Withdrawal?

Even if these beasts were weak, some people had a lot of troubles and had to gang on them to be able to kill them. If the real beasts joined this would become a big problem. From the six teams that were currently fighting with G and me, I could count about 4 people that could hold on their own. That was without counting the goons that were more like support golems than real fighters.

When I got here G was absorbing most of the pressure, luckily his hunting suit was different from mine and was made to provide higher defenses, it was a little stiff which make him move slower, but that wasn't a problem for G's battle style.

If it wasn't for G and that hammer, the beasts might have already overrun the entire formation, now that I was here too, he could fight a little more easily, and he wasn't shining as bright as before. The formation was slowly stabilizing. I don't know why I found that light being so annoying but I'm pretty sure that he was doing it unpurpose before, it was an effective way to accumulate hate to taunt the beast.

Despite the glow fading G's strength seemed to stay the same as before, that reminds me that I had the leader aura that probably was giving him some bonus now that we were fighting. Unfortunately, this just worked on what the system considered as my party, so the people receiving the bonus right now were only G and maybe Rose.

We were holding just fine, but the stream of beasts seemed to have no end. And the problem was the same as before, where were the high ranked beasts?

I was sure that the cow that gave the signal had to be higher ranked than these beasts.

When I saw the beasts on the rearguard, there were some larger ones, but none of them give the ominous aura that I would expect from an Alpha, at most, there were some E-Ranks in between, and I'm sure that none of them were as strong as the alligator.

This was not the enemy's main force by any chance. These were mainly goats, pigs, and poultry. The last ones being the most annoying of the lot, they went down with just one hit, but they could make a high pitched sonic attack similar to what the crow I first fought was capable of. Luckily now I was able to resist it, and the poultry was farther than the crow when I fought it, so their attack, even though were annoying, weren't as effective as the one of the crow.

Every time a chicken tried to advance too much he died under Milo's shooting.

In the meantime, I avoid a pig that charged at me, I managed to cut him, but pigs were a pain, most the F-Ranked ones had the same abilities, hardened skin or evolved into a boar, which was pretty annoying for a speed type attacker like me.

I was thinking about what the next step should be. We were in a stalemate, but this is not good for us, we have to move, and we need to do it towards Green Shelter.

I looked around to find the most useless guy.

"You!!" I said signaling someone after the tomahawk finally cut through the pig defenses. The guy was surprised, but he was only a support attacker with a pistol, so it didn't put anyone in danger.

"Go back and tell Giorgio that we need to close those two streets," I said pointing the street that went towards the south and the east. I hope Giorgio isn't too tired, to be honest after seeing him do that with those poor buildings I'm wondering about the level of his abilities…

Is he at the same level than Jamie a C-Rank? Higher? Lower?

Telekinetic abilities are supposed to be at least D-Rank, and he is stronger than Leon, so putting him as at least a C-Rank seems about right. It would be good to have a way to assign real ranks to everyone. Unfortunately, the only thing I have to measure it is that energy types are supposed to be at least D-Rank and that Jamie was a C-Rank, but his ability was too unique to compare with someone else's ability.

The guy that I pointed to go get Giorgio nodded and run back. He was happy about leaving this place for a while.

"Push forward!!" I yelled hoping to start moving a couple meters forwards to give Giorgio more space to work on

The people that were on the frontlines suddenly got confused by my order, because for starters… I have no authority over them.

Despite the lack of backup from the vanguard I started to advance. G was the only one that followed me in my try to push. Using Accelerated Senses, I moved forward, in my case, it was more like avoiding their frontline and get behind their "Vanguard" into the enemy formation. G just made a wider swing and splatted beasts, and he really did act the spearhead in moving our frontline into the beasts formations.

We managed to advance a couple of meters, G advance wasn't too much of a problem to our vanguard, but I wasn't as effective as him since I wasn't killing all the beast that passed by me the ones that decided to ignore me started to attack our vanguard. Once I got inside their formation and once again used Time Bubble to disrupt the battle flow, some beasts were already fighting behind me.

The pressure was more than before after the movement I made. Seeing how the two people that were absorbing the most pressure were moving forward the rest got scared to get too far from us, and were forced to stay in the formation as G's wings so, in the end, they moved together with us.

I used this strategy to slowly advance. I wanted to take over this street and start moving towards Green Shelter. It was a horrible plan, against all logic, but I kept having this bad premonition if we do something else, so for now, I'm trusting my sixth sense.

I used Slow to avoid casualties, there were about 5 people with injuries that were taken away by their teammates, but the NDR's goons from Milo's group proved their worth as tanks attracting together with G most of the beasts. As I forced the vanguard limits with the constant movements their teamwork got better, I also prevented them from being overflowed with the use of Time Bubble to jam the beasts and slow to stop the ones that were slightly more dangerous.

The vanguard was working a lot better, but we were all getting tired. The collapse of buildings behind us told me that Giorgio received the message. I was worried about them not following what I asked them to do, but once again I was surprised by their trust

I could notice that the number of beasts wasn't as high as before and the density of beasts around us was getting less and less.

'How many are left?' I asked Rose who was witnessing everything from above.

'Still a lot, the other group is surrounding the first the first blockade so some of the beast there should come to reinforce the group.'

The second building collapsed. With this, the south and east path should be sealed for now protecting our rearguard from a surprise attack.

The only that worried me more and more as the time passes what the presence in the sky observing the situation before disappearing. Chamber was watching.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

The sound once again threw me off, but unlike before instead of an attack the beast.

Together with all the vanguard, we were utterly dumbfounded by the change in the events. I looked at G that had the same stupid look on his face that I probably have while holding the hammer. All that was left behind were a bunch of bodies that I knew we have to leave here…

I don't know how it started, but someone started to laugh… a second one followed and the next second everyone laughed and began to celebrate the victory, except the goons and me.

I was still completely confused by the change of the events.

'Rose… what just happened?'

'They are retreating…'

'Can you see where they are heading too?'

They are regrouping with the group that was coming from the north. This was getting weirder by the second.

'Do you see any cows?'

'I can see cows, but I don't think it was any of them the one that gave the signal… that came from the south.'

I took a deep breath to calm myself and put my thoughts in order.

'I can't see anything on the south, but I think that the second wave can be there… Do you want me to go check?'