Despite the fact that they saw the warriors approaching, the enemies didn’t try to retreat at all. When Harth took the lead of the charge, a werewolf actually jumped at him and blocked his sword with his claws and then tried to bite his neck... it looked like they were acting purely on instinct.

All of a sudden, Harth’s muscles began to bulge and then he pushed the enemy away. The werewolf opened his eyes widely in surprise but soon dashed at him and then slashed his claws at Harth violently from all angles. This time around, Harth blocked the attacks with his sword without moving from the spot... when the enemy slowed down a bit, he stepped forward and swung his sword upward with lightning speed and then cut the enemy’s chest.

Blood gushed from the wound like a fountain, and then the enemy staggered before falling backward almost in slow motion. While Raiden approached the town, he saw the enemy’s body slowly changing until it became not so beast-like... the man still had a lot of fur and a wolf’s noise, but he didn’t look that fearsome anymore.

"Dad!" Iri shouted.

Harth was looking at the enemy for a moment and confirmed his death, but then Iri’s shout made him realize the danger... it seemed that despite the darkness of the area, someone from the fleet actually saw Harth and saw that the problem that he was and then fired a cannonball toward him.

Harth senses were heightened by the impending danger. The cannonball, launched from a distant artillery position, arced through the air with terrifying speed and accuracy toward him. Time seemed to slow as he calculated its trajectory, his trained eyes tracking its deadly path.

With a swift motion, Harth raised his sword, the blade catching the glint of the fire around as it arced upwards. His muscles tensed, every sinew focused on the single task at hand. As the cannonball descended towards him, its ominous shadow growing larger with each passing second, he struck with impeccable timing.

The sword cleaved through the cannonball with a resounding clang, splitting it cleanly into two equal halves. The momentum of each half carried them past him, mere inches from his body, the rush of displaced air brushing against his skin. The ground shook beneath him as both halves impacted the earth behind him, sending up a cloud of dust and debris.

"Wow, pretty impressive, Father..." Raiden said while nodding in surprise.

Raiden finally reached the town with the other kids and soon they began to hear some grunts on some piles of rubble. They quickly moved the parts above the rubble to make sure that they wouldn’t cause the survivors stuck below them to be crushed by the stones and wood pillars.

Maybe it was because of the tension and adrenaline, but Raiden didn’t feel much of the weight of the stones that were bigger than his head. Before long, they found the first survivor half buried in the debris, and then they began to work on freeing the person without hurting them further.

Raiden was able to hear some arrows flying and hissing across the sky in rapid succession and hitting the enemies, but that wasn’t showing much result. While he was helping carry a wounded old dwarf, he saw a werewolf with ten arrows on his chest and he furrowed his eyebrows.

"How much ripped a guy needs to be to endure ten arrows in his chest?" Raiden furrowed his eyebrows.

Raiden instinctively knew that such a thing wasn’t thanks to the density of the muscles. He also could sense an energy similar to Aura Force being used by the enemies... they must have their own variation of that technique.

As the battle continued, the clash between the beastkin attackers and the village warriors increased. Despite the beastkin matching the warriors in numbers, the defenders held the upper hand in strength and skill. Their disciplined tactics and familiarity with working together allowed them to push the beastkin back, steadily gaining ground despite the fierce resistance.

However, the situation took a sudden turn when more enemy ships appeared on the horizon. From these vessels came fresh waves of beastkin warriors, leaping into the fray with renewed vigor. This unexpected reinforcement puzzled the defenders, contradicting the beastkin’s usual hit-and-run tactics that favored swift strikes and retreats after causing as much damage as possible.

The village warriors, now facing not only a determined frontal assault but also a growing influx of enemy forces, found themselves caught in a difficult position. The strategic advantage they had initially enjoyed began to wane under the pressure of increasing enemy numbers. Confusion rippled through their ranks as they adjusted to this unexpected shift in the battle dynamics, grappling with the challenge of holding their ground against a relentless onslaught from both land and sea.

All of a sudden, Raiden saw a random warrior being hit by a cannonball and rolling on the ground when he was unable to block it properly... he wasn’t smashed by it, but he still got hit pretty badly. Javier dashed at him since that guy was his foster father...

"Cover for him," Raiden said while looking at Ruth.

Ruth nodded and then looked around with her spears in her hands... the chaos of the battlefield was too much for them to drop their guard, but Javier was completely focused on his father.

The young warriors were done rescuing the people that they could hear or sense under the debris of the buildings near the exit of the town, so they wondered what they should do next, but soon they saw Lenore approaching.

"Form a line and advance!" Lenore shouted. "Use the enemies as shields if you have to! Let’s see if they are willing to kill their own to kill us as well!"

That was quite a risky bet... Raiden didn’t imagine that his mother would actually try something like that, but on the battlefield, there was no room for jokes or half-truths. The Warriors didn’t hesitate to follow Lenore’s orders, and they advanced more in an orderly manner than before and then began to engage the enemies as groups. That would be something interesting to see since, until now, Raiden only saw them training individually... perhaps that was a discipline that he would have in the future.

In any case, the kids had more room to move and help the others as well, so they soon began to advance through the town. Despite the danger of hitting their own allies, Raiden soon saw the enemies still firing their cannonballs... it didn’t look like they were all that worried about hitting and killing their own allies.