Zectas Volume IV: The Salubrious City of Centzo by John Nest, You The Reader

side of the monsters and slashed their green flesh with bastard swords. The Varanus Indicus may have increased their life bars, but their defenses had clearly been lowered.

Ten Varanus Indicus continued their charge at the Centaurs, while nineteen faced the outnumbered Warriors.

The Centaurs kept firing at the charging monsters. When the mutated Lizardites got too close for comfort, they used their front legs and attacked the monsters, knocking them back a few meters. They used their arrows once more and waited for them to get closer for another kick.

Concurrently, the Warriors had a difficult time facing two monsters at the same time. Luckily, their round shields were large enough to give them protection from one monster while they hacked their bastard swords at the other.

Yet despite this, the Warriors' life bars were steadily being chipped away as the Varanus Indicus’ claws scratched their arms, legs and shoulders.

Adder, who was distracted watching his brothers' difficult battle, was smashed into the wall when Schrecklich’s electrified hooves rammed against his Condortlian shield. After it produced the electricity to awaken the Varanus Indicus, its hooves retained the electrical charge.

Smoke stepped in and threw his sickle at the bizarre monster, slashing its right arm.

"Focus, Adder!" he yelled out as he stood between the two of them.

ROOOOOAAAARR

Schrecklich roared once more , aiming to stun Smoke, but the DarkElf expertly leapt backwards while throwing his sickle again, attacking the monster and escaping the range of its ability.

Due to the confined space, Smoke couldn't safely use his Cyclone of Slaughter. He thought about using his Manatl, but he wasn't confident that it could block Schrecklich's stun attack.

He briefly checked on the rest of his men and found that they were slowly being overpowered. He knew he had to defeat Schrecklich soon, but he couldn't think of how to do it. He unequipped his weighted chain and sickle and decided to risk it.

"Stun him!" Smoke ordered Adder while he leapt up and scaled the wall of the black mansion.

Adder charged his shield for a frontal attack, only to be pushed to the side by Schrecklich's hooves. He dug his Condortlian shield into the floor and stopped himself from moving farther away. Yet, this proved to be a grave mistake, as Adder was still within the range of the monster’s roar.

Schrecklich used its stun ability and immobilized Adder. As it moved in closer and readied its hooves for another attack, Smoke leapt from above the abomination and tightened a noose around its mouth with his perlite chain.

"Adder, now!" shouted Smoke as his legs locked around Schrecklich's neck, while both his hands tightly gripped the chains. This prevented the monster from shouting and Smoke hoped that this disabled its stun ability.

Adder lunged his massive BlitzSturm into the monster's stomach and it went cleanly through its body. He then tried to pull it out to the side, but a charged hoof smashed into his chest and sent him flying towards the wall. Due to Adder's Death Grip ability, Schrecklich's attack forced the BlitzSturm to come out of its side and accidentally damaged itself.

Inflicted with Bleeding status, Schrecklich's life bar displayed (525,450/700,000 HP) and was losing 500 HP per second.

With his legs locked around Schrecklich's Werebear neck, Smoke checked on Adder's life bar and found that it was already at less than half, as it displayed (89,337/220,750 HP). He knew that Adder couldn't take much more of the monster's beating, but he had to stay where he was in order to prevent the monster from using its stunning ability. He was even more troubled when he saw that the rest of his men were still struggling with the Varanus Indicus they were facing.

Deep in thought on what to do, he almost failed to notice the warning that Cunning of the Dire Fox sent him when both of Schrecklich's charged Tikbalang hooves went over its head and were