The Chair Notices the Improvement

Aster and Rufus kept their eyes and senses peeled, making sure the beasts weren’t coming after us. Even though they seemed tired, their mana control was much finer. I wouldn’t be surprised if they could sense double or even triple their previous range.

“Three beasts from the front: two E-rank, one F-rank. One from the back: E-rank.” Those were the stragglers that had left the fight to follow the receding barrier. She had managed to identify all but one perfectly. Rufus nodded before switching places with Aster.

A few seconds later, the beasts sprinted into sight. Aster immediately took down the beast behind us with a perfect needle throw. Rufus waited until the beasts up front were a bit closer before throwing out a half-punch.

Boom! The explosion was less powerful, but it still destroyed the beasts. Well, barely: they almost survived the hit. Their corpses weren’t a mangled mess anymore, but they were still dissolved by the rainstorm.

Rufus turned towards Aster, only to have a needle soar by his face and hit a snake beast behind him. Aster hadn’t noticed it at first since it was burrowed into the ground. Her reaction time was impressive.

“Don’t let your guard down. I can’t detect everything with this weather.” Rufus hesitated for a second before nodding, slapping his cheeks.

He experimented with each incoming beast. First, he would figure out how much power to use for each beast type. Then, he would manipulate his form and Wind Magic to use less stamina. Occasionally, he would miss a beast or two, but Aster covered him well. I could tell from his wide grin that he was enjoying himself.

Aster, meanwhile, threw needles with pinpoint accuracy. She did that before, but now her accuracy was consistent. Normally, after an hour or two, she would’ve missed at least one or two throws. But so far, she had skewered every beast. There was even enough downtime to take out some beasts from Rufus’s side.

Of course, it couldn’t last forever. A D-rank beast managed to dodge one of her needles. The beast’s speed was faster than expected, allowing it to get close enough and rip out a chunk of her side. It snarled for a brief moment, as if exclaiming its superiority, before instantly dying, like a puppet cut from its strings. It seemed like she poisoned her flesh the moment before it was bitten. That would explain her currently sluggish moves. Though, with all the training last night, her accuracy wasn’t affected at all, making for a solid strategy.

The mana in her body circulated around the wound. In a few seconds, the hole was gone, as if it had never existed. For a patch job, it was well done. She could fix it properly once we made it to a safer area.

After another hour of fighting, another D-rank beast dodged Aster’s needle before biting her arm clean off. That would take much longer to generate, but she wasn’t even focused on the beast anymore.

“ROOOAAR!!” The arm in the beast’s mouth stabbed a needle into its eyeball, killing it. Freeing itself from the beast’s mouth, it crawled back to Aster. She held the arm in its socket where the two pieces connected to each other and, after a minute, threw even more needles. I hadn’t expected her to get the hang of controlling body parts remotely so quickly. Though, she was lucky that the beast didn’t fall off the platform.

Ai stopped any of the C-rank beasts from getting too close, leaving Aster and Rufus to finish the job. She sent her vines further underground to avoid the acid and attempted to impale the beasts. The beasts didn’t have time to dodge, nor could they sense her vines because of the acid. She could probably handle three spells at once, but it was good she wasn’t trying to push it.

All in all, their teamwork improved substantially. A beast rarely got close to the vine platform, and when they did, Aster could tank the hit and regenerate herself. However, there were a few times when beasts came from all four sides. Because Rufus was conserving his mana, he could only deal with one side at a time. Aster might have been able to hit both targets, but she couldn’t focus on both at once when they moved so quickly. Ai could only use one more plant magic spell. This normally left one side unguarded, but there was still someone who could cover the remaining direction.

“Ugh!” Emma grunted as another beast smashed into the rain cover she held. Her training prevented her from falling over, but her body screamed out in pain. Her muscles tore while small fractures kept appearing in her bones. However, she gritted her teeth and kept pushing until someone else could defeat the beast.

She only needed to block two attacks so far, but that rain cover was already on its last legs. It wasn’t meant to withstand a beast smashing into it. These beasts were also soaked with acid, corroding its durability. On the third hit, one beast had punched a hole through with its hand. The hand did get stuck in the cover, allowing the others to kill the beast safely, but it looked terrifying from the inside.