Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Being the territorial creatures they were, they postured threateningly at the group of wagons, but the guards in the front of the caravan did not know how strong these things were.

As such the situation quickly devolved into a massive fight. The pod was only a group of three, but it was way beyond what the front line was able to handle. In a single barrage of spines, most of them fell instantly. Silver spines were sticking out of their bodies as if they were human shaped pincushions.

After the initial attack, Rena put all her strength into a massive earthen wall to separate the monsters from the rest of the caravan. She then used a follow-up spell that created stairs up to the top of the wall which allowed those with ranged attacks to hit the monsters from above.

Jen, Lethen, and Lucius skirted around the sides of the wall to take the fight directly to the monsters, while Paul and Rena ran up the earthen stairs to attack from above. A few of the stronger guardsmen joined both groups, while the rest attempted to help those injured from the initial barrage.

"[Forsaken Arts: Sand Veil]!" Lucius used his ability since it was out in the open to momentarily blind the creatures, however only two of them ended up affected by it.

"[Forsaken Arts: Mutilation]!" Lucius set upon one of the blinded creatures with another attack he kept back. Since he was surrounded by the mana infused dirt cloud he made, others wouldn\'t have to see the skill directly. However, instead of the standard golden glow that signified the use of Arts, Lucius\' blade glowed a bright red.

His machete\'s edge became sharper and formed a serrated edge made of this red mana. Every slash at the monster\'s body caused the receiving creature to howl out in pain as pulling his weapon free from it resulted in repeated sawing like motions.

The Mutilation skill was not an attack meant to deal massive damage up front, rather leave painful wounds that made the target slowly bleed out. Of course, the only thing this caused were painful wounds that would slow the monster down, since it was many times stronger than he was and would not succumb to the attacks a Novice Rank fighter would leave behind.

"Gods, that\'s disgusting…" a guard mumbled as the dust finally settled and the Quillow Beast that Lucius had attacked was finally visible. Its face and front legs were completely covered in weeping gouges, but even though it looked awful, it was still capable of fighting. If anything, what Lucius had done was piss it off.

"Run!" Paul shouted from the top as he ducked behind the cover of the wall. Lucius looked to where the man had briefly pointed. The third Quillow Beast, the one that was not hit by the Sand Veil, had turned its back to the group again and its spines were raised up.

Everyone quickly dove behind a bunch of trees if they were too far from the wall to get back around it. However, Lucius was dead center of the road and was too far to run to either side.

Just as he watched the entire half of the monster\'s body quiver, a sign that a barrage of spines was incoming, he heard a whisper in his ear: \'Here, a little bit of strength…\' it was a voice he had not heard in a very long time. In an instant his head was flooded with knowledge of a new set of abilities.

"[Tempestas: Lightning Charge]!"

Electricity crackled around Lucius\' body, the smell of ozone flooded his nostrils. Pure energy seemed to course through the lower half of his body as he darted to the left for cover. The world around him turned into a blurry mess as one second he was in the middle of the road, and the next he was behind the tree line off to the side.

Unfortunately, before he had made it all the way there, he felt a sharp pain in his leg.

…And all that was what led up to the current moment he was in right now. He had managed to dodge most of the barrage, but his leg still caught a few of the spines on his way out. Immediately after that last attack, the three Quillow Beasts retreated into the woods. Rena dismissed her spells, and everyone took a rest by the side of the road.

The caravan pulled all the wagons and carts to the side of the road as well so as not to impede passing travelers.

The bodies of the guards that perished were also burned as per the custom, though not before being relieved of any important items they had. No point in burning gold, now is there? All said and done, out of the thirty people, not including Lucius\' party, they lost about ten to the attack. All of them were guards and none of the merchants were harmed.

There were a handful of injured too, though not many and Lucius was one of them.

"Hold still! We are going to take them out, but we have to make sure they didn\'t pierce anything important. You have some important areas in your legs that we don\'t want to damage any more than they might be." Jen chastised. "Then we are going to talk about what happened."

"Okay, Lucius…bite down on this." Rena shoved a piece of cloth into his mouth that was wrapped around a stick.

No matter how badly he wanted to tense up in preparation for what would happen next, he fought against those instincts by closing his eyes and forcing himself to relax.

"Okay. Let go of me. Grab them all at once. Lethen, help Jen. If we have to do this multiple times, I won\'t be able to stand it." He begged. The stick and cloth fell out of his mouth, which Rena promptly shoved back in with greater force.

Lethen moved down to his leg and Paul secured both of his arms.

"Three…two…"

There was a horrifying ripping sound as Lethen and Jen simultaneously ripped out four different spines that were stuck in his thigh. The pain made him chomp down hard and tense his entire body. The stick crunched into pieces as he bit through it.

"Gahhh! What happened to one?!"