Amber and her friends took a little time before spotting Erik and his team. They were currently battling a group of thaids. Amber had seen the beasts before since she and her team had battled against them, but there were two of them.
Only two of them gave her team a lot of trouble, so she wondered how they were still alive while battling four. As soon as she saw Erik and Anderson, she and her friends rushed to help them.
"Flank it!" Erik shouted.
"I can't; the other keeps barring my way!" Judith responded.
"Fuck!" Erik said.
"Stay calm, guys!" Anderson said. In the meantime, Robyn was still sitting on the ground, unable to move his body efficiently.
"Robyn, how are you?" Elena asked.
"I'm better, but I can't still move my arms!" he shouted.
Erik briefly glanced to his left and saw Amber and the other 29 students rushing toward them. It was like a heavy boulder was immediately lifted off his shoulders.
"They came!" Erik shouted, and the others glanced in the same direction, spotting the others running toward them.
After ten more seconds, the first student, Benedict, finally arrived at them, and with a quick motion, he chopped the head of one of the monsters off its body while it was concentrating on Elena. He glanced at her and winked, saying, "You will thank me later!"
He then turned to look at Erik and said, "Did you miss me?"
"Stop goofing around and help Robyn! He is injured!"
"Aye, captain!" Benedict replied. Then the others finally arrived, and it didn't take much time before the monsters were quickly killed.
"Are you alright?" Amber inquired, her face tense.
"I'm fine, not even a scratch on me..." the young man replied.
The young woman was relieved he was okay. She looked at him for a second, noticing that there wasn't any blood anywhere on his clothes. It felt weird to see so many bodies around him and not a single injury on his body. Judging by the situation around him and his team, the fights must have been brutal. Erik was improving by leaps and bounds under Master Nieminen's tutelage.
At the same time, Aaron and Mickey went to Anderson.
"Are you ok, bro?" Aaron asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Anderson replied.
Amber stared at Erik for a couple of seconds until the young man asked her if there was a problem. "What's the matter?" he said.
The woman blushed but then looked elsewhere and said, "Nothing..."
For a couple of seconds, no beast came toward them, and once it did, they were weak enough to be killed by the others effortlessly, with Erik still getting the experience since they died within the system absorption range.
Erik ignored Amber's weird antics and immediately turned serious.
"Listen, I don't know what these guys want, but they are probably targeting me," Erik said.
"Yeah, I figured out..." Amber replied, and Erik looked at her with a surprised look. However, his mind suddenly went into overdrive, trying to find a solution to his predicament. If he ran, his friends and the rest of the students would be killed by the thaids, the same as before. If he didn't, the five men would try to kidnap him and leave the other students to the Crombo once they had killed enough thaids. Erik wanted to avoid letting his friends die, but he also knew that asking them to run away was idiotic, and besides, he doubted they would have done that. Sure, they could have all fled, but if they did, the five men would have probably given Erik a couple of minutes of advantage and then would have chased him. Thanks to their stats, it wouldn't have even taken thirty seconds for them to reach him, but at that point, he wouldn't have thaids shielding him anymore.
It would have also been idiotic to ask the other students besides his friends to go away since that would mean that he had fewer chances of getting out of there alive, while with thirty people, they at least had one. However, Erik also knew that most of the students had weapon-conjuring brain crystal power but that, given their stats, asking them to fight the five men once the horde was killed was stupid, as they would only kill themselves.
"Amber..."
"What?" the young woman asked.
Erik didn't talk for a few seconds; he didn't know if what he would ask the young woman to do was enough to give them at least a little bit more time; however, they had to try.
The young man then turned to look at Anderson. "Hey, I have a favor to ask you... Come here, please..."
Erik then proceeded to explain the plan to both students. He didn't know if they would agree, but Erik thought that was the best possible shot at running away.
"Is everything clear?" Erik asked.
"Yes..."
"Can you do it?" he asked Anderson.
"I can try, but it is very risky..." the young man said.
"I know, but you are the only person who can pull this off. If you do it, we will be able to stall for a little bit of time since they will lose our tracks..." Erik felt guilty having to give this dangerous role to Anderson, but there was no other way.
"Thank you, Anderson, I appreciate it..."
***
"Look, Zach; the kid's got company..." Greg said.
"Yeah, I've noticed..." the man replied.
"Hahahaha, maybe I will have a little fun after all," Slice said.
"Hey, don't steal all the girls; I want to have some fun too..." Laser interjected.
"I would never do it."
Slice laughed at the comment. "I doubt so, bro! A lot of nasty rumors go around you!"
Zach watched the two men stop talking nonsense and focus on the mission. The four of them had almost killed all the thaids, and once they did, they would take the boy and let Death disengage from the Crombo. However, Zachary was a little bit worried; there were thirty students with the kid, and he doubted that, with their training at the Red Palace, they wouldn't pose a problem to them.
"Guys, listen to me. As soon as a couple of beasts remain, we will rush to the kid and take him... There is no need to kill all the thaids; just let the students take care of them. Even better, if they die under the Crombo's rage, we will have less evidence against us..." Zachary said.
"AAAAAH, that would be no fun. Why do you always have to spoil everything? It doesn't happen every day that so many preys fall into our laps. Let us have our fun!"
"No. We will complete the mission and go back to the base. Is everything clear?"
"Yes."
"Ok..."
The four men kept killing the thaids; no more beasts went past them anymore since they could manage them all now that they were a few. However, contrary to their expectations, Erik stayed put. Either he was stupid or had something planned, and they bet it was the second case.
Zachary then turned to look at Erik. Not enough thaids had been killed yet, and since Erik didn't move from the spot, they could do nothing but keep fighting.
"Damn, kid... You are smart..."
However, as Zachary looked at him, Erik understood that time was up. The thugs were probably going to attack soon, so they had to move out.
"All right, guys, let's move according to the plan!" Erik said. Every student pressed the button on their safety device, alerting more than ten teachers of their predicament. They all received the distress signal and started heading toward their positions. At the same time, the thirty students started leaving the place at full speed.
"Hey, they are leaving!" Slice shouted. "Yeah, I've noticed. Let's give them a minute; we'll be able to lose the thaids and get to them quickly. This way, we'll give the kid enough time to get away from the monsters," Zachary said, unaware that he was acting exactly as Erik predicted.
(A.N: Starting tomorrow, I will upload two chapters a day again.)
New n𝙤vel chapters are published on fre(e)webnov(l).com