Chapter 546 Swarmed

“Damn it, where did all of these things come from!” James shouted as they were besieged by hundreds of floating sting rays that were covered in a layer of crystalline skin.

Each one of these monsters was surprisingly durable and swift. Swoping down and lashing out with their unsuspectingly long barbed tails that were excreting a powerful venom.

Luckily no one had gotten hurt to this point due to their tight nit defense, but every second more and more of these rays surrounded them in the large cavern they had found themselves in.

Originally when they walked in, they all thought that the ceiling was just covered by thin sheet of crystals. That was until it began moving.

Now they were stuck in the cavern, as these rays flew around using the large crystals jutting up out of the floor as cover to attack in mass.

‘Fire Ball.’

Trying to cast his spell into the swarm of them, Marcus was met with a loud piecing screech that all of the rays emitted, and his spell quickly fizzled out as the mana making it up was disrupted.

“Damn it, we are not making any progress due to their ability to disrupt magic. Does anyone have a way to deal with all of them at once?” Marcus said as he blocked a ray that had lashed out at Lilia.

Unfortunately, with so many of these rays around them, it was proving difficult to do more than defend. As even when they killed a dozen, twice as many took their place from farther within the caverns..

“I have a method to take them down, but I will need you to keep them off me for at least a few minute while I focus.” Quilon said in between strikes with his sword.

Rushing Quillon into the middle of their encirclement, the others tightened up their defenses around him and gave him time and room to work.

Sheathing his sword and holding it out in front of him, he took a deep breath and began concentrating.

He extended his senses around the room picking up everyone single one of the rays and focusing on them.

Quickly he felt a huge mental strain on his mind as he targeted down thousands of these monsters who ranged from level one all the way up to the upper fifties.

There were so many of them that it almost seemed unfathomable, but he kept going, pushing himself to his limit to cover the entire room and beyond

During this time everyone else kept the rays away, slashing out with their weapons or unleashing attacks of pure mana.

Certainly, they were cutting them down many times over, but it was like a never-ending supply of these monster existed in this area.

“Zareen!”

Screaming out in distress, Lilia who had been fighting near her beast companions watched as Zareen got one of her legs wrapped up by the long tail of one of the rays.

Fortunately, as a golden lion her fur was near impenetrable and the barb had failed to stab into her, but she was still being dragged away into the swarm where her death would be certain.

Running to the rescue Roxene tore through the ray’s tail and freed Zareen, though in the process more of the rays lashed out at her.

“Awooooo.”

Using her howl of day unique skill, Roxene created a massive blast of light that engulfed the area in front of her, and hundreds of the rays burned away to ash.

However, the large hole in their swarm that she had caused was quickly filled in as more came to take their place.

‘Damn it, they are never ending. If only they did not have that weird magic disrupting ability that they can use as a group, this would be much easier. Me and Mraz could then kill them by the thousands.’ Marcus thought, as he twisted his scythe around and cleaved through multiple of these rays.

Even as Fallon, Mrazivý, and Lyra used their breath attack and cleared out a huge area, it seemed that there was no end to the thousands of these rays.

To make matters worse, some far larger ones soon appeared, and in the middle of them was a massive sting ray with five tails that seemed to be propagating the smaller rays.

Seeing this Marcus could only be reminded of the ice ant colony he had seen, and liken these rays to an even nastier version.

Of course, they all wanted to go and kill the big boss, but they still needed to protect Quillon and there was no guarantee that would help them out of their current situation.

“Ow!” Lilia scream, as one of the rays finally connected against a bit of the flesh that her armor did not protect.

Immediately the area around her right elbow where she had been hit began to swell up, and for a moment her arm went numb.

Luckily here unique skill peerless physique gave her a heavy resistance to poisons and toxins, and the swelled area began to tense and excrete the venom that had been injected.

In only a dozen or so seconds, Lilia was able to move her arm again, when a normal person even at her level would have been incapacitated for a day just from that one sting.

‘Shit, the bigger ones are getting into the fight now.’

Seeing that the larger ones surrounding the ray matriarch were making their move, Marcus began to grimace.

Six of them were charging forward, with one heading towards each of their strongest fighters.

This would keep all of them busy for at least a few seconds and in that time the smaller ones would have free reign to jump in and attack.

Making use of their strength in numbers, the rays no longer waited tentatively around and fully swarmed towards Marcus and his group now that their leaders had engaged as well.

They threaten to overrun all of them until right before they attack, Quillon opened his eyes.

‘Ten Great Techniques, Absolute Field.’

Using one of the powers of his supreme skill, a glowing orange sphere extended around Quillon that encompassed the entire cavern, and those that were beyond for a thousand meters in every direction.

Then he quickly pulled out his sword and slashed downwards.

With that one quick motion a ripple was sent out through the entirety of his supreme skill, and every single one of the rays in the area that he had meticulously targeted were hit by his slash.

In an instant, thousands of the weaker rays below level thirty-five were cut in half, and all of the others were horribly injured or even killed by Quillon’s attack.

The sound of falling corpses resounded throughout the area, and quickly a flood of purple blood soaked the floor of the cavern.

In fact, so many corpses piled up around them that it was impossible to see past them. As all that was in front of them were dead rays piled high like a mountain.

Dropping to one knee Quillon breathed heavily while clutching his head.

It had taken an enormous amount of mental capacity, mana, and stamina to unleash an attack on this large of a scale which was something he had never done before.

Nevertheless, it was impossible to argue the results, as he had just gotten them out of a heavy bind with that one attack.

Still, some of the rays had survived, but there was one in particular Marcus had no intention of letting live.