Path to Transcendence

Chapter 397: Keeping His Friends Safe

The others had sensed that something was wrong based on Julius’s reaction. They all stared in the same direction he was looking.

“What is it?” Lily asked in a worried tone.

“A horde of monsters coming our way,” he quickly explained, but he didn’t bother to turn around toward them. He maintained his focus on the rapidly approaching group. It would appear they hadn’t been able to hide from his perception; they were simply too far away for him to sense them. That was the good news.

The bad news was that the number of beasts wasn’t what he was worried about. It was the strength of these beasts. There were a large number of Tier 3s and a good number of Tier 4s amongst them.

Much like the seventh floor, these were a medley of monsters. There was no specific species to focus on. He was beginning to understand what Doren was talking about when he mentioned someone was controlling these beasts.

“A horde of monsters?” Aubrey asked in disbelief, but Julius noticed she and the others were already preparing their skills. However, he could tell that they were still quite tired from their delve. All of their mana and aura responded with a sluggishness that wasn’t normal.

He didn’t like that. Not at all.

“Can you protect them?” He asked behind him in a quiet whisper.

“What was that?” Edgar asked him, confused by his question.

Julius looked behind him and noticed that Doren was nowhere to be seen. The man had vanished into thin air. Not even his perception skill was able to pick up where the man had run off to.

“Nothing,” Julius said in a dark tone. It was fine; if Doren wasn’t willing to help, he would just have to protect his friends alone. The main issue was that he didn’t just sense Tier 4s among this horde. At least two Tier 5s were leading this pack of monsters. They were more toward the back, but he was able to sense the familiar, powerful surges of aura in the background. Like a lot of monsters, these Tier 5s didn’t seem to care about shrouding their auras. Proudly displaying them as forms of intimidation.

As a matter of fact, he could tell that he wasn’t the only one in his group who sensed this. Lily had a pale look on her face as she stared into the distance with dread.

“We’re going to be fine,” he said, walking close to her and giving her the confident grin he could.

“But we don’t have—”

He cut her off. “I know, let me handle most of the fighting. You guys try to recover as much mana as you can in the meantime. Let the other people around take the aggression, only fight when it is unavoidable,” he directed them.

As much as he wanted to know where Doren had run off to, he couldn’t focus on that right now. He had more important things. He wasn’t going to rely on the man suddenly reappearing to help them out either. Doren had already shown that he didn’t care that much about the lives of the people here. Julius wasn’t going to take that risk. He wouldn’t be surprised if the researcher had disappeared just because he was curious how Julius would react.

In his short time with Doren, Julius was already pretty confident that the blonde man prioritized his own curiosity more than anything else. It was only because he was curious about Julius that he entertained him to the degree he did.

“Should we head over to the guild staff?” Edgar asked suddenly.

Julius paused. That was a good question. At the moment, they were a little sectioned away from the bulk of the crowd. If they chose to head over to where most of the staff were located, they might be more protected by the more powerful individuals among the expedition.

It might be the smart thing to do since such strong beasts were attacking them.

He looked over to where the staff were and noticed that they weren’t the only group to start seeing that something was wrong. Other groups and guild staff were starting to congregate as they tried not to panic.

However, word quickly spread, and that was when the mayhem started. Most of the people on this expedition were Tier 3s, and what made it even worse was that they were in a similar position to his group of friends. That meant they were tired and low on mana. Some of them were extremely injured as well.

He didn’t know who was behind this attack, and if Doren hadn’t said anything, he might have believed it was some random monster swarm since it was so close to the monster flood season. Whoever this group was, they chose the worst time. Or in the enemy’s case, the best time.

Julius already had some suspicions about who was behind this. However, he didn’t want to jump the gun. He had no evidence to support this belief or anything that would point the blame in their direction.

He looked at where the staff was and back toward the group of monsters. From what he had seen from most fights, he had learned that the Tier 4s and Tier 5s often sought out each other. That would mean if they got too close, they might get caught in the crossfire.

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“Let’s keep some distance for now. I don’t want to accidentally get blindsided by one of the Tier 5sʼ attacks,” Derek spoke up, making the decision for them.

They nodded at his logic and prepared themselves, because seconds later, they found themselves face to face with a bunch of violent monsters.

Julius stood in front and created a quick barrier of mana around them, ensuring that nothing could get behind them. He wasn’t the only person who was preparing defenses.

Lily had already deployed a barrier of her own. It appeared to be psychic in nature and likely would mess with the monsterʼs perception or thoughts.

Aubrey created a few clones and had them guard them. Derek and Edgar each summoned a suit of armor from their storage rings to cover their body. Julius had heard them talking about the new armor they got before coming, but this was the first time he was seeing it in action.

Both of their armors were similar in style. Edgar had much less armor, only a chest plate and some light armor around his arms and legs. Derek was wearing practically a full set of armor, but it didn’t look like it would impede his movements.

Neither looked fancy. They were made of dull, dark gray metal that did a very nice job of insulating the large amount of power he felt coming from them.

He recalled Edgar explaining to him that the armor would aid his body enhancement skill. The suit would help the massive guy pump more mana into his body without having to stress his mind and will. Julius could only hope that Edgar had enough mana to use the armor.

He detected some mana cores, but he felt there wasn’t much left in them. They were likely drained from the rift attempt. He doubted Edgar had time to recharge them.

The other groups recovering from the rift were shocked to see the sudden attack. However, this didn’t stop them from preparing. By the time the monster horde hit the group, most of them were ready.

The first wave was chaos. There were no real formations; it was just humans doing their best to kill monsters and monsters doing their best to kill humans.

Thankfully, the first wave showed that humans were the superior force. Although most of the deaths came from the monsters’ side, it was still a bloodbath.

Lily’s and Julius’s barrier prevented all monsters except one curious monster resembling a bull from attacking them. However, before it attempted to charge at them, Julius sent a needle of mana at its forehead.

While he had been waiting, he had preemptively created some aura-woven constructs just in case. He had taken a small splinter of a spike and used it to attack the bull. He primarily used kinetic energy to fuel the needleʼs flight. It was more than enough, though.

The needle pierced the bull’s skull and flew out the back with a wet squelch. The bull didn’t even get a chance to react before the needle returned straight to Julius’s shoulder, awaiting further instructions.

He noticed that every one of the friends glanced over at him for a second longer than normal. But he didn’t bother to look too far into it. Instead, he kept an eye on the surrounding battle while simultaneously dealing with any threat that came their way.

The Tier 5, representing the guild on this expedition, was already confronting the monsters in the horde. They were like a tornado of death. Many monsters were torn to shreds the moment they entered the man’s domain. Even the Tier 4s were rebuffed without issue.

After they were blocked, he quickly dashed forward with his sword and shield to kill whatever monster hadn’t fallen to his domain. He was fast and he was efficient. Each move killed a monster, and each bit of mana used was deliberate.

People were already giving the man plenty of space. They knew better than to stay around such a powerful person. It was just a hazard at that point.

However, as Tier 5 was handling a large amount of the rabble, Julius spotted a flash of gold dashing through his sphere of perception. It was so fast that Julius doubted he would have been able to react in time if he had been the target.

Even the Tier 5, who had been the actual target, was barely able to react in time. He brought his sword and shield to block the gold figure, but the blow knocked him off balance. The golden flash was actually a monster that looked very similar to a giant cat but with a row of rigid spines lining its back. There were golden arcs of lightning sparking from the tips of these spikes.

Julius was distracted by their beauty. But became upset when he was interrupted from admiring them because a monster decided to attack at that moment. He used the same needle to deal with the monster and quickly got back to examining the Tier 5 monster.

There was clearly some relationship with lightning, and he saw that Derek had also noticed the creature. He was still focused on the surroundings for surprise attacks, but Julius could tell that Derek was focused on this creature.

He heard the loud crashes as the Tier 4 monsters fought against the other Tier 4s of the expedition. It was mayhem, and he couldnʼt help but notice that his blood was singing with excitement just underneath the worry he had for his friends.

He didn’t see the other Tier 5 around in the area. He was kind of nervous about that. There were just too many auras in the area that he couldn’t differentiate between the various auras. He assumed that it must have activated some kind of stealth skill to hide.

He was glad they didn’t head over to the guild staff. There were already so many monsters congregating in the area, and it was growing.

He and the others were handling the Tier 3 monsters with ease. Not a single monster made it past him. He pierced their skulls with his needle of aura-woven mana without issue. Lily’s barrier also ensured that there wasnʼt a flood of monsters attacking them.

The other groups around them were similarly handling the monsters without too many issues. It was clear that many of the teams here were quite strong. Even the people who came alone found a group and teamed up with them to fight back the monsters. It was only the ones who were injured or completely spent who had a hard time and had to rely on others to help them.

Unfortunately, their good luck wasn’t allowed to continue. A Tier 4 monster must have gotten blasted away by another Tier 4 and landed right in front of them. He didn’t know if it was fate or if Doren literally threw the monster at his feet, but it would appear he would have to take care of it.

Unlike the Tier 3s he had been handling, this creature would take some effort on his part. However, compared to Savath, this monster was nothing. And he was more than glad to put it down.