Snake tide

A week has passed since the wounded were treated, and everyone has made full preparations to resist the beast tide. However, except for that one time when there was no sign of a beast tide coming, just when Soraya thought that the last time was an accident, a new wave of beast tide arrived.

Night fell again, and the camp closest to the Monster Forest was surrounded by a ring of red eyes. After the last monster attack, the people in the camp were on guard. When they sensed something was wrong, they reacted immediately, and the entire camp woke up to prepare to defend against the monster horde.

Soraya spent her days healing the wounded and treating bounty hunters with hidden injuries in the camp, so she was there when the second wave of beasts arrived.

Under the command of Kelly and Olsen, the bounty hunters and knights in the camp worked in an orderly manner, and soon the entire camp was lit up.

The camp was surrounded by a bright magic circle cast by several inscription mages, and the red eyes revealed their bodies.

Each pair of red eyes was a snake, and the camp was now densely surrounded by snakes. Everyone who saw this scene felt a chill run down their spine.

"Earth mages, quickly erect a half-person-high earthen wall between the snake swarm and the camp." Olsen's expression was very serious. He could clearly see that the few inconspicuous snakes in the swarm were all highly venomous. Except for demigod-level inscription mages, anyone bitten by those snakes would die instantly.

Looking at the swarm of snakes before him, Kelly held the opposite view of Olsen: "Olsen, you're too nervous. These are just ordinary snakes, not monsters."

Then he looked at the soldiers in the camp: "Everyone, concentrate on eliminating these snakes as much as possible. Don't waste too much energy. We'll save our strength to deal with the snake monsters later."

Orson wanted to make Kelly understand that the most terrifying aspect of the beast tide was not the monsters themselves, but these seemingly insignificant ordinary beasts, but Kelly didn't believe him at all.

"Those with ranged attacks should focus their efforts on killing the venomous snakes." Unable to command the knights of the Knights Guild led by Kelly, Olsen could only instruct his hunters to be even more cautious.

At Orsen's command, countless spells and arrows rained down on the snakes opposite. The snakes, which had been merely lingering in place, were attacked and began to crawl towards the earthen wall, hissing as they did so.

The members of the Knights were closest to the wall. They looked at the swarm of snakes and prepared to take action, but then they remembered Kelis's warning to be careful of the monsters and hesitated.

"Get out of my way if you're not going to make a move." A tall bounty hunter, seeing that the serpent horde had arrived and the knights in front of him were still hesitating whether to attack, immediately pushed the knights in front of him aside and rushed forward.

The knight, enraged by being pushed aside, grabbed the bounty hunter who had pushed him: "Our knightly order is made up of knight squads, and everyone has their own place. Why are you pushing?"

Seeing the knight lose his temper, his teammates' expressions also darkened, and they joined him in staring at the bounty hunter who had pushed him.

Just as knights have teammates, bounty hunters naturally have teammates as well.

Most of the knights in the Knights' Guild are nobles or highly talented college students, while bounty hunters are people who live on the edge of a knife. They were either poor people who couldn't survive or criminals who had offended nobles but whose crimes didn't warrant death. They had to pay a huge price to survive.

Therefore, the Knights and the Bounty Hunters have always looked down on each other. One side thinks the other is a cancer, while the other thinks the other is all show and no substance, spoiled and pampered.

Thus, beneath this earthen wall, the atmosphere between the bounty hunters and knights became tense due to this minor friction.

"You're hesitating even to make a move, so what gives you the right to stand in front?" These were the defiant bounty hunters.

"Our Knights Order is far stronger than you scum, and we must stand at the forefront."

"What are you doing? The snake tide is already here, are you still going to fight amongst yourselves?" The speaker was Sorea, who frowned as she saw the scene before her.

Olsen and Kelly had gone to the rear to discuss countermeasures. Olsen had been trying to get Kelly to listen to him, but Kelly kept doing things his own way, so the two of them were completely unaware of the friction between their men.

Sorea, who was standing not far from the earthen wall, saw everything that was happening and immediately stepped forward to stop it.

Upon seeing Solaya, the knights and bounty hunters seemed to have encountered something terrifying. Several squad leaders exclaimed in unison, "Lord Jane, what are you doing at the front lines!" Their voices trembled with shock at seeing Solaya and the others.

At this moment, all they could see was the fear of Solaya being there; the anger they had felt during their earlier confrontation was completely gone.

"Can't I be here?" Sorea was puzzled by their words.

The knight commander and the bounty hunter captain of this group exchanged a glance, both clearly seeing the shock and doubt in each other's eyes.

After a moment of silence, the bounty hunter captain cautiously asked, "Lord Jane, when our association first discovered the approaching beast tide, we immediately stopped the retreat of logistics and medical personnel. Didn't you receive any notification?"

The knight commander beside him sneered, "Your Bounty Hunter Association is too unreliable. Lady Jane, you should come to our Knights' Guild. We can ensure your safety."

Sorea wasn't sure why she hadn't received any orders to evacuate, but she disagreed with the medical staff's decision to retreat: "If I retreat, what if you get hurt... Be careful!!"

Sorea suddenly saw a snake crawl in from outside the earthen wall and about to bite a knight's neck.

Although she shouted just in time, and the knight commander immediately swung his sword to cut the snake in two, it was still too late. The snake still bit the knight's neck, and the blood on the wound turned black.

"A poisonous snake! It's venomous!"

Amidst the cacophony of voices, Sorea strode forward to treat the bitten knight.

While treating him, she shouted, "You all go and guard the wall. He'll be fine as long as I'm here."

In the midst of their panic, the knights and hunters seemed to find solace in Solaya's words, instantly recognizing their target and launching an attack on the snakes outside.

While Soraya was treating the knight who had been bitten by a snake, more and more snakes appeared outside, and the snakes behind her easily climbed up the wall by stepping on the bodies of the dead snakes.

This provoked an even fiercer attack from the knights and bounty hunters, and as more and more ordinary snakes died, the giant python slowly crawled out from the swarm.

Soraya also saw the giant pythons, and her mind immediately recalled the memory of being chased by that demigod-level giant python in the Dragonspine Forest. These pythons were not as large as that one, but there were a great many of them, and they were also among the monsters.

Several giant pythons used the dead snakes as ladders to climb straight up the earthen wall, and opened their blood-red mouths towards the knights below.

The knights had never seen such a huge snake. Seeing the python's saliva dripping from its sharp teeth and almost landing on them, they instinctively took a few steps back. The bounty hunter immediately grabbed his sword and took the knights' place, laughing as he smashed the blade at the python.

"Look carefully, and you won't be afraid if you look at these things more often."

This scene of bounty hunters standing in front of the knights happened everywhere they were fighting off swarms of snakes.

Looking at the bounty hunters blocking their way, the knights didn't argue with them for the first time. They seemed to understand why these hunters, whose status was lower than theirs, looked down on them.

Olsen, who had been there since the monster appeared, looked at the scene before him with a smile. He had long been aware of the conflict between the bounty hunters and the Knights, but he had not stopped them. Only by letting them experience a brutal war could they better integrate and become comrades-in-arms fighting side by side.

Orson was initially very pleased, but seeing Kelly standing next to him, he was struck by a headache again. He never imagined that his great God would give birth to a son like Kelly.

This cannot be entirely blamed on Kellis. Previously, the resistance against the beast tide was led by Dagmore, but with the expansion of the Osenia Empire and the continuous growth of the population, Dagmore is now too busy with official duties to personally go to the front line to fight, and can only send out the inexperienced Kellis.

Kelly was originally focused on the overall situation, wary of the demigod-level basilisks that might appear at any time in the Monster Forest, but for some reason his gaze unconsciously fell on Soraya.

He didn't have time to consider why a healing inscription mage with no combat power was on the front line of resisting the beast tide, and was even taking the time to heal the warriors. The next second after seeing Solaya, he grabbed Solaya and put her next to Orson.

"Jane, what are you doing here?" Olsen looked Sorea up and down, worried that she might be hurt.

Solaya looked at the two people in front of her and said with dissatisfaction, "I am a healer, so I should be here. I need to treat the wounded warriors at any time so that the losses can be minimized."

“We will send the wounded to the rear. If you deal with things, there will be no one to treat the seriously wounded,” Olsen retorted.

“I am capable of protecting myself, I can be on the front lines.” Sorea looked earnestly into Olsen’s eyes.

Just as Sorea and Olsen locked eyes, Kelly drew her sword and leaped over the earthen wall.

Sorea's mental energy followed the direction of Kelly and sensed several terrifying forces in that direction.

Soraya sensed it, and so did Olsen, but he was far less perceptive of killing intent than Kelis. Only after Kelis had run far away did Olsen leave Soraya with the order to stay put and chase after Kelis.

From the shadows cast by the large trees came the sounds of snakes hissing and swords clashing.

Upon hearing the sound coming from the shadows, the red in the eyes of the snakes outside the earthen wall deepened, they became more excited, and their speed increased. Soon, several giant pythons broke through the bounty hunters' defenses and charged towards the knights.