Everyone turned to look, just in time to catch the sight of a team tumbling in through the door. They were covered in blood and looked like they were in a miserable state. They scampered across the floor for a few metres before they even realised that there were others in this room.
"En- enemies!" one of them finally managed to blurt out, just as the ground trembled again.
The sound of barking Mutts was heard long before they revealed themselves. But when they appeared, they appeared as a swarm.
Dozens of Mutts began to fly through the door, quickly raising their number into the hundreds. The room was already too small to comfortably contain the nearly sixty soldiers, so the arrival of Mutts immediately turned the situation drastically chaotic.
The soldiers, one and all, acted at the same time as they started to attack blindly in the air. At this distance, with this number of enemies, it was virtually impossible to miss.
Nero did not need to rely on Snowflake to launch long range attacks, for even his spear was within range of numerous Mutts. The corrupted hounds circled the room like a wake of vultures, but the problem with that was that as their numbers rose, there was no room to fly. They started crashing into each other, and then falling on other soldiers.
Like meteors of meat they rained down on all the soldiers, ironically doing more damage than the vultures actually trying to attack.
But the situation quickly went from bad to worse. With a mighty, ground shaking roar a berserker announced its arrival into the room.
A single berserker was hardly worthy of being considered a foe at this point. But a single berserker with hundreds of Mutts backing it up was still very much a threat. A single berserker that, for some odd reason, was double the size of other berserkers in both height and muscle, was much more than just a threat!
"Retreat out of the room!" Nero suddenly yelled. "Hold them at the doors!"
He did not mean to order all the soldiers. He was focused on just his own team, but many others who heard him immediately realised that it was an excellent idea.
The room had four doors leading outwards, and the door they came out of was too far out of reach. Nero and the others retreated towards the nearest door, accumulating many injuries along the way. It was literally impossible to avoid injuries with how packed the room was.
Yet when they approached the door and opened it, a single glance was enough to reveal that it was no proper escape.
It was just another, smaller room with no other exit. But even then, it provided some degree of refuge.
They rushed into the room and immediately turned around, fighting off any Mutts that tried to follow them in, of which there were many. The worst part was that even his own team had not entirely made it into the room. Wendy, Harold and Remi were missing, while a few random soldiers had stumbled in with them.
Amidst the chaos it was impossible to go find them as all they could do was hold the door. Nero couldn't even light the door on fire just in case other soldiers wanted to exit this way too.
The room trembled again, and Nero saw the berserker run through the room as if it were running through a field of flowers, not through numerous soldiers and Mutts. Bodies exploded into meat and guts as it bulldozed through them, and disappeared out of sight. It was still in the other hall, but due to the angle of their door, they could no longer see it.
"HOW THE HELL IS THAT A NEOPHYTE?" one of the soldiers in the room yelled, but there was no answer for him - only more enemies to kill.
Nero could not relax for even a moment. Even though Mutts were relatively weak, their sheer number turned them into the most formidable foes at the moment. The entrance to their room turned into a meat grinder as they repeatedly cut down anything that came close.
Someone stepped behind him, and even in this dire situation, Nero noticed and tensed his body.
"You're bleeding. I'm going to treat you," said a familiar voice behind Nero. He immediately recognised it at Herbert, the Herald they had rescued not long ago.
In the fleeting moment after he spoke, Nero felt a faint hint of confusion. He was bleeding? He definitely was, but he didn't remember getting hit so seriously that it needed treatment. Maybe the adrenaline kept him from feeling the extent of his injuries.
Even though, in his mind, he provided himself with a possible answer, Nero's body moved out of the way. It was an instinctual reaction, honed through a lifetime of training. He didn't even trust Leonard, that idiotically straightforward guy, so how could he easily trust Herbert?
He turned just in time to catch sight of a dagger that just missed him.
Nero's eyes narrowed, and he stopped holding back whatsoever. He had been avoiding using his flames because he wanted to avoid friendly fire, but given the uncertain nature of the situation, he could only prioritise himself.
Blue flames rolled off his body, scaring everyone. They hadn't caught sight of what happened. All they saw was Nero light on fire, and then disappear in a blur. The next thing they knew, he was clashing with Herbert!
A couple of Mutts broke into the room, but Jackal suddenly took Nero's place.
"What are you doing?" Herbert screamed, trying to create confusion. But there was no hesitation in Nero's actions. His spear slammed against Herbert's shield like a sledgehammer, lifting the man in the air and throwing him across the room.
His pupils constricted as he realised his hand was broken, but he didn't have time to think of anything else. He immediately used a card, summoning a shield made of water right in front of himself, but Nero's spear cut right through the water and into Herbert's chest.
"Don't!" he began screaming as fear suddenly gripped his heart, but red sand suddenly flowed into his mouth, not only choking him, but burning him.
Gabriel understood Nero the best. Were the situation different, he may have considered capturing Herbert, even though Gabriel didn't quite understand why they were fighting. But since they had fought, and the situation was precarious, then it was best to eliminate the threat. They couldn't afford the risk of him using a card or attacking them from the back while they fought off the Mutts.
Herbert tried to scream as tears rolled down his eyes. His throat was being burned from the inside, but much more overwhelming than that was the thought that he was about to die. Nero hadn't even hesitated. He hadn't even tried to ask any questions.
His spear pulled out of his chest, the water shield having already frozen and fallen to the ground, and stabbed it into Herbert's eye, killing him.
Nero had just killed an Arcane Herald. They were supposed to be the best that their year represented. Yet he could not even exchange two moves with Nero. Truly, killing humans was too easy.
Nero turned back, his expression now much more grim than when he was faced with only a few hundred enemies and an overwhelming monster. He looked at the unfamiliar soldiers, wondering if he should trust them.
But the moment didn't allow for much of any such considerations. The front of their door was nearly completely blocked by the corpses of countless Mutts, but a massive foot suddenly kicked them, throwing the corpses inside the room like deadly projectiles.
Nero swiftly dodged, as did Gabriel, but Jackal and the others had been too close to the door to dodge in time. The berserker was literally too big to fit through the door, but it did bend down and look inside the room.
When it looked, all it saw were the wounded and the frightened. It then gave off an especially baleful grin, then it turned away and started attacking something else.
The chaos in the main hall had reduced drastically, and as far as Nero could tell, most of the living soldiers had retreated out of the hall through the various doors.
"Jackal, can you fight?" Nero as he picked up a Mutt corpse from atop the man. He was covered in blood, but it was difficult to tell if it was his own or the Mutts.
"I think something's broken," he said painfully. "I don't think I can move, but I can use my ability."
"Good enough. I need you to light up that place. We're going to turn it into an inferno."
Jackal grit his teeth as he tried to stand up, but couldn't manage it. Instead, he sat down on a Mutt corpse and began to channel his ability in his hands.
experience-MVLeMpYr
In truth, his condition was a lot worse than he told Nero, but it wasn't like there was anything that could be done about that right now. He just focused on building the largest flame ball he could manage.