Ruben Hersch!
At last, the perpetrator that caused Gaston to have to fight a Blue Ape without his primary weapon had appeared.
And what an entrance it was!
"Riiiiiip~!"
Silently appearing behind the Blue Ape without even Gaston noticing until he made his move, Ruben's short sword glowed red as it penetrated the Blue Ape's back and went straight through, as the tip of it's blade could be seen coming out of its stomach.
But this was not the end.
Once inside, Ruben used all his strength to drag his sword upwards, and in one swift continuous motion, his sword cut the Blue Ape's upper body in half, as the tip of it's blade went from it's stomach all the way upwards until it split it's head in half and finally freed itself!
Upon seeing the brutal death of the Blue Ape that he had been ready to fight to the death with, Gaston gave Ruben a quick look before quickly going over to pick up his halberd.
"... The thing blocked my strike with such ease, that it even had time to counter attack, hitting me with the handle of it's spear and knocking me back nearly 10 meters."
Despite the fact that the two of them had in the end, accomplished their initial objective and killed the two Blue Apes, things were far from over.
In fact, they had just begun.
If everyone had done their job, it meant that there were now only seven Blue Apes remaining, of which three were a lot closer to them than the other four, making this battle winnable.
Winnable is all it was however, the remainder of the task was by no means going to be easy.
That was why Gaston wasted no time and immediately went over to grab his halberd so that he could help in killing the remaining three Blue Ape's that were nearest to them.
Because of the fact that his other four crew members had also become Qi Cultivators, and had managed to learn his neat trick of communicating via energy, Ruben managed to convey his lengthy thoughts to him in an instant.
He hadn't even reached his halberd before he not only received his thoughts, but also gave him some of his own as well.
"You absolute disgrace! How many times have you been told to spare no expense when it comes to energy usage against these creatures?
"Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency! This is what these skirmishes behind enemy lines demand, because the aim is not to kill them whilst preserving our energy, but to kill them as quickly as possible so that we are nowhere to be found by the time their reinforcements arrive.
"Their response times have been getting tighter and tighter in recent times, and in response to this you decide to risk getting entangled in a prolonged fight with your initial target because you want to save some energy for later?
"You almost got me killed Ruben. Once we get out of here an apology will be the least of your worries."
Gaston's little verbal lashing all transpired via the energy communication method, which meant that less than a second had passed in real time.
Whilst he was dealing with his failure of an assassin teammate, he also took the time to look around at the nearby battlefields.
And unlike the disgusting sight that was Ruben, his other three teammates seemed to have all done their jobs.
The most impressive of which, and also the one he was currently sprinting towards, was Hasso Breitbarth.
As the only one assigned to assassinate one of the two Blue Ape's in his target pairing and then hold off the other one until help arrived, he had the most difficult job.
Aside from babysitting Ruben of course.
The supposed noble assassin that is consistently the worst amongst them in assassinating the Blue Ape's because of some teachings ingrained in him that prove helpful in dealing with human targets, but no so helpful when it comes to magical creatures.
No matter how many times he gets injured or nearly loses his life because he tried to optimize his energy usage, resulting in the Blue Ape's getting a chance to turn the tables on him, he never learned.
Hasso had no such troubles however.
Looking over in his direction, Gaston saw that one of the Blue Ape's was collapsed on the floor, with a big hole on the top of its head that was still oozing blood and brain matter.
The top of the skull was one of the strongest parts of the skull, and as magical creatures in general had much tougher bones then that of their human counter parts, the Blue Ape's skull could only be harder.
For Hasso's spear to have penetrated straight through, Gaston was clear himself that it must have taken him even more energy than usual.
Today's ambush on 12 Blue Ape's was their largest so far, but given that usually each of them had enough energy to forcefully overpower and kill three Blue Ape's each before running completely out of energy, 12 was a dangerous number but they also had some wiggle room.
Wiggle room for moments such as Ruben's failure causing Gaston to have to expend even more of his own energy than expected.
Looking at the wound, Gaston doubted that Hasso was capable of dealing three such strikes, which meant that he more than likely could only overcharge his magic technique once more.
The initial part of the ambush had ended up a success, but because of a few mistakes, they were far from being in a comfortable position.
Thankfully, it seemed as if Gaston wasn't the only one of this opinion.
After killing one of the two Blue Ape's in the pairing he was assigned to, Hasso opted not to confront the remaining Blue Ape head on.
Instead, he conserved his energy and did his best to defend himself while Gaston and Ruben made their way over, as they had planned beforehand.
He had grown a little worried after hearing sounds of fighting where there shouldn't have been, but in the end they died down quickly enough and help was arriving, saving him from having to drain his cultivation energy any further.
Once Gaston and Ruben arrived, the Blue Ape sensed that it was in danger and tried to distance itself away from Hasso, but to no avail.
Wielding a spear, Hasso had a long enough reach to make sure that he posed a lethal threat to the Blue Ape in the event that it turned its back on him, thereby forcing it to face him whilst not actively engaging with it.