Chapter 86 Ambush Of Lycans
The first harvest of wood went smoothly. They returned to the village mid-morning loaded to the limit, and most of the new villagers collapsed from exhaustion once they got back to Last Saint Village.
Kellam, Ellie, and the others who had been waiting for them in the village and had only gone to the lake to fetch water helped them unload, and then Nardor went on to give a series of instructions to initiate the palisades' construction. At the request of Ikaris, who put the security of his territory at the top of his list of priorities, he had revised upward the ambitions of the whole project.
The first palisade would form a square of 50 meters on each side, and be 4 meters high. A trench of equivalent depth would be dug around the palisade. Once the palisade was completed, it would be reinforced to become a wooden rampart at least 1 meter thick on which sentries could be posted.
The first stage of the palisade was the simplest, even a fool could construct it with enough perseverance and elbow grease. After cutting the trunks into pillars of equal length and thickness, all that was needed was to stake them into the ground side by side, tilting the pointed end slightly outward from the village.
For this reason, after Nardor explained at length how to cut and place each wooden pillar, Kellam said that he could take care of overseeing the construction in their absence. So instead of staying in the village, the dwarf, who was still full of energy, went back to the forest to cut wood with them.
However, when they returned to their woodcutting site a few moments later, Ikaris and the other villagers immediately detected several changes. The felled trees had not moved, but those with a keen sense of smell like Ezrog, Malia, and Ikaris recognized the wet dog smell of lycans.
"There are fresh footprints over here." Malia reported a few minutes after they arrived at the site.
"They look like wolf prints..." A peasant muttered as he crouched in front of another pair of footprints.
Other footprints were quickly found, but they somehow magically vanished into the bushes or under trees after a few meters. Ikaris furrowed his brow as he looked up above him,
"It looks like they're making use of the trees to get around."
Scratch, scratch.
The teenager turned toward the noise and saw Dwayne, the Down's syndrome boy, digging with his hands under one of the bushes where the footprints faded. Nardor wanted to stop the mentally handicapped man at first, but then he realized something and shouted,
"Dwayne, move over."
The young man squinted confusedly at him with his large almond-shaped eyes, then obediently stepped aside.
"Yaaah!"
The dwarf brought his hammer down heavily where Dwayne had been digging and the ground gave way instantly, revealing the entrance to a burrow wide enough for a human or large mammal to crawl through in a crouching position.
"They move underground too." Nardor growled. "That's how they manage to keep an eye on us without us noticing their existence."
"Digging, digging! Dwayne likes to dig tunnels!"
Ikaris wanted to tell him to shut up at first to get some peace and quiet, but he froze as he thought of Last Saint Village,
"A tunnel?"
As if the lycans were just waiting for that moment to spring into action, the ground caved in several places around them and about fifteen hairy monsters with canine features sprang from their underground tunnels and pounced on them, fangs and claws at the ready.
"We're under attack!" Nardor roared loudly in warning as he equipped his sledgehammer in his right hand and his lumberjack axe in his left.
This warning was completely unnecessary and fell on deaf ears. The peasants conscripted unwillingly to cut and carry wood were scared shitless when they saw all these humanoid beasts throwing themselves at them with drooling lips. Two of them even fell to the ground, a yellowish puddle spreading underneath them and staining their tunics.
They were the first to die. They were outnumbered and these lycans were far more powerful and faster than these poor, terrified, untrained humans.
Clang!
"Aaarrrrrggghh!"
Ikaris had barely blocked a claw strike with his sword, which practically dislocated his arm, when he heard a howl of pain from one of the villagers who had peed himself. He wanted to help him, but at that moment another monster jumped on him, catching him in a pincer with the one he was already fighting.
BOOOM!
A ball of red flames about a meter in diameter shot out in front of him at full speed, exploding in the face of one of the lycans clutching the arm of one of the peasants in its mouth. The spray of flame scorched the fur of the monster and two nearby creatures, and yelps of agony escaped from their muzzles.
Seizing his chance, Ezrog hit one of the badly burned monsters with a shoulder strike, knocking it to the ground. He then leapt into the air and stomped on its rib cage with all his weight. But even with that the lycan didn't die.
Nardor was not to be outdone and despite his small size he was incredibly strong. Not as physically strong as these monsters, but much more experienced.
One of the starving lycans who targeted him was picked off by a precise hammer blow to the jaw that broke half his teeth. A second one sneaked around the dwarf and savagely bit down on his thigh.
SCREECH!
Against all odds, the dwarf's thigh was not severed and it was the lycan who let out a yelp of pain when he felt his canines being stopped by skin as hard as rock. The next moment, all sensation of pain disappeared when his head was lifted from his shoulders by an axe chop.
Still, after this feat of arms, Nardor felt dizzy and dropped to one knee. The lycan to whom he had just broken the teeth with a hammer blow exerted his right of revenge with no delay.
SWIISH!
Malia's blade swung at his neck before it had time to take a step forward. His German shepherd's head hit the ground, transfixed in anger and bewilderment.
Meanwhile, Ikaris was struggling to deal with the two lycans who had targeted him. Not only were they among the most athletic and imposing, but his strength was several times less than theirs. Without his Soul Strength and the fighting rudiments he had learned the day before he would have been defeated already.
'Shit! Heart Puncturing doesn't work.' The boy cursed inwardly after using his Enhanced Strength Spell to narrowly parry a deadly claw strike.
That meant these lycans had a Magic Defense significantly higher than his Magic Power. If it wasn't an innate racial talent, then their Divine Spark was at least Sorcerer level or they had specifically created a Secondary Spark for that purpose.
Whatever it was, it deprived him of his most lethal technique. Right now, he was just a wolf deprived of his claws and fangs.
'No, there's still something I can do.'
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Ikaris coolly warded off the blows of his two opponents, until a third lycan joined the dance. The boy cursed his bad luck, but with his reading of the fight being at least up to par, he quickly adapted and continued to maneuver between them, deflecting their strikes as best he could.
Suddenly he slipped on a dead leaf and one of the lycans took advantage of the opening to bite at his neck. Ikaris smirked unnoticeably and the monster's jaw closed on empty space.
The teenager should have been easy prey, but at that moment the creature realized that it had no idea where he was anymore.
'Stealth.'
The boy swiveled into the monster's blind spot and reversed the grip of his sword, thrusting his blade deep between its shoulder blades. The tip of his blade came out the other side, impaling the heart and releasing a spurt of blood.
With Stealth still active, the two creatures did not immediately notice that Ikaris was lurking behind their ally. When a sword sprang from their comrade's chest, they thought it was a magic trick, their brains unable to process what had just happened.
The boy then kicked the corpse of the lycan towards them to distract them and in his Stealth state, he rolled behind them, then sliced the hocks of the two creatures with a circular sword stroke using his Enhanced Strength spell. The rest was history.
Deprived of their mobility and Ikaris taking advantage of the paralysis induced by the massive pain he had just inflicted on them, he sprang into the air above them before they had time to turn around and simultaneously lopped off their heads.
After killing the three lycans, the boy looked around at the battlefield and saw that the battle was almost over. The lycans were retreating with their wounded, and some prisoners, to their burrows.
There was blood and limbs everywhere, and his heart sank when he saw that of the 14 villagers who had accompanied them on this excursion, 6 were missing while the others were more or less seriously wounded. The only reason the others were still alive was that he, Malia, Nardor, and Ezrog had taken care of most of these monsters.