Lesser Flame Hounds (2)

'Shit!' he cursed as the arrow flew a decent bit past the hound he had aimed for. It crashed harmlessly into the solid rock of the caverns, then fell to the ground.

This gave his multiple opponents time to work.

He reeled back as a flame-coated claw crashed into his chest. It was a bit too close for comfort. A small thin line tore into his brown cotton clothes, just an inch shy of reaching into and scalding his skin, but it did do a decent number on his garments, burning them even more.

Another hound closed in on his side, this time around, exploding into a thousand embers. 

He hurriedly delivered a flying kick into the beast's jaw, and the flames were put out instantly. Taking that opportunity, he grasped it by the neck and snapped it without wasting any more time.

That was his first kill and boy, did it feel good.

If there was something he had, it was insane physical strength. He hadn't even been applying half of his strength when he broke the hound's neck like that. Coupled with the fact that the hounds were predictable, it completely removed the need to use all the abilities at his disposal.

Something he was sure that Clyde and Andy weren't used to. A month was more than enough time to build up those reliant qualities. None of which he had developed after a single night.

Melchior grinned. All this was fun and all, but his goal lay in front. That large hound. These smaller ones weren't enough to satiate the new fire within him.

If he wanted to get to the beast, he would need to completely ditch this irritating wave of beasts.

He jolted into action and grasped another arrow again, tucking it into the string, and drawing. The previous mistake didn't happen, and the arrow zipped forward rapidly, lodging itself into a beast's head.

It let out a small yelp, not quite dead. Then, Melchior punted the creature forward, straight into the crowd of its brethren and killing it once and for all.

'I have to conserve my arrows for the final fight,'

Perhaps an oversight on his part, but he hadn't realized the implications of picking a bow and arrow earlier on. Not that he regretted it. The result would be near the same with any weapon he chose, since the original Melchior had nearly the same level of mastery with all of them.

Melchior took a step back, hoping to put some distance between himself and the opponents. A claw swiped forward, igniting with red hot flames.

He jumped over it easily and landed on the hound's head with just enough force to kill it.

A sticky liquid covered a decent bit of his legs, making him grimace.

"Ew,

He grabbed hold of the bow once more and picked two arrows this time, shooting them forward with seemingly no regard.

The two projectiles zoomed forward in between the heat and the flames, catching fire right at the tips before inserting themselves into the skulls of two more unfortunate hounds. 

"AOOOOOO~!"

They yelped loudly, causing a brief disruption on the battlefield.

That short interruption allowed Mel to retreat a considerable distance away from the perimeter where the dozens of hounds waited.

The boy jumped atop a tree to assess the situation from there. It was far more difficult to fight without any abilities at all, and that was coming from someone who had only obtained abilities a few hours before. What about people who had grown accustomed to relying so much on their abilities?

Clyde and Andy struggled, although not as much as before. Both boys swung, kicked, jabbed, and annihilated as many hounds as they could. Their unpreparedness had caught up to them. They could no longer escape the encirclement.

Melchior shook his head to focus on the scene in front of him.

"Okay, so, it looks like this isn't as much of a game as I thought," he muttered.

"This Finality, or whatever it's called, doesn't award experience points for killing opponents, nor does it even acknowledge it with those screens. So that eliminates any hope I had for some random level-up upgrade. This is down to me alone."

But anything could be accomplished, especially with his intelligence.

40 hounds left, excluding the biggest. And only three of them were there to deal with it.

Mel took a glance into his quiver. There were only about twenty more arrows there. So twenty out of forty beasts killed would still leave half of them remaining. That wouldn't do.

Fighting the hounds completely barehanded was a suicide mission. They could spontaneously combust at any given second and take off his hand just like that. There were better solutions to this.

And after a bit more thinking, he had figured out a decent answer to all his problems.

"The enemy of an enemy is my friend."

He leapt across the treetops until he landed on a spot that was close enough to Clyde and Andy's never-ending battles.

Then, he grabbed five arrows and fired after them in quick succession. Three of them hit the bullseye, the others turned to charred wood before they could connect. But those three successfully changed the tide of the battle.

Andy raised an angry fist into the air, and then roared, bringing it down on a nearby hound.

BANG~!

He grabbed the body of that hound and used it to sweep clean another four into oblivion. 

'He wields an insane amount of strength. Nearly as much as me despite the boost I receive from Damjan and Tirun,'

Mel had expected them to continue attacking but luckily the duo weren't as dumb as they had seemed initially.

They took the time to get up and escape quickly, leaving the dwindling perimeter of hounds. Then 40, now 32.

Melchior waited atop the tree for them to get to him, and as he had expected, they wasted no time talking and went straight to action.

"Why did you help us?" Andy glared.

Mel grinned. "Is it not obvious? You scratch your back, I scratch yours."

"Foolish." Andy scoffed. "If that's what you wanted, you're down five arrows for nothing."

"Hey, don't be so quick to dismiss it, now. Wouldn't want the council hearing what happened the other night, would we?"

They froze straight in their tracks. The outcome had been decided then and there.

"Good. Now, listen to the plan and follow my every instruction carefully."