As soon as we got to the monsters, Shaun ran into the middle of them. He used his attention catching ability and James cast a golden aura on him. Nothing new, same formation I saw them use multiple times before.
The first monsters were torn to shreds when Shaun swung his sword— it caused green blood to splatter on the ground. Thankfully
Hundreds of feet still scuttered in my ears but I kept my eyes glued onto the bugs. The main issue I could see were the gigantic centipedes with their long mandibles.
Yukina, focus on them. I sucked in my breath and poured mana into my hands. On my command multiple earth darts were summoned in front of my hands.
Go! I set them flying at immense speed. I heard the sickening crunch and squelaching of my darts drilling a hole through the centipedes. They made loud squeals and writhed in pain— but they stayed up.
Aim better. I repeated the same process, mana danced in my hands and I kept my only good eye on them. In the three I struck, gigantic pours splurted blood everywhere from them. I needed to strike their heads.
I closed my hands and released the darts. With much more force and speed they flew out. Air swatted at my face, I felt my hair flow due to the immense speed.
Even the centipedes were pushed back slightly as many tiny holes drilled right through their skulls. With a dying screech they fell to the ground— crunches resounded as their bodies crushed the smaller bugs underneath.
Suddenly…
"YUKINA! USE IT!"
"I can't! You need to get-"
"Just use it! We'll get overrun!"
Crap' crap! He'll get hurt!
Shaun was just staying in the middle… Hundreds to thousands of bugs were attacking him. James was starting to pant a little but he had his own group around him.
And they said it'd be easy! What is this luck!
I shot out many earth darts, I kept the connection between me and them going… and as they got immensely close I squeezed my hands. Forcefully, they all split into tens of pieces. It was like a firework show, except darker and deadlier.
Each made a loud splat when colliding with the surrounding bugs. Countless colors of blood splattered around Shaun. Well… where he was, he was gone already. Despite the ruckus, I witnessed him jump out of the way before my spell collided.
"Yukina over here!"
I followed Shaun's voice and he was now in James's spot. The bugs eyes all glowered in red, as I prepared another, we locked eyes and he rolled out of the way. A spray of earth pellets jammed into the vitals of each bug.
No more words were spoken, there was still a humongous swarm. James knelt on the ground as gasps left his mouth. Has he not fought like that in a while…?
I couldn't let my focus go elsewhere, but I left that in my head. Now, Shaun held the mandibles open of a mini but huge beetle. An orange glow was enveloping his body.
Again, and again, and again I shot out barrages of earth pellets. Before I even knew it the ground was splattered with a marrage of blood and mist. I had to cover my mouth as I began to breathe in.
Too strong… I thought as my boots got soaked in all of this. Costly though. My body was a little moist from sweat and I could feel my stamina was drained.
Shaun and James should be okay, right? I couldn't use my sense of smell due to the heavy iron stench but I opened my ears for them.
The splashing of the puddles stained my eardrums, but eventually I heard more splashes. Talking, and a loud sigh as I got closer to them.
As the bloody mist quelled, James was wiping his head off and Shaun crossed his arms and stood where he was at. Surprisingly they were free from blood and were not covering their mouths.
"First horde's done… There should be a few more on this floor." James called out as he stood in the middle of multiple corpses of bugs. "Like the books said, bugs first."
"What's next?" I asked whilst leaning forward and looking at him. This is surprisingly easy… Before I could even react I felt his hand land on my head.
"Easy, sleepyhead. We don't need to rush… well we have to. You'll see, come along."
Right as I was ready to respond, Shaun patted my shoulder and responded. "Good job Yukina! That spell though wasn't as scary as you described!"
Thanks…
"It was impressive though, don't get me wrong…"
Thank you… I kept my mouth shut and focused on the tunnels ahead. That's too much… My face was already becoming warm from their words.
"Not used to that many monsters around you, huh?" Shaun wrapped his arm around James's shoulders. "When we were younger you could've killed all of those…"
"That's… Nevermind…" James shook his head, shrugged and cleared his throat. "It's been a while since I went that hard. I've been a healer for… quite a while now."
He seems pretty offended… I watched these two bicker. The iron smell exited my nose as I went into the darkness again. Next horde I'll have to be careful… Maybe I'll make an earth sword just in case. Not that I was any good at using the sword..
I'll have to adjust the output of Earth Shotgun. If I keep pouring mana into it, I'll be down for the count before we find Lora or even the next floor. I'm sure James and Shaun could clear this dungeon themselves with some struggle.