Free The War (Play to Live: Book #6) by D. Rus

Four
     
    T igress heard me and turned her giant head toward me. She shut her eyes in disbelief, then let out a sob just like a human and ran over to me.
    The pet, who’d grown to be the size of a draft horse, poked her head into my chest, leaving a large print of a cat’s muzzle on my armor, then began avidly licking my face with her coarse, hot tongue.
    The enemies froze for a second; the monsters instilled fear.
    Bagheera looked at me jealously with one eye, while his other eye threateningly surveyed the aggressive enemy horde. His mighty paws scraped the stones, drawing sparks. His fangs, glistening like swords, looked unbelievably huge and sharp.
    "Enough, enough already! You’ll lick me to death…I love you too! Man, have you fattened up! I bet your muzzle won’t even fit into a barrel now!"
    Despite being broad as an ox and having three-foot-wide biceps, I could barely push away the giant muzzle. This kitty the size of a cave bear could have made the hound of Baskervilles piss itself.
    "Tigress, I’m in a bit of a situation here, think you can help? They’re really giving us a hard time."
    As if affirming this, the enemies came to their senses; we heard bow strings snapping. The hail of arrows hit us hard, blood spurting everywhere.
    The cats roared in indignation. Tigress rolled on the ground, breaking off the feathered tips of the arrows stuck in her luxuriant hide. She then jumped up and in a few leaps reached the enemy lines which were closing in around us.
    It took Tigress only an instant to bring down the solid formation. It looked like a spiked race car had crashed into the audience. Jets of blood spurted in all directions. Chunks of meat, armor, and broken weapons went flying.
    Tigress’ status bar appeared in its proper place in the corner of my interface as if to remind my distrustful mind that this machine of death was indeed my pet. My overload bar turned a disturbing red, and I collapsed on the ground. Just like the good old times, Tigress once again came to my aid.
    Bagheera trusted his girlfriend. Instead of following her, he turned around to deal with the other half of the enemy ring.
    His DpS was clearly lower than that of the cheater sabretoothed tigress. But I remembered his main weapon, and waited impatiently until the Lightsiders would pump him full of steel.
    Done, three quarters HP! The battered, furious beast stopped for a second, looked up at the sky and howled, summoning help.
    Clap! Clap! Clap! The booming echo of the portals indicated that his ability had worked just right; Bagheera, the Black Death, the immortal guard of the Deserted Temple, summoned monsters from the Lost City. They were a small crowd; about fifty beasts of level 350. Mwuahaha!
    They weren’t a challenge for an army of twenty thousand. But would the enemy stay at twenty thousand?
    Another minute of fighting. Cries of rage and fear came from everywhere. The kitty’s HP meter went down by a quarter, turning from green to yellow.
    Bagheera gave a commanding howl again. This time two hundred monsters responded to his call. Now the Lightsiders were taken aback.
    No one had ever tried to carry out three consecutive wave attacks. The Chinese usually stopped after the second, choked on their bloody tears and dropped dead.
    But the Light invasion army had every opportunity to become the pioneer of the triple wave tactic; they were just so many. Reinforcements kept pouring out of the portals. The leaders weren’t stupid, and their supply reserves could make any army painfully jealous.
    Clap! Tigress, heavily beaten yet quite happy looking, appeared next to me. She reminded me of a zombie; normally animals with holes that large in them don’t survive. But by the looks of things, this feline was far from dying. She sat down on the sand and started licking her numerous wounds.
    Her opponents did the same. They reconfigured their buffs and changed equipment in a hurry. Very few were wounded. The uncategorized monster meant