"You're late. What happened back there?"
Keeping his eyes focused on the Blue Ape in case it got desperate, Hasso used a miniscule amount of energy to silently question the two of them.
"Nothing new, Ruben needed a little help, that's all."
Gaston had no intention of pursuing the matter at the moment, as there were more pressing matters to attend to.
Ruben on the other hand didn't say anything, his eyes focused on the enemy that they were surrounding.
Seeing a second human wielding what it recognized as a strange spear arrive at it's side, and a third one making it's way behind it, the Blue Ape finally got desperate.
It lifted it's wooden spear above it's head and held it there for a brief moment, as a familiar looking brown glow of energy seemed to gather towards the tip of the spear.
As a Qi Cultivator of the Earth element himself, Gaston immediately realized what was happening and warned Hasso.
"Don't try to block it's attack now. Even if you manage to survive the blow it will take all of your energy to do so.
"Focus on dodging the blow and leave the rest to me."
Stuck between three Qi Cultivators, Gaston could understand the reason for the Blue Ape's crazy energy expenditure.
The thinking was probably easy to understand, as long as it could quickly kill one of them, maybe it's physical advantages would prove to be enough to deal with the remaining two pesky humans.
Funnily enough, this was exactly what they were doing to the Blue Ape's right now.
Unfortunately for the Blue Ape, they had the element of surprise on their side.
Knowing what the enemy was going to do, Gaston was prepared for it, and as soon as it started to bring it's spear down in Hasso's direction, Gaston made his move.
Before the Blue Ape's spear could even descend a little bit, Gaston used his left hand to hold onto his halberd, slightly pull it backwards and then use all of his physical strength to throw it towards it's chest!
"Whoosh!"
Even without the use of energy, Gaston's strength had far surpassed that of a normal human.
The halberd flew towards it's target almost as if it had been launched by a trebuchet, arriving in less than a second.
As quick as this attack was, it didn't leave the Blue Ape helpless to respond.
As a magical creature at the Qi Cultivation level as well, the Blue Ape under normal circumstances could even have the time to spare to ponder whether it wanted to dodge such an attack or to block it.
These were not normal circumstances however.
In the split second that the Blue Ape held it's spear above it's head, it had input a large amount of it's own cultivation energy into it in order to launch a devastating attack and catch it's target off guard.
This also meant however, that it had to go through with the swing of it's spear, as otherwise that large amount of energy would quickly go out of control and disperse.
Noticing it's predicament, the Blue Ape's eyes almost went red with rage as it contemplated going through with it's attack regardless of the consequences, and trading it's life for that of one of it's enemies.
Thankfully for Hasso, in the end it didn't decide to do that.
Instead, letting go of it's weapon, it used it's momentum of swinging it's spear down to roll forward and both dodge Gaston's halberd throw as well as get closer to Hasso.
Seeing this, a small smirk formed on Hasso's face.
Because the Blue Ape didn't go through with the attack, Hasso didn't have to get out of the way, and instead, as the unarmed Blue Ape rolled on the ground towards him, he struck.
Whilst it was still rolling on the ground, Hasso held his spear with both hands and relied on his physical strength to stab it right in the center of it's chest.
He missed by a few inches however, as instead his strike landed on the Blue Ape's shoulder, successfully penetrating it but not all the way through.
"Be careful Hasso!"
Seeing the tip of the spear not penetrate all the way through to the other side, Gaston knew that Hasso was in trouble.
"Argh!"
The Blue Ape let out a short growl due to the pain, but it's actions did not slow down for even a second.
As the human attacking it wanted to pull his weapon back, the Blue Ape used it's other arm to grab a hold of the spear and keep it buried halfway inside it's shoulder.
Without a weapon, as long as it could get close to the human it was confident that it could rip him apart.
Hasso tried to pull his spear out a few more times in quick succession, but that proved to be a hopeless endeavor.
Before the Blue Ape could get any closer to him, he decided to strike first, as running away from it was not an option.
Faking another attempt at pulling out his spear tricked the Blue Ape into keeping it's uninjured arm on the weapon, and it gave him a massive opening to strike at.
As a long-time mercenary and even a mercenary leader during the last decade of his life, fighting without his weapon was not too unfamiliar of an event for him.
During street brawls, bar fights or even missions where weapons weren't allowed, Hasso relied on his vicious kicks, which was a very unorthodox style in the Poisoned Land.
Before the Blue Ape could retract it's arm from the spear to defend itself, a vicious left high kick struck it's head, whipping it back to the ground.
Despite the precise placement and the thudding impact of the kick however, the Blue Ape didn't appear to have lost consciousness.
It raised it's head and started to get up off the ground almost immediately afterwards, but even then it was too late.
Before it knew what happened, Gaston had already arrived, throwing himself onto it's back from behind it.
With his punch dagger in his left hand and a bit more time than last time, Gaston began mashing the knife into the side of it's head, penetrating it's brain over and over again until it was mush.