Dispair Loomes Above

Ellis quickly responded by unsheathing her sword to parry one of them while she used the sheath itself to block another, sadly she wasn't able to block the third cat who was able to slice into her leg

That was the last of her worry though as the other two cats circled around her to attack from behind

'Not this time!'

She had learned from the battle with the many rats to always pay attention to her back, so by the time they were at her back she was ready for them

"Ha!"

With a sudden burst of power, she pushed away the two cats at the front and did a backflip avoiding the ones at the back, at the same time lodging her sword into the neck of one of them while leveraging the other for another push to make distance

The two cats, one dead and another pushed down crashed into the others allowing Ellis some time to adjust her posture after landing

'Four cats, still a struggle'

She thought while she looked at her legs, while she had exchanged an injury for a kill it wasn't good enough, after all, it would take quite the time to heal and accumulating many of them might cause her to lose the ability to fight, plus YuJu's words were still ringing in her ears, who knew how many beasts she had to fight this time?

Thus she had to minimize injuries

When she saw the cats were charging at her again she didn't attack back, instead, she sheathed her blade and grabbed the hilt while bending her back forward, it was a sign of her using her first skill, Battle Stance

Battle Stance was a skill that revolved around maximizing the benefits of one stance while ignoring the rest, if you take an attacking stance then your sacrificing defence, if you take a parrying stance you're sacrificing counter-attacking, and if you take a counter-attack stance you sacrifice the follow-up attacks and defence

What Ellis chose to do at this point was simple, she was going to counter-attack

Why would she do that and leave herself open? Well, that's simple, who can attack her when everyone was dead?

Two cats pounced at her from the front while the other two came at her from the side, but she stood still

"Meww!"

The cats thought she was frozen in fear and mewled at her when their claws were almost at her throat

At that exact moment her sword flashed, tipping each of their claws before sliding to the next one, in one second all their claws were repelled and they were tipped over exposing their bellies, but her sword wasn't satisfied as it was reversed after the swing and slashed back gutting open the cat's stomachs

the whole process barely took two seconds, and the four cats lay dead at her feet

"?"

Ellis was overwhelmed by her power, she merely acted on her instincts when she took the battle stance but the result was unimaginable, but so was the after effect as a wave of dizziness washed over her almost making her drop to her knees

"Miss Ellis! Are you okay? Were here to sa-"

Suddenly she heard a man's voice from the street, whos words seemed to be clogged up halfway into his speech

Turning around she saw six people, they were the five class holders and Harry at the lead who all shared the same expression of extreme shock and horror, their eyes kept wandering from the dead cats to Ellis then back at the cats

"...Y-you killed them all on your own?"

Mia was the first to wake up from shock whilst exclaiming loudly, recovering the rest from shock as well

The group then neared Ellis while praising her

"Young lady your really something else, to think you can kill all these beasts by yourself, you sure are amazing"

"Yeah, I can't even fight one or to of them on my own, but you just sliced through them like butter"

Harry was the one with the biggest smile

"Miss Ellis I must say you are quite the remarkable young lady, your talent would certainly be of great help if you join us, I really think you should join us"

Ellis was about to refuse him when John cut in

"RIght where is that kid that was with you? Did he run away? Haha, that coward, you shouldn't entangle yourself with such spinless people"

Harry smiled at Johns words and was about to back him up when they all saw Ellis's wrathful eyes, shifting the atmosphere into silence

"Awoooo!"

But the silence was short-lived as a howl pierced through the air, alerting everyone of the danger nearby

"Miss Ellis it seems that the beasts are close, maybe we should continue this talk at the bank?"

HE didn't receive a reply though as Ellis was looking behind them, the rest looked back and they froze, from the alleyway where they came from several hounds emerged, drool dropping down their open maws as they gazed at the group with clear hunger

"Rargh" "Woof!"

The ten something hounds charged at the witless group, keen on taking a bite from their flesh

"Z-Zachary take the front! Mia too, we will take the back, Miss Ellis plea-"

Ellis didn't wait to listen to Harry and plunged into battle with the hounds, taking the burnt of the battle, Zhachery and Mia also took two and one hounds respectively, John Clark and Sofia started raining down bullets at the hounds, some bullets hit but most of them missed their target, and even those that hit were only body wounds, something that the hounds could still move about with though with difficulty

"Harry! Join the fight too!"

Sofia yelled seeing Ellis barraged by so many hounds

"Y-y-yah!"

Harry stuttered before taking on one hound while holding his plain sword

'This is easier than I thought'

Thought Ellis, while it looked like she was struggling on the outside she was actually doing great, so far she hadn't been injured once thanks to the barrage of bullets restraining the hounds, and with them having a difficult time moving and limited space to attack her she actually had the upper hand

'As I thought to fight with numbers is the best way to get stronger quickly, I have to convince him to stay'

She thought as she sliced yet another hound

Two minutes into the fight a clear difference could be seen between the two groups ability as the humans gained a larger advantage as more hounds fell, even Harry was now smiling ear to ear

"Push them back, and don't let anyone of them escape"

He yelled as he tried to take back command over the fight while thinking of the glorious days ahead

"Squee! Squee!!" "Squee!"

Suddenly squeaks were heard from behind them, and when the group turned around they fell into despair seeing over twenty rats approaching them with madness and rage

"D-dammit! Why did they come now! Fuck!"

John turned around in a rage and started to shoot at the rats randomly, still many bullets hit as their sheer number made them hard to miss, and his bullets were much more disabling to the rats than the hounds, some even died with one shot

Seeing this the rest of the long-ranged attackers focused on the back leaving Ellis to finish off the hounds

"Harry block the rats!"

Sofia ordered the clearly shaking Harry who seemed to have lost all will to fight

"...okay!"

He still decided to go through grit teeth, the rats were already dwindling in numbers as they rushed maybe he didn't have to do much other than fight one or two

sadly his dreams weren't realized as by the time the rats made it within melee range there were still about seven of them left

Seeing that he might actually get injured or killed even if he fought that many he moved to the side, standing in front of three rats, allowing the other four to slip past his guard

"Dammit, Harry why would you let the rats in!"

"Fuck!"

John and Clark cursed in anger as they ran toward the other melee fighters, but thankfully Zachary was there to cover for them as he took on the four rats with his already battered body, as he is nothing but his hands to fight he was almost the most pitiful one in the group, right after Mia that is, she had to fight hounds with a small knife and her body wasn't as tough as Zachary

"Urgh!"

Zachary groaned as a rat bit into his hands, their small bodies allowed them to avoid his short-ranged fists and sneak in bits every two attacks, rendering him full of wounds

The four rats kept scurrying about his body that they made hard targets for the ranged ones to hit as they might shoot Zachary instead

Seeing as he was in a tight spot he allowed a rat to bite into his chest and used the opportunity to kick another into the sky

"Shoot it!"

Before his words fell three gunshots were heard turning the rat into Emmental cheese

Happy that his method worked he decided to use it again as he allowed one rat to bite at him while kicking up two this time sending them into a flair of bullets

"You're the man Zach! One more!"

Clark happily said as he looked onto Zachary for the last rat, only to see him clutching his fountain of a neck, while the last rat who had a mouthful of Zachary's neck was checking it by the side

"Bleergh"

"You filth!"

Clark threw up while John yelled in anger as he shot the rat into bits and pieces of flesh, emptying a full clip of bullets on it

The none stop gunshots brought everyone's attention to the dying Zachary, each his own expression

"Don't fall into despair! We almost killed them all! Now help me with these rats"

Harry cut into the atmosphere with his cold words, earning a deadly glare from all hos teammates as they blamed his cowardness for Zachary's death

"Fuck Harry, if you didn't let them in Zachary wouldn't be dead!"

John said while reloading his last clip of bullets, before shooting at one rat who wasn't too close to Harry

"We shouldn't fight among each other now! Let's kill the beasts first"

The others grunted but had to help him, after all, they were in this together

"Sque!" "Sque!" "Squee!" "Sque!"

Suddenly tens of soft sounds were heard, followed by a light fluttering sound

This time it wasn't only humans who looked up, the dogs and even last two rats looked up to see a black cloud descending upon them, filling with red gleams that brought a shiver down one's spine

"What in hell is that"

One could only call out in fear as they saw well over a hundred bats descend on them with thirsty squeals

"No, I don't want to die ah,ahhhh!"

Hary suddenly darted into an alleyway screaming in fear as he ran for his dear life

"Harry get back here you fucking coward!"

John yelled but his finger didn't stop pulling the trigger, every bullet bringing one bat to the ground

Sofia and Clark also let loose a barrage of bullets on the bats, the rats that were coming had chosen to scurry away seeing this death cloud looming above them, even the hounds wanted to run but that only gave Ellis the opportunity to make short work of them before preparing for the bats decent

'Where is he'

She thought before taking an attack stance, followed by a flurry of sword strikes that left even the strongest swordsman before the apocalypse in despair