Transmigrated as a Ghost

Staring down a hoard of numerous and varied monsters, Marcus began giving out orders.

"They do not seem keen to charge us yet, so let us prepare to launch as large of an attack as we can."

With swift movements all fourteen of them moved into a wide formation that would allow them to launch large range attacks without hitting each other.

As they did the monsters that had been laughing at them for their failed attempts to fly staggered back, and a moment later numerous horns began blowing from throughout the area.

It seemed that they were not just a mindless horde, and now that Marcus and his group were getting ready to attack, they had become serious as well.

'Embodiment of Light,'

'Starlight Rain.'

To start the battle Marcus launched his tier seven light magic spell into the air and thousands of beams of light began falling down over the monsters.

An instant after everyone else unleashed powerful attacks that could level small towns with ease.

A storm of lighting, a flood of flames, an avalanche of ice, and numerous blasts of mana followed Marcus' attack, and the battlefield became chaotic in the wake of powers on the scale of natural disasters.

The monsters did their best to defend, collectively using skills like mana barriers to protect themselves and the bulkiest among them acting as shields for those that were smaller and more lithe.

Everything shook and rumbled under the pressure of the attacks unleashed by everyone.

In one fell swoop thousands of monsters had died yet the damage was far less than any of them had expected.

'Looks like they have fairly good defense against wide area attacks.' Marcus thought.

The number of monsters that had powerful defensive skills was staggering, and they moved swiftly and effectively to reduce the damage from all the attacks that had just hit them.

It was clear that individually they would never be able to take these attacks, but there was strength in numbers. It was clear that this challenge was going to push them not by pitting them against a few powerful enemies but multiple weaker ones that would fight together to try and overcome them.

After the first volley of attacks from Marcus' team the monsters reorganized themselves and began the attack.

They were not simply going to wait and be bombarded and rushed forward in an unending tide.

A cacophony of feet slamming against the ground echoed through out the plain and blocked out any other sound.

'Keep firing at them as they approach and when they make it to us, we will cut through and try to charge on ahead. Since we cannot fly the goal may not be to simply wipe them all out but to make it to the other end.' Marcus said switch to telepathy to avoid his orders being drowned out by the sound of stomping feet and explosions.

Like limitless artillery they continued to launch powerful spells, breath attacks, and mana blasts at the oncoming monsters.

However as many as they turned to ash, froze solid, or rended into unidentifiable piles of meat and bones, more kept coming and eventually they were surrounded on by all sides.

And to make matters worse, while none of them could fly their opponents certainly could, and numerous flying monsters from gargoyles to winged centipedes attacked from above.

In only a minute they were boxed in with attacks coming at them from all sides.

'Roxene right before my radiance scales spell breaks use yours.'

'Everyone else use defensive abilities when you feel threatened, but leave the overall defense to Roxene and I.'

A couple seconds after he relayed this order his spell that had been protecting the group began to falter and Roxene cast her own to replace it.

Normally this spell was meant to be used for personal protection, but if the caster was skilled enough, they could spread it out over a wider area and take full control of it to protect a larger group.

Constantly cycling between Marcus and Roxene's spells they were able to keep up a perpetual barrier that blocked most attacks and allowed everyone else to focus more on mowing down the army in front of them.

They had to wade through a flood of monsters and if they all had to worry about attacking and defending then their progress would slow greatly.

'Crap!'

While they had been making good progress fighting their way through the army of monsters an unexpected development soon came to stop them.

The earth below their feet began to break apart and popping out of it and circumventing the radiance scales spell protecting them was dozens of large bronze snakes with a horn on their heads like a shovel.

All at once as they got the drop on Marcus and his team, they opened their mouths and unleashed clouds of position gas.

'Dark Portal.'

Acting quickly Marcus used one of the new unique skills he had acquired in the dungeon.

It had the power to create gates of darkness that warped space and connected multiple points together.

Unfortunately, only those with a very strong darkness affinity could use it as a means of transport so Marcus would only be able to use it to warp himself and Roxene. But it still had plenty of other uses beside being a method to travel quickly from one point to another.

In only an instant dozens of swirling gates made of darkness appeared in front of the bronze serpents' mouths and sucked all of the poisonous gas up.

Then a much larger portal appeared off in distance above a group of monsters and rained the gas down on them.

It did not take long for these monsters to begin heaving and coughing up blood. Showing just how potent the poison these bronze snakes could release was.

After the poison gas was dealt with, James, Lyra, and Mrazivý zipped around and sliced the snakes' heads off without any problem.

Mrazivý then relayed the information she had gotten from using her dragon eyes and told everyone that these bronze shovel snakes as they were called, were all at level fifty-five.

'Alaric, use your ice magic to keep the ground frozen around us. We need to make sure to prevent any sort of attacks from underground.' Marcus ordered.

Swiftly Alaric raised his amethros staff up and slammed it into the ground.

Everything within a hundred-meter diameter began to freeze, and the ground was no longer usable by the bronze snakes who would find themselves become icicles before they breached the surface.

This slowed their progress down even further due to the fact that Alaric would need to constantly cast a new spell as they moved. Nevertheless, they did manage to abate any more attacks from the ground coming their way.

Over an hour passed as they battled their way through the horde of monsters.

"If only this was a human army, we might have been able to win by crushing their morale, but these monsters have no regard for their lives and throw themselves at us without any care." James shouted while piercing through and killing five agile monsters that had slipped by the others magic bombardment.

At this point the fighting had gotten monotonous, and so long as they kept a decent focus, they were able to dispatch their opponents easily enough.

This had led to them making some idle conversation while things were laxer and the monsters were regrouping.

"Hm, they really have backed off this time. Maybe we really did finally break their spirits." Lyra said in response to James' comment.

Yet for Marcus who had been keeping an eye on the whole of the battlefield, he found this suspicious.

From what he had observed all put a couple thousand of the monsters that had been constantly assaulting them had moved back behind the nearest battlement that they were finally coming upon after fighting their way through five kilometers of monster invested fields.

That was when he got the sinking feeling in his stomach that something was wrong.

But before he could voice his concern, the attack against them had already been initiated. A massive cannon barrel extended from the battlement and launched a concentrated beam of mana right for them.