The strategy for combat between a lone enemy and a group is to transform a one-on-many confrontation into several one-on-one fights.
A Fog Demon isn't an exceptionally powerful monster; even a farmer with a long-handled pitchfork can escape from a single Fog Demon if he remains calm and courageous.
Their claws are indeed sharp enough to dig into the ground, but in terms of attack distance, the pitchfork has a significant advantage over the claws.
However, Lann had experienced several battles in this fantastical medieval world.
He knew well that in sword fights, enemies that could easily be dealt with one-on-one become threatening in one-on-two situations.
Then the one that gets "easily dealt with" would be you!
The reality is: humans, even Demon Hunters, have blood vessels and tendons just millimeters to centimeters beneath the skin.
And to claws or weapons, millimeter-thick flesh is virtually nonexistent.
A scratch is an injury, and injury affects movement.
Then regardless of personal will, disadvantages grow increasingly serious, eventually leading to the inevitable slicing of the throat.
Lann had not experienced such a scenario, nor was he at all eager to.
Therefore, even though the Bear School's Demon Hunter mutation formula emphasizes constitution and strength, and its swordsmanship style is robust and solid.
He still frequently shifted his footing.
Seventeen Fog Demons surged forward noisily, while the mentor's gaze behind him was cold and devoid of warmth.
The young man could only move sideways.
To avoid being surrounded by Fog Demons, he had to be at least twice as fast as them!
For a young man in a state of hunger, is that possible?
——Not just possible! Lann did even better!
"Bang!"
Thin leather boots, driven by the muscles and bones, stomped the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt in the soft valley soil.
Among the flying dirt, there were even a few weed roots mixed in.
The young man, not physically robust, charged sideways like a crazed bear!
The screeching scavenging creatures immediately turned to follow.
Of course, the scavengers' explosive power couldn't match that of a Demon Hunter.
In the contest of straight-line distance, they were quickly left behind.
However, among the originally long queue of Fog Demons, the ones at the end now had the chance to take the shortest route and block Lann from the front.
Foul-smelling mouths with twisted, hideous teeth still bore strips of rotten meat.
Five Fog Demons had already seized the path Lann was on, standing eagerly bent over, rubbing their claws.
Yet the young man's expression didn't change a bit.
As if he wore not cheap cotton armor, but the ancestral armor of knights and sirs. Or as if the five claws capable of tunneling underground didn't exist.
He watched the mouths of the five Fog Demons widen with the approach of fresh flesh until they could no longer resist the temptation.
Following their predatory instinct, they leapt, the squat bodies utilizing their weight mid-air, thrusting their claws downward.
At that moment, Lann's cat-like eyes widened slightly!
" Quen!"
The Magic Seal that forms a physical shield appeared, accompanied by a magical glow.
Normally, this Magic Seal would remain invisible, activating only in the instant the Demon Hunter is struck, deflecting the attack then shattering.
But with the knowledge from the Bear School, it would form an orange spherical shield.
This isn't any advanced usage; in fact, the entire Magic Seal system of Demon Hunters is seen as mere tricks by actual Wizards.
Even against the mere assault of a Fog Demon, this Magic Seal could barely block the first one before overloading and shattering.
But Lann, a young man hurled from the Stable Era to the Barbaric Era, would certainly utilize every force he could access amidst the sense of crisis.
Spherical shields are common, the generation from the ground to the head is also common, but...
What if, and I mean if.
An enemy coming down from mid-air, at a coincidentally perfect moment in time and space, during the formation of the shield, gets tripped by the yet-to-close spherical shield...what would happen?
A Fog Demon may never have experienced the feeling of stepping down stairs and missing a step, or raising a leg not high enough going up stairs.
Today, it experienced that.
In any combat, balancing plays an extremely important role, and the Magic World has varied strategies for it...
Lann's cat-like eyes momentarily met the panic-stricken eyes of the Fog Demon.
During the mid-air tumble, three out of five Fog Demons were "accidentally" shifted off balance by the forming shield.
They soared over the young man and crashed into the Fog Demon crowd chasing fresh flesh.
Suddenly, chaos erupted.
The sound of a shield shattering rang out, and even though he didn't directly face the attack, the force of the three monsters' impact was enough to break the Quen.
In midair in front of Lann, two other claw-stretched scavengers were already whistling toward him.
They didn't care how their fellow beings had flown away, they were just eager to taste the first bite of flesh!
But Lann, without his shield, gazed at them with eyes that mirrored theirs.
Both sides seemed to be looking at a piece of meat already lying on the chopping block.
The earlier casting of the Quen Rune wasn't for protection at all, you fool.
With a "boom," the orange-yellow shield shattered into kinetic shards!
"Huh?"
The two monsters in midair hadn't yet realized what had happened when the outward explosion of the shards threw off their stances.
Then a cold light flashed.
"Zing!"
The cold sound of a blade cutting through the air chilled to the bone!
The cheap Velen Longsword was held by Lann beside his face, its tip aimed directly at the monster's body.
This dull longsword was deliberately positioned at an awkward angle.
As Lann lunged forward, it felt as challenging as piercing through cured leather.
If it were a silver weapon, it would be as easy as slicing through regular meat.
Though it was difficult, the thin body of the monster couldn't withstand the thrust with momentum and center of gravity.
It pierced through the first monster's stomach and, as if by coincidence, the sword tip plunged into the second monster's chin, laden with warts.
It went straight into its brain from the chin!
It seemed like a frantic swordsman, adrenaline pumping, with a streak of luck, ended up not killing the first one in front but instead took out the second.
Yet beneath this facade, Lann's precision, power, and control over the blade edge were impeccably flawless.
Except at the last moment, his hand accidentally banged into the crossguard of the sword hilt.
The thrust was powerful, and the monster's resistance was strong enough that the crossguard loosened with a "crack."
Under this pressure, the wooden sword handle also cracked.
His hand burst open, splattering blood.
But more seriously, the loosened crossguard meant the longsword could still be used against ordinary people.
However, against monsters, even these creatures, it was a death wish!
Lann effectively lost his sole weapon.
Meanwhile, the fifteen monsters behind him had scrambled back up and rushed toward him.
Yet Lann seemed as if he had completed his task, relaxing the muscles in his arms.
He let down both the skewer-like longsword and the monster.
Without looking behind, amidst the clamor of the monsters' footsteps, he already heard the sound he was waiting for.
It's a sound that anyone with achievements in the art of battle would naturally produce, light-footed like a cat.
Within the mist behind the fifteen monsters, a tall and robust black silhouette emerged silently.
Cold and soundless.
For Bordeaux, safety had been confirmed; there were no Fog Demons here.
A flash of silver light streaked by.
Unlike Lann's precise and ruthless swordsmanship, Bordeaux's style adhered to the consistent traits of the Bear School.
— Solid strength!
"Pshhh!"
The sound of bloodletting mixed with the noise of bones being smashed.
Bordeaux's silver sword, tainted with the monsters' stench of blood, carved out a chilling arc.
Four monsters, due to their dense formation, were cut right through the chest.
The fifth had its chest half-split, the silver sword stuck in its sternum, and the immense force flung the thin body away.
From the sword tip protruding from its chest, the upper half of the sixth monster's skull was sliced off along the way.
The fifteen monsters huddled together, exposing their backs.
For Bordeaux, it only took a few sword swings to handle them.
This time, Lann's "use" was more than worth the value.