“What!? Are you crazy!? That’s insane!” Iris said as she reacted quite strongly to Mako’s instructions. She couldn’t even begin to register the fact that he had voluntarily opted to fight out a whole horde of incoming beasts all on his own while the rest recovered.

“It’s alright, Mako! You don’t have to push yourself anymore. We can all fight together, right guys?” Iris said in a caring tone as she tried to get him to change his mind.

Iris expected everyone to back her up but to her surprise, nobody took her side as she went against Mako’s idea which was a huge shocker for her.

“What are you guys doing? Are you seriously going to let him fight an entire wave of beasts by himself while we stay comfortably inside our shelter?!” Iris asked the rest of the group in a ridiculing manner but before things could escalate, Bill grabbed onto Iris’ arm to try and calm her down.

“Iris please calm down and think about it from a tactical perspective. Mako is making the best move. He is the one who is least tired out of all of us right now and even though he is not in his peak state, he can perform better than us right now.” Bill said in a polite and calm manner. 𝗻𝐨𝐯𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

“If we all were to fight at the same time, then we would all gradually lose our energy as the waves continue and by the last wave, all of us would be tired since we were all continuously fighting and wouldn’t be able to deal with the more dangerous beast that would come in last wave.” Bill continued.

“On the other hand, Mako is proposing a good solution where he fights the beasts as long as he can so that we can recover as much energy as we can and be prepared to replace him before the next wave comes. This will make it so that the next most energized and capable person would fight the wave while the previous one could start recovering as well.” Bill added as he finished explaining Mako’s thought process to Iris.

Iris took a moment to consider Bill’s point and finally realized that he was correct. It would be advantageous for them to have a few rested and powerful individuals to fight each wave, as they could battle without experiencing exhaustion and would not need to divert their attention to protect others during the battle.

Once the wave was over, they could shift places with one another and take turns resting so that fresh and strong people would be ready to face the next incoming wave.

Right now Mako and Erin were the only ones who had recovered the most energy and hadn’t wasted it like Leon. Mako told Erin that she would be his backup in that if he were to ever get overwhelmed or taken by surprise by the beast, she would watch his back and make sure he wouldn’t get hurt.

Erin accepted this task and stationed herself near the front gate of the shelter, ready to jump in the fight at a moment’s notice.

The rest of the group went inside the shelter and began eating some of those MREs and meditating in order to regain their expended energy as fast as possible and prepare themselves for the third wave.

****************

The night was silent and the wind was blowing strong as Mako awaited for the next wave of beasts to come. During the time that he did have before their arrival, Mako piled all the Silver Wolf bodies into one corner and harvested their crystals.

After successfully harvesting all the High-level raw crystals, Mako lit the Silver wolf corpses on fire and proceeded to drop the crystals inside the shelter.

Just as he finished giving Leon his crystals, Mako could sense multiple multiple creatures heading toward the shelter from the south side thanks to his upgraded Analyze skill and he quickly grabbed his staff and made his way outside to see what he was dealing with.

The beast turned out to be a type of dog that was completely red in color and had a mane of a lion that was mainly orange in color which created a cool gradient with the red body to imitate the look of flames on its body.

There were around 40 to 50 such beasts that were making their way toward the shelter.

Mako quickly used Analyze on them to learn more about them and especially figure out what were their weaknesses.

Analyze

High-level Flame Dogleo

Ability: Fire (Level 4)

Description: A Flame Dogleo is a creature made purely out of fire. Its organs, bones, and skin itself are also made of fire. They are highly proficient in the Fire ability, so much so that fire attacks of the same level have no effect on them and anything that even grazes the skin of these creatures would instantly get burned.

A Flame Dogleo’s evolution is quite vast and spans multiple levels. It begins with a Medium Level pup and grows into a High-Level Dogleo naturally over the course of only one year. Once the Dogleo has matured, it has to feed on the ash of its burnt opponents in order to become strong and evolve into many stronger levels.

Flame Dogleos are extremely sensitive to water, so much so that a single drop of water can cause severe damage to their skin that can be long-lasting. To protect themselves from the water, the Flame Dogleos have developed a natural barrier in the form of a thick coat of fur surrounding them around the neck which resembles the mane of a lion as well as hydrophobic hairs which cover it from head to toe and it helps repel water away from its skin.

Weakness: Water, Ice

The system had done a great job of giving a great description of the beasts that Mako was about to face.

According to the system, these Dogleos would be immune to his fire-related skills since he also only had a level 4 Fire ability, the same as the Dogleos. This significantly reduced Mako’s fighting options, but he wasn’t worried that much as the system had also revealed a massive weakness that the Dogleos possessed.

Erin could now also see the horde of red furry-looking dogs headed toward them. Fire was released from their nostrils as they breathed out, eyes glowing like lava, and leaving burnt marks of their footprints on the ground as they neared the shelter.

“Erin, It’s obvious that these beasts are heavily affiliated with the Fire ability which means your Water and Ice abilities will be key for taking them down. Climb onto the roof of the shelter so that you stay away from their range of attack. They will focus on you when they realize that you are their kryptonite, but whatever you do don’t leave the roof, or else I wouldn’t be able to protect you.” Mako shouted instructions to Erin.

“I will try to get them all to focus on me and While I distract them, take them out from above using Ice and Water skills. I am counting on you!” Mako added as he finished shouting instructions over to Erin who quickly acknowledged them and followed them immediately.

Mako’s shouting aggravated the Dogleos and they began snarling and growling at him with intense heat and fury. Soon, they broke their formation and started sprinting toward Mako, beginning their assault.

While Mako was yelling instructions over to Erin, he was also infusing his staff with as much Lightning aura as possible, and now that it had reached its maximum limit, Mako set the handle to default and raised the staff with the glowing crystal into the air.

All the Dogleos were rushing toward Mako with intense bloodlust. Mako waited until the last possible second to ensure that almost all of the Dogleo would be in range.

Just as the first Dogleo was about to lunge at Mako with its teeth and claws exposed, Mako impaled the raised staff into the ground with great force as he cast his first skill.

Electrical Discharge has been activated

A strong and massive pulse of electricity began to erupt from Mako’s staff which quickly expanded and reached its maximum range in an instant, covering almost all of the Flame Dogleos and paralyzing them completely.

Mako had made sure to stand a specific distance away from the shelter so that when he used the Electrical Discharge skill, it wouldn’t reach the shelter and paralyze Erin and the rest.

He was standing in a very well-calculated position where he would be far enough from the shelter that his skill wouldn’t reach them yet would be close enough that if the Dogleos decided to start attacking the shelter instead of him, he could rush back in time to protect them.

Luckily, since Erin had hidden on the roof, the Dogleos only had one target in their line of sight which was Mako and that was why all of them rushed toward him to attack.

Now with almost all of the Dogleos paralyzed, Mako took out his combat knife which he had borrowed back from Erin for this fight, and began stabbing the paralyzed Dogleos killing them in an instant.

Even if Mako didn’t activate the active skill on his combat knife, his knife was still crafted out of the crystal and body parts of a beast that had the Ice affinity and even this was enough to trigger the Dogleo’s weakness as their skin began hiss just as the blade made contact with their skin.

Seeing that Mako was easily able to defeat their kind, the few Dogleos that had not been affected by the paralysis started to shoot strong fireballs from their mouths at Mako which forced him to move.

Not wanting to waste the amazing opportunity, Mako shouted over to Erin who was still hidden from view at the top of the roof.

“ERIN! They are all paralyzed for the next 40 seconds! Kill as many as you can using your abilities. Reduce their numbers while I deal with the few who didn’t get paralyzed!” Mako shouted.