Chapter 302 - Slowing Down The Tempo.

Immediately the barriers had appeared, that was when the first beast had arrived at the top.

It was a jackler and it had wasted no time in jumping at the closest, Blake, with the momentum on its way up.

[There are 15 elite beasts, 2 chief rank, and 5 normal beasts.] The system reported.

'Why do I have a feeling that he had knowingly assigned us to the area with the highest beasts.' Blake complained as he shot out a flameburst, sending the jackler flying back into the other beasts and buying them some time.

"We need a barrier..." Blake said to his team as he brought out Ebony and Ivory from his dimensional space.

Without the need for more words, a battle array began forming above Castiel, and soon, Brian and Tessie joined in to create a tier 2 mana barrier battle array.

By that time the beasts had already recovered and were already at the top. The elite rank Jackler once again pounced towards the group, while a sklade had attacked from below.

Slash! Swish!

Before the jackler who hadn't learned its lesson could touch the barrier, a wind Blade had cut of its head in mid-air, while Blake had stabbed into the skull of the reptile.

Unlike the tier 1 mana barrier that only blocked attacks, the tier 2 mana barrier acted like the city barrier and let attacks from inside pass through. Acting like a bunker for the group.

Just after dealing with the first 2 beasts, 2 jackler had appeared while 2 wargs pounced through the air.

'They never learn… Well, I can't complain.' Blake thought when he saw the wargs moving through the air and striking the top barrier. All Blake had to do was thrust his sword upward and the warg which was unable to move while in the air fell into the sword.

Luciano had easily dealt with the warg coming his way, but that was when they noticed the 2 elite wargs had gone for those at the back.

[Don't get distracted, more are still coming.] The system reminded Blake, and they sensed the presence of 6 beasts behind them.

'How is that even possible?' Blake turned back to the earth ramp and saw that 4 beasts were on the ramp while 2 sklades were sticking by the sides of the ramp. Without giving them time to think, the beasts jumped off the earth ramp and made way for others by surrounding the team and attacking the barrier. 

"The fuck is going on?!" Brian cursed when he saw more beasts surrounding them. It was just a few seconds ago that Tessie, Brian, and Castiel had dealt with the 2 elite jacklers, but on blinking they began seeing more beasts surrounding them.

"We need to destroy that ramp!" Blake said to the rest of the team.

It wasn't that they couldn't kill the beasts, as a matter of fact only Blake or Luciano could do it. It was just the continuous attacks from beasts and the lack of space that made them afraid of hitting each other, taking away a lot of their options.

"Leave the bridge to me. Luciano said to the team as a golden flaming spear began forming 2 meters above the barrier.

In a few seconds, the spell was complete, and with the tip aimed at the bridge, Luciano fired the spell.

BOOM!

On coming in contact with the earth ramp, the flame spear exploded killing 3 beasts and destroying a large portion of the ramp and stopping the beasts in their tracks.

"Expand the barrier." Seeing that the beasts were no longer coming, Blake switched his target to the ones attacking the mana barrier.

Sending in more mana into the barrier, it began expanding pushing the beast against the barrier set up by the ash corps, until they were stuck in place. But that was when they sensed that the beast was back on the move.

'Are you shitting me?!' Turning back to the ramp, the team saw that it had been repaired. There was only one person that could do this and Blake wanted to rain down curses on him, but he didn't dare try it, rather he left them in his mind.

Luckily for the team, even though Major Reeves had fixed the bridge it had bought them some time.

The beasts that were stuck in between both barriers, could only watch as the team killed them all, before repositioning to face the beasts making their way to the top.

The good thing about blowing the earth ramp was that it had slowed down the tempo of the attacks. Major Reeves had knowingly begun the exercise before they were in position to increase the pressure of the exercise.

Now that they weren't feeling rushed, the team easily killed the remaining 7 beasts that had made their way to the top.

Zzzzg!

After killing the last beast with a lightning bolt that pierced into its skull, Blake blew smoke coming from his finger and turned to Major Reeves.

"A splendid execution, now let's watch how the rest are doing." Major Reeves said. When they looked over to the other team, they saw they weren't in the best of positions.

'How is it even possible for them to fail so miserably?' Blake couldn't help but think when he saw 2 second-year teams being overrun by beasts. It was only when they were deemed to be in serious danger that the ash corps intervened and save them.

As for the other teams, they weren't as bad as the teams needed to be saved, but their members had sustained some injuries.

After close to 10 minutes of mentally facepalming and shaking his head, Blake watched as the last team had defeated all their beasts. The city's barriers had been closed and the earth ramps had sunken into the ground marking the end of the exercise.

Since no student was fatally injured, they all took their positions at the center of the wall, this time Major Reeves' mean expression wasn't on his face, instead, it was an angry one.