wet and lost more than half their health. If the knuckers didn’t retreat on their own there definitely would have been more causalties.

This attack not only demoralized the independent players, but even the members of the guild had no intention of continuing further. They gave up on the spot and began to channel their hearthstones to get back to safety.