Chapter 252: Fighting the beast tide
Noah gave the Elder a stern look and replied simply, "No."
The Elders all fell silent, taken aback by Noah\'s firm response. .net
"Prepare to defend the village. If I find any deserters, I will punish them myself," Noah said, his tone chilling.
With Noah\'s command, the village defences were erected while he made his way to his office.
The beasts were remarkably swift, reaching the wall in just about an hour, and the war began to unfold one encounter at a time.
However, none of the beasts belonged to tier two; only those of tier one or below made their moves in an endless tide, while the higher-tiered beasts remained in hiding.
The Elders, eager to take action, found themselves scratching their heads in frustration.
If the tier two beasts had shown themselves, they could have immediately taken action and killed them, effectively decapitating the endless tide of beasts.
However, such a thing was now not possible at all.
They needed to be in constant fear of the higher-tier beasts and couldn\'t take action because if a beast sneaks up on you, then the chances of defeat are higher.
Usually, a tier two wizard was stronger than an average tier two beast; however, if that were in a fair situation where a beast sneaks up on you, then the beast will surely have the advantage.
This was exactly how the beast tide destroyed them: using an endless amount of low-tier beasts, the higher tier didn\'t even have to show themselves to attack.
Considering these thoughts, the Elders sent out their disciples one by one to take on the beasts individually.
Among them was Aur; he had volunteered himself to be one of the candidates.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at the Elders who were surveying them from a distance.
"It will be difficult to make moves when they are in place," Aur thought as he looked at the person ahead who was valiantly leading the charge, Williams.
However, it was even better if William could be in the limelight; then the beasts and the Elders\' focus would be there, allowing Aur to focus his attention elsewhere.
"Roar," William cried out loudly and covered his entire body in ice armour, charging into the beasts heroically, slaying them all.
The presence he revealed was undoubtedly that of a high-tier one wizard, and with just a slash from him, a tier one met its end in a swift motion.
The others were also encouraged by these actions and all charged at the beasts.
Though the quantity of beasts was much larger, it could be said to be endless.
However, usually, a student of the academy could fight at least three beasts at once.
And soon, under their combined efforts, they cleared around a hundred metres from the wall.
Observing this, the Elders were quite satisfied.
"William is truly a prodigy; his combat strength isn\'t less than that of the veteran instructors. With his involvement, the others were also motivated to work harder," one of the Elders praised, satisfied with William\'s moves.
"You are right, William is truly worthy of the title \'prodigy\'," another Elder agreed.
Their gaze inevitably shifted to the corner, where Aur was fighting at an extremely slow pace, barely defeating the beasts one by one.
He didn\'t act recklessly like the others, charging into a group of beasts; instead, Aur chose the safe route, killing them one by one. Consequently, his injuries were almost non-existent. However, at the same time, his contribution could barely be compared to even that of a wizard apprentice.
Seeing this, the multitude of Elders were disappointed but didn\'t say anything. After all, Aur was an alchemist; he didn\'t need to fight at all.
In fact, he didn\'t even need to join them in fighting off the tide. But he did so out of his own insistence. They soon withdrew their gaze from Aur and looked at William with excitement.
Aur, who casually threw a rotating water ball that destroyed a peak mortal beast, could faintly sense the perception of the other Elders withdrawing, which made a smile appear on his face.
"Finally, those bastards are not paying attention," Aur thought as his figure blurred before appearing right in front of a tier one beast, which was distracted, while extending his hand.
The wolf was frightened to death, for it felt an aura of death which made its hair stand on end.
The moment Aur touched its head, the wolf struggled for less than five breaths before its vitality waned and it died, collapsing powerlessly to the ground and soon turning into a skeleton.
"Muscle system."
- Muscle mass: 8.73 (+) [Tier one (peak)]
"Not bad, it increased by five stat points. Now, a tier one beast gives me five stats point, much less than previously, but still a significant amount," Aur murmured as he looked at the beast in front of him, almost drooling.
The beasts surrounding Aur felt a chill as they looked at him with visible fear in their eyes.
Just like that, the battle continued, and echoes of battle cries resounded from time to time. If you looked at the entire situation, the village was still dominating the battle position.
However, all the wizards were already exhausted from the tireless fight, and their mana was gradually being wrung dry.
But looking at the herds of beasts, they were dispirited. They were still in an endless amount, all staring at them ferociously.
Aur, who was at the corner of the battlefield, had already harvested several tier one beasts. With his rapid advancement in strength, he had even absorbed the strength of a peak tier one beast.
Previously, it was too dangerous for him to do so because the beast could fight back, and he couldn\'t fully suppress a peak tier one beast yet.
However, now he has progressed significantly. As long as he erupted with his blood and Qi, killing a normal peak tier one beast was very easy.
As time passed and night fell, the moon showed in the sky. The silvery light of the moon fell on the blood-soaked figure of Aur as he looked at the endless tide of beasts again, a sigh escaping his lips.
There was no way he could beat them, and the others were fully exhausted as well. Countless students and instructors had been killed. From the thousands of Wizards deployed, almost a quarter of them had already fallen to the beasts.
Just as he was contemplating what to do, the sound of a horn rang in the village, calling back all the wizards.
They swiftly retreated, but some wizards fell to the claws of the beasts during the retreat, frustrating the Elders. If they took action immediately, the tier two beasts would retaliate. Though they didn\'t know why the tier three beasts had still not taken action to kill the entire village, it was better this way.
At that moment, Noah, with an expressionless face, came to the defence, cutting through the air.
"Leader, you have finally come," seeing this, all the Elders\' eyes lit up with delight at the situation.
Noah nodded, looking at the endless herds of beasts.
"Leader, should we attack the tide now?" one of the Elders asked with a tentative expression.
"No," Noah replied with a simple statement and looked at the particular man.
Everyone followed Noah\'s gaze and saw William standing there with a smile on his face.
A chuckle escaped Noah as he looked at the Elder\'s curious expression.
"He is the key to the survival of the village," Noah said unceremoniously.
"What do you mean, Leader?" The elders were shaken when they heard this.
Although William was a talented person, at least much more talented than them, he was just a high-tier one wizard.
He didn\'t even have the strength of a tier two wizard. It was impossible for him to make any waves in the battle of the strong.
In fact, he wasn\'t even qualified to join in the fight of tier two wizards, let alone the tier three ones.
"Let\'s distribute medicine first to the others," Noah lightly said, and everyone nodded their heads. Seeing that he didn\'t want to speak, they couldn\'t force a mighty tier three wizard to open their mouth, could they?
For some reason, the beasts all halted in their tracks right in front of the defense without moving at all. This made the Elders even more confused.
There was no way these ferocious, bloodthirsty beasts would halt here. There must be something wrong.
Noah looked at this with a slightly stunned expression. He had just convinced Lord Sky to take action to protect William\'s safety and provide him with the opportunity to grow. But these beasts suddenly stopped?
What was going on?
Just then, they heard a soul-rending howl from the distance. The howl made even Noah\'s scalp tingle with dread as a strong source of danger fell on Noah.
"That must be that mutated beast," he thought with narrowed eyes, some greed evident in his gaze. A mutated beast was stronger than a normal one, but at the same time, its corpse was quite valuable. If he could get Lord Sky to slay it, then all the benefits from the beast would most likely fall into his hands.
However, just then, under the stunned gaze of Noah and the Elders, the endless tide of beasts slowly retreated.
"Eh, what is happening?" one of the students said in disbelief, pointing at the endless tide of beasts who were slowly retreating.
"What\'s going on? Why did the beasts retreat?"
"I don\'t know."