The War of Extinction

I see the soldiers and the security teams from the Defense wall coming down to join the battle. My mother and her squad comes close to us and as if she is hearing my thoughts, she says "Go on son, we will protect your team."

I smile at her and move away from the team, look at the soldiers who are retreating slowly bringing the front line closer to us. I continue to perform the Battle Exercise as it is increasing my speed and battle power and is helping me to fight on equal terms with the E grade beetle monsters.

I infuse energy to the sword covering it with a thin layer of ice that will be helpful for me. I noticed the ice ability can be used to slow down the healing speed of a wound and want to use the same as it will also reduce the speed of the monsters by a huge margin.

I can see the people who are wounded are healed by the healers on the other side of the defense wall coming back to join the battle with more resolve on their faces to fight. They are ready to give their all, not because it's their job, but to become stronger and to get noticed by their commanding officers.

Standing next to them, I hear them saying they have called for reinforcements which will come in the next 5 hours and we just have to hold the monsters till then. This is a good news for me, but my concern is, they are talking about an outbreak in a F grade dungeon and not in E grade.

I had my doubts earlier as dungeons will only have monsters within their grade and not above. This has confirmed my guess, we are facing an E grade dungeon outbreak, not from F grade.

I move close to my team who got some time to relax, thanks to my mother's squad who are handling the monsters close to them. They are happy that at least half of the team has leveled up and the rest are close to level-up. I want to tell them about the danger we are facing, but I got a call in my watch from Jack.

I accept it and I open to ask, but Jack didn't give me time and he asks "Why are you out of your formation?" To which I didn't answer, but ask "Why? Why did you hide it from us?" To which he blinks like he is not understanding what I am asking.

"This outbreak is from E grade, not an F grade dungeon." I tell him and he says "How can you tell that?" To which I reply "The monsters we are fighting are mixed with E grades too. That's how." He starts laughing saying "Ha ha ha ha.. I knew you will find it kid. You are exactly what we are looking for."

He also adds "Fight to the end. We'll talk once the battle is over. And don't tell this to the team. Get back to support the soldiers." He tells and disconnects the call before I could respond which makes me angry. I just want to go to the top and chop his head off, but I can't.

I will be killed immediately if I withdraw from the battle without permission and he is above Mid-C grade and I can't even scratch him, but he can kill me with a flick of his finger. I control my anger and get back near the soldiers while starring at the defense wall where Jack is standing.

Good thing the monsters were handled by the soldiers and none came close to me, or I would have died without knowing how I was killed. I noticed the power of the beetle monsters are low, even the E grade monsters have the power level of High-F grade only.

The front line slowly comes back bringing the real fight to us. I continue performing the 6th move with maximum effort I can for now as I am having free time before it comes close to us.

After an hour the battle I expected finally comes close. This time it is going to be an all-out battle and I will be using every thing I have learned. After nearly 80 minutes of rest, I am full of energy and no fatigue to fight the monsters coming towards us.

I keep my shield in the storage as I feel like I will need more attack power than defense now and firmly grip the sword with both hands waiting for a monster or 2 to come at me.

After a few seconds, I see beetles coming at me. I immediately activate Ice Armor and start moving towards them. I can see others are all busy fighting against their own picks and I have to be cautious as I will not get any help from them or my team if I need any.

I focus more on their weakness which is the neck that is very small and doesn't have any hardened protection skin. It is very small I can hit it only once every 15 times I try, but I have to keep trying as this is the only way I can kill them in a single shot or it will become a battle of attrition which the monsters will surely win.

Another 2 more beetles joined the fight taking me to the brink of death. But I continue fighting with most of my concentration in performing the Battle Exercise which is foolish, but with the Ice Armor, the power of the monster's attacks are mostly reduced to flesh wounds.

The focus helped me moving to 9th move in just 15 minutes. In that time, I killed many beetle monsters that comes close to me with less difficulty and I can feel my battle power increasing when I breakthrough to the next moves in the set.

I continued killing the monsters with ease while I continued performing the moves gritting my teeth in pain. I am also in the verge of losing my consciousness due to pain, but the continuous attacks from the monsters are keeping it at bay.