Elian sat on the edge of the lead carriage, a confident smile resting easily on his face. The morning sun was warm, the dirt road was smooth, and the twenty-four Adventurers traveling with him were in high spirits.
He was a Level 6 Thief. In the Adventurer's Association, reaching Level 6 meant you were a recognized expert. It came with prestige, a heavy coin purse, and the absolute trust of your peers. He was the charismatic leader of this raid team.
They were hired to clear a monster den five days away from their current location. The pay was excellent, the team was well-balanced, and Elian was certain this would be another flawless victory to add to his growing legend.
"Save your energy," Elian called out playfully to the heavy tankers riding in the wagon behind him. "The real fight is still five days out. Don't go drinking all the ale tonight!"
The men laughed loudly. The Mages and Healers chatted casually. It was a perfect morning.
Then, the forest simply exploded.
They did not hear howling. They did not hear footsteps. The tree line simply parted, and a massive wave of black, leathery bodies poured onto the dirt road.
"Ambush!" a fellow Thief yelled, drawing his blades.
Elian drew his twin daggers instantly, his confident smile vanishing. He dropped from the carriage, his boots hitting the dirt.
As a Level 6 Thief, his combat style relied entirely on explosive speed. He was a master of rapid maneuvering, exploiting blind spots, and delivering fatal strikes before the enemy could turn around.
He immediately focused his internal Mana into his legs, igniting a burst of Aura.
Relying purely on the internal pressurization of his Mana and his raw physical momentum, he sprinted toward the flank of the monster wave so fast he was nothing but a blur. He targeted the nearest beast. It was a huge, eyeless wolf with a smooth, pale skull. An Abyssal Blindhound.
In this world, Mana was like a roaring coal fire locked deep inside a heavy iron furnace within the body. Aura was the act of cranking open the heavy furnace doors to let the blazing heat and physical light spill outward to coat a weapon or armor.
But heavy iron doors do not open or close instantly. For a high-level Adventurer like Elian, cranking his aura open or forcing it completely shut took two full seconds.
For low-level Adventurers, the delay was about three to five seconds. In a life-or-death battle, a two-second delay was an eternity. This was why Adventurers had to ignite their blades before they swung.
To pierce a high-level monster's flesh (neck, vital points) or thick hide, a Thief had to push their mana into their weapons, creating a sharp, glowing blade engulfed by Aura.
Elian reached the beast's blind spot and instantly ignited the Aura over his twin daggers for the fatal strike.
But the moment his blades lit up, the beast turned its eyeless head directly toward him. It reacted not to his footsteps, but to the sudden, blinding flare of his weapon's Aura. It snapped its jaws at the glowing light, missing his arm by an inch.
Elian rolled away, his eyes wide with shock. He was incredibly fast. He had approached entirely from behind. How did it react to his strike so quickly?
He looked around. Three more Blindhounds instantly snapped their heads in his direction, completely ignoring the loud, heavily armored Swordsmen nearby.
They bared their teeth, their sensory organs locking onto the glowing daggers in his hands, and charged directly at Elian.
"They track Aura!" the raid's senior mage screamed from the carriage. "Your speed is useless, Elian! These beasts can see your active Aura! The moment you light up your weapons, you become a luminous target! Fall back!"
Elian gritted his teeth and parried a heavy claw, the sheer force of the blow throwing him backward. His entire combat logic was instantly rendered useless. Without Aura, his blades would just bounce off their thick, armored skulls.
But the moment he ignited his Aura, his weapons allowed the beasts to track his every movement before he even swung. In a pure, head-to-head physical brawl, a Thief was the weakest class compared to the heavy Tankers and Swordsmen.
"Form the circle!" Elian shouted, abandoning his flank and sprinting back to his team. "Defensive formation! Fall back to the wagons! Now!"
The twenty-five Adventurers scrambled. The initial ambush had been brutal. Three of their Healers and four of their Mages had been struck hard in the first few seconds. They were alive, but entirely unconscious and bleeding on the dirt.
As the heavy Tankers rushed to form an iron wall around the carriages, Zeph dove toward the back of the supply wagon.
"I'm grabbing the mana crates!" Zeph yelled over the snarling chaos. He ripped the heavy canvas tarp back.
He froze.
"Zeph, get the potions out!" the senior Mage screamed, dragging an unconscious Healer by the collar into the center of the forming ring. "We need them ready!"
Zeph didn't move. He fell to his knees in the dirt, his twin blades slipping from his hands. "They're gone."
Elian sprinted into the center of the ring just as the Tankers locked their shields together. He looked at the wagon.
The Blindhounds hadn't just attacked the vanguard. A splinter group had completely bypassed the frontline during the very first moment of the ambush. The thick, iron-banded supply crates were reduced to splinters.
Hundreds of glass vials lay shattered across the floorboards and the grass. The raid team's entire stockpile of liquid mana—their absolute lifeline for a long battle—was rapidly soaking into the dry soil, turning the dirt a useless, glowing blue.
"No," the senior Mage gasped, dropping the wounded Healer. All the color drained from his face. His hands began to shake violently. "No, no, no. We had three hundred vials in there."
"Scrape it up!" a young Swordsman panicked. He broke his stance, dropping his sword to claw desperately at the ruined potions in the dirt. "We can filter it! We have to filter the dirt!"
"Eyes front!" Elian roared at everyone. He grabbed the kid by the shoulder and hauled him violently back into position. "You're scooping shattered glass! Pick up your sword before they rip your throat out! Get back in the line! Shields up!"
The heavy Tankers and the Swordsmen forced themselves to look away from the glowing blue mud. They formed a tight, unbreakable outer ring around the wreckage and the fallen members. They grunted, pushing their Mana outward. A thick, glowing layer of Aura enveloped their bodies and their heavy weapons. Inside this protective circle stood Elian, the conscious Archers, the remaining Mages, and the completely defenseless, sleeping wounded.
It was the textbook defensive fortress. For the first hour, it worked. The Blindhounds charged blindly into the wall of steel. The Tankers bashed their skulls. The Swordsmen slashed their legs. The Mages fired spells over the Tankers' shoulders.
They killed roughly a hundred of the beasts. Black blood soaked the dirt road.
But then, the monsters stopped charging.
Elian stood in the center of the circle, breathing heavily. He looked past the shoulders of his frontliners. His heart sank.
More of them were coming out of the trees. Hundreds more. They poured out of the dense woods until the entire dirt road and the surrounding fields were completely black with them. There were at least a thousand Blindhounds encircling the twenty-five adventurers.
"Hold the line," Elian ordered, trying to keep his voice steady. "They are just beasts. If they charge, we slaughter them."
But the beasts did not charge. They were surprisingly smart. They realized that throwing themselves at the wall of swords was a death sentence.
Instead, the remaining beasts—Elian quickly counted around nine hundred and sixty of them—simply sat down in the grass. They formed a massive, enclosing ring around the Adventurers.
They were waiting.
"Activate your Auras!" the lead Tanker shouted to the front line.
The seven Swordsmen and Tankers grunted, forcing their Mana outward. It took three to five seconds for the dense energy to fully manifest, but finally, a thick, glowing Aura enveloped their bodies and heavy weapons. This was the only way to survive a monster's heavy blow without breaking bones.
The moment the Auras fully solidified to life, the hounds growled and took a step back.
"They are scared of the Aura," a young swordsman said, a relieved smile on his face.
But Elian knew better. His face turned entirely pale. He understood exactly what the monsters were doing. This was no longer a physical brawl. This was a psychological battle of attrition.
"Listen to me," Elian told the front line. "Your Aura drains your mana. How long can you hold it continuously?"
"Twelve hours for me," the lead Tanker said, sweating.
"Six hours," a younger Swordsman said nervously. "Maybe less if I get stressed."
Elian did the math. They were trapped. If they broke the circle to run, the hounds would easily run them down and tear them to pieces. The squishy Mages and Healers would die in seconds. Their only survival option was to hold the defensive line.
But holding the line meant keeping the Auras activated to deter the beasts. And keeping the Auras activated meant a slow, guaranteed exhaustion of their mana.
"Deactivate your Auras," Elian ordered. "Save your Mana. Only flare it when they attack."
The frontliners nodded. They stopped feeding their mana, and over the next few seconds, the glowing light slowly faded from their weapons.
The very second the last spark of Aura vanished, the front row of Blindhounds snarled and charged forward with terrifying speed.
"Auras up!" Elian screamed.
The frontliners panicked and frantically pushed their mana outward. But it was not instant. They had to wait for the heavy light to return. One second passed. The hounds covered half the distance. Two seconds passed. The hounds were within leaping range, their jaws opening.
At the third second, the heavy light finally returned, coating the steel shields.
Instantly, the charging hounds dug their claws into the dirt, stopping just three feet away from the swords. They did not attack. They simply barked, turned around, and trotted back to their sitting positions.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the raid team. The frontliners were trembling, realizing how close they had just come to having their throats ripped out during that three-second activation delay.
"They are feinting," the senior Mage whispered, horrified.
Elian stared at the sea of eyeless monsters. It was a flawless, deadly loop. The Adventurers could not leave their Auras activated forever, or they would run out of Mana and die.
But the moment they deactivated their Aura to rest, the hounds would pretend to attack. The terrifying three-second delay meant the humans had to panic and burn their Mana immediately just to ensure their shields were ready in time.