BXBX NOVEL Chapter 525 524: Reconnaissance
Sla\'Caligo also stayed back after the Marquess threatened her, making the Arch Fiend pout as she sent us off with a wave, her pink eyes trailing behind us as we left the protection of the beach behind.
As callous as the Marquess might seem sometimes, we all knew that she wouldn\'t let any of us die during this trial... at least if she was able to prevent it; we could still lose our life if we made a mistake or got too cocky, but if she was capable of aiding us in a perilous situation, she would...
But we couldn\'t rely on it to always save us, hence our caution as we stalked through the luscious jungle, making our way towards the source of the ash and smoke, which was later joined by the sounds of battle as we got ever closer.
With no real time limit given to us - besides that the Marquess might want to leave in a week - Jahi wanted to scout out the thickest of the fighting and get a good look at the things to come before retreating back to somewhere less intense, hunting around for any stragglers and testing ourselves against them to see where we stand.
And with the Marquess having said that the enemies here will be post Gate of Hades level at the get go, well, I was assuming that this would be a strenuous battle no matter what; it won\'t be that Magma Wyrm level of strength, since that was a \'unique\' monster for the area, but it definitely will be a bit more powerful than those Spartoi that guarded the Gate of Hades.
With the addition of the enemies being subcategorized into Monsters and Undead, that meant that our opponents would be raw physical prowess and technique oriented respectively, giving two separate sources of experience for us to draw from.
That was what was on my mind as we cut our way through the forest, until we eventually reached the edge of a gigantic clearing at the base of the mountain, where hundreds of monsters and hundreds of undead waged war against one another, all while a protective ring of golems made from large chunks of grey rock stood guard nearby the cave entrance carved into the base of the mountain.
Like the Marquess had said, we could tell that these monsters were typical forest monsters, just... on some juice.
The Goblins were now four feet tall with tiny bone nubs poking out of their skull, their dark emerald green skin pulled tight over their wiry muscle, giving them power to clobber their undead enemies with their clubs.
Giant brown and green Serpents slithered around the clearing, their barbed scales scratching against the bones of the undead while their maws spewed gusts of wind, which demolished the undead.
There were birds that screeched in the air, their multicolored feathers shimmering with green mana as they unleashed a barrage of wind bullets down on the battlefield with each flap of their large wings.
Feline monsters leapt through the crowds with grace as they slammed their weight or slashed with their claws, while human sized ants barreled forwards, their chitinous carapace protecting them from harm as they charged.
For the undead, there were Skeletons that looked humanoid wielding crude weaponry made from stone, and sometimes metal.
Some of the Skeletons donned wooden slabs of armor as well as shields, acting as warriors for the others to rally around as they created bastions in the midst of the chaos, stabbing out with their weapons and cutting down the monsters.
Others remained away, shooting arrows from crude bows and hurling lobs of stone into the mix, whilst a smaller number stood atop pillars and shot at the bird monsters with Earth Magic, slicing through them and causing their corpses to plummet to the ground.
There were a few Skeletons that resembled Beastkin of some kind, like a giant bone structure with large horns and thick chest and arm bones, swinging around a giant log that smacked against monsters and splattered them, while another dashed around with elegance as it utilized a sharpened, jagged blade of rock to slice through the monsters, killing them before they knew what hit them.
Of course, there were Spartoi as well, the horned skeletal monsters that were double the size of humans and wielded weapons made from metal, their four arms cutting through everything around them as they battled the ants and Goblins.
Constructs made from bone were also present, but they were few in number; a large lion with a fiery mane roared before spewing flames across the battlefield, while a giant spider clacked around the clearing, it\'s long, sharp limbs stabbing and impaling Goblins before it hardened its carapace with Earth Mana, protecting it from the Serpents that targeted it, as well as two other wolf constructs, which leapt around and massacred whatever they could before leaping away.
They all seemed like basic monsters at first, but the damage they caused and the magic they wielded made everything much more challenging going forwards, and we nodded at one another before turning around, our reconnaissance done for the day.
Sneaking back into the forest, we nodded again as Jahi whispered "This looks to be quite the tough nut to crack."
Leone added "There were more monsters and undead pouring in from their sides of the clearing, so there has to be some kind of \'home base\' for them as well where they are created? That might warrant a look."
Anput and I remained quiet, focusing on the path back as we slipped through the thick underbrush of the forest and guided everyone back to the beach, where we would discuss things first before hunting down some stragglers.
We needed more information as quickly as possible, but there needs to be a plan in place to gather that information, otherwise everything begins to crumble apart around you...
And the last thing that we would want is to be caught in the center of that battlefield, especially when there is the potential for reinforcements from either side showing up.