One last time, Ashton made sure that everyone was ready to go. Clementine was holding the bomb chest, and the people behind her were carrying the knives or bags that Ashton had given to them.

  They were scared and anxious, but even the ones with injuries were able to move due to the pain-suppressing injection from the Spawn of Akrazoth. The potions that he applied to them also helped heal things a bit more, so they were able to at least move and run away with enough adrenaline coursing through them.

  "Alright, I'll explain the route you need to go. Directly behind this wall, there's a thin paved strip. There's a bunch of trash, some parked, but it's mostly empty. Right behind that it a patch of grass between us and the road. Run right down the road and head straight for the furniture store that will be directly ahead. Once you get there, bunk up wherever you can. A few people from Calibur will be on their way and meet you there," Ashton explained, and though he had said most of this multiple times already, that last bit seemed to come as a surprise to Clementine.

  "Wait, there's others on their way? Then why are you fighting the lizardmen on your own?"

  Ashton hesitated to explain it. He wanted to just brush it off, because it sounded insane to say right in front of everyone here, but Ashton didn't want to keep hiding things from Clementine. "I wanted to fight them with a larger group at first, but circumstances have changed. I have a few personal quests to complete, and this might be my best shot at doing that. Plus, there's..." he hesitated to say the last part, but it was just fair that these people knew what was going on outside, "... a particularly strong monster out there, that I'm pretty sure has an eye out on me. And I'm making the preparations to face that monster, but for that I have to get a lot stronger, very fast. The people from Calibur can fill you in on the details on that monster."

  "So what, you're going to do something suicidal just to get stronger?" Clementine asked in disbelief. Ashton nodded. With a sigh she replied. "Alright."

  "Great, now that that is settled, let's start." Ashton clicked his fingers and channelled the gnome, picking up a chunk of concrete from the floor. At the same time, he took a piece of fire from the salamander hanging by his hip.

  Things had changed a lot in regard to the ways that Ashton could interact with his summons, and because his channelling was much more freeform now, he figured he could give something new a shot.

  Ashton pushed the concrete into the wisp, watching as the magic elemental took on the earth element, too. And then, he carefully pushed the salamander's flames into the wisp, too. He was feeling much more resistance than before. Not from the wisp itself, but from the very magic that he was taking control of. But slowly and surely, Ashton managed to feed the fire into the wisp as well. Cracks appeared on the concrete-wisp's surface, showing smouldering flames burning within it.

  "Perfect. Everyone, stand back, please. And make sure to put your hands on your ears, this is going to be extremely loud," Ashton said with a smile. He was actively holding back a sharp headache at the same time, but this was great nonetheless. This combination should be pretty strong. Maybe a bit too volatile to use in the coming fights, with how much there was here that could catch on fire, but nonetheless, once Ashton's mana increased a bit more, this would be a great thing to make use of in regular fights.

  Ashton pulled his arm back, channelling the wisp. With a deep breath, he shot the wisp forward as fast as possible, and the moment that it impacted with the wall, activated the force spell placed into it.

  The ear-shattering noise of the explosion that followed, of the wall being torn open and the pipes inside the wall bending and and breaking echoed through the space contained within the 'silence' spell. The vibrations will have been carried along the walls, and definitely weren't weakened enough that none of the lizardmen noticed.

  Either way, the hole was opened, and it was large enough for everyone to run out. "Now, go!"

  There was a moment of hesitation, where everyone was stunned at what just happened. It was one thing to be told he would smash a hole in the wall, and another to see Ashton blow it up with essentially the flick of a wrist.

  People ran out through the hole, careful not to fall down over the debris. As Ashton had said, there was that paved strip behind the building, a patch of grass, and the road on the other side. People immediately started running, eager to get out of there.

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  And once everyone else was out, Clementine followed. She looked at Ashton one more time, and then ran after the others. Their footsteps faded to Ashton the moment they passed the boundary. Now that he was the only one here, it was about time for Ashton to get to work on this side of things.

  Ashton stretched his hand out and took hold of the spell that he had placed here. He quickly interrupted the flow of his own mana going into it, and the spell collapsed in on itself in just a moment. The noise from the rest of the store quickly came flooding back in, and the footsteps of lizardmen rushing toward this corner also sounded out.

  For now, Ashton walked into the very far corner of this jail, where the dead bodies were laying. Ashton had already tagged them so that the Pen of Insight could write down their information. Parts of their bodies would be lost now.

  "Spawn of Akrazoth... take your pick, but don't overdo it," he said, and the demon crawled out of his sleeve once again, happy to take the offering that was owed.

  The spider-like being climbed onto the bodies, and started pulling on their arms. It stabbed and prodded them, trying to find the best of the best in this pile. "Take your time, it's not like we're about to have a couple dozen lizardmen coming to kill us." Ashton leaned onto his staff. He felt sick watching this, but it felt like he had to. After giving up something like this to the demon, there was no way Ashton was going to just ignore it.

  While that was happening, Ashton could hear creaking and scraping as the 'gate' of the jail was opened.

  "You done?"

  The demon, which had 'devoured' multiple parts of these corpses, harvested for its collection, quickly jumped onto Ashton's hand and climbed under his sleeve, returning back into the mark on his arm.

  By then, the lizardmen were running at him. Some of them were running out the hole in the wall, trying to follow the escaped prisoners, but there were quite a few that were trying to pin down the singular remaining one, from their point of view.

  At least he didn't have to worry about them killing him for now. Ashton snuffed out the fire inside the wisp, leaving it as its concrete form. At the same time, he pushed a bit of mana into the splinter of a magic stone in his pocket.

  More than a dozen tiny, thin strands of mana shot out into all directions within the store. One of them was headed straight at a small spot here within the jail. A thick mist immediately rose up around the lizardmen as freezing cold air was created by the enchantment that Ashton left there.

  This was going to happen all over the store. This was the one thing that was universally effective in a fight against lizardmen. They were cold-blooded. And since Ashton made sure that the enchantments would be powered by the mana well inside this place, they would continue running and turn the store into a massive freezer.

  Within minutes, the lizardmen would grow lethargic, and this would just continue the longer time went on.

  Essentially, the longer Ashton fought, the easier all of this would become. But he was also dealing with an intense fight against roughly 400 opponents, so Ashton would not be able to remain at peak condition either.

  He popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth to top up his poison resistance, and began to spin his staff around to build up a bit of momentum. There weren't that many coming at him yet, though. They were probably thinking that there was no way a single human could hold back against these extremely powerful monsters. Of course, the ones that they had kept trapped here so far couldn't. They just hadn't met Ashton yet.

  The moment the first lizardman came close, Ashton slammed his staff into its head and pulled through. Trying to carry on the momentum, he swung the staff into the other direction and hit that lizardman once more. It fell to the ground as its jaw was dislodged and its head had caved in.

  To halt the momentum, Ashton pulled the staff back, and then stabbed it forward into the chest of the next monster. The moment the staff bounced back slightly, he pulled it back toward himself and stabbed again. He pierced his staff forward multiple times, breaking the lizardman's bones, while channelling the wisp and making it shoot back and forth through the crowd of monsters that had gathered in the space.

  This lizardman was stunned for a moment, and as Ashton pulled his staff back this time, he flipped it around and over, grabbed it with both hands, and slammed it down at its head.

  [You have killed a [Lizardman] and offered its life to the [Daughter of the Scarlet Heart]]

  Before the body even hit the ground, Ashton slammed his staff into the face of the other lizardmen, which had already fallen, and finished it off as well.

  [You have killed a [Lizardman] and offered its life to the [Daughter of the Scarlet Heart]]

  By now, all the others would have realised, but they must be a little distracted. That last attack against the second lizardman wasn't just to kill it, but also to slam the wisp down and once again use the spell it was holding.

  This time, the magical impact spread the freezing air around further, creating a gust of wind that wrapped around them. Moving air froze things faster, so they must be really noticing it now.

  That moment of confusion was more than enough for Ashton to dismiss the gnome and salamander and call on the two other elementals he wanted to use in this fight going forward.

  The sylph and undine would be much more effective in spreading the cold.