The others looked toward the side Lucan pointed to, but saw only bushes and nothing else.
"What's there? Are you blind?" Lors asked in a harsh tone.
"Wait a moment, there might be something there," Fred answered instead of Lucan, giving him a grateful look for stopping the fight.
But Lucan only shook his head as his snake-like tongue flicked out. Following his instincts, he picked up several scents drifting toward them.
"Oh well, here it is," he said in a calm but certain tone as the bushes began to shake.
Moments later, along with a strange whistling laughter, several dark shadows leapt out from the bushes.
They were slightly larger than adult wolves, covered in fur patterned like hyenas. Their jaws hung open, revealing rows of sharp teeth, with saliva dripping constantly from their mouths. Their glowing yellow eyes and eerie laughter gave off the mixed feeling of both wolves and hyenas.
But that wasn't all. The rustling in the bushes grew louder as more of them appeared, until about twenty surrounded them.
Fred stepped back slightly, positioning himself while Leo moved forward to take point. The others followed suit – except for Alice, who was tightly gripping her wand while standing behind Caroline and Sieg.
"What did you say just now?" Lucan asked Lors in a mocking tone, though his eyes stayed fixed on the beasts.
Before Lors could respond, Caroline spoke first.
"Shut up, Lors. Don't start talking now. Can't you see the saliva in their mouth overflowing as they're looking directly at you," she said sharply, her tone mocking as her eyes briefly flicked toward Fuen behind him, making him shiver.
"So fight them first before you start babbling nonsense!" she shouted, tightening her grip on the spear as her stance turned serious.
The moment she finished speaking, the beasts stopped waiting and suddenly charged toward them.
As soon as the beasts charged, Fred quickly opened the book in his hand and shouted, "Judge of Night!"
At once, the five beasts at the front froze. Their eyes darkened, and then they went into a frenzy, shaking their heads violently as if trying to tear something out from within.
"Quickly, deal with the others! I can hold them for only a minute at most!" Fred shouted, his voice strained as his face began to pale.
Taking advantage of the few seconds he bought them, the others rushed forward to attack the beasts that were still unaffected.
Lucan's vertical pupils narrowed even more as he entered his cold-blooded mode, increasing his thinking speed by almost 200 percent. The beasts around him now looked slower, their movements easier to read.
His nails extended by two to three centimeters, sharpening as several dark red veins pulsed across the back of his hands.
'Well, nice opportunity to try my abilities', he thought, dodging the lunge of a beast calmly. Another beast immediately leapt at him, its mouth wide open and full of sharp teeth.
Just as it came within a few centimeters of his neck, Lucan leaned backward. The beast shot past him.
*Swish*
With a swift sweep of his hand, a dark red trail flashed through the air. Blood sprayed as the beast landed, now marked by a deep but nonfatal slash across its stomach.
'And now, wait a little', Lucan thought, his eyes following the two beasts that regrouped in front of him.
Suddenly, the one with the claw mark let out a low whimper of pain that quickly rose into a loud, agonized cry.
But then, without warning, its cries stopped. It turned toward the beast beside it – the one that had been watching it with concern – and lunged forward, biting a large piece of flesh from its neck.
The unsuspecting beast collapsed to the ground, taking its final breath in confusion. Its eyes, still wide, looked one last time at the attacking beast before the light faded from them completely.
Different from it, the attacking one now had a blank look in its eyes, its savageness gone, as if waiting for an order. A moment later, it suddenly turned and attacked another beast nearby, helping Leo by reducing his opponents from two to one.
'Bloodcurse Snake… what a suitable name', Lucan thought on the other side, watching the lifeless-eyed beast attack another in a slow, almost deathly manner.
The state it was in came from the poison he had injected during that non-lethal strike on its stomach.
The Bloodcurse Snake's poison had two effects. The first accelerated blood flow inside the victim's body to an high rate, causing massive internal strain and then death. The second infected the brain, turning the target into a short-lived puppet that obeyed instinct or simple commands.
Now, the beast he had struck was in exactly that state. Lucan watched quietly as it, already covered in blood, dragged another beast down with it.
Dark blood began to seep out from its facial Orifice before it finally stopped moving, its body going completely still.
As the beast died, the others nearby had also nearly finished their battles, killing the remaining ones in front of them.
"Haah!" Sieg shouted as he smashed the beast before him with his tiger-like claws, its head denting inwardly. Another corpse, identical to it, lay behind him.
On the other side, Caroline had a beast hanging from her spear, its head impaled clean through as the tip came out from behind. Another lying nearby had its skull split open, brain matter spilling out from a hole.
The ones in front of Lors and his group were all down, their bodies showing various injuries – two had punch marks on its body with countless shattered bones, one had two striking dagger wounds in its neck, and another was simply crushed by heavy impact.
Leo had also finished his fight, slashing the neck of the beast before him, while the one near Alice was tangled in thorned vines, its body turned into a bloody mess.
And finally, the most brutal of all – the two beasts in front of Michael were reduced to countless pieces of flesh, as if sliced apart by dozens of wind blades.
"H-hey, h-help me now!" Fred shouted from the side, the dark circles under his eyes even deeper as his face grew paler.
"Let me!" Lucan called out as he darted toward the five beasts with dark eyes still standing in the same position as before.
With a single sweep of his hand, he moved past them, and the moment he did, the injured beast began bleeding from every orifice on its face.
Within seconds, all five beasts collapsed to the ground without any breath. Seeing which, Fred closed his book and fell to his knees, taking deep, heavy breaths.