Darius felt pity for the Dark Horse that had actually tried to challenge Gunner's might in one-on-one combat. Even he didn't dare to challenge his Branded Servant despite possessing better stats in that regard.
With his Earth's Guardian skill active, Gunner basically had the Strength, Endurance, and Damage/Defense of a mid-stage Journeyman. Against these early-stage Journeyman undead, he was no different from a bully.
Darius blinked to other parts of the battlefield and rained his Sparks down on foes. He had already warned his two undead Liches to conserve as many minions as they could, since there were very few living enemies for them to use as replenishment for their forces.
Wasting them all on mere Journeymen was foolish, yet Darius also needed them to level up.
The upgrade from Skeleton Warriors to Liches might have given them much better skills and abilities, but it had also taken away a large part of their prior offensive power.
Darius raised his hand and cast Adjust on the 17 remaining foes that were now regaining their bearings or were lost in combat against chosen foes. Gunner was currently tanking 5 undead, 3 Dark Salamanders, and 2 Dark Horses.
A single Earthen Punch from him was enough to send the two Dark Horses into a stunned state, after which he performed his trademark beat 'em up to death. Sometimes, it was better to just go with what you were good with.
As for the Dark Salamanders, they were fearful of Gunner's close combat might, so they resorted to firing their Firespits attack to keep their distance. Gunner simply smacked the attacks away and stretched out a hand.
One of the salamanders screeched with fear as it was suddenly pulled over to Gunner. While it flew towards the large lad, he grinned widely and cocked his fist back.
Using the knowledge granted him from the Basic Martial Arts skill, he channeled all his body's force into his fist before striking out! To add insult to injury, Gunner even activated Earthen Punch, coating his fist with an extra green glow.
As such, when it collided with the incoming Dark Salamander - right on its spine too - the monster straightaway shattered into pieces.
Darius really wished he could've seen the damage calculations for that, planning to ask Gunner to pass it over once the battle was over.
Gunner smiled at the two remaining Dark Salamanders that were slowly retreating in fear, shocked that this foe could kill one of their own in one shot. It was fine if he killed it after a bit of fighting, but a one-shot kill at the Journeyman level was incredibly difficult!
Darius especially knew that magic suffered in doing so due to how it was calculated, but physical damage had more liberties with how many factors could be thrown into the mix.
Gunner simply stretched out his hand and 'beckoned' another, repeating the same sequence of actions and yielding the exact same result. Soon enough, the large lad cleared his side of the battle and checked out the undead minion's fight.
As one could expect, it was not going well at all. The remaining 12 foes were brutalizing the undead, and Mikey and Joneson were overdrawn just keeping them from dying with their Heal Undead spell.
Luckily, Darius had come to help them while Gunner was still brutalizing the two Dark Horses. He blinked onto the back of a Dark Horse, riding it calmly while he cast Sparks at one of its nearby compatriots.
The horse he rode on neighed angrily and tried to kick him off, but Darius smiled and blinked to his struck target. Since lightning damage had a stun effect, and was super-effective on undead, the other Dark Horse was frozen on the ground, twitching and trembling.
Darius showed no mercy as he cast Sparks repeatedly over it, killing it in 6 strikes. In this time, three Dark Salamanders broke off their battles and spat fire at him.
Smiling softly, Darius blinked on top of them and withdrew his Steel Spear. With it, he struck down on the scalp of the Salamander below him, channeling his Purify spell through the shaft.
Unfortunately, steel was not a very good conductor of magic, so the effect was greatly lessened. However, it achieved the effect Darius wanted, which was rapid attacks.
He was confined to one spell per second usually and could not double-cast. This made his battles take long because despite doing a significant amount of damage, he could only do it within a frame of time.
The same was not true for his spearmanship. With his Agility at 20 points, he was twice as fast as the average man. With his current position and the knowledge from the Basic Lancer Arts, Darius could strike his spear down more than 5 times in a second, though only one could contain a spell.
However, this was enough to increase his damage output greatly. His Steel Spear's damage range was 12-17, giving him a good base to compile with his 15 points of Strength. Even though it was less than the enemy's 21 points of Endurance, the fact was that they wore no armor to mitigate their defense.
Darius mauled the Dark Salamander below him before blinking away as a crowd of Firespits hit his previous position, which in turn roasted their ally below him.
Darius was certain that if the undead could speak, they would be cursing him for being such a slippery eel, but that was how a clever mage should fight.
Of course, other mages couldn't instant cast, so they likely fought the traditional way, standing in one spot while chanting.
Soon enough, Gunner roared and came over to his side with a whumpf. He instantly activated his only class skill, Engage, and stole the aggro of all nearby monsters at once.
As the attacks rained down on him and the Dark Horses charged at him, Gunner raised his leg once more, making Darius' face cramp and the undead Liches quickly call back their minions.
Earthen Stomp!
