Chapter 262 - Forced Retreat
Ryan forced his field of vision to expand while he fired and the bolts nonstop. Then, he focused his mind on a certain point a few meters ahead of Daniel and Holland. Even though his aim was constantly changing places, he made sure to maintain that place as the center of his field of vision, and then when he felt comfortable enough, Ryan used Ice Storm.
Just as expected from a skill Ryan never used before, the damage caused was laughable. However, the cold winds slowed down the monsters and froze some of them. After just a few seconds, the pressure on Daniel a d Holland decreased, and they stopped from being pushed backward.
"Focus on covering for Lilian and Luke," Ryan declared. "I will cover for those two."
When the backline hears that, they thought that Ryan had gone mad once again. There was no way he would be able to keep an area of effect spell active while firing bolts that fast.
However, much to their surprise, Ryan manages to do that and much more. They could see with their eyes alone the power and scope of the spell increasing.
"I had forgotten of how crossbows are so useful… as much as I train, using bows will never be as fast and as convenient as using crossbows."
"We are holding them back! Holy crap, Ryan," Tristan said. "How the heck can you recover so much mana?"
"If you didn't notice, all of us can obtain an unlimited number of classes. If you combine the skills of some of them, you can pretty much create several cheating builds," Ryan replied. "Anyway, focus on the task ahead. If we mess up, the monsters will jump on their neck, and they will become easy targets."
If Ryan could trust others, he could easily help some survivors become stronger with the right classes and skills. One of those was by combining an archer that uses crossbows and has the sage class. It was a pretty powerful combination. Even early on, they could become powerful. The survivors just would have to focus on increasing their dexterity. However, since he couldn't trust anything aside from his summoned monsters and tamed beasts, he had no plan of spreading around that kind of knowledge. He was already betrayed once, although Ryan could be betrayed in the future again, at the very least, he won't give the tools to others and make those possible betrayals more painful.
In the end, despite all that fighting, the vampires never showed up. If they had come, Ryan was one hundred percent sure that he and the others would be forced to run, but it looked like some pop-culture knowledge about vampires wasn't absolutely bullshit. That made Ryan wonder… why the hell those mythical creatures had the same weakness as humans imagined them to have? Their existence was already enough as it is, but to such information to be accurate…
Before Ryan could come up with a logical explanation, something weird happened. The Chupacabras stopped their charge and then started to retreat toward Monterrey. Ryan sighed when he saw that… he should have expected that. Not all creatures were prideful like dragons.
"We… we won!" Tristan jumped and then raised his arms to the sky.
"Stop fooling around," Ryan said. "We are going to chase them and eliminated as many as possible before they spread and hide inside the city."
"What about the loot?" Holland asked while he was using the Paralyzing Spear to keep himself standing.
"No one will approach this sea of corpses so easily," Ryan replied. "We are just going to hunt a few more of them for the sake of convenience. We won't lose more than half an hour."
Although the backline was physically fine, they were mentally exhausted, with Ryan being the sole exception. As expected, even though the monsters never reached them, the pressure was something else.
As for the frontline, they were physically and mentally exhausted. Ryan used Stamina Restoration to solve one of the problems, but even though he gave them some mana potions, Daniel and the others still looked pretty beat down. Despite that, they followed Ryan to keep a decent formation while killing the monsters. That being said, only Ryan had the range to attack them, so the others only followed him for the sake of appearance.
"Jesus Christ… look at this mountain of corpses," Daniel said with a frown on his forehead. "I can't believe we caused this."
"Look at this mountain of items," Holland grinned from eating to ear. "I can't believe that half of this is going to a single archer."
"Half… that was funny," Ryan laughed.
"Despite your calm demeanor, you are quite a greedy follow, huh," Holland laughed.
"No, I am just not stupid," Ryan said. "Still… I would feel bad for not rewarding those who came to help me. Well, maybe I should be greedy."
"Oh? I like a reasonable man," Holland said. "So, can I keep the spear?"
"Keep dreaming," Ryan said. "The job isn't over yet, but you can take the best item you can find among the loot and one tome as well."
When they heard that, even those who were exhausted recovered their vigor. They were fully aware that Ryan did most of the work, so they couldn't help but be excited about his words. Since the fight might become even more difficult inside Monterrey, they would need that power up. Besides, Ryan didn't find anything worthwhile among the loot when he took a quick glance. At best, the most powerful weapons were one tier below his magic weapons. It was only natural, though, since Ryan obtained those magic items by killing powerful bosses.
Despite his generosity, Ryan still managed to get his hands on three magic rings of the immortal, and that boosted his recovery considerably. As for tomes, Ryan only was interested in one: Electric Bullet. All the others he already its respective skills. So, he let Daniel and the others use them after they paid him some coins.