193 Don’t Let Them Leave

"What are we going to do? There are so many beasts."

That was a complicated question. If we manage to hold them back in the place we were before, it would be the best, but with this number of enemies is it possible? Maybe with resonance but if we don't achieve it, we are going to be in a dire situation.

Options…

Go back and reinforce the west wall and pray that the other invasion doesn't happen until this one is over.

Go back to the place I was previously and try to hold them there, in the meantime they can reinforce the west wall if that doesn't work.

Stay here and find a way to stop them from leaving.

As I considered the pros and cons of every option, Dante came with bad news.

'Spence~, Rose saw the scouts coming from the east~, the invasion started already, and she thinks that they will arrive in about three hours~.'

This is bad. This pushed me directly to the option three… I have to find a way to stop them from even leaving this place. I can't just depend on the possibility of achieving resonance.

Traps?

I looked around, it wasn't a bad idea, doing something like the explosion in the NDR base. I don't think something like this will burn the whole forest with the high humidity or be near enough to kill all the beast.

Maybe I don't need to kill them.

Trapping them here is enough. But if I do that I'll be stuck here too.

The part near to the city was drier and leafier than this area, it could be enough to make a fire barrier, that way at least they are not going to be able to leave this place, and in the worst case, I will delay their arrival to Green Shelter in a couple of hours.

I looked at my system points. 230…

Can I pull off something like that?

I can make it the plan B if the Resonance with Dante doesn't work… for that, I need Dante to come here. That would mean leaving Green Shelter without the means to communicate.

'Don't worry I already talked with Rose~. She told Dr. Harting that I was leaving the area~ and won't be able to help them.'

'Thanks, how are they handling it?'

'They are reinforcing the east wall and laying traps to help in the defense~.'

'No chances of reinforcing the west then?'

'No~. They are going to put all their efforts on the east, the west is ours to handle.'

'So… we have no choice, we have to try it here.'

'Unless you have a better plan~.'

I didn't, burning down the forest was a plan B, and it wasn't going to be a definitive solution unless it kills almost all the beast. It might stop them if I manage to kill the Alpha though.

"What are we doing?"

Stan was at my side, even if he was usually goofing around, he can see the big problem that was in the front of us, he wasn't sure if Green Shelter had enough people to handle this number of beasts… and this is supposed to be only one of the two invasions that were going to happen. We needed to get ready for the worst case scenario.

"We prepare plan B again. Come with me."

Stan was clueless about what was plan B, but he followed me anyway.

I thought about giving the fuel to Stan, that way he would help with it, and we would spread it faster, but I had to discard that idea, I don't know what would happen with my system points if someone else lays the trap and kills the beasts, even if it's my idea and my fuel.

We moved back, to a place near to the edge of the forest. Before throwing fuel around blindly, I needed to have an idea about the layout of the woods so I could find the right place to start the fire. It took a while to understand it everything looked the same as I tried to move as fast as I could without calling the attention of the other beasts.

I started to spread a liquid and some small silver balls as I took them out of my pouch. The fluid would create a connection between the trees to make the fire spread faster, I also covered with fuel some of the trees. The most important part of this plan was the starting point, in the end, I chose a place far from the swamp which was drier than the rest. In this area, there were a lot of dead trees, and they would catch fire faster than the others …

It wasn't the best starting point for the fire, but it was the place that was most likely to be burnt. I moved after that and spread some extra fuel in some trees that I thought it would be important for this plan to work.

100 points left.

Two hours went by preparing this.

Dante arrived a while ago and was keeping an eye on the beasts. Their numbers were nearing the thousand, and they were still coming, there were no signs of the Alpha in the group yet, but the number of stronger beasts and semi-beasts has increased, besides half humans, there were new species, hybrids a snake-toad, a lizard with a snake instead of a tongue and so on. Those were going to be tricky to fight because of their bizarre mix of abilities.

"How much are we going to wait?"

"Give me a minute."

Is this one of those cases the sooner, the better? If we wait, there might be too many beasts to handle, but if we start now, we will call the attention of all of them right away and may even force them to launch the attack right now.

I gazed at the beasts, using aura view became difficult because of the increase in the number of auras, I had to limit what I can see and was forced to focus on small areas and rest a little in between each analysis. He wanted to understand as much as possible of the enemies before starting the attack

The only good side of this situation was that he was getting a lot of data for his forced evolution theory, a sample of thousand beasts was good to assign rates of appearance of specific mutations.

About a third of the beasts present were normal beasts without any kind of improvements, this was already different from the humans, in humans the rate of appearance of abilities was lower than that.

9 out of ten beasts had an improvement related to their physical abilities these in the form of an enhancement or a characteristic from other species, for example, the spitting ability from other snake species, the others obtained a different skill. One in a hundred got characteristics from other species, semi-humans or hybrids, these ones also happen to be most likely D-Ranks too.

At least in this group, it was like this.

"What are we doing now?"

Stan at my side has been acting a lot more composed than before, he isn't asking stupid questions or talking nonstop. He knew that this was a dangerous situation and acted according to that.

"I'm not sure…"

I looked at Dante, it would be a lot better to have this conversation telepathically, but since Stan couldn't be targeted Dante couldn't connect with his mind to talk.

Beast kept moving in this direction.

'Dante, are all the beasts from the swamp moving this way?'

'Yes, I can feel the Alpha is near too.'

My six sense was also telling me that the Alpha was most likely going to arrive I have been feeling this presence since the morning and it only grew since I came into the forest, the moment that happens it would be useless to try something else. If I start now at least, I will have the chance to use my ability on the others without the Alpha's interference.

"Stan the moment I tell you to run… you run and set the forest on fire… are we clear?"

I gave him a lighter for that.

"And leave you here?"

"I can handle myself here, but if this doesn't work, we need to stop them from attacking Green Shelter."

Stan seemed reluctant to do it, but after a few seconds, he nodded.

"Okay, but only if it's our last option. I don't want to go and console people because you're dead."

I got shivers on my back at that thought… I definitely can't die here.

"Stay near me and kill the beasts that get too close…"

He nodded again and kept guard at my side.

I took a deep breath, this time I had to go all out. I couldn't fight as I did before, the fear attack had to be constant to have the effect we expected from it, so I could move around while whistling.

I just hope this works.

*Whistle~~