A Pyrrhic Victory
"Get to the front! Attack any enemies that come close!"
Su Ran immediately gave the two Skeleton Warriors their orders.
The Skeleton Warriors turned silently, the soul fire in their eye sockets locking onto the approaching pack of Gnolls. With a slightly unsteady but determined gait, they moved to the very front of the group.
Almost at the same moment, the Gnoll Warlord let out a piercing roar and snapped the Bone-Spike Whip in its hand through the air with an explosive crack!
"Awooo!"
The fifteen Gnolls were like hyenas answering a command. The red light in their eyes flared as they roared and lunged in from all sides! A foul wind rushed at them!
"Kill!!"
The driver's eyes were bloodshot. He knew this was their only chance. His figure flickered, and instead of bothering with the lesser enemies, he darted like a ghost straight at the Gnoll Warlord, the greatest threat of all!
His twin blades traced two arcs of cold light, one high and one low, aimed straight at the Warlord's throat and heart!
The Warlord roared, its whip coiling toward the driver like a venomous snake as it dodged to the side.
The two Lv.4 powerhouses clashed in an instant, flashes of blades crossing with the whipping shadows. Bursts of force sent the branches and leaves of the surrounding trees shaking.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the fight reached a fever pitch the moment the Skeleton Warriors and Gnolls met!
The two Skeleton Warriors mechanically swung their bone swords to meet the first three Gnolls charging in.
The bone swords struck the Gnolls' crude weapons and flesh with dull thuds. The Skeleton Warriors knew no pain and fought fearlessly, drawing a portion of the enemy's attacks.
A Gnoll's wooden club smashed several of a Skeleton Warrior's ribs, but the warrior struck back with its sword, cutting a gash in the Gnoll's leg.
"Go! Follow the skeletons!!"
The saber wielder and the swordsman roared, forcing down their fear as they charged forward, one on each side, and fell upon several more Gnolls.
The spearman stood guard at the side, nervously using his spear to drive back enemies trying to circle around behind them.
The archer drew his bow with trembling hands. His arrows flew crookedly, occasionally hitting one or two Gnolls, but posed little threat.
Su Ran kept close behind the archer, his sharp gaze sweeping across the entire battlefield.
He did not use the Light Spell scroll rashly, instead keeping his eyes fixed on the fight between the driver and the Warlord.
The driver was seasoned and crafty, his twin blades as swift as a gale, but the Gnoll Warlord was stronger, its whip had a wide reach, and the ordinary Gnolls harrying him from all sides also distracted him.
Before long, several bloody marks had appeared on the driver. The tip of the whip had swept across his left arm, splitting skin and flesh.
Now!
Su Ran seized the moment when the driver parried the whip and briefly opened up half a step of distance. He swiftly pulled out a [Lesser Healing Spell Scroll] and tore it open!
A soft green light became a streak that struck the driver squarely in the back.
Gentle life energy flowed into him, quickly closing the deepest wounds on his left arm and back. The bleeding stopped, and his fatigue eased slightly.
The driver's spirits lifted. With a low growl, he pressed his attack with renewed ferocity, briefly fighting the Warlord to a standstill.
But the Skeleton Warriors at the front could hold out no longer.
Their levels had never been high to begin with, and under attack from five or six Gnolls, they lasted less than a minute.
"Crack!"
"Crash!"
The two Skeleton Warriors were smashed to pieces one after the other by clubs and stone axes. Their soul fire went out, and they dissolved into bone fragments and gray motes of light.
The barrier at the front vanished in an instant! The pressure increased sharply!
"Argh!!"
A scream rang out as the Lv.2 saber wielder was tackled by a Gnoll. Its sharp teeth pierced his throat, blood sprayed, and he fell silent in an instant.
The swordsman was also in grave danger. Two Gnolls forced him back again and again, adding several wounds to his body.
"Hold on!"
The driver's eyes nearly split with fury. He wanted to rush back to help, but a vicious lash from the Warlord forced him back, opening another bloody gash at his waist.
Su Ran's gaze sharpened.
He did not panic. He pulled out a second Summoning Token!
His mental power surged into it once more!
"Come out!"
Two more Lv.2 Skeleton Warriors took shape amid the dissipating gray mist. Swaying unsteadily, they filled the gap at the front, barely blocking the Gnolls' path to the swordsman and spearman.
The battle became a bloody war of attrition.
The repeated summoning and control had consumed an enormous amount of Su Ran's mental power. His face began to pale, and cold sweat seeped from his temples.
He gritted his teeth and held on, directing the newly summoned Skeleton Warriors to defend alongside his teammates.
The archer ran out of arrows, picked up a dead Gnoll's short spear from the ground, and swung it wildly.
With the skeletons' help, the spearman finally found an opening to stab a Gnoll to death, but he took an axe blow to the shoulder.
The swordsman endured serious injuries to cut one down, only to be tackled by another...
The ordinary people? They had long since died violent deaths in the chaos or fled deep into the forest, their whereabouts unknown.
By the time the second pair of Skeleton Warriors were smashed apart, seven or eight Gnolls had fallen as well. But the remaining Gnolls, including the Warlord, were still ferocious.
Su Ran's vision was already darkening in waves, and his mental power was on the verge of exhaustion. Without hesitation, he took out another [Skeleton Summoning Token].
He did not know whether his remaining mental power would be enough to use it, but he had no choice now!
He activated the last of his mental power along with the faint trace of undead aura contained in the token!
The token lit up with an extremely dim glow, and the ground ahead twisted faintly. A skeleton frame, even more illusory than the previous ones, with soul fire almost too faint to see and movements far more sluggish.
It barely managed to take shape, but after less than twenty seconds, a Gnoll casually knocked it apart with a single swing of its club.
But those ten seconds of delay gave the survivors a chance to turn things around.
The driver unleashed the last of his ferocity, abandoning defense entirely. Taking a lash from the Warlord on his left shoulder, he drove his twin blades viciously into the Gnoll Warlord's chest like venomous dragons bursting from their lairs!
The Warlord let out an earth-shaking howl of agony, and its whip fell limp.
Almost at the same time, the surviving spearman and the battered swordsman fought desperately to finish off the last two ordinary Gnolls beside them.
When the Warlord's massive body crashed to the ground, the few remaining Gnolls finally whimpered in fear and fled deep into the forest with their tails between their legs.
The battle was over.
The path was a scene of utter devastation, thick with the stench of blood and death. Gnoll corpses lay scattered everywhere, and several human bodies had fallen there too.
Only three survivors remained, Su Ran among them.
The driver barely stayed on his feet, leaning on the twin blades embedded in the Warlord's corpse.
But the Warlord had used a bone spike to tear a terrible wound in his abdomen before it died. His intestines were faintly visible, and blood poured out like a fountain, staining his lower body completely red.
His face was the color of gold paper, his breathing faint, and his eyes had already begun to lose focus. Clearly, he was at death's door.
The swordsman knelt on one knee, propped up by his half-broken sword. He was covered in blood, though it was impossible to tell whether it was his own or the enemy's, and he was barely breathing.
The spearman leaned against a nearby tree, his face deathly pale. One arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, clearly broken.
Su Ran staggered and caught hold of a nearby tree trunk to keep from falling.
His head felt as though it would split from the strain of overdrawing his mental power, but he forced himself to rally. He glanced at the survivors, then looked at the dying driver.
The area swallowed by the Otherworldly Rift seemed to have undergone some kind of change with the death of the Warlord, the core monster.
In the distance, the outline of the bus seemed to have grown a little clearer, though it remained impossibly far away.
They... had survived for now.
But the price had been devastatingly high.