"!!!" The girls turned their heads toward Kai with a serious expression.

"How many?" Tasha asked as if she didn't hear it right.

"Around eight hundred to one thousand… I can't really say the specific because there are too many footsteps." Kai slashed the magical beast that wanted to attack him while explaining.

"Wait a minute… You say we might need to kill at least three thousand… Did you count this group?"

"Exactly so. I have scouted the surrounding areas, so the situation is not really bad. And calculating this group and one other group that have around three to five hundred, the others are small groups." Kai gave his confirmation.

"That is quite a lot… Wait. Is that the reason for this formation?" Michelle suddenly realized something was wrong when Kai gave the specific instruction to everyone along with how he positioned Ayaka.

"Yeah. For now, the smaller one has yet to come here. And if my prediction is right, it will move soon, and the intelligent beast will make its appearance once more. Calculating the timing and such, Tasha will immediately stop the big group alone. Can you do that?" Kai asked.

"Good enough for me. But this will cost me quite a bit…"

"You don't need to care about your magic power. Just leave it enough for us to teleport in case we need to run away. We will put the competition on hold tomorrow, so everyone can relax and play around."

"That is nice. I will handle them then." Tasha nodded before glancing at Ayaka. "I may need the explosion arrow soon."

"We will talk about it later." Ayaka nodded while staring at the incoming seventy magical beasts. "I need to handle these monsters first."

"Don't make me wait too long, okay?!" Tasha smirked and released her arrows.

"I will try."

Seeing the two had started again, Kai started killing again. He had predicted that the big group would arrive in twenty minutes because they just entered his hearing range, which was five kilometers. On the other hand, there were a few magical beasts coming toward the small group. One of them must be the intelligent beast, but he didn't know which one.

Hence, he stared at the incoming twenty magical beasts in front of him and started getting serious, knowing that the magical beasts would hit them continuously after this.

This static condition lasted for five minutes before he suddenly heard that the magical beasts changed their direction. They originally would come from Ayaka's direction, but it changed to his location.

"Ugh…" Kai bit his lips as he shouted. "Guys. I have good news and bad news."

"Either news is bad! Don't consider them good news in this situation." Tasha shouted.

"No, no. Seriously. The good news is I have located the intelligent beast." Kai corrected her. He noticed a sudden movement of magical beasts after a single magical beast came to their group, so it should be the intelligent beasts, not his subordinates because they had been blended in.

"Oh?!"

"And the bad news?"

"It's commanding the magical beasts directly, so I might need to make some adjustments to our position and plan."

"…" Tasha fell silent for a few seconds before saying, "Ayaka. Give me a few branches filled with your magic bombs."

"Sofia, switch with me for a minute." Ayaka nodded, knowing they were in a dire situation. With the intelligent magical beast commanding them, they might get struck from a different location, so they didn't want to ruin this whole formation.

The magic bomb could be considered Ayaka's way to prevent the formation from collapsing.

"Sure." Sofia nodded and clasped her hands. His exoskeleton already covered her whole body as she calculated the movement of magical beasts from her eyes alone and proceeded to kill them.

On the other hand, Ayaka picked up a few good looking branches and started using her magic bomb. She set up a day to lessen the magic consumption.

"Your arrows." Ayaka handed the branches to Tasha.

"Ten good explosives." Tasha nodded before pulling out a quiver filled with arrows. She never used this despite having one because everything could be resolved within a few hours.

She then put the branches on top of the arrows before attaching them together with a string. "I have picked up a few things earlier, and one of them is fiber from the tree in our surroundings. Its purpose is for these explosives of course."

"Hoh?! I was worried a little because the magic bomb would be able to explode in your hand if you use your Lightning Arrow…" Ayaka glanced at her, slightly surprised by the fiber.

"Do you think I am that crazy?" Tasha laughed. "I haven't used it again after noticing such a thing is possible."

"That's good then." She nodded.

"Alright. Time to make an adjustment." Kai took a deep breath and listened to the entire battlefield one more time. "Sofia, you go between Ayaka and me after finishing the current battle and face twenty beasts alone. Ayaka will also take the thirty magical beasts coming to you next."

"Understood."

He handed the incoming small group that suddenly changed course to Sofia, but it was at this moment he realized the group didn't stop there. It brought and swallowed one other group, creating a larger group, consisted of fifty or so beasts.

"Tasha, focus on helping Sofia right now. I will help Michelle."

"Alright." Tasha released another shot before turning in Sofia's direction, finding a few shadows coming toward them.

The moment he instructed them, he started shifting a little bit to Michelle and picked up a few pebbles along the way.

*Roar!*

A group of coyotes charged toward him as if they were trying to prevent him from moving.

Kai summoned another magic circle and activated it when the coyotes passed it, blowing them to the ground. He then beheaded each of them and used the same trick to kill the rest.

Michelle struggled a bit on her own, but Kai's timely support saved the day. She and Kai managed to do their own jobs, while Ayaka used her magic power a bit too much before finishing her jobs. Still, none of them could relax yet because there were still many more magical beasts in the upcoming situation.

In this half an hour or so, they managed to kill almost a thousand magical beasts. Although the name was great and the time was too fast, it could be done due to the fact that the magical beasts charged at them not simultaneously.

Kai and the others could kill a few tens of beasts under one minute or two, so the number was about right.

Meanwhile, Tasha released three arrows at the same time, piercing the heads of three marmots. Unlike normal marmots, these ones had a slightly bigger build to the point it reached one meter in height alone. The sharp claws would be their main weapons.

Seeing this, Sofia also created a blue magic circle on each hand.

"Ice Particles. Streaming Spear."

Ice Spikes flew out of the circles in a parabolic trajectory, bombarding the magical beasts.

However, one would notice that the target leaned to the side.

"Hmm?!" Kai narrowed his eyes, realizing Sofia's true aim. "Sofia! Need help?"

"I am good. I can handle them alone," Sofia rejected him as she seemed to be very confident in this matter.

Listening to Kai's comment, Tasha instantly recognized the movement of the marmots.

She then aimed a little bit to the left, starting to main them down. People might think she did it because they were planning to kill them from the left, but Tasha turned to the opposite side and began shooting them.

It would confuse someone, but Sofia only nodded her head, sending her thanks to her. She then placed her hand on the ground and created an enormous magic circle. That magic circle gave birth to a few more in front of it, creating a line of ten magic circles.

The rain of the ice spikes had stopped due to this, but the marmot couldn't spread fast enough as Sofia activated the magic circles first.

The marmots turned pale as they realized Sofia was trying to guide them to make a line like this by using the magic earlier. It was the sole reason why she aimed at the side and did nothing to the center.

"Ice Wave."

Spikes after spikes rose in succession, piercing all the marmots above it. The crystals were bigger than anyone could expect too. With a height of two meters, it lifted the bodies off the ground.

Blood started dyeing the blue ice red, but Tasha still needed to do the follow-up. She aimed all the heads present, making sure they died.

"Mission accomplished." Both of them gave each other a thumb up before finding Kai making a sudden movement.

They followed his line of sight, and Sofia shouted. "I have spotted the energy."

"I know. It's coming in Michelle's direction." Kai nodded and commanded. "Tasha, aim the magical beast and kill it."

"I know." Tasha pulled the arrow and released it through the magical beasts rank without hitting a single of them. It flew toward the intelligent B rank magical beast, which turned out to be a red fox.

"…" The red fox didn't find this arrow to be dangerous, so it simply leaped to the right, considering it was aiming at his head leaning to the left side. This allowed the fox to avoid the arrow completely, but it was startled by another arrow that appeared out of nowhere.

Tasha obviously didn't shoot this arrow, so the fox wouldn't notice. And when the fox saw it, it didn't fly like the first one. Instead, it was falling down due to gravity, completely not moving forward.

"!!!" The fox sweatdropped when it saw the arrow started glowing.

*Boom Boom!*