Chapter 560: True Speed
The Lieutenant's party, after a few minutes of walking forward, also met the same fate.
A flood of monsters ran towards them with furious, insane bloodlust, each rapid succession of their march causing the ground to tremble.
Lieutenant Dante stopped, staring down at the crowds of monsters with an indifferent gaze.
His three subordinates, however, immediately plunged to his front, each manifesting their weapons.
The robust man manifested a helmet that wove itself around his small round head. Two metallic wires, almost looking like spines, twisted out of the back of the helmet and pierced both his arms.
As the metallic wires pierced, his arms received a massive pump, growing abnormally larger and stronger than the proportion of his body and gaining a silvery metallic sheen.
The lady held a blood-red sword extended to her side, ready for battle.
And introverted Rafael crossed two blue and golden daggers before him.
All three of them patiently waited as the air seemed to drown in a pausing moment. The only sound was the furious march of monsters getting closer.
Their eyes gleamed with a polished focus-one that could only have been built through rigorous, near-death training and experience.
The faint but deadly glow in their eyes reflected that much.
When the throng finally reached them, all three plunged forward with astounding speed.
There was coordination to their movement. Hansel served as the spearhead of the formation; despite his ridiculous arms and size, his speed was commendable.
He crashed into the crowd of monsters, and many exploded backward, the nearby area disintegrating under the sheer force of his attacks.
In quick succession, he smashed his fist into the ground, a massive thunderous clash reverberating through the atmosphere.
The ground let out a painful groan as shattered stones flew into the air, smashing nearby
monsters.
Shane was already in flux, moving in different directions. Her speed surpassed all of them, accompanied by a crude link of sword attacks that curved with red afterimages.
Her sword cleaved through the air like a streak of crimson lightning, leaving arcs that burned red-hot in the wake of each strike.
Shane's movements were like a ghost's-there one moment, gone the next, always just out of reach but never out of sight, as if taunting the monsters with glimpses of her next attack.
She weaved between them, her blade's edge biting deep into twisted flesh, each slash a precise, brutal execution.
Rafael stayed at the edge of the fray, his daggers twirling in his hands like extensions of his own will.
His eyes were cold, calculating, his movements controlled yet fluid.
Every swipe of his twin blades brought down a creature, a dance of gold and blue that struck with almost surgical precision.
He aimed for weak points, veins and ligaments, immobilizing one after another.
As a creature lunged at him, he sidestepped and drove a dagger upward, slipping between plated scales and rending it apart with a single, sharp twist.
Amid the chaos, Lieutenant Dante watched with detached satisfaction, the storm of carnage unfolding before him like a conductor appraising his orchestra.
His subordinates were pushing forward, holding the line, and the throng of monsters was beginning to falter, their numbers thinning, bodies littering the ground.
Yet his gaze remained fixed, unflinching, as if he awaited a greater threat-something lurking beyond the current wave.
Alystren, having recovered himself, stood a little way behind. He had wanted to follow immediately, but when he saw the level at which all three fought, he unconsciously stopped.
Now it was too late and awkward to move. It was like being trapped in a position where you should have acted when others were acting, and now that they had gone deep into the battle, joining would call for unnecessary attention.
Hence, he had to stand there and wait awkwardly, even though it wasn't what he wanted.
However, this gave him time to really gauge Lieutenant Dante's subordinates.
All three of them alone driving the massive line of monsters back was insane.
Their synergy was amazing, each one filling in for the others' weaknesses in quick succession of their movements.
Hansel's large attacks threw off monsters in general, making it easier for the other two to successfully land their strikes.
He was between the two of them, serving as a link and balance of sorts.
Alystren hadn't realized it before, but aside from being the strongest of the trio, Hansel was probably the leader here- of course, when one factored out Lieutenant Dante himself.
Everything was going well, the onslaught interesting to watch, until a sudden sense of foreboding darkness enveloped the air.
Dante felt it as instantly as everyone else did. All three fighting from behind had swiftly taken
a large leap backward, sweat buckling down their faces.
Their minds raced with questions.
What was that?
Lieutenant Dante furrowed his brows slightly and raised his eyes to the sky.
In that moment, a loud, strange thunderous sound reverberated through the entire air.
It caused the Lieutenant to immediately fling his eyes wide open. He grabbed the hilt of his sword, tilted it slightly with the weight of his hands, and shot away like a fired arrow.
In one swift line of speed, he pierced through the formation of monsters. All of them blasted into the air as he swept through them in a jiffy.
Alystren's eyes grew wide as he witnessed an instantaneous throw-up of the monsters. Gravity suddenly reversed on every single one of them.
The cause of such gravity reversion was the immense speed of the Lieutenant.
Everything slowed before the Lieutenant's eyes as he pulled out his sword-seemingly
slowly.
But what all onlookers could see was a sweeping race of thin light, diagonally going helter- skelter, in a few beats.
Then it dropped.
At once, all the monsters' bodies dropped, splurging out crimson gore that rained down.
The Lieutenant then sheathed his sword and looked forward.
His form vanished into thin air.
He appeared later, hovering in the air and looking down on a dense crowd of crimson abominations, with a statue-like monster standing in their midst.
It was just as his subordinates had reported. The monsters were all hellion rank and none were moving to attack, just surrounding the statue-like monster which was a maelstrom rank
monster.
His eyes narrowed a bit, his thoughts active.
'If this place is still intact, then... where did that massacre just now happen?'