56 Leader

"RAWWWRR"

The monsters roared as they came into sight, moving with haste as they charged at the humans. Stanis could now see them clearly as they sped past the last treeline, his mind slightly relaxing as he recognised them: no longer a mysterious enemy.

They were as he had Scout and sensed before, compact feline bodies with bulging muscles. Green glowing eyes with angular teeth and a hint of whiskers. They had lustrous dark fur over their bodies, allowing them to camouflage into the darkness as they moved. They had dreadful claws attached to their warhammer-like legs which bit into the ground as the pummelled forwards, now mere metres away from the humans. If he wasn't wrong, these monsters were actually some kind of big cats, most likely leopards or jaguars.

There was no time to think as the two groups clashed, blades striking against claws. Orena had already activated her skills and you could see small slashes randomly occurring in the space around her, as well as the fact that she had activated Dominance. And yet despite her skills, the jaguar still seemed unfazed as it fought with greater ferocity instead of retreating, growling loudly as it did so.

"Fortified guard" shouted Caleb as he slashed his brand new sword in the Jaguar, timing it just right so that he dodged its claws but still hit its skin. However, he found himself shocked in the next second as the sword got lodged in its flesh, the jaguar tightening its muscles surrounding the blade in order to catch him off guard. He was struck in the following moment but managed to come out largely unharmed due to his heavy armour, roaring as he pulled his sword out, coming face to face with the jaguar once more.

While the others had been unsheathing their weapons, Sil had been preparing her spells.

"Fire-bolt" said she as a bright bolt of compacted flames shot towards the incoming jaguar. Nevertheless, the Jaguar ran forwards as it went head-first against the fire-bolt, coming out of the clash with flames eating away at its hair.

"Wind's embrace" screamed Sil, caught a bit off guard as she realised how reckless these monsters were. The jaguar charging towards her was instantly lifted off the ground and held in the air, its struggles useless as the fire continued to burn its body. Despite the strength of this spell, it was also just as mana-heavy and thus Sil dropped it within the next second, ready with her next spell.

One has to remember that these 3 were 3 of the strongest, if not the strongest of Yora village. And yet the Jaguars were currently fighting them as equals, even though they were starting to lose their edge of surprise. This meant that these Jaguars were unnaturally strong, most likely between tier-two and three.

There were four jaguars, one for each human, almost as if they had decided that would be enough to kill them all off. The one charging towards Stanis was the strongest one, a 2-metre tall black jaguar with claw marks all over its body. It was the strongest of the four jaguars here not just because it was bigger, but also because it had a clearer sense of when to go in for a strike. And that time would be now as it saw that Stanis was distracted, his eyes wandering towards those damned spectres.

The scarred jaguar chose to bite instead of clawing and so it bit forwards, its gaping maw heading towards his head. It was when the crooked teeth were only centimetres away from his face that Stanis acted, his right fist moving with blinding speed as he upper-cut the jaguar.

You could see its eyes widen and its jaws close as it felt a dizzying force overwhelm its body. But it wasn't free just yet as a monstrous left arm homed in, whacking it across its front leg and causing it to go flying towards Sil.

The jaguar rushed to its feet after it crashed into the ground, only to find itself diving into the ground once more as it realised it couldn't even stand up…

"Hold that one" calmly said Stanis, finally being able to turn around as he confirmed his suspicions. Behind the group was a band of floating shrouds, shrieking eerily as they floated closer. They didn't move with blinding speed but still would be past all the trees and in the fight scene within about 10 seconds, meaning that the humans would quickly find themselves vastly outnumbered.

The worst thing about these shrouds was the fact how they didn't look real, rather ethereal as they floated in and out of the world, a toxic-yellow shine escaping their bodies. There were about 5 of these shrouds heading towards them. Stanis reclassified them as spectres as he stared at them, the spectres not armed to the teeth with claws or muscles, but still somehow managing to give off the same amount of danger with just their sets of drooping, floating shrouds…

If he had eyes on the back of his head, he would have noticed that both the other humans and Jaguars were getting panicky and on edge as they noticed the howling spectres, the Jaguars to the point that they were backing off…

It was as these spectres were just a few metres away that Stanis realised how mana-rich these monsters were, to the point that they were almost pure-mana constructs.

Sil was now irked enough by the situation she found herself in and also free enough to act due to the space given by the retreating jaguars that she could fire a spell, a fire-bolt piercing through the darkness as it shot towards the closest spectre.

"SHRRRRRRRKKKKKKKK" shrieked the spectre as it was struck, staring at Sil with its narrowed non-existent eyes.

What others had seen was the fire-bolt striking the spectre, which recoiled back in response before shrieking at Sil.

Stanis had seen the same fire-bolt striking the spectre, only his sensitivity to mana meant that he could see the inner happenings a lot clearer. The fire-bolt had basically been absorbed by the spectre's body, the fire-bolt putting up a good fight as it burned and caused havoc inside, before being drowned out in the next second by the amount of mana the spectre had.

This caused Stanis to narrow his eyes as he looked at the spectres now within sprinting distance.

"Blueshot spitfire" said he, a tinge of worry clear in his voice.

This was his first time using the skill and so the astonishment he felt was allowed, his outstretched arm tingling with prickles of pain as hundreds of small mana-bullets were released from it. These bullets then shot towards the spectres, their ferocity far higher than Sil's firebolt as they made quick work of the spectres, cutting hole after hole into the already-ripped shrouds…

Stanis found that he couldn't help but drop his jaw as he watched, his surprise clear as he saw the multiple spectres drop onto the ground, burning away at the mud and grass as their shrouds disintegrated. An acrid smell was all that was left of these harrowing monsters after a few seconds had passed.

"You… you…" muttered Sil, her voice wrought with shock as she struggled to speak.

Stanis had known his skill would be strong, after all, it was the skill of such an impressive sounding class, but for it to be this strong?

There was a new layer of respect as the others now talked to him, the power structure in the group redefined.

"Those Jaguars, they ran when they saw those spectres" said Caleb, rubbing his injured arm as he did so. Stanis used light healing on the party's wounds as they spoke.

"They were strong, I would say at least higher tier-twos" said Orena, her body largely uninjured but her spear coloured in blood.

"They weren't trying to kill us" responded Caleb, his expression thoughtful as he finished his sentence, "Just trying to injure our legs…"

From what he had seen, Stanis was now sure of what had happened.

"Those Jaguars are the ones that had been watching us all this time. They didn't make a move until those spectres moved in, and yet even then, they only tried to injure our legs and ran when the spectres got too close. Sounds like they were just trying to pit us against those wretched ghosts" said Stanis, his theory cutting most of the loose ends off.

Apart from the most important one that was...

"But why?" asked Sil, her voice more reverent and respectful as she spoke to Stanis.

"We'll figure that out as we go deeper" responded Stanis.

"You want to go deeper? I'm pretty sure there will be more than 4 jaguars if we keep going, you really want to push our luck?" cut in Caleb, his voice filled with worry as he spoke, now fully aware of how strong he was in the wider sense. He'd been beating the Jaguar he'd been pitted against but he also knew that that wouldn't be the case if he was against two jaguars, needless to talk about any more than that.

"It's fine; I'll handle it" said Stanis, the golden light escaping the horizon almost celebrating his transition into the limelight…