Chapter 24: A rare close encounter with the octopus monster during the battle...

After a rare moment of closeness, Ethan and Starfall went back to their own things. Starfall was idly reciting his reading list, with magic continuously drawing down the books he read aloud, while Ethan was responsible for collecting them, seemingly oblivious to his own future free time.

Finally, Reina's message in the Guardians' group broke the somber atmosphere; Ethan had set a special notification for the group.

"Rena: @All members, the Alliance has detected abnormal force field fluctuations. Monsters are about to attack. Assemble immediately."

Ethan stood up the moment he saw the message and handed it to Starfall: "Lord Starfall, shall I... take my leave?"

Seeing Ethan's undisguised eagerness to leave the mountain of books surrounding him, Starfall had no choice but to let him go: "Go ahead, you'll have plenty of time to read after you finish reading."

Ethan breathed a sigh of relief, opened a portal beside him, and went straight to the Guardians.

When Ethan arrived, almost everyone was there. Oh right, it seems that we talked about setting up a teleportation array in the Guardian City during a meeting. It could be set up in the Guardian's residence to help people get to the scene faster. It's been passed down from the past.

However, because Ethan was so socially awkward, he left as soon as the meeting ended, and the others didn't have a chance to suggest setting up a teleportation array to him, even though he was pretty quick whether or not they did.

In the distance, a giant octopus was wreaking havoc on the city.

Its tentacles danced wildly, lifting skyscrapers from the ground as if they were toys.

It might be tossed up and caught casually, or it might cause two buildings to collide head-on, shattering them into pieces and affecting countless people, some of whom couldn't even escape.

The guardians looked serious, even somewhat impatient, because the sooner they defeated the enemy, the sooner they could minimize the damage.

"Let's go." Seeing that everyone was still missing, Reina couldn't wait any longer. She began to issue commands: "Let's stop it first, and the others can join us when they arrive." With that, she took the lead and flew towards the octopus monster.

The guardians obeyed orders and flew away, those with special abilities using their special abilities and those without superpowers using technology to assist them.

That's right, it's indeed difficult for the guardians to fight if they can't fly.

Ethan stepped into the portal while thinking about it.

He's so socially awkward that he's too embarrassed to ask his teammates if they want to use his portal. Before he could even prepare himself, everyone had already flown away, though it still wasn't that fast.

...I'll ask next time.

Ethan watched as the guardians gradually landed near the octopus monster and silently made up his mind.

"Gaza!" Reina called out a girl's name to the crowd of guardians, "Try to trap her?"

A brown-haired, black-eyed girl flew in a little closer, stretched out her hands, as if she were whispering something, and the bracelet on her wrist emitted a faint halo.

As Gasha cast her spell, cracks appeared in the ground near the octopus monster.

A rotting hand reached out, followed by a horde of dazed zombies, one after another, like ants trying to shake a tree, surrounding the octopus monster and crawling towards it, attempting to use themselves to temporarily trap it.

Unfortunately, it had no effect. Instead, the zombie army was boredly beaten into mincemeat by the octopus monster. Or they were rolled up and thrown into the dense, bloodstained teeth below, quickly disappearing.

Gaza panicked upon seeing this.

“No, the slime on its body is too slippery, I can’t climb up.” Gasha tried to summon more, but could only barely hold it off for a while. Her strength couldn’t support her in a prolonged battle; she was already somewhat exhausted, as she was an amateur magician to begin with.

The power bestowed upon her by the city's will is wisdom. Magic is something she taught herself, and she knows very little magic. She can't even open a portal at once to get everyone to the battlefield faster. Being able to summon zombies is an unexpected bonus for her.

Her city's will was not magic-based, and it offered her little help; they usually gathered together to discuss difficult problems rather than learn magic.

Ethan could tell that Gasha was an amateur, and while thinking about whether he should send her some spellbooks later, he also began to cast a spell.

Black tentacles emerged from Gaza's cracks, outnumbering the octopus monster. Several tentacles wrapped around the octopus, rendering it truly immobile.

The octopus monster tried to break free, but no matter how much it struggled, it couldn't break free or tear itself apart. Instead, it became even more tightly bound by the tentacles.

"You did this?" Reina looked at Gasha in surprise. Gasha quickly shook her head and denied it: "No, no, no, it wasn't me. You know what level I am."

Ethan wanted to say it was himself, but he was worried that saying it would be too eager for quick success and instant benefits. Was he being too calculating about every little thing? Mainly, he was too socially awkward to say it.

Speak up, you're not really mute...

No, we're still in the middle of a battle. Trapping the octopus monster isn't a long-term solution. Instead of worrying about that, we should defeat the octopus monster first.

Ethan conjured several more sharp, enormous daggers, manipulating them to stab the octopus monster through the skin, splattering deep blue blood everywhere.

Gaza and Rena noticed Ethan's actions and realized that the Starfall City Guardian was a magic user, so he must have been the one who did it. But why wasn't he saying anything and just attacking relentlessly?

Because he had injured the octopus monster, the monster went berserk due to the pain, and actually managed to break free a bit, tearing off some of its tentacles. Then, the vicious tentacles attacked Ethan.

Ethan nimbly dodged the attack, only to find that more damage had occurred because he had avoided it. For a moment, his movements froze, and a complex mix of emotions welled up inside him.

He stopped dodging and instead conjured a shield to block the octopus monster's attack.

I hate fighting. Ethan thought.

It's so annoying. The damage is unavoidable. It's these monsters that keep appearing, causing a lot of deaths, severely damaging city buildings, and making it impossible for people to even maintain normal work.

Ugh, that annoying monster. We need to get rid of it quickly.

Ethan consumed more of his magic reserves, conjuring more sharp weapons to stab his Guardian colleagues, evading their movements. More blue blood spurted out, and a strong stench filled the air.

It smelled awful, and Ethan felt like throwing up. He glanced at the other people's expressions and realized that he wasn't the only one who felt nauseous; many of his colleagues had distorted expressions on their faces. Ethan looked away with satisfaction.

There was some blood splattered on Tenas, and the smell was so strong that he almost gagged. It stank so badly. He had no idea how this octopus monster could grow like that.

Turner also heard the small screams of other unfortunate colleagues who had been splattered with blood: "Holy crap, it got in my mouth! Ugh—"

"He really didn't try to hide it from us at all." Another colleague wiped the blood off his face and complained about the "beautiful sight" of Ethan swiftly and cleanly inserting dozens of giant weapons into the octopus monster's body, causing blood to spurt out.

The colleague who had been complaining wrinkled his nose and suppressed his churning stomach; none of the other monsters smelled as pungent as this octopus monster.

Tenas flew to the octopus monster's blind spot and began to fight seriously. Since Ethan had summoned and fixed all the tentacles on the premise of Gaza's crack, they didn't want to endure the pungent smell any longer and decided to finish the battle quickly.

Because everyone has been working together for a long time, a single glance or a call of the other person's name is enough for them to understand what they mean. They can also put themselves in the shoes of their teammates and think about what they would do in the future, so the battle ends very quickly.

After the octopus monster collapsed, they finally breathed a sigh of relief and began searching the affected battlefield for any surviving wounded.

Nadia turned over a boulder and found a badly injured woman and a little girl being held tightly in her arms. Nadia first checked the woman's pulse, which was very weak, and her body was gradually losing its temperature.

Nadia touched the girl again; her pulse was strong and steady, and there were no external injuries. She had been well protected, probably by her sister or her mother.

"Monster found 300 meters from the 8 o'clock position. Please send medical personnel immediately." Nadia gently pressed the communication device on her ear while continuing to perform CPR on the woman, but with little effect.

"Uncle, please save my dad." The child's sobbing could still be heard in the distance, clinging to Tenas's clothes to stop him from leaving, but Tenas had already checked and found that the child's father had no vital signs.

Pain seems to be contagious; it may pass by lightly, but it leaves an indelible mark.

Here you can hear children crying, parents sobbing after losing their children, or wounded soldiers waking up in pain, feeling conscious yet powerless as they experience the pain and loss of life within their bodies.

It was filled with despair, pain, and collapse, leaving no room for the future. It was unimaginable whether the survivors who had lost their families could still have the will to live as before.

Monster attacks can truly destroy many families, leave the dead with regrets, and instill a death wish in the living.

The laughter and joy of the past are like a beautiful dream, now shattered.

Ethan couldn't stand seeing this.

Ethan didn't consider himself a soft-hearted person. Perhaps in Starfall City, people generally called being soft-hearted poison, weak and incompetent, and was seen as a soft-hearted person who would embrace the goddess of death earlier.

But Ethan still couldn't bear to watch this, especially the children protected by their parents, some of them dazed and confused, calling out "Dad" and "Mom" beside their parents' cold bodies, hoping to wake them up as usual, but they received no response.

Some of the more mature children were aware of death and cried uncontrollably beside their parents, even thinking that they might as well go with their parents, but their lives were saved by their families at great personal cost.

Ethan saw Selene; all the parents who had lost their children were Selene, and all the children who had lost their parents were him.

However, they are still different from Selene. This was an accident, something that could have been avoided. It was an undeserved disaster, even more tragic than Selene losing him.

Selene and he were destined to die at the hands of scum; it was an inevitable outcome, Ethan knew it perfectly well.

But being attacked by monsters is different; they shouldn't lose their lives, they should live.

Ethan felt terrible at the thought of possibly losing Selene. He was already heartbroken just thinking about it, but they had truly lost their family. Even Selene, who had lost him, seemed to have aged ten years in an instant. The pain was the same for them.

A note from the author:

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If you don't like war, who does?

I can't write fight scenes, but writing about the grief after the war seems effortless. I finished even the fight scenes in less than a chapter. Can I really write that many words like this? [If I can't write it, I might as well write the second part here too.]

This chapter has been so difficult for me, I think it was the day before yesterday? Anyway, I'm so stuck I'm going to write a side story.

Writing about their interactions felt a bit off [scratching head]. I'll see if I can revise it later.

Oh right, they put out another episode of "Slacking Off" in the usual spot, along with images of Novigrad and Vidaris [kiss emoji] *kiss* to the reader