10 Surprise battle

Stanis could see the grey splodges-turned Wolves better after a few seconds. Doing a quick mental count, he counted around 60ish Wolves. Considering the fact that there were 5 teams from the tutorial here, he guessed that there was a bit less than 50 humans here.

That meant just a bit over one Wolf per person. However, the green splodges-turned Goblins then reminded him that this would be a lot harder than that, especially once you factored in the Goblin buffs and heals…

The Wolves were about 40 seconds away when people started to panic: a stampede of enemies charging at them made them momentarily forget the tutorial they had just been through. There was also the fact that the tutorial had only made them fight against small groups of enemies, not 60+ at once.

Thinking logically, this fight should still be fair due to Wolves' number advantage being cancelled out by Human's strength advantage. However, the factor that completely tipped this equilibrium on its head was the fact that the Wolves acted as a pack, whereas the Humans acted solitary with no bonds to the people around them.

This meant that each person felt as if they were fighting the Wolves all alone.

It was then that someone decided to take leadership, Stanis couldn't see him but he could hear his voice. It was the voice of a man, possibly in his early 30s to 40s. Then Stanis actually heard the words being shouted out, "ALL SHIELD BEARERS TO THE FRONT".

Stanis looked down his left arm, only to notice that his hand was still holding onto the strap connected to the leather shield. Never in his life had he felt so cold at a moment, despite the fact that he was still wearing a jumper and a coat and an armour on top…

Jayesh turned around to see Stanis in a half-stupor and decided to pat the boy on the back as he motioned for Stanis to follow him. Mind still half-absent, Stanis walked through the crowd as he made his way to the front. Along the way, he bumped into a few people who turned around in annoyance, although they let him go after seeing the shield in his hand.

Making their way to the front, Stanis saw that a line formation had already been made. It was currently made up of 8 or so men and 4 or so women.

Stanis and Jayesh joined onto the end, joining up shields in a row. Perhaps the only comfort Stanis got in such a situation was the fact that Jayesh had a large, wooden, rectangular tower-shield. This meant that the tower-shield heavily overlapped with his due to its size.

Stanis felt a push against his shoulder, to which he rotated his head only to see a girl his height next to him. She had a smallish leather, circular shield like his. Noticing his look, she turned around and gave him a weak smile before turning back forwards.

A few moments later, Stanis finally caught up to reality as he realised he was staring at this stranger girl, to which he too turned his head forwards, before attempting to focus on what was to come.

It was to his dismay that he realised he couldn't focus at all, instead all he could think about was the rumbling of the ground getting stronger as the Wolves got closer.

Now only 20 seconds away from impact, Stanis could finally see the Wolves with clarity. He could see their open maws housing rows of sharp knives, he could see the saliva dribbling through their mouths, he could see at how much force their legs were moving at as they began the final sprint.

And then he could feel his stomach turning, his skin shivering despite the numerous layers, and his knees feeling weak as if he would collapse any moment.

It was like a sea of grey as the waves of Wolves became the only thing in his vision. Soon the waves of howls also hit his eardrums, further forcing dread into his already fear-stricken mind. This was nothing like the Trials in the Tutorial; this was no simple step up in difficulty.

Jayesh had just managed to stabilise his breath as he turned around to look at Stanis. It was clear as to how fearful Stanis was in the moment, in fact, one could see that the axe and shield were inches away from falling out of his sweaty palms. In response, Jayesh took one deep breath before bellowing out with all his might,

"IMMMPACCCT!"

The sound seemed to hit Stanis like a truck as he subconsciously tightened all his muscles and the grip over his weapon. Jayesh's scream seemed to have a similar effect on everyone in the shield line, as the people behind could literally see them straighten up.

"AWWWWOOOOOO!"

The Wolf directly in front of Stanis buckled its hind legs, stretching its tendons to their limits as it leapt onto Stanis's shield. If Jayesh's scream felt like a truck, then this was an actual truck running him over. Using his shield simply as terrain, the Wolf vaulted into the struggle behind him.

Stanis, on the other hand, felt his knees completely buckle in, before breaking under pressure as his feet slipped, sending him sprawling to the ground.

*thump*

His collapse was grossly overshadowed by the events taking place around him. The second his body hit the ground was the second his mind gave up, losing all care about the world as he simply fainted.

"argh ha argh ha arhg"

However, there was no rest for the good…

He woke up gasping for breath as he felt the weight of a Wolf plummet onto his stomach. Above him, he could see a Grey Wolf, just as shocked as he was as it saw that the corpse was actually alive!

In anger, Stanis had no time to think as he forcefully slammed his wrist against the Wolf's neck. He would later wonder why his hand had gripped the axe so hard, despite fainting. Because instead of whacking his wrist against the Wolf's neck, he actually whacked the shield against its neck, breaking its bones in the process and causing instant death.

And yet the half-conscious man still got no applause for his kill, instead what he got was a spray of burning, crimson liquid that freefell onto his face from a nearby kill, followed by the Wolf collapsing on top of him. There wasn't much going through Stanis's mind at the moment, rather only two things: "Need air" and "Need to get out of here".

And so after a few seconds of heavy breathing, Stanis pushed over the dead Wolf before forcing himself up.

Like a Meerkat, he frantically looked around, hoping for some kind of safe spot somewhere. And to his luck he saw it, Orena. The African Demoness in human form would have usually acted as an incentive for him to run in the opposite direction, but now he was attracted to her like a fly to light. He pushed his way through the sea of corpses as he made his way over to her.

On the way, he found countless Wolves and Humans, half-dead on the ground. Despite the danger he was in, his kindness still made it so that he would swing his axe against their necks. Well, kindness and large amounts of untargeted anger.

If he was to waddle through the battlefield in the heat of it, he would have been picked off within seconds and re-sent sprawling to the ground, only this time with a broken neck. However, the fight was already closing to its end, despite having only started about a minute ago.

Now there were only small groups of stray Wolves collectively fighting stronghouses such as Orena.

Around half of the Wolves on the ground were already dead, whereas the other half was awaiting it. And so it was all to Stanis's benefit as he cut through lives while slowly waddling through: his victims all defenceless on their deathbeds.

Around 10 minutes later but an eternity for Stanis, he finally made his way to the beacon called Orena, before glancing up pleadingly.

Orena had just finished up, as on the ground around her lay 8 corpses. She then noticed the crawling, bloody Stanis erupt from the corpses, just a metre away from her. This time she didn't do her signature tinkle of laughter, instead, she just looked at Stanis before saying in a weary voice,

"Boy, you are still far too weak. How will you survive here?" It was to be noted that both of them were delirious by now, and neither cared at what she was saying.

In fact Orena wasn't even facing Stanis as she talked to him, instead, she was looking into the distance, towards where the Forest was. Stanis, following her eyesight, turned around as well, only to notice his vision was all blurry. He then proceeded to rub it for a while before he tried again, this time squinting as hard as he could.

In the distance, he could see the European man from the final trial, the sole survivor from the other team. The man had within his grip a long, double-handed sword that he controlled like it was paper. Stanis couldn't hear the screams, but he could barely see the terrified expressions on the Goblin Shamans as they attempted to run away from him. But to no luck.

Instead, the man committed carnage, mass murder within moments as his blade went from one Goblin to another, create macabre art everywhere he stepped. Stanis was entranced by it, unable to take his eyes away as he watched. If he could, he would have watched even more, but his lethargy caught up to his body as it realised he was in a safe place.

*thump*

His body hit the floor, collapsed but not dead. At least not yet…