The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1721 Hunting Packs

With the golems in position, the group moved out from the bossʼs clearing, this time not sending Hawk and Rae ahead to gather everything.

The enemies were arranged in hunting teams, and the wolverines would be harder to find, hidden in the underbrush. So, they would make their way to the next boss in the conventional manner, and see what came up.

The Golems were in a defensive formation around them, while the Elders prepared to be ambushed from the trees.

Not that the hellhounds could climb them. But they were strong and fast enough to use them as a springboard, and leap from dozens of metres away to land in the middle of a formation while the Kobolds attacked the outer flanks.

And that was exactly what happened.

”Incoming.” Elder Alix called as the growls of hellhounds filled the air.

They were already mid-leap, too late for anyone to change what came next. Great gouts of fire hit the hastily erected [Bulwark] barrier over the team, which the hellhounds clawed and snapped at as they slid to the ground.

Then the arrows from Kobold archers began, and Dana whistled to warn the others that she was giving a command to her Golems. They spread out to engage the hellhounds, while Oathbreaker and the Lich Lords from both Karl and Raeʼs teams engaged the Rangers.

Alix had given up on his sword, and had actually switched to a bow now, an unusual concession for a warrior, who would normally just go chase the targets.

However, with the number of Golems, it was easier to target around them than to try to fit between them. Then, the howling started to pull more groups, which was not how the dungeon was supposed to go.

The hounds and their Kobold handlers would only come one group at a time, if you didnʼt move to engage, but they could hear the howling in the distance coming closer.

”I swear, you canʼt enter a dungeon without something strange happening.” Elder Socrate sighed as he formed a thunderstorm overhead.

”What fun would it be if we had so many Golems and only fought a half dozen hounds at a time? Besides, this is so much more efficient. We didnʼt even have to go get them.” Opal joked.

”Put up an illusion so that theyʼre not going to jump right into the middle of our group, would you?

I donʼt know about you, but Iʼm not much of a tank.”

The tiny Fae laughed. She wouldnʼt even be a mouthful for the hounds. If she was attacked, being swallowed whole and needing to fight her way back out was a very real threat.

”Theyʼre coming from every side.” Dana noted. ”Just how many groups of hounds and kobolds are there supposed to be in here?”

”Thirty or so?”

Dana sighed. Of course, there were going to be thirty groups of them. They could never pick a short dungeon when they somehow pulled everything.

At this rate, they would be lucky if the bosses stayed on their platforms. The golems shifted positions as the first group was eliminated, and encircled the team so that they were in position for the next attack.

Leo and Socrate created a net of vines overhead, to reduce the damage taken by their barriers during the initial assault.

The hellhounds were coming fast, and Socrate was beginning to get nervous, but Alix and Karl both looked far too calm.

”Not going to panic a little?” The Alchemist asked.

”Nope. We canʼt kill them until they get here. Iʼve got plenty of area damage skills, and Rae is waiting to start resurrecting the hellhounds that she killed with Blood Destruction. Itʼs going to get busy, but weʼre not going to be in any real danger.” Karl insisted.

Dana shrugged as Kushal, the final and mostly silent member of their team, turned to her for confirmation.

He didnʼt say anything, just accepted it.

Dana wasnʼt panicking, and she was the golem mistress, the one whose summoned constructs had the most combat capability. Perhaps not in total volume, but individually.

It was just a shame that Karlʼs large group summoning spells were Necromantic in nature, and she couldnʼt use them, as her class was focused on golems not the undead.

The hounds charged into the front ranks of the undead, their claws finding very little traction against the shields of the Spectral Knights who had stopped the advance. Then, the area damage spells went up, fire filled the skies, and the ground softened as [Naga Swamp] made the whole area hostile to the fire

element beasts.

Normally, Hawk would have been outraged, but as the hounds were fire-resistant, he was focused on the kobolds anyhow, and the Naga was doing a fine job of tormenting them.

He just wished she would use something other than water magic.

Remi laughed as she listened in on Hawkʼs thoughts, then added a bit more rain to the [Thunderstorm] spell she had active. Even normal water was an annoyance for the hellhounds, and the spell dropped a lot of it, interspersed with hail, lightning and tornados.

Just a little extra spice for the ongoing [Apocalypse] spell that had blanketed everything over top of Opalʼs [Toxic Fog].

Rae vanished into the distance, going after the Kobold archers in the woods. That was her natural element, and with the limited light, there was very little chance that they could even see their death coming before she was on them. The creatures had fairly solid damage output, but they were not durable. The usual tactic was to focus on taking them down with ranged skills, while the hounds were held in place, then finish the hounds. It would have the group take less overall damage.

In this situation, there were so many hounds, so many golems and so much everything, including fog and fire vortexes, that everyone was just picking something to hit, while Karl and Dana organized the formation of the constructs, preventing anything from getting to the group members inside.