Chapter 733: Battle Of Attrition

On the other side, Karl’s group pushed into the boars.

Bran planted himself at the front, his heavy shield catching a Boar Warrior’s charge head-on. The impact drove him back a few steps, his boots gouging trenches in the earth, but he held, the shield turning the massive tusks aside.

"Now!" he grunted.

Karl’s hawk dove, raking its talons across the pinned boar’s eyes, and the beast bellowed and thrashed, blinded having lost its eyes.

The hound charged, jaws clamping onto the boar’s hind leg, tearing big chunks of flesh, dropping its mobility to near-nothing. With the boar rooted and blind, Bran’s shortsword drove up under its jaw and into the softer flesh of its throat.

The boar shuddered and collapsed dead.

Cian worked the back line, her staff flaring with green light, healing the hound’s cuts, patching a gash on Bran’s arm, restoring the hawk’s stamina between dives.

The boars’ attrition strategy relied on wearing enemies down over time, and Cian’s steady healing simply erased that pressure, keeping the group fresh while the boars themselves bled out.

The four of them fell into a killing rhythm. All boards that charged died without exception.

Bran anchored and absorbed all attacks, the hawk blinded, the hound crippled, and once a boar was pinned and lamed, Bran or the hound finished it.

Every time a boar broke through toward the softer members, one of them covered the gap, Bran’s shield sweeping across to protect the hound, the hound tearing a boar off Cian’s flank, the hawk screaming down to break a charge aimed at Karl. Cian’s heals were cast constantly, and no injury they took stuck for more than a few seconds.

Karl directed his beasts commendably, and he stole a glance across the field at Moon’s side, watching the crystals fly and the horse dash, that healthy competitive spark flickering again.

He’s tearing through the canines... so fast. But the boars are the harder fight because of their durability, and we’re holding it clean. Not a bad team, thrown together like this.

The two groups worked their opposite ends of the battlefield, and between them, both species began to collapse, ground between the newcomers and each other, exactly as Moon had planned.

The battle went quicker on Moon’s side first, the canines simply couldn’t survive against Honeybun’s and Mirage’s teamwork and attacks.

Within a couple of minutes, the last of the pack lay dead across the ground, dozens of dark corpses scattered where they’d fallen.

Moon nodded in appreciation and glanced across the clearing at Karl’s group.

They were still grinding through the boars, the durable brutes taking longer to bring down, the fight there was a little slow just as he’d predicted.

"Honeybun, Mirage, go help them finish the boars," Moon said. "Same as before, focus on working together rather than doing your own thing."

The two moved at once, crossing the battlefield to join Karl’s side.

Honeybun’s crystals punched through boar hides that had been shrugging off the hound’s bites, the piercing attacks reaching vitals the durable beasts had protected all fight. Mirage’s clones split the boars’ focus, opening them up for Bran and the hound to exploit. What had been a slow battle sped up into a rout, the boars falling one after another as Moon’s beasts joined the fight.

Karl watched, and his eyes widened.

The boars, were suddenly dropping in seconds once Honeybun and Mirage entered the fray. And his mind flashed back to the earlier ambush, to when his own beasts had finished their three canines ten seconds faster than Moon’s, and to the small satisfaction he’d felt at the win.

Wait... that turtle just skewered a boar through the heart on the first try. The horse’s clones are doing heavy damage. This is nothing like the pace they fought at before. Were they holding back? That whole first fight, when I thought I’d edged them out, were they deliberately slowing down?

He looked at Moon across the field, standing calmly while his beasts dismantled the boars with terrifying speed, and understood that he’d never been in a competition at all. The margin he’d been quietly proud of had been a courtesy, extended without a word.

Within a few minutes, the last boar collapsed.

The battlefield fell silent, littered with corpses of both species, boars and canines lying tangled together in death without distinction, the twilight forest’s territorial war ended by the newcomers who’d turned it to their advantage.

The team caught their breath, and before anyone could so much as exhale in relief, two new sounds split the quiet.

A deep, resonant howl rolled in from the east.

And from the west, an answering grunt heavy enough to vibrate through the ground beneath their feet.

Both sounds carried an ominous vibe that none of the beasts they had just killed carried. Beasts far stronger approaching from opposite directions.

Moon smirked, his hands still crossed, his eyes moving between the eastern and western treelines.

"Seems like the big boys are here."

He made no move to summon his sword or ready an attack. He simply watched, curious, as whatever ruled these two species came to answer for the slaughter of their kin.

The howl and the grunt sounded again, closer now, and the trees on both sides of the clearing began to shake.

Not long after, both beasts emerged from the treelines.

Just as Moon had expected, they were the ones who held authority among their kin, the apex of each species, the strongest their kind had produced.

At a glance, Moon could tell these two were a cut above everything the team had faced so far. The Jungle Canine Hunter that stepped from the eastern trees had a sleek black coat that seemed to drink the twilight, giving it a magnificent, almost royal appearance.

Its eyes were piercing and intelligent, and its legs were packed with dense muscle, built for explosive speed that would make the lesser canines look sluggish by comparison. It moved silently and the pressure rolling off it marked it well above the previous pack hunters.

From the west came the Jungle Boar Warrior, and it was no less imposing. Its massive frame was packed with muscle from snout to tail, its tusks long and shining purple under the twilight, its thick hide scarred from countless battles.

It rose to a height of roughly five meters, a living fortress of durability and power, each heavy step shaking the ground.

The two apex beasts entered the clearing from opposite sides, took in the carnage, the corpses of their fallen kin scattered everywhere, and fixed their attention on the intruders responsible.

Karl turned to Moon, waiting for instructions.

Moon considered the two threats, then gestured.

"You guys take the canine. It’s fast, but you’ve got the numbers and the coordination to pin it. You know what to do." He glanced toward the massive boar. "Leave the big one to Honeybun."

Karl’s brows rose slightly. Given the choice, he and his team would have preferred the boar, it played to their strengths, and the canine’s speed would be difficult to catch. But he didn’t argue. Moon was the leader, and his word was law on the field. Besides, Karl had just watched Honeybun skewer durable boars through the heart with ease, and he had no doubt the little turtle could handle even the apex of the species.

Not that it mattered which target they took. With the team working together, neither apex beast stood a real chance.

The division of labor was a formality more than a necessity.