Ashton felt his breath shorten at the sight. If the Vine Stalker does actually take care of the person it’s approaching right now, he would end up raising an alarm, and they will be quickly surrounded.
Thankfully things didn’t go as Ashton imagined; the Vine Stalker was especially fast with his feet, and in the blink of an eye, he was already in front of the man.
The person it had been running towards probably hadn’t seen it, and when it eventually saw it, he almost cried out in fear. Who wouldn’t?
From the man’s point of view, he was being charged by a small dark Demon of some kind, and combined with the darkness of night and its facial expression, anyone would lose their mind.
Before the man could cry out for help, the vine Stalker already extended its hands made out of Vines, Ashton felt his Willforce drain a little, though it wasn’t as severe as the other times any of the sprouts used an ability.
The Vines extended outward at an extremely fast pace, binding the Man almost instantly. It even covered his mouth.
Just like that, one guard was instantly neutralized, though it wasn’t as clean as it should have been. The man had managed to make enough noise to attract the attention of two other guards.
From his hiding spot, Ashton could see all of this clearly, and he immediately realized that he needs to do something now.
If he didn’t, the Vine Stalker would surround them and might not be able to handle them both, especially in direct combat.
’This guy just disrupted all the plans, but I actually need to do something now.’
’I guess we are winging it then.’
He looked at the Plant knight still directly beside him and noticed that it had been staring at him for quite a bit.
’This guy has probably been roaring for a fight too.’
’There’s no helping it then.’
"Let’s go," he finally said to his expectant legion member.
With that, the plant-Knight enthusiastically ran out of the shadowed area and straight towards one of the approaching guards, leaving the other one to Ashton.
Ashton also didn’t waste time cowering in one spot; he had also jumped out and was now rushing at his target.
’This probably won’t be a clean fight," Ashton muttered.
He said that because he was aware of his own current circumstance, he had lost too much willpower to leave him nowhere close to the peak state he was last night.
And if he kept going like this, Ashton had an idea of what was going to be the end of that; it was something he had managed to infer after multiple experiences of situations where he had very low Willforce.
If he wasn’t wrong, complete exhaustion of Willforce will result in death. Though he didn’t know how the person would die, he wasn’t willing to find out yet.
So he absolutely had to win; he had to find that remedy, and he needed to do it quickly.
All while he thought, he had snuck up on the first of his enemies, and he immediately used the opportunity he got for an attack.
A punch straight to the throat.
No noise was going to be heard.
Since he didn’t have any particular fighting skill, he was relying on instinct. After the punch to the throat, he followed up with another punch aimed directly at the head.
’This should land and should even be enough to knock him out directly,’ he thought.
And just like he predicted, it actually landed, but the only problem was that it didn’t knock the person out, which means he was now much weaker than he thought he was.
With his element of surprise gone, Ashing was now going to fight the man on slightly equal standings, though his head Start was still enough to make it not a perfect match.
The Man that appeared to have a not-too-small Willforce as he prepared to counter attack with Punch of his own.
’I need to finish this as soon as possible,’
From their earlier scopes, it was sure that there were more than 5 Guards so this action was bound to be noticed soon.
Without hesitation, he used the only edge he could have in that moment, and that was his Legion-master abilities, Dash in particular.
In his head, he chanted.
’If raw power doesn’t work, try using momentum.’
To his opponent’s surprise, he took two more steps backwards instead of advancing, and then he used it.
’Dash.’
The short burst in speed, combined with his stance, pushed the force behind his attacks to the absolute limit.
BAM!!!
The punch landed with crazy Force, almost completely dislocating the Jaw and also knocking him out.
He caught the guard before he could actually fall, laid him down today to the side, and rushed to check up on his plant. Sprouts.
Vine Stalker was done and was sitting on his opponent while the Plant Knight was still enjoying his fight.
Ashton guessed that it was using its level 1 combat skill, and even despite being level 1, it was absolutely tormenting the man.
It just kept moving around the man, blocking all his attempts to escape or even shout for help while simultaneously landing multiple cuts all over the body.
In the end, the Plant knight jumped slightly before giving the man a final sword bottom tap on the head, knocking him unconscious.
That was two of the three guards who were knocked out cold, with the Vine Stalker opponent being the remaining one, and it wasn’t like he didn’t want to, but it couldn’t.
There was nothing in his arsenal that could produce enough raw force to knock someone out, so the plant knight quickly stepped in and completed the job.
Then, they were left with two guards in the perimeter.
After a little bit more preparation and some strategic repositioning, they managed to knock the other two guards out in a clean strike.
Now the outside has been taken care of, the next destination was inside.
’I wonder what awaits us there.’