Edward used the teleportation mural to travel back to Oshle Tirion. It was dead silent this time, with not a single monster in sight. It had already been more than two weeks since Edward had destroyed the Bloodmaw facility. Between how many of them he had exterminated and the absence of new ones to fill their ranks, the monsters were on the break of extinction. The ones that had managed to survive Edward’s passage had been stuck in the ruins with no other way to acquire food but to eat their fellows, dwindling their number even further.

Undisturbed, Edward traveled to the Damkinan’s library at a brisk speed. Now that he had used all of Leyla’s bombs, he had some space to take a few more volumes. He stopped silently pondering which book to choose.

With the current situation, it is best to focus on anything related to spatial and dimensional magic. Maybe there is a way to repair this world’s dimensional membrane before more monsters can invade. Especially those Andherians ones that the Arachne seemed afraid of.

He could only take so many books compared to the size of the library. Additionally, he was still the only one able to understand and read Damkinan due to his experience in those ruins. He had to translate every volume he picked up for Leyla, which was time-consuming. He could only look helplessly at the mass of knowledge that he would need a lifetime to absorb. It would have been nice if he had the time to sit here and carefully analyze every one of those volumes to better understand the situation and find a way to fix it. However, he had other things to do. He was at the peak of humanity in terms of strength, and this world’s inhabitants didn’t know yet that they were being invaded by foreign monsters. He would have to be at the frontline to protect the ones he cared for.

He had to close the portals before it was too late. Already cities had trouble dealing with local monsters that were evolving due to the increase of mana, and villages were either exterminated or regrouping within larger towns. The addition of powerful sentient monsters would be the final nail in the coffin. Edward couldn’t afford to be delayed. At least from what the Arachne had said, it seemed that the portal to the spider world had been one of the first to open. So, although the situation was dire it wasn’t too late yet.

Edward left the ruins, finding himself once more within the Vipin Forest. I’ve made the round trip from Oshle Tirion to Gobéliard too many times. Let’s take a shortcut by testing the extent of my improved teleportation power. I can teleport up to five hundred meters every two seconds. Which means two hundred fifty meters per second. So, if I translate it in kilometers per hour…. It’s roughly nine hundred kilometers per hour! Edward laughed uproariously. I’m faster than a high-speed train. So much for wishing for a means of transportation.

Edward teleported five hundred meters away, and stayed for two seconds due to the cooldown, before teleporting further away. He looked like an apparition, suddenly manifesting in one place before flashing in the distance. This method of transportation also had the advantage that he wasn’t actually moving, so he didn’t have to struggle against wind pressure or obstacles in the way.

Within five minutes he was outside of the Vipin Forest. However, his laugh got stuck in his throat as he witnessed the scene in front of him. Gobéliard was sieged by an army of monsters. There was no other way to describe it. A throng of monsters was amassed in front of the city’s walls. Wolves, Lusus naturae, Murlocs, Harpies, Wyrms, you named it, every monster Edward had ever encountered was here. In the rear lines, there were even Regal wolves, Mare Irae, and a variant of the One-eye creep.

This One-eye creep variant was floating in the air, it still had one eye replacing its whole head, and two arms ending with scythes. However, rather than having an open maw for the whole length of its thorax, it was filled with darkness and numerous smaller eyes.

As Edward watched in disbelief, the monsters broke through the block runes blocking their way to the walls. At the same time, a volley of javelins shot out from the top of the ramparts, piercing through the army of monsters below. Depending on the type of monster, one javelin could pierce several of them in one go or none at all. Edward could see three Murlocs pierced by a single javelin while another one simply bounced off the thick armor of a Wyrm.

The monsters were assaulting the walls, but they were holding on for now. Harpies had no care for the ramparts and bypassed them, flying directly to the city. Several volleys of arrows stopped them and redirected their attention toward the defenders on the walls.

This didn’t seem to be the first time it was happening. Edward could see most of the metal plates engraved with block runes installed on the wall by Leyla had been broken. The walls themselves had numerous claw marks that were already a few days old.

Did they manage to repel such an assault before? To me, the city seems to be on the verge of being overrun. Actually, if the stronger monsters staying in the rear line charged as well, I estimate the walls would be destroyed within minutes.

That’s when red glowing objects were catapulted from within the walls. Edward immediately recognized them as a now familiar object, rune bombs. Numerous explosions rocked the battlefield killing monsters left and right and destabilizing their formation as a whole. The explosions weren’t as impressive as when Edward was blowing up a spider nest. The mana density on the battlefield was far less important than the one in the spider nests where mana had been concentrated from miles around. However, several explosions happening at the same time was just as deadly.

That’s when Edward understood what was going on. Those stronger monsters have a sense of self-preservation. They want to deplete the city of their munition but they don’t dare to charge by themselves. Since they don’t care about the lives of their weaker brethren, they are sending them as cannon fodder. Once Gobéliard doesn’t have any more rune bombs, they will charge and reap the reward.

In front of the intense retaliation, the monster’s wave receded even if they were so numerous that their current losses represented a drop in a bucket. The city doors opened suddenly, Gobéliard guards rushing out and chasing the monsters down while others quickly changed the metal plates on the walls to renew the block runes. Edward could see Acanthio, the master of the Regalis family, charging in the front line. He was sending lightning bouncing between weaker monsters, killing several at once. No monsters were able to hold him down until he met a Wyrm, its aura armor protecting it from the lightning. A tense confrontation ensued.

Edward shook out of his stupor having seen enough. He deployed his presence on the entirety of the battlefield, a wave of pressure making the monsters shake to their core. Edward drew a single dagger, slowly gathering aura on it. A stunned silence descended over the battlefield as the fight stopped in a lull with Edward’s presence continuing to increase, his blade turning into a blue sun as more aura amassed around it.

The stronger monsters were the first to regain their bearing, realizing the danger they were in, they dispersed to avoid Edward’s charged attack. The ordinary monsters weren’t that lucky. Edward swiped his dagger, a forty-meter-long aura blade leaving it.

The blade cut through Murlocs, wolves, and Lusus naturae all the same. Scores of them collapsed in two pieces from that single attack. The Harpies and Regal wolves avoided the attack while the Wyrms and the Mare Irae endured it, their aura able to sustain the attack before the blade continued its path cutting more monsters behind them.

The battlefield erupted into a cacophony as monsters shrieked in pain, fear, or anger. Gobéliard’s guards added their battle cries to the mix, their morale soaring. They renewed their offensive with additional vigor, henceforth not only attempting to buy time but rather going for the kill, chasing even the retreating monsters.

This finished any simulacrum of an organization from the monster’s side, it delved into every monster for themselves even though they had the numerical advantage. Some chose to flee while others retaliated in anger. The situation wasn’t that dire for the monster’s higher echelons. The Mare Irae charged at one toward Edward as if having beef with him. The Regal wolves formed a second line, circling him in search of an opportunity, ready to pounce on him at the first mistake. As for the One-eye creep variant, it lurked in the shadows, it wasn’t a front liner.

Edward wasn’t impressed, after having faced the Arachne, he felt that those monsters were lacking presence. He formed a concentrated blob of aura above each finger before flipping them, sending the blobs among the monsters’ ranks. “Rèng khwāmrĕw”, he activated his acceleration just as the blobs exploded sending a wave of pressure that dispelled the Regal wolves’ mist form.

He propelled himself forward leaving a deep gouge in the ground. He flashed by the Mare Irae, ignoring them completely. They did send their tentacles swapping at Edward with a significant amount of aura, but they were too slow to pin him down while he was in his accelerated state.

He reached the line of Regal wolves that were barely recovering from the wave of exploding aura blobs. Edward beheaded one as he was passing by before skewering a second one from a hit straight to the heart, they didn’t have the time to react. The rest of the Regal wolves turned back to mist and charged at him, only manifesting part of their claws the instant they were attacking to avoid any injury from their side. Multiple aura blades flew at Edward, however, he was moving fast enough to avoid them. He spun around one, used an aura step to somersault above another, and charged right back at the Mare Irae after him. He stayed in the air at their head level, forming an aura blob, separating it into thin needles that he then sprayed right at the face of the one nearest to him.

Such a weak attack wasn’t able to pierce its thick aura armor, but it surprised the monster, stalling its retaliation. Edward gathered aura on each of his blades, both growing up to reach three meters in length. He whirled on himself, adding the rotary speed to the strength of his attack. One blade after the other hit the monster right on its neck, its armor fluctuated widely but managed to hold on. From behind it Edward held both blades near to each other, and formed one massive aura sword, swinging it as he turned backward. This time the Mare Irae’s armor collapsed, its head flying in the air the next instant.

Under ten seconds, Edward had already killed two Regal wolves and one Mare Irae, opponents he would have struggled to fight on a one-on-one in the past. He had single-handedly changed the flow of the battle, from a fierce but bound-to-fail resistance, to actually pushing back and killing the monsters.