The World Book

The group formed up together, forming a circle, all looking outwards. Their weapons were at the ready, some ready to swing.

The figures finally spawned, landing on the ground. All wearing different attires, but still recognizable to Colton to know what they were.

Bandits, shackled prisoners, soldiers, two mages, deserters, and the guards.

All the group members were in shock, but an idea sprung up into Calliope's mind.

"The attack types." She spoke.

"What about em?!" Marcus yelled back. The situation was getting more dire as some of them began walking towards the group.

"We can beat them easily, we just need to pick who is weak to our weapons. You remember your weapon types right?" Everyone replied quickly to her.

"Good, pick out the targets, they're almost the same as the ones before. Prepare to fight."

As Calliope finished explaining, Colton realized. One of the enemies was a group of military deserters, wearing almost similar outfits to the one he fought before.

A plan quickly started forming, he will focus on the deserters first.

"Alright, I think that's all of them out of the books, our objective now is to kill them all and protect the clerics. Kill them as fast as possible!" In a moment, the entire group dispersed, all running at different groups of enemies.

Colton rushed straight towards the group of deserters. They carried short swords and chainmail armor, all muttering like the one before.

"I'll prove my worth! I swear I'm not a coward!" One of them shouted, immediately running towards Colton.

He raised his hammer, and swung at the man's side as he got close. Throwing him down on the floor. The others looked at Colton with a brief look of hesitation, before charging in as well, all at once with their swords raised, ready to strike.

'Shouldn't be any different from prison riots.' Colton thought to himself.

With the knowledge from the pages, Colton felt himself fight like a different person, each swing was quick and each step almost felt like instinct, leaving no time for them to even land a blow as he continued taking out the enemies one by one, some managed to get up, shouting incoherently.

The memories of a riot from his dungeon filled his mind, the fight now heavily reminding him of it, how he managed to defeat them, and how his style now almost mirrored what he had done in the riot.

He felt more agile, and spotted their attacks faster than normal.

As more began to fall and disappear, the fear in him started burning away, being replaced by determination.

The battle raged on, and he realized they were now closer than before, although injured from his previous attacks, they continued fighting. He parried and deflected each strike, following them up with a shove from his weapon, pushing them away from him.

One by one their bodies vanished into nothing once they fell for good.

Throughout all this, he barely broke a sweat, he was confused, but kept his concentration on the remaining four deserters in front.

Next to him, he saw Marcus slashing at the soldiers, taking a few hits and cuts but kept on going, each body was left with long slash wounds before vanishing, completely tearing through their armor.

"I feel like a whole new person! What the hell is this about?" Marcus yelled, also feeling the knowledge and techniques from the page he was given before, being used in the fight. His reckless fighting style was quicker and more violent. He let out a short maniacal laugh as he took down more of the soldiers around him.

Taking down a few more of the deserters, Colton caught a glance of Quill, quickly running around as she launched arrow after arrow in rapid succession at a group of bandits, desperately trying to catch her with their short blades.

Quill ran around like a rabbit, constantly keeping distance from the enemy, like a rabbit evading wolves. Each arrow struck one of the bandits, some fell while the others were only injured.

"These guys are far slower than bears, barely breaking a sweat!" She taunted them.

Her fighting style had changed, acting less like a stalking hunter from before, waiting from a distance and picking off targets. Now she fought close to the enemy, her arrows flew faster than before, he also noticed that each arrow was buried in a vital part of their bodies, the heart, the lungs, or the head.

With a few more swings, the last of the deserter group vanished on the ground. Leaving Colton to witness his other teammates, picking who to aid next to finish the fight already.

Celestine was preoccupied with the two mages, striking at each one like she was dancing, alternating between the two and dodging gusts of wind from the two mages with grace. She looked more confident with her fight, no longer carrying a face of fear.

After a few more hits, one of the mages went down, leaving only one more, the desperation in the mage showed as the gusts of wind intensified, trying to hit Celestine at least once.

Colton turned to the last group, Calliope was facing the 6 knights on her own, swinging and parrying them. But she was heavily outnumbered and against supposedly powerful knights, he rushed to join her.

"Take 3 of them, I'll take the rest." She ordered Colton. Without waiting for a response, she ran towards three knights in front of her, swinging at them and fighting with a balance of strength and speed.

'I never fought a knight before.' Colton thought to himself, three knights stared him down, their armor shone brightly, with some glints of gold on different parts of their armor, their swords were decorated as well.

'Hope this thing can do some damage.' Although reluctant, the courage he felt earlier pushed him on, he started charging straight towards the three. He swung and parried their sword strikes.

But they were much stronger than Colton, any attempt to parry was met with him being forced backwards, Colton attempted to think up a new plan while trying to keep them at bay.

'I need to just strike them instead, not defend.' He rapidly changed his style of combat, from a defensive style to an aggressive offensive style as he began walking forward while swinging his hammer with great speed, trying to bash different parts of the knights, unrelenting.

As the hammer smashed into their armor, it only did minor damage to it, but Colton could see that they were starting to mumble through their helmets.

After each swing, he felt the impact of the hammer had gotten stronger and stronger, he felt assured, swinging faster with little to no fear on his face.

From the lack of defense though, the knights managed to land a few hits on him. With each strike from their swords, Colton felt his mind become more cloudy, his focus began going away. No matter how much he tried, he only felt more confused as they struck him more. But he kept fighting.

After one too many hits, one of the knights fell with a heavy thump as his metal armor banged on the wooden floor, vanishing quickly after.

With 2 left, Colton became more relentless, with his mind more cloudy than ever, he was unsure if he was fighting with technique or fighting with blind swinging. But as long as the enemy fell, he continued on.

Calliope continued fighting on her own, focusing on precision strikes on any unarmored parts on the knights, weakening them until she could deliver a final swing.

As the battle went on, Colton noticed that the clerics were both standing behind some of the others in the group, their staffs glowed while they heal any wounds on them, although in the heat of battle and fearing their lives, they wanted to help.

Colton swung his hammer one more time at the last knight, he was speaking incoherently before the hammer hit his head, bringing him down.

Calliope finished off her last enemy with a slash to the chest and neck, swinging in quick succession.

The battle slowly came to an end as the last of the spirits vanished. Everyone started breathing heavily, exhausted. Many of them were shocked by how they fought, Celestine looked at her blade like she was possessed by it.

Everyone was busy resting after the battle, Calliope though approached the massive book again, to Colton's shock, the six books next to it were all gone.

Minutes later, Clarissa came to his aid, healing his mind and body from the fight. He slowly felt his mind becoming more clear again.

Once everyone was healed and the Clerics were exhausted again, Calliope stepped away from the book.

The book suddenly opened, surprising everyone. The text in it was large but still unreadable to Colton.

Before they knew it, they were sent through the portal. All Colton could see was purple, feeling the same relief from the portal he used to enter the library.