"Whoosh!"
Sure enough, his instincts were proven correct for the 100th time during his short stay in this forest.
Immediately after he turned around to look in Ruben's direction, he heard the almost explosive boom he always heard when a Blue Ape threw one of their spears at them.
Because the spear was flying towards his back however, he couldn't get a precise feel for where exactly it would hit him, meaning that dodging to either side would be a risk.
Too big of a risk for him to take.
Instead, barely an instant after the sound of the spear being thrown echoed in his ears, he immediately held his halberd with his left hand and rolled slightly to the left, successfully dodging the spear.
Whilst he was still half-crouched on the ground, he raised his head to look behind him, only to see that aside from the empty-handed Blue Ape that head just thrown a spear at him, there was a second Blue Ape!
Just as he had suspected when he heard Ruben's shout, in the short amount of time since the ambush had began, these tricky magical creatures had already recognized the situation and started to group together.
Luckily for them, Gaston had been smart enough to immediately target and go after the four stragglers before they could gather together.
Unfortunately for them, he had still been a little too late.
The four of them hadn't had enough time to group up fully, but they had still managed to form pairs.
They had avoided the most dangerous situation of having to face them all head-on, but their current circumstances were far from what they had wanted them to be.
Every one of them was now responsible for dealing with a Blue Ape in single combat, and if that wasn't dangerous enough of a situation, Gaston himself had to face two of them by himself!
Worse yet, as Gaston had just found out, these Blue Apes seemed to be good at working together.
At the same time that one of the Blue Ape's behind him had thrown it's spear at him, the other Blue Ape began to run towards him!
After looking behind him, he saw that the second Blue Ape had already approached within 8 meters of him in this short space of time, leaving mere moments for him to get ready to face it.
Getting up and turning around to face it as quickly as he could, Gaston saw the Blue Ape use it's left hand to pull it's spear back slightly and ferociously leap towards him.
Having already exhausted close to half of his cultivation energy reserves in the initial part of the ambush, in part because of Ruben's mistake, Gaston didn't want to meet this powerful blow from the Blue Ape head on.
But rather than seeing the situation as a problem, he saw it as a solution.
Facing an ambush by two well-prepared Blue Apes, he got lucky enough to have an opportunity to face a Blue Ape by itself.
Albeit the window of time for this opportunity was small, and the unarmed Blue Ape was closing in on him quickly as well, he still did have some time.
With two hands on his halberd, Gaston pulled his weapon back slightly, making the Blue Ape leaping towards him think that he was about to stab towards it.
With that thought in it's mind, the leaping Blue Ape turned it's head slightly to the right whilst it was in the air, as it's left arm holding the spear exploded forward, stabbing towards Gaston!
Upon seeing this however, an almost maniacal look could be found in Gaston's eyes.
Unbeknownst to the Blue Ape, the moment the veins in it's left arm that was holding the spear burst out, Gaston stopped his time to make his move.
The previous slight pulling back of his halberd had been a faint, and one that had very successfully made the leaping Blue Ape overreact to, as he had hoped it would.
Transferring his halberd to his right hand, he dropped his left shoulder and violently spun to the right, smoothly getting out of the way of the Blue Ape's spear, and appearing at it's side.
In one smooth motion, whilst it was still in the air, Gaston decisively used the "Earth Strengthening" magic technique, spending another 30% of his remaining cultivation energy into the axe blade of his halberd, and used his right arm to swing it upwards!
Under the wide eyes of the Blue Ape, the axe blade cut through it's belly like it was nothing, nearly making all of it's organs fall out.
The Blue Ape turned to the side, crashing into a tree with it's back bearing most of the impact, while it used it's free right arm to hold onto the large wound on it's stomach to prevent it's organs from really falling out.
Gaston, despite the flawlessly executed maneuver that turned a surprise attack into a nearly fatal blow in one smooth move, was not yet done.
Having faced these creatures enough times already, he knew that the battle wasn't over with these things until the fat lady sang.
With that in mind, and because he knew that the unarmed Blue Ape that had previously thrown it's weapon at him at the beginning of their ambush was rapidly closing in on him, Gaston wasted no time.
Holding the halberd in his left hand now, he slightly pulled it back once more, only to then use all of his physical strength and throw it at the fallen Blue Ape, aiming straight for it's chest.
In a turn of events that surprised even him however, despite it's current state, the fallen Blue Ape still somehow managed to move out of the way enough for the spear tip of the halberd to only hit it's shoulder!
Even though Gaston didn't use any energy behind this throw, the halberd still managed to successfully penetrate the Blue Ape's shoulder and go straight through, impaling it deep into the tree.
As strong as these magical creatures were, the halberd was imbedded so deep into the tree that Gaston thought the Blue Ape had no way of pulling it out, especially now that it had to use one of its arms to keep it's organs from falling out of it's body.
Regardless of how physically superior they were, even a monster like the Blue Ape would slowly weaken and lose it's life in it's current situation.