Socrates sent the blades forward, their dark edges decimating the new wave of spawned abominations. His longsword streaked through the air in an arc, aiming for one of the War Grade's guards.
The beast matched his attack head-on, its claws deflecting the dark metal. Its short frame shot forward, fast.
As it did, so did the other two by its side. In less than a second, they had encircled the dark silhouette. Socrates moved towards one of them, blade mid-swing towards its torso.
The beast's claws scraped across the weapon, igniting the small space between them with sparks. But the dark silhouette pressed harder. The difference in their physical prowess was evident as the monstrosity lost whatever little advantage it had bolstered.
Its companions rushed forward, one darting left while the other took the right. The one Socrates had overpowered rejoined them from the center as they rushed towards him.
The dark silhouette turned its attention to the one on the right; it was the fastest of the bunch and had cleared most of the distance between them.
Its small frame kicked off the ground, claws outstretched and canines bared forward for an attack. Socrates, unlike last time, didn't deflect it; his intangible body dissolved into the darkness for a split second and emerged from under the shadow of the beast.
His dark blade outstretched like death's cold hand to reap another life.
The beast that had darted to his left pounced forward, its claws intercepting the dark metal mid-strike. The force of the attack sent its small frame back a few meters, but by then its kin had already been saved.
Claws flashed towards the dark silhouette. The beast that had taken the center had recovered more than enough from their last encounter, the malicious look in its eyes burning like the embers of a flame.
Socrates slipped through the shadows and appeared a distance away; the attack had missed him. The beasts regrouped, their primitive minds sharp enough to understand the uselessness of a fruitless charge.
Socrates filed away the thoughts he had on their clash. The beasts were coordinated, their attacks and defense synchronized in a way that seemed unnatural unless they shared a single mind.
He had avoided their attacks so far because, firstly, although his body was intangible, it was swiftly depleting his mana reserves, and mending his intangible body increased the rate at which it depleted.
Secondly, these were the peak of their kind's evolution. His blade, which had easily decimated the earliest of them, could now be deflected.
They were faster, stronger, and possessed battle-hardened intelligence that came from the countless deaths of those before them.
Deaths he had caused.
What if a part of their evolution allowed them to hurt his intangible body?
He wasn't willing to take the risk, not when he had a larger threat to face.
The shadows around him moved, shapelessly taking form into replicas of the dark silhouette with thin longswords in their hands.
Now they were three dark silhouettes facing three humanoid gremlins.
Socrates checked on his mana reserves; creating two copies of himself had left them in a critical condition. He turned his blank gaze towards the three beasts that prowled before him.
With the short distance between them, they initiated their former tactics: one darting to the left, another to the right, and the last at their center.
Socrates mirrored it entirely. The two copies moved in sync. One aimed for the left, dissolving into the shadows and streaking along the ground to meet his opponent mid-stride. The other held its sword up in a guard and shot off the ground like a missile, its dark blade scraping against claws that could rival steel.
Socrates, the only one left standing, brandished his sword and streaked through the air. His shapeless form mirrored that of a dark arrow before reverting back to the intangible dark silhouette.
He bent low, claws missing him entirely as the short frame of the beast scraped against stone. The longsword in his hand had already been swung, its blade slicing through the air as it approached its target.
The beast rolled over and kicked itself back, creating distance. Socrates could tell: it was the same one that had lost to him in their first encounter.
The embers of fire in its gaze hadn't vanished; it was determined to kill him.
And Socrates was just as willing to do the same.
Fear washed over Aster like a tidal wave; every fiber in his body was sure that whichever bestial maw that sound had come from could end him with ease.
Of all the possibilities he had thought of, none of them led to this. He had escaped Thorne, gotten himself to the wagons, and now for what?
To die in the maws of a beast!
To have its teeth sink into his flesh and shatter his bones!
His mind was broken. Was all this fate's twisted way of telling him that his death was inevitable?
To escape the blades of a man just to die by the claws of a beast.
His eyes noticed movement around him; the adventurers in charge of sorting them had begun to gather together.
Twenty of them at most, but the threat was still unknown. No one was willing to step into the darkness and find out.
So it all came down to a single question.
Would twenty of them be enough?