Fight

As Jason was a bit behind the rest of the group he was able to get a good view of what was going on. Or at least as much as he could through the dark forest.

When Jason got closer to the group of tree trunks where the shadowy figures with glowing eyes were, Boops finally was able to pick them up on the map.

Jason could hear Boops quietly counting them. His voice started out softly as he counted them in 10s and 20s but his voice got louder as he reached the hundreds and more red dots kept on appearing on the map at a faster rate.

Finally, Boops started to yell out

'Jason! There are 400 of these monsters!'

Internally Jason was panicking. Those monsters didn't seem like a goblin or something. They seemed like something from his nightmares. Perhaps some part of Jason still saw the world of WOW as a game which it was.

But seeing all of the nightmarish things in the forest hit too close to home for him and it brought up bad memories that he would have liked to have kept under wraps.

Jason quickly shook his head to keep himself from spiraling down into the pit of memories and ran towards where the sounds of fighting were and also where the map displayed the green dots.

Usually, without Charlie's ball of light, Jason couldn't see much, but courtesy of Lyle who was swinging around his black sword with glowing red runes they looked almost like a landmark.

Lyle was swinging his sword in wide circles as he slashed at the overwhelming swarm of glowing-eyed monsters.

As Lyle swung his sword around the light from the burning red runes illuminated the creatures a bit.

Jason saw skin that had the color of a dried leaf and a withered body. It reminded Jason of *ollum from a certain story of rings and lords.

The creature's arms were long and its legs short. And from the brief swings, Lyle threw around they were fast and nimble even though they looked like they hobbled around.

More and more glowing eyes were appearing from the trees. It scared Jason a lot as he just saw eyes open up suddenly all around him.

Lyle and Charlie were on opposite ends of the fights. Charlie was on the other side illuminating as much as he could with his ball of light and fighting off as many monsters as he could along with the majority of the wolves and the rest of the Blue 2 team.

His blue sword swung up and down constantly spilling yellow-colored blood as he fought off the glowing-eyed monsters.

Colby was right next to him defending him from the many surprise attacks that came from above. The glowing-eyed creatures came at the group with almost anything, from tree branches to their own fists.

Jason quickly ran to where Lyle was. The wolves were fighting off the creatures everywhere most of them had formed into a group and were taking them out together but a few were viciously taking out the glowing-eyed creatures on their own.

Lyle gave Jason enough room to get close to him without getting sliced in two and with trembling hands, Jason held his sword and tried to swing the sword like how he was taught.

Though there wasn't any real strength of intent in the swings, the many hours and days he spent just swinging the sword made him subconsciously swing his sword in a frim and fast manner.

Jason sliced down on a glowing-eyed creature that screeched in a loud earsplitting voice as its arm fell off his body.

Lyle saw a chance and backed up a bit so that his back was pressed next to Jason's. He shouted over the loud din of the fighting

"so you have any idea what these things are?"

Jason could barely answer, he was too busy worrying about the possibility of the glowing creatures leaping on them and imagining their gruesome ends.

He could only utter out an

"uh"

And swing down his sword at a leaping monster while internally trying to suppress the feeling of panic in his body.

Boops started to shout at him

'YOU IDIOT YOU CAN ANALYZE THEM'

Somehow Jason was able to put the strings together and said "identify" in his mind weakly. Bringing up the information on the monsters.

[altered goblin]

[level 25]

[description: a goblin that has been influenced by the darkness in the forest, its physical abilities have been enhanced in exchange for its eyes which are now replaced with an unknown eerie glow. Its hunger for flesh has also been increased]

Boops uttered a sound of amazement at the good description of the monster. He really didn't expect something as accurate and helpful as this. Boops wanted to see how the system was able to get the information, but currently, Jason was panicking over the entire thing because of some of his past traumas. Boops wanted to help Jason with his past, but sadly that was only something he could deal with himself. Especially something as personal as that...

Jason tried his best to relay the information in between the small periods of rest when Lyle decided to slam his black sword in the ground and create a circle around them with fire seeping out of the ground momentarily stopping the altered goblins.

"huh so they are Goblins I guess that makes sense staying in this place for a few weeks feels like it can drive a person insane."

Jason nodded fervently, he was fine with literally anything else besides and atmosphere like this, volcano? sure desert with no water? sure snowy mountain? sure but dark creepy forest? Jason absolutely hated them.

Even if there were no monsters just knowing that an enemy could jump out ay any second in a dark place like this made him want to just run away to somewhere safe. The forest he met the wolves was entirely different though.

The ground around Lyle started to lose the fire that was dancing on it and Lyle picked up his sword and looked at Jason with a grin.

"I know you hate this, we all do but in think you most of all, so let's get out of here quickly alright?"

Jason's energy seemed to return back to him when he heard "get out of here" and his eyes focused on the altered goblins. The unknown enemy is always the most terrifying.

Jason had experienced that first hand. But now looking at the altered goblins he was able to look at them again. No longer as the giant creepy monsters that he had imagined. But monsters that were in his way of getting out.

Jason quickly injected mana into his steel sword and placed his body into the starting stance of the 5th form. They were coming from everywhere the trees the ground, adaptability was the most important thing here.

Lyle's ability seemed to stop at that point and it could no longer ward off the creatures. A loud screech was heard and the monsters came in mass. Jason quickly deflected the projectiles thrown by the creatures in the trees.

Lyle surrounded his sword with fire and swung at each altered goblin that came at him turning them into a charred crisp.

Jason was kept busy by blocking the altered goblins attacks they attacked with their arms and tried to bash at Jason. Though it was obvious they felt pain and the entire team was massacring them the altered goblins kept on surging towards the group.

Jason after suddenly feeling a bit of clarity after the mental rut he was in quickly remembered the quest objectives and checked the map to look for the wolves.

The main group of wolves lead by Asher and Lance were with Charlie and were fending off the hundreds of monsters that were charging towards them.

Jeffery was leading the rest of the wolves after realizing that the wolves that were fighting on their own were going to get swarmed over soon. So Jeffery quickly ran out of the main group and united them into a small wolf task force and from what Jason saw Jeffery was running towards them with those wolves in tow.

Jason turned an altered goblin's swing with its club to hit another goblin and soon he realized that the altered goblins on the trees couldn't differentiate from friend or foe. All that he needed to do was to make it sound like he was there.

So with the help of Jason, the altered goblins on the ground got bombarded by the altered goblins in the trees after Jason created loud noises in the thick of their crowd by tossing in some trusty metal spikes. The metal spikes pierced through some of the bodies of the altered goblins making them yell out a death scream as they died.

So soon the altered goblins intimidating force of 400 started to wither down under the rose knight trainee and wolves constant assault. Their failed attempt at an ambush served to help the rose knights with a zero casualty rate.