Looking up at the undead abomination made Warden feel like nothing but an insect under its gaze, the strength exuding from its body was unlike the many abominations he had slain to get this far, its eyes shone with a fierce intelligence and its muscles despite their atrophy contained such great strength that it made all those that came before seem like they meant nothing at all.
It retracted the blade from the clash with the shieldmaiden in less than an instant, its eyes scanning its prey to search for weak points in their formation before deciding on its target, as it scanned the young women feel back to the center of the formation to await its next attack, their strategy was rather simple yet highly dangerous.
The main crux of their formation was reliant on the aspect of the young shieldmaiden, her ability allowed for her to redirect kinetic energy away from its source, her power was crucial to their fight as very few of them could survive even a single strike from such a monstrous attack so the ability to deflect the attacks away would serve a crucial role in this battle.
Aside from her it was up to the rest of the formation to strike this monster down, the sleepers in Wardens formation mainly consisted of those with physical enhancement aspect abilities with only one or two being capable of long distance combat.
The undead horror looked down on its prey as it found the weak link it was looking for as a barrage of strikes came down on it from many angles, the weapons helplessly deflected of its mirror like armour as its blade swung down towards one of the sleepers, a loud crash thundered as the blade once again connected with the tower shield of the shieldmaiden, the floor cracking underneath her feet as the wood splintered under the might of the creatures assault.
Warden took this moment of vulnerability to strike at the creatures legs, specifically the joints which were far less armoured to allow for some freedom of movement whilst covered in heavy armour, striking at the creature's weak point he had hoped to bring it down yet no matter what he tried his blade barely managed to leave a shallow cut across its taught skin before it backed away once again, looking down on him as it blade came up once again.
The cycle continued for some time, with neither side being able to make any significant strike against the other, but with each strike that came down the shieldmainden's tower shield was slowly breaking away, it was at this point Warden had realised his mistake, he had allowed for the sleepers to show their advantages too early, the creature was fiercely intelligent and knew that it was due to her that it was unable to tear them apart, but it also knew they couldn't do anything to take it down so all it needed to do was stall for time and whittle down its opponents defence little by little until it broke completely.
No matter what they tried their attacks simply left no meaningful damage onto the creatures flesh, failing to even warp the armour of the undead fiend with the slightest of dents, even worse they had suffered some losses already, the shieldmaiden could not be every where at once so unfortunately a few attack managed to slip past her defence.
Their time was running out as her shield would only be able to withstand a few more strikes before she would have to rely on her own body to reflect the force which would greatly reduce the efficiency of her role.The undead knight rose its blade high hoping to break the defence with one last lethal blow before ripping their flesh asunder, how great would the taste be after so long.
However before it could bring its arm down a whistle flew through the air over their heads as its arm suddenly snapped back, throwing its attack of course before it could ever come to pass as an arrow made from the twisted bark pierced into its wrist causing its eyes to snap beyond the group of ants at its feet.
In the not so far distance two figures were stood facing their direction, the first was a young gaunt man armed with a simple wooden bow and a quiver of arrows, firing aimlessly in the direction of the pack of wolves in the distance, the other was a tall older man with a beautiful black warbow in his grasp, staring directly into his eyes.
Damian had been watching the battle from a distance only firing shots when he knew they would be most useful as to not waste his limited supply of arrows, attacking key weak points to disable his foes in order to
allow the sleepers a better chance of victory, as much as he wanted to he talked with Warden before the fighting began and they agreed to let the sleepers fight even if Damian could strike the enemies out before they even noticed their location.
The reason was simple, whilst all of these sleepers wielded great power very few of them knew how to effectively use it and needed a crucible in order to forge them into those who could survive the dangers of the world, to rely on the strength of others was simply dooming themselves to a swift death when the time came, so they had agreed to let them fight with Damian only stepping in to assist, not kill, he possessed the strongest weapon memory out of them all after all.
Watching the battle unfold from the distance was exactly where Damian liked to be, to see the whole picture and taking out strategic targets or dealing decisive damage was what had drawn him into becoming a sniper in the first place, the rush of knowing you've accomplished something great by working as a complete unit made him feel like he was back to fighting side to side with with war buddies once again.
(Sorry for a rushed/Short chapter, got work early today so not as much time as usual to get this done)