Stampede

"Dammit this tower is really bugged!"

Haruto cursed out loud as the rumbling sounds getting closer.

"W-What's happening?" Asami asked, puzzled.

"There's a horde of monsters incoming right now, as for the number I'm not really sure but at least it shouldn't be less than a thousand."

"A thousand!!"

The others couldn't help but screamed in shock. A thousand monsters are no joke not to mention they're already tired. If it's for Haruto and Kaori perhaps they could survive such numbers but not them, even defeating a few still needs a lot of efforts and now there's a thousand incoming?

This kind of accidents indeed happened occasionally as one of Tartarus' gimmicks. Unfortunately, they came at the wrong time when they're about to quit exploring. Haruto could imagine the villainous laugh of Tartarus right now as it enjoyed their panic.

"W-We should run now..." Fia said shivering.

"I really like to but there's no teleport device right here and..." Haruto sighed as he looked at his surroundings.

This is an open hall as the center of an intersection. That means there's passageways from four directions to which the monsters will came from, right now they're already rats in a cage with no escape without fighting.

The strength of the monsters were mixied between peak High and lower General rank with the General rank as the majority. Haruto laughed bitterly at this when he received the info from Elsie, the bad situation just gotten even worse.

The problem was not him, it was his companions. General rank is still out of their reach and to protect them all from this number of monsters at all direction is incredibly hard. There's only two people capable of fighting them here and there's four directions.

Furthermore, Kaori could indeed fight with General rank but she absolutely needed Limit Break when she fought against numerous enemies like this and Limit Break could only hold for at least fifteen minutes before entering cooldown state. He didn't know whether the fight would be over at that time or not, what if the monsters were a lot more than a thousand?

In any case they must try their best now. The girls just now realized why people avoided exploring Tartarus starting from the 2nd Block, unless you're a mighty powerhouse you could die easily here. Even if they wanted to at least they would choose to explore during a full moon when the labyrinth was a lot more stable with stronger monsters. It still worth it as the most dangerous one is the anomalies.

"Kaori, you took on the opposite side of me. The others please stick close to us and never moved outside our range of protection, just deal with the enemies if they're at a close range. I leave the barriers to you Kaori."

"Alright."

The others nodded too and took out their respective weapons as they moved according the formation. Haruto was on the right with Kaori on the left, the other girls stood right in the middle making a small circle whole protecting Asami inside the circle. She's not a close combatant that's why her position was tightly guarded. Their atmosphere was extremely tense right now as the monsters kept approaching their location.

"This reminds me of a castle defense game." Haruto commented.

"Hmph, is it your favorite genre too?" Asami humphed.

"It WAS. Now I despise it. If I can go back to my room in Japan I'll make sure to burn them all." Haruto smiled bitterly.

"I'll help you with that." She agreed.

"They're coming!!" Selianna shouted.

*WAAAAA*

A very loud roars coming from the countless number of monsters resounded as their figures appeared from the passageways. From the black wave formed by the numerous monsters, it could be seen just how much their numbers were.

At this moment Haruto widened his eyes fiercely as he transformed into Super Saiyan. Within the same time, he thrusted both his hands forward with Kaori doing a similar thing on the other side.

"Kamehameha!"

"Extinction Ray!"

Both of them unleashed their respective attacks. Haruto released a large blue energy wave while Kaori shot out a large silver beam formed from the condensation of Disintegration magic she charged during the waiting time.

*BOOOOMMMM*

A horrifying and tremendous sound was produced by the two earth-shattering explosions of which a single one of them was capable of destroying a single city in an instant.

No one knows how many monsters were killed by the destructive attacks, the weaker ones were destroyed right away when the beam struck, perhaps it travelled more than a few hundreds of meters before exploding.

The two passageways on the west and east were emptied and wouldn't be filled with monsters for awhile. During this time, a the wave from the north and south were rushing violently. It was very amazing that the walls and floors of the labyrinth was not scratched even a bit from the explosions. Perhaps there's a powerful barrier on them or the materials were extraordinarily hard, or maybe it was both. Makes sense as otherwise the explorers could just smashed the walls while they were exploring.

Without saying anything, Haruto immediately took the north position while Kaori switched to south. It's impossible to charge a similar powerful attack within a short time that's why they fired a barrage of long range attacks on them.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

"Wha?"

Haruto and Kaori were dumbfounded when they found their attacks were blocked by a gigantic magical barriers surrounding the monsters.

"I see, there must be a lot of spellcasters mixing in there!" Kaori gritted her teeth as she realized the cause.

"No wonder, a single monster casting a barrier wouldn't hold a second against our attacks but if there dozens or hundreds of them joining together then of course it's a different story. Before, we managed to catch them off guard but they're fully prepared now. " Haruto clicked his tongue.

"My attacks are more effective because of the corrosive attribute but it still difficult to pierce through such a solid defense." Kaori narrowed her eyes.

"Watch out, they're casting spells!!" Rikka screamed.

The barriers were dispelled and a ton of various elemental magics came like a rain brightening the surroundings. From giant fireballs, thunderbolts, wind blades, ice and rock spikes, they were all coming with the intent of taking their lives. The scene was exactly like a natural disaster.

"Uh!"

Kaori hastily put on a spherical barrier enveloping the group. The spells were hitting and exploded as they rammed on the magical shield.

Three seconds, five seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds, forty seconds, a minute, two minutes....

The rain of spells kept storming endlessly like mad. The barrier around them were trembling heavily as it defended the flurry of spells without resting.

Before long the barrier itself began fluctuating as cracks appeared all over the place. Haruto already secretly pouring his energy right behind Kaori's barrier in case it wouldn't hold with Asami doing a similar thing. Her barrier is far from Kaori's level but at least it should help a bit.

Fortunately the spells stopped the moment the barrier collapsed. But at this time the monsters charged forward ferociously startling the party. Waves of powerful monsters aimed their fangs and weapons clad with indigo colored demonic energy creating ripples on the air, without doubt a single solid strike contained a tremendous force. Their yellow eyes glowed bright as they launched full of vigor to rip their targets apart.

They engaged in a close quarter combat with Kaori and Haruto desperately protecting their comrades by this time Kaori had used Limit Break to increase her power. Still, a few managed to slip through and attacked the weaker group so they had to defend against the onslaught.

Selianna released a storm of flower petals from her sword to help protect the others. They were swirling violently around the group like a small vortex as they damage everything in contact.

"Ah..!"

"Rikka?!"

A big shadow tiger monster landed a hit on Rikka's shoulder with its claw dealing a deep wound. They already done their best but the monsters kept coming without end. Kaori cast healing magic swiftly while still handling the horde of monsters ahead.

Haruto gnashed his teeth in anger as he raised his power to the next level. As a result he could kill monsters easier and faster, lighting up the burden on his group.

But it only last for a few moments as the group from the west and south started to appear again increasing the difficulty by twice the amount.

"Ugh, at this rate, we wouldn't hold..!"

Haruto could feel his energy draining like mad once he went Super Saiyan 2. Tartarus made him get tired a lot quicker than usual not to mention their current desperate state made it even worse.

Kaori didn't have a problem with her black sword that have ability to drain energy from her enemies but she didn't have time to share her energy on Haruto as she was busy on fighting.

"We're lacking people." She commented while beheading another monster.

Haruto couldn't help but nod at her statement, showing his agreement. Just the two of them are not enough to protect all the weaker group.

At this moment Asami's ears perked up as her eyes glimmered with an idea formed in her head.

"Right, if we lack helpers then we should just call for one..."