Chương 561: Chapter 552: Fight Little Wolf

We spent a few minutes working out how to approach this first battle, while I explained what I wanted to my friends and our new allies alike. At first, they were quite skeptical, especially Sallia, much to my surprise. The reason was simple. Most of us didn't think the enemies present were a major threat, so the group's original idea was just to finish them off quickly and move on.

While Kexley and Valeksi admitted that they might not be quite as confident in a battle as the four of us, they also believed that they could probably win as long as they were careful and used their magic appropriately. If I used the reworked version of my third rune to empower our new friends, we could rapidly overrun the monsters here - or Sallia could just flat-out erase them using her swordsmanship without breaking a sweat. However, this wasn't just a fight.

It was our first time working together as a team of six. These monsters were strong enough to push the two new additions to our team, but they weren't so hard that they had a real shot of killing us - especially not through my healing magic. Therefore, before we started tossing out buffs like candy, getting ready for a real fight, and preparing to wipe out the enemy, I thought it was a good idea to take this fight a bit slower, and see how well we could actually cooperate and work as a team.

After all, our previous fights with monsters in the Market had been one-sided, overwhelming battles where we won in seconds as we walked towards this strange research facility. They gave us no real reference value for teamwork.

"All right, fine. I still think we should kill this group quickly and move on, but at the very least, I can see miss Miria is really invested in this idea," said Kexley.

"I don't mind humoring her, and I can see the value in practicing our cooperation."

"I'm also on board," said Sallia.

"I'll avoid using any buff spells on myself for the duration of this battle so that I don't just kill everything instantly." I smiled.

"Thank you," I said.

"I appreciate you being willing to play along. I know that not just wiping this kind of weaker enemy out instantly feels constraining, but I think this kind of scenario is the beast way to test out our new abilities and prep for real fights later on." Since the two biggest holdouts had agreed, we prepped for the fight.

Since we were intentionally holding back, there wasn't much to prepare besides doing a few more scouting operations to make sure they hadn't moved or prepared for us, as well as having Valeksi check the area with a few more crow scouts to make sure they didn't have hidden reinforcements. Then, we stepped through the massive steel doors of the research facility, and into the inner district of the Market.

The moment we stepped inside, our surroundings blurred and shifted, like an oil painting that had been lit on fire. It felt like dozens of hungry eyes lurked in the darkness, watching our every move. I felt the faint brush of something against my soul. It felt like the slithering of an eel as it brushed against my skin, and it nearly made me shudder in revulsion. Our surroundings themselves looked like simple metal corridors, but when I looked at it through my conceptual vision, I saw a new 'concept'.

One that had no business appearing in a research facility. It was the concept of hunger. The walls themselves were saturated with it. Every single speck of unknown metal, every blade of grass, and every monster in the area was doused in their hunger. I couldn't see any lurking horrors through my soul-sight, but I had a deeply unnerving feeling that something was watching us.

I didn't have much more time to think about the terrifying nature of this place before the trees that were somehow rooted in the metal ground in front of us all started twitching and shivering. A moment later, two of them unfurled into humanoid shapes, almost like flowers unfurling to face the sun. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. A moment later, I stared at eight somewhat attractive-looking men and women that were made entirely of wood.

They all smiled at us, like polite greeters in an amusement park - and then spit out eight globs of acid at us. I immediately snapped open a portal, enlarged it using my new void magic boosting Abilities, and returned a hail of acid to our attackers. The two nearest to me got drenched in a layer of acid and started screeching, but the other six were unharmed. My companions joined the battle a moment later. Valeksi was the first of our two new allies to move.

He hopped to the left of the enemy group, and his youthful arms surged with hidden power as he took his bare, human arms and clawed at one of the other trees. A moment later, the tree-woman grunted in pain, and then tried to swipe at Valeksi with a spike made of wooden roots. Valeksi shifted into wolf form, which also moved him well under the wooden spikes that had nearly touched his chest. Then, he leapt right back in and took two more bites at the tree-woman's face.

Another nearby tree-monster tried to spit a glob of acid at him, but I redirected it back towards the two acid-soaked tree monsters in front. Meanwhile, Sallia surged to the right and began her own evasive maneuvers, while getting in quick hits with her blade. I noticed that she kept a very careful eye on the way Valeksi fought, and her sword strikes were much weaker and slower than usual.

Evidently, she was abiding by her previous promise and not using any boosts at all, leaving her much less terrifying than usual - but she was still slowly suppressing two more tree monsters, even though she was weaker in terms of raw stats at the moment. This time, Kexley didn't directly join the fight - instead, he stood right in front of me and Felix, like an iron fortress. Clearly, he intended to act as a defensive wall for us, giving the other two freedom to move. I felt a twinge of approval.

He hadn't blocked Anise's line of sight, so Anise was still free to toss spells into the fight. He did block my regular vision - but I had so many different kinds of special vision that it wasn't really an issue. He was right where he needed to be at the moment. Anise used a few fireballs to finish off the two acid-soaked monsters in front, while Felix started peppering the two final tree monsters with metal projectiles.

I joined in and ensured that their attempts to support their comrades with projectiles all came to nothing, while Anise and Felix started using their magic to keep them from approaching the actual battlefields. Rather than finish off our enemies immediately, we spent several rounds of fighting slowly trading blows back and forth. As we did, I felt our teamwork start to improve by bits and pieces.

There was no revolutionary breakthrough in our cooperation - but Kexley got a bit more comfortable knowing what attacks we could deflect and handle, so he started taking smaller opportunities to get in a few attacks before returning to defend the three of us from further attacks. Sallia and Valeksi got used to the combat rhythm of the other, so they started coordinating their attacks more directly. I got a bit more used to knowing what attacks Valeksi would dodge, and which ones he needed my help to teleport away.

During the battle, I also spent some of my time keeping an eye on our surroundings. Even though I hadn't found anything yet, I still got the unsettling feeling that something was watching us… and that it wasn't too happy with our interference in its domain. After a few minutes, we had gathered as much data as we could from the tree spirits, so we finished them off.

I saw a few System notifications, but I dismissed them - I still wasn't quite sure what the concept of 'hunger' was doing in our surroundings, but it made me uneasy.

"Do you also feel like something is watching us?" I asked. The others nodded. Evidently, there were more differences to this inner district than just a question of whether they were selling lives here or not. Something was lurking here - probably the very same guardian that was meant to prevent us from gaining more lives. And every single one of my senses was screaming at me that it was here, somewhere, and that I needed to be wary of it. That it was waiting for me.

We had gathered some information from our first encounter with the enemy, but there was also something lurking here. It was ready, and it was watching us.