Timberland also known as a dark forest because even the outer area of this forest is fully covered with large trees that covers the sky completely, not leaving the space for landing single ray of light. It also produces the famous timber wood also known as the magic wood or dark wood, can be used for furniture, construction work and even weapon making etc...
" I think all people gathered here know each other very well so I don't have to introduce eachother, Selena and Cedar will be team leader and vice team leader respectively. Said Arthur
Team consisted of seven members, excluding Selena and Cedar there were Aella the witch, Jasmine is a healer, morris is a tanker , Albert is a swordsman and lastly Ruth is a ranger.
Selena and Cedar approached both guild masters " I want you to take care of my home, they better stay safe. We are trusting you two on this."
"Don't worry we have employed two third circle swordsmen around your home, so it wouldn't be a problem."
Selena and Cedar both got reassured and left with the party members out side of the city on hybrid horses and continued on South.
Hybrid horses are larger than normal once, having more speed , stamina and also can stomp down a enemy if needed.
As they reached the entrance of the Timberland a beautiful scene could be scene from some distance, the terrain was not flat rather it was asymmetric like gentle waves and some ridges were higher than others and all the trees moving with the wind made look like a green ocean.
Bringing the horses inside the jungle was not a good idea so they released horses and continued on feet. The hybrid horses are common to use for travelling as they are coast effective and have normal intelligence to remember the route and some basic gestures.
Albert and morris were on the front of the party behind was Selena and Aella behind them at centre was Jasmine and at last was Cedar.
Ruth was scouting ahead by jumping from tree to tree without making any noise. Ruth is 4th circle human mage specialized as ranger with average height of around 162 cm and average look with short brown hair. Ruth was a human who had developed an low quality orange mana core leading to small mana pool , make oneself conscious about utilising mana carefully.
Humans with low quality mana core fill up the gaps by using various gears and choosing weapon that may compatible with them, choosing to be ranger , magic swordsman, tank, assassination , battle mage, mage etc.it doesn't mean all humans thinks same , they all have their fair share of plus and minus that may lead to become something unimaginable.
As they ventured more inside the forest path were becoming more more narrow until it led them to walk in straight line.
The sun was allready half way through reaching the centre of the sky, from inside of the forest it's almost looked like early morning in winter.
Ruth stoped and gestured to stop everyone, there was a monster outpost at 200 meters away from them but they could not see it as trees were blocking the vision. " There are three outpost on each three tree , each out post has three goblins on them and 12 goblins are stationed on the ground."
Aella murmured something and tilted her wand casting camouflage spell on all party members.The party tried as close as they could go near the outpost than Cedar signaled Ruth , she fired three silent arrows in rapid succession on the first outpost making a clean heat.
Both morris and Albert rushed in the goblins on ground ,
Albert was wearing full body light weight black metal armour including helmet, he reached first and started to slice down the goblins in half, his black sword was one and half meter long slim and double edged , sharp enough to cut down the enemies without using mana.
Morris came second, seeing his massive size of almost 200 cm and wearing full body heavy metal armour , he looked more like a golem. Used his large axe which crushed both weapons and bodies of goblins.
Before the goblins on from other two post can try to make signal by ringing the bell, all six goblin had a hole in their head as six fire bullets were fired by Selena.
Jasmine used wood magic to extend the branches of the trees as ropes to bring the all dead bodies in one place.
Aella came near the dead goblins to investigate, " There is nothing abnormal about their bodies, but it is unusual that they made outpost in middle of the trees."
"Goblins live in herd and during day they never stay at one place, always trying to find new pray " said Cedar.
Selena observed the corpses and said " As the Arthur told me about the deaths of previous scouting team it seems like they should have been ventured way deeper than this.From now on we are going to keep up the speed until we reach the end of the outer area".
" Even coming after this far there is no trace of any living being. Shouldn't we return back " said Albert
" We can't do that what if there is something that we need to find out as soon as possible or it may lead to a disaster." Said Morris . Albert sighed and said "Okay you won "
"We allready have reached at middle at the end of the outer region and will be entering the middle region so be careful " Selena said
Ruth was scouting ahead and noticed something unusual, " it's a sunlight , sunlight coming from the sky . That means a open space , I am going ahead."
" Wait don't go there , it could be a trap." Said Selena " it's okay I allready confirmed there is no trap in here, and even if ther is, I can smell it from half a mile away."
When the all members arrived at the place where empty space was they saw Ruth looking terrified by something , she was standing at the age of the cliff and looking down , she looked behind and gestured them to see below
What they saw bellow was , thousands of disaster class monsters marching towards the city . All the outer region monsters such as a goblins , dire wolves and iron bears and monster trees were present here. But it was not the most horrifying thing.The most horrifying thing was the presence calamity monsters man faced spider , star dire wolf, goblin lord , iron tyrant and mutated trent.
Watching this all of them gasped for air as the scene of thousands of monsters marching towards the city was so much for them to endure, only Selena and Cedar were thinking with straight minds as they have encountered enough scenarios like this in their experience .
Cedar with heavy intimidating voice " Get your self together you d**p sh**ts , I need everyone to be in their f***ing straight minds so that you can all follow the orders that will be given to you."
" Do you understand ?" The all five party members nodded without a hitch.
" I will be taking over from here, Honey. Thanks for the help." Said Selena.
" Ruth , I am giving you this teleportation scroll . It will directly teleport you to outside of city at rendom location, you allready know what you have to do. Take it." Ruth took the scroll and murmured the spell and closed her eyes. A magic circle envoloping Ruth appeared , when she opened her she was allready near the city gate.
" We will attack the marching monsters from here to distract them and will try to decrease their numbers as much as possible and create as much as time as possible so the city can prepare for it's defence."
Cedar sensing the fear in their eyes laughed and said " you are more safe here with me than you on city wall." " Do you know why?." In which response they both nodded sideways.
Cedar replied with pride full smile " because, we are on the high ground."
It flabbergasted both of them, who will be in their right mind will give a answer like this. They wanted say something before they experienced warm light coming from a distance in sky.
A beautiful woman in silver jade clothes with four wings on her back and long black hair were tied together by lean breaded hair loop in a circular manner around the head made it look like a crown.
"Thunder storm" dark clouds began to constructing in seconds , before the monsters can feel abnormality , red lightnings started to hit the all over on the battlefield. Hundred of monsters started dying , either getting one shotted or died after getting tortures death of getting hit by multiple times.
After watching the aftermath of the attacks both of them looked at Selena with admiration.
Star dire wolf and man faced spider both stoped in their tracks and looked at the cliff,
The star dire wolf howled signalling multiple dire wolves running in the direction of the cliff and started climbing. Man faced spider screeched in airy voice leading multiple spiders following the wolves on cliff.
Selena who was in mid air didn't care about small fries and directly attacked man faced spider with wind blades, causing agony to it, as multiple cuts were made on it's body. It screeched again shotted webs sticky and powerful as still but it all got cut through by second in coming of the wind blades
" Okay it's our time to shine" said Cedar and looked at Jasmine " okay you should use it now." Jasmine nodded and casted multiple buffs,
Haste, increase speed. Bless , increase attack power. also other buffs enhancing enhancing accuracy, stamina and will power.
She also casted multiple debuffs on monsters. Bane, one of the five attack gets miss fire. slow curse, reduce the movement speed. Flash, bright light making unable to see.
Jasmine stood behind the three men, used magic potion to replenish the mana pool. Albert was surprised and asked out loud " why you never used this before." Jasmine replied in calm manner that "It is a hassle to use, draining my whole energy and it was never needed before."
Albert having gained so much to get processed by his brain didn't argued and positioning himself in next to Morris with a fighting stance.
Aella also joined in as she also casted various restrictiing spells on enemies. She joined Selena and supported her from sideways. As she casted "fire balls" multiple times all the monster that were coming towards the cliff got hit by it , spiders web got melted before it could reach them. Wolves having speed dodged everything and started climbing.
As the monsters climbing on the cliff reached at top were met with the firsts of Cedar, getting their face crushed like watermelon. His fist were coated with black mana and if someone saw carefully than shiny scales could be seen from fingers to half of the hand.
Albert and Morris were both were fourth circle magic swordsman and tanker, they also coated their weapons with mana. Albert being a duel wielder , used both of his swords to slice down the monsters.
Morris also coated his large iron axe and iron shield with mana , used shield to defend against three dire wolves and when one of them got off balance , he struck down his axe splitting the one and half meter wolf in half.
Almost more than sixty five percentage monsters were allready at the entrance of the forest and marching towards the city including three calamity monsters.