PORTAL TO ANOTHER WORLD

65.Defense.

Rachel: "We shouldn't stay here for too long, they could have gone to the outpost that's a bit further from here."

The girls nod and start looking around.
The search doesn't take long as one of the girls finds a circle where there was nothing growing in it and some grass around it was black, which only meant that there was a campfire here not that long ago. The girl calls everyone to check it out and when everyone surrounds the small circle, the first one to speak is Rachel.

Rachel: "It seems like they were here not that long ago."

Rachel touches the ground where the campfire was and nods to herself.

Rachel: "The ground is still a little warm."

Neko (Healer): "Look over there..."

The neko points at something on the ground, you can't tell what it is from where you are.

Neko (Healer): "...It seems like they went deeper into the forest."

Rachel: "Let's just hope that it's what we're looking for and not someone else."

Rachel stands up and starts leading the girls deeper into the unknown where the enemy could still be residing. Since you felt uneasy about Rachel from the start, you decided to scout out ahead again, it only took a few shadow jumps for you before you saw ten girls standing on and behind trees. These girls were vampires and they were waiting there, as if they wanted to ambush the group and Rachel was leading them straight to it. You stop to think for a second, before making your decision.

The only reason why she would look back is probably because she was worried that someone would follow them, she also didn't seem like she wanted [y/n] to split up and now, she's leading them into an ambush but why would the vampires do that? If they weren't happy about something they could've talked with the queen about it, it's not like they would get killed for it...

You concentrate on the things that you've seen change so far and didn't care that much about it.

Now that I think about it, it felt like there were less people in the city and I haven't seen a single vampire, but it doesn't really explain why the others fear [y/n]...

You sigh and decide to encourage yourself before it's too late.

You can't take any chances Jane, I'd rather make a mistake like that than let them get hurt.

You jump from shadow to shadow until you reach Rachel and attack her from below. She jumps forward and uses her claws to defend from the other blades that you sent her way.

Dragon (Warior): "Jane!? What are you doing?!"

You emerge from the ground and summon a dagger in each hand.

Jane: "She was leading you into an ambush."

Dragon (warior): "Are you sure?"

No, I'm not but if I'm right about this...

The vampires quickly surround you as the girls behind you draw their weapons.

Jane: "Oh look, they came to give us a friendly hug."

It seems that I was right about it.

Warior: "I see, It's hard to trust anything with the things that have been happening lately."

Hard to trust? Are they making copies of me or something?

Rachel: "I really thought that you would attack much sooner Jane, I almost let my guard down."

She smiles at you and prepares to attack.

Jane: "You should give up."

You summon hundreds of blades above your head and aim them all at her.

Rachel shakes her head and laughs. She prepares to speak probably about how she has a way to win against you since she seems way too confident when there's hundreds of blades pointed at her but before she could open her mouth you send the blades her way. The vampires don't stand around and quickly jump behind Rachel and from a dome of blood around her. The blades almost pierce the dome but it quickly regenerates. You first try to summon blades inside the dome but something wasn't allowing you to.

Guess we will do it the slow way.

You summon even more blades this time but point them at one location and send them one after another. As they slowly cut through, a small hole opens at the top of the dome and a bright white orb comes through it but before it can close, you send a few blades inside and at the orb. The white orb melts the blades behind you and the ones you sent at it, you're not sure if the ones you sent inside the dome melted as well. The orb suddenly splits in two and moves to your left and right completely removing your shadow.

This is not good, without any shadows I can't do much and the girls behind me... Well, I'm not sure how capable they are.

The dome collapses into a pool of blood and as it does another bright orb goes up into the sky and makes it almost impossible to see anything.

I'm glad that I decided to wear normal clothes instead of making them with my shadow.

Dragon (Warior): "Let's slowly retreat."

Dragon (D/W warior): "Stay close to us."
*dual wielder*

You feel a hand on your shoulder and then it pulls you into a small square that they've made to protect the healer and you and start to slowly move back.

Rachel: "You think you can escape this?"

You hear someone approach from your left and quickly warn them.

Jane: "To our left."

They somehow block whatever was coming their way but that was only the begging of their attacks. You hear many silent steps in front of you and then a very silent step to your right.

Jane: "Someone's on our right."

And again they somehow block the attack that was coming their way.

Rachel: "I already know what I'm gonna do first once i get my hands on you, I'll start with those ears of yours."

You look behind and see a shadow that a tree has made for you.

Rachel: "Jane, I wouldn't even think about doing that if I were you."

The light suddenly appears behind you completely removing any shadows that were there.

Did she split the other orb in half?

Another attack comes from the front and you don't even need to warn them as they block it with ease.

Rachel: "I think that that's enough of playing around."

You can hear someone coming from the front and you were sure that it was Rachel attacking this time. She took a few more steps and then it went silent until all you could hear was her claws hitting the shield.

Rachel: "I'm not gonna lie, I'm impressed by your defense, I thought that you'd be as useless as these vampires here."

She tries to attack again, this time she's not doing it alone, you can hear a few of them coming from behind and the front.

You and the group were still moving away slowly while defending from all of the attacks that were coming your way, sadly the orbs were following you.

At first you weren't sure about them but now, you're starting to wonder what kind of training did they go through to be able to sense almost every move of theirs, but even if it was an intense training for them everyone has a limit, the real question now is when will they reach it?
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