Grace decided she couldn't hold back anymore, she took out a small black ball, which Jack recognized as the skill-free tool. She had been saving this tool for when the old elf's team came attacking again.
A brilliant light filled the room. All the shields atop Jack, Grace, and Spring Crown's heads reformed. All three now had three shields above them. Grace had used the Generosity of Hope.
"Keep fighting!" Grace yelled. "After one minute, your shields will reform again. Kill as many as possible within this one minute. We can't let them get to the people downstairs. If they break through the barricades down there, we will be sieged from two sides!"
'One minute? I thought Generosity of Hope has a duration of thirty minutes?' Jack thought. He didn't waste time asking for an explanation, though. He instead went to Grace's side and picked up Evan's shortsword. Aglea said they can pick up a fallen enemy's weapons. She never stressed whether the picker had to be the person who killed the fallen one.
Jack tested by slashing the shortsword on one of the creatures. It caused damage. It was working. With a wrench in his right hand and a shortsword in his left, Jack performed formless flowing sword style. With dual weapons, the sword art showed its power. Countless slashes struck the creatures and the rate they were killed increased.
"Do you have more of those black balls?" Jack asked.
"Here!" Grace handed him two. "These are the remaining ones I have."
Texts appeared once Jack touched the small balls.
*
Skill-free Stone (consumable)
Activate one skill.
Duration: 1 minute (any skill that has a duration of more than one minute will have its duration reduced to one minute)
*
'No wonder Grace said one minute,' Jack thought.
This meant that skills with duration were nerfed even if he could use them. He originally wanted to use Beast Form or Strength of Hope. But if the buff only last one minute, it won't change the situation much. he was not confident he could kill all these creatures within one minute even with the buff.
"Hey! A little help here!" Spring Crown yelled. Since Jack moved away, the creatures could advance to Spring Crown who stood guarding the stairs to the ground floor.
Spring Crown used his legs to kick away the creatures that came at him, while his slingshot continued firing. But with the creature's number, he would get overwhelmed soon.
Suddenly, a shadow darted above him. He thought at first it was an eagle because he heard an eagle's screeching sound, but how did an eagle come inside this house?
This shadow landed in front of him and at the same time, three of the creatures in front of him were thrown away. He noticed then that the shadow was an elven man.
"Tom!" He hailed.
Tom was wearing the steel claw weapon in his right hand. He clawed the incoming creature using that weapon and dealt damage to them. When more than one creature came, his two hands formed into claws. These claws were formed using three fingers, thumb, index, and middle fingers, imitating an eagle's claws.
These eagle claws clutched onto the creatures with precision. The strength these claws held was higher than normal even when they used fewer fingers. Tom then performed acrobatic moves and utilized the momentum to throw the creatures away.
Jack, who watched from a distance, recognize it as the eagle claw martial art. He had seen a friend of his grandfather perform this martial art in the past. It was a claw art that combined graceful and swift movement with incredible precision. Tom seemed to be quite an expert in that martial art. Too bad he didn't have mana manipulation, otherwise those eagle claws would have caused damage as well.
"Why are you up here?" Spring Crown asked while continuing to fire his slingshot.
Not that he was not happy with the assist, it's just that if fewer people held the barricades down there, the creatures might break in through the ground floor.
"They are all climbing up," Tom replied. "The sound of them crawling down there is getting lesser."
Hearing that, Jack called Tom. "Tom, head back downstairs! When you hear all of them are gone from downstairs, let us know."
"What? Why? And also, who are you?! Why do we get so many strangers suddenly?" Tom returned.
"Do as he says, Tom!" Grace ordered.
Tom was still confused but he didn't waste time arguing. After throwing away a batch of creatures near him, he did another acrobatic move and used the wall to jump over Spring Crown and went back downstairs.
Jack returned to his original position to cover Spring Crown. With two weapons and his sword art, he could better cope with this swarm. But they were still getting pushed. More and more of the dark creatures entered from above.
The floor was already piled with the creatures' bodies. These creatures didn't disintegrate like normal monsters in the outside world. This increased their difficulty in dealing with the rest of the creatures because it was getting harder for them to move around.
They lost some shields during that time. One minute of Generosity of Hope ended and all their shields were reformed, but as time passed, they lost shields again.
When they were about to get overwhelmed, they heard Tom's voice from below.
"I don't hear them crawling outside anymore. I think all of them had climbed up there!"
"Go down! Go down!" Jack told Grace and Spring Crown. "Once you are down there, have everyone run out of the house."
Despite not knowing Jack's plan, the two didn't waste time questioning him. They turned around and ran down the stairs. Jack stayed before the flight of stairs to block the creatures.
Jack used the skill-free stone then and summoned his spirit weapon. The spirit weapon immediately got into melee mode once it appeared. Its two blades slashed all incoming creatures.
Jack sent a mental command to the spirit weapon. It changed into a ranged mode and went downstairs as well. Jack followed slowly while continuing to block the creature's advance with his sword art. His spirit weapon's flying blades battered the creatures to slow them down.
When he got down there, he saw the door was opened and everyone had run outside. He activated his spirit weapon's finishing mode. He continued blocking the creatures and waited for the finishing mode to proceed halfway. He couldn't afford to let these creatures kill his spirit weapon before its finishing mode was complete.
Once he saw the detonation was about to happen. He used the second Skill-free stone and used Beast Form.
He used the inherent Wind Jet skill of the supreme dragon form and shot out of the house through the front door, just as a huge explosion decimated the house.
