In only a couple of minutes, the number of the Calamities on the street made it look as if a rat infestation had suddenly burst out of the sewers.
These numbers, coupled with how grotesque and unnatural they looked, were enough to send chills down the body of everyone who happened to see the scene.
The good thing was that even though there were a lot of them, they were just mindless beasts running straight to their deaths. Plus, the Players were not overwhelmed yet, mostly because their own numbers were still pretty high.
Among those fighting in the front line, Kenji could be seen swinging his spear in ways that surprised even himself. A blind wolf lunged at him, only for him to thrust his spear forward. It caught the wolf midair, entering the neck and coming out the back. Then, as if the creature didn’t weigh anything, he flung it, sending it crashing into another creature. In the next moment, he had already leapt into the air with his spear spinning above him, then he descended, pinning the beast beneath him to the concrete.
As one with the 6 of Clubs, he could boost his strength, endurance, and stamina with an energy called Aura.
This, coupled with the fact that his physical stats were still under the buff he had received from Sami, made Kenji feel like he was at an all-time high.
Two of the creatures closest to him lunged with blinding speed, one from the side and the second from the front. Without any semblance of panic, he grunted and kicked the one coming from the side. The beast tumbled several meters, even crashing into several of its companions. At the same time, Kenji pivoted slightly and grabbed the side of the head of the one coming from the front with one hand, bringing it down and crushing its skull on the ground.
Blood splattered across the pavement, and across his body. This sight of death... this scent of blood... this rush of violence, made him feel so exhilaratingly alive that his green eyes lit up with a wild, ferocious glee and a wide grin split across his lips.
He was surprised, just as much as he was battle crazy, because he himself didn’t know that he had this side to him.
...Several meters from him, his sister was also holding her ground. In fact, she was right to an extent when she said that she didn’t need to be looked after.
Shaking the bottle of seeds in her hand, she took a step back and wound her arm back. Then, she ran a few steps and tossed it into the air. The bottle arced past the players and straight into the midst of a group of Calamities.
It hit the ground and shattered, spilling the seeds across the cracked concrete.
Just then, Momoka placed her hands together and her golden eyes dimmed slightly, followed by a gust of wind that whipped around her body and made her white hair flutter wildly.
"Grow," she muttered.
In response, the seeds that lay on the ground suddenly began to sprout at an unnatural speed, becoming thick, sharp thorns that either impaled the creatures from below or bound tightly around them, crushing them.
The thorny vines didn’t stop and continued to snake around the dying beasts like living things, seeking out fresh prey and spreading across the asphalt in a tangle of dark green growth.
Under Sami’s buff, each thorny vine grew almost as large as a small tree trunk and surged forward, tearing through skin and bone as if the monsters were made of wet paper.
However, it didn’t take long for a frown to cross Momoka’s face. While high-ranked cards were powerful even for Tier 1s, they cost a lot of Prana to play!
And even more than that, they also consumed a lot of mental energy.
The good thing, though, was that she, alongside a few others, was under Sami’s buffs and Healing Field, which took care of the mental energy problem, leaving them to worry only about their Prana.
Speaking of Sami, he had just realized that the Priest Archetype Tree wasn’t exactly as boring as he thought it was.
At first, he had only thought them to be healers, but now that he was under the Tree, he could finally see why the Hearts had priority to be protected by all.
They were the backbone of the entire operation!
Even though their roles were limited to support... at least for the low numbered cards, they were still invaluable to the teams.
Due to the sheer number of creatures, it was almost impossible for players to avoid taking hits. In fact, Sami saw one man stumble right in front of the line, only for two beasts to pounce on top of him, sink their jaws into his throat, and rip it out before anyone could reach him.
Plenty of others took damage too, ranging from light scratches to deep gashes. Fortunately, the number of players getting critically injured stayed fairly low.
Those with minor wounds had them rapidly closed by healing magic, and the buffs that Sami and the other Hearts provided made what should have been a meat grinder look almost like child’s play.
But those two aside, what intrigued Sami most were the debuffs, especially those granted to Clerics and above.
Just by pointing their finger at a particular spot of Calamities, Clerics were able to assign that spot as their [Sacred Ground].
Every enemy of theirs within those grounds immediately had their stats lowered to create an advantage for their allies.
Which was exactly what they did.
If one looked at the battlefield from above, they would see that there were several areas marked by glowing rectangular outlines. These borders shone brightly, and within those card-shaped boundaries, the monsters seemed to have slowed down and lost some of their chaos.
This allowed the players fighting within those grounds to clear the hordes effortlessly, turning what should have been a meat grinder into a slaughter on their terms.
At the moment, one of those glowing boundaries was Sami’s, as he had remotely assigned a spot as his Sacred Ground.
However, he didn’t just limit himself to a support role. He enjoyed killing abominable things like this too!
Although his current class did not give him any instinctual muscle memory for weapons, he tried to recall how it felt back when he ran around with a crossbow as a Rogue.
Raising the weapon, he aimed past the front-line players at the calamities rushing toward his Sacred Ground, then pulled the trigger.
The good news was that the horde was so packed together he would basically have to try on purpose if he wanted to miss.
The bolt whizzed through the air and slammed straight into the backside of a blind wolf, and the impact sent the beast tumbling over like a ragdoll. Without wasting a second, Sami cranked the string back, loaded another bolt, and aimed down the sights again.
However, for some weird reason he couldn’t wrap his head around, after that attack, he suddenly didn’t feel good about drawing blood.
’That’s strange...’ he thought with a frown crossing his face.
But then, he grimaced and forced the stupid, crappy feeling aside, then raised his crossbow again.
A couple of seconds later, a notification flashed across his vision.
[You have killed a Tier 1 Blind Wolf]
[Rank 6]
Sami smiled.
But then, even with the progress the players were making, there was something that was bothering him.
’More and more keep appearing out of that alley! We need to do something about this, rather than hoping the numbers will dwindle on their own. The instructions said we need to find the Host and destroy the Bridging Cards. I’m guessing whatever those are, they’re in that alley,’ he thought as he turned toward the direction where Marcus had been fighting. It took some time, but he was able to finally locate the player with the 10 of Clubs.
The man was decimating monsters that came across him as if he were swinging a giant flyswatter through tissue paper.
There was a younger, dark-skinned woman near him who did nothing but just stand there, looking at the sky. Upon closer examination, Sami realized that she wasn’t actually looking at the sky, but tracking a falcon circling the battlefield overhead. After a few seconds, she raised her hand and the bird landed on it. Then, she turned to Marcus and muttered something.
Shortly after, Marcus straightened up and yelled, "Change of strategy! Rather than killing them as they come, we need to aggressively push forward into that alley! That’s where the Bridging Card is, and we need to destroy it! If we don’t, we’ll end up fighting these creatures until we run out of stamina and get wiped!"