Fight or flight, those were my hard-to-choose options, I found myself thinking even as I turned my attention to my closest enemy, a warrior decked in full armor, carrying an ax larger than himself, running toward me with a shocking speed.
A speed that was impossible for me to replicate even with my admittedly incredible stats.
Yet, as he got close enough to avoid the overwhelming presence of the wards, enough to get me a sense of his mana. It was still too far away to actually get a glimpse of his soul space, nor I wanted to spend the necessary mana to break through at such great distance — especially since I wasn’t confident in keeping that hidden — but the sensation of his mana left no doubt about the state of his soul space.
It was a raging disaster, almost like a beast. He was not berserk, like the other recruits I watched while I was saving Janelor, but he wasn’t too far away from getting that point either.
At a distance, I could see two other warriors, their status not particularly superior as they rushed forward, marginally slower.
Their rush was desperate, lacking any kind of coordination, which contrasted greatly with the excellent timing of the initial ward.
“Fight, it is,” I murmured as I watched their reckless assault. The ambush required a certain amount of planning, which was impossible to be delivered by the three I could see. I didn’t want to try to escape, only to be blocked completely.
There was always teleportation as the last resort, especially since I was confident enough to punch through the wards blocking it — but that was literally my last card. If they didn’t know I could teleport, I didn’t want to reveal it, and if they actually discovered it — as I used it against the undead — I didn’t want to use it before making sure they didn’t have a strategy against it.
Either way. I preferred to keep it hidden for now.
As soon as the first warrior moved within my effective casting range, I cast a wall of fire to block his path. Not the strongest or most damaging spell, but damaging enough as an opening spell, flashy enough to look impressive, without spending much mana.
[-181 Mana]
The warrior swung his ax, the resulting wind destroying the ward easily, resulting from the weapon he was carrying flaring with magic. His chaotic mana wasn’t enough to activate such a trick — as his stats were clearly focused on the physical side — but the handle of the ax was glistening with a shocking number of Eternal Gems, giving a good idea about the power source.
The Eternals were certainly rich, I noted, remembering how happy I was when I acquired a few, a treasure that I was yet to use.
I was impressed by their richness, but not enough to let the warrior approach freely. I responded with another elemental spell, this time a rain of icicles, rushing through the air.
[-130 Mana]
Another weak spell, but surprisingly damaging against a single target as the icicles were perfectly shaped thanks to my extraordinary control and constant practice — not to mention, replicating a rotating effect to enhance damage.
The disadvantage, it was easy to dodge, and even easier to block. All my attacker needed was to take a step back to avoid the trajectory. He certainly had the speed to do it.
Yet, the only thing he did was raise his ax to protect his face, letting the ice rain on his armor without skipping a step. “Maybe he misread the spell,” I wondered even as I waved my hand again, sending another, stronger wave of ice.
[-310 Mana]
Yet, he repeated the same move, ignoring the destruction of the armor and his own blood. His berserk status was not limited to his mana state.
Ironically, that reckless assault, which would have been an amazing development against a weaker candidate, made it harder to fight against them. It would have been easier fighting against a berserk warrior if he was alone, but the other two were about to join, and I could feel more than a dozen following.
And there were still nearer to the ward, but the interference of the ward prevented me from detecting it.
If they were perfectly rational, I could have controlled their attack by showing my ability to destroy the initial attackers, forcing the rest to consider it slowly. It would have given me the time I needed to regenerate mana.
Unfortunately, that strategy was ineffective against a bunch of berserkers.
Of course, their recklessness and their clear willingness to take damage opened many other ways to deal with them — but it would require me to both spend a lot of mana, and reveal a lot of my magical tricks.
Tricks that I needed against whoever would follow the first wave.
“Melee it is,” I murmured as I draw my sword, ready to meet with the attacker physically despite his physical superiority. I rather reveal my physical abilities than my magical abilities this early into what was clearly a siege.
The moment he arrived in front of me, his ax swung with a shocking speed, one that I would have no chance of reacting to if I tried to react to his speed.
But that didn’t apply to reading him. Before the ax could cover the distance halfway, my sword was already on its path, covered with earth mana to enhance its endurance. Even then, I didn’t dare to meet his swing halfway, and parried carefully.
Yet, with his full weight behind the swing, the soft parry was enough to imbalance him, giving me an easy stab through his eye, pushing the blade hard enough to dig into his eye, but before I could push in fully, a kick hit my chest, pushing me away.
[-13 HP]
The elemental I had been riding showed its advantage, as a mental order was enough to pull me back, preventing the damage from a kick that would have killed a level fifteen warrior with one touch.
All the while making it look like I had received substantial damage — one that I reinforced by using Biomancy to show my HP depleting — to give the impression that their plan was working.
Unfortunately, while a sword halfway into his skull would have been enough to kill almost anyone, a warrior in his high thirties — or maybe even forties — with some monstrous stats to support, was one of those rare exceptions.
His HP energy rushed to the wound, quickly reducing the blood loss as the wound disappeared, though the eye stayed destroyed.
Even at that level, HP had its limitations without healing spells to assist.
Yet, the loss of an eye didn’t delay him more than a second as he rushed forward, his ax cutting through the air once more, forcing my prediction to the limit as I parried once again, delivering another counter-attack that would have been deadly for a weaker opponent.
I wasn’t surprised that my opponent didn’t fall after my move, as even if they didn’t have any additional trick, I calculated his HP to be well over ten thousand, likely breaching twenty thousand.
It required more than a couple well-placed sword hits to actually die, probably in the range of dozens, maybe even hundreds. I wasn’t annoyed by it, as if I truly wanted to kill the reckless warrior with no apparent magical defenses, I had better options.
Such as tricking him into a ward to lock his movement, and bombarding him with fire spells.
Or, if I was feeling particularly merciless, using Necrotic energy.
If there was one benefit to my confrontation with Zokras, that it taught me how fragile was HP against necrotic energy. Even those little pesky liches were enough to destroy hundreds of HP with one hit. And while they wouldn’t have the same effect against the man in front of me due to his stronger Endurance…
I wasn’t as weak as them either.
Yet, it wasn’t just the disgusting sensation of copying that energy that prevented me from relying on that. I didn’t want to reveal my trump cards that easily.
His HP might not be a real barrier, but I still made a show of disbelief while leveraging my Subterfuge to the limit. “How are you still alive,” I gasped in disbelief, showing any potential observer that I was far from truly understanding what I was facing.
Yet, before I could deliver another stab, the other two caught up to us, and joined the attack. They didn’t coordinate at all, showing that they lacked even the instinctual battle sense of beasts. I didn’t need to check their soul spaces to know that they were about to go completely berserk.
Unfortunately, with their abilities, their lack of coordination didn’t matter as much as I would have liked, especially with their recklessness that made them perfectly willing to take damage to deliver one in turn.
Even with my perception and martial abilities pushed to the limit, I was overwhelmed quickly, and forced to rely on the mobility of the air elemental to avoid the bulk of the damage, though I still received some simple wounds
[-84 HP]
Wounds that I exaggerated in appearance with an unusual application of healing magic to give the impression that I was already pushed to the limit, hoping that it would allow revealing whoever was responsible for the ambush.
But, whoever they were, they stayed silent even as the other warriors reached me, their numbers reaching half a dozen.
It was time to push the situation a notch.
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000
Strength: 46 Charisma: 63
Precision: 40 Perception: 42
Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45
Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49
Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51
HP: 7153 / 7334 Mana: 8284 / 9000 ]
SKILLS
Grandmaster Tantric [118/140]
Master Melee [100/100]
Master Biomancy [100/100]
Master Elemental [100/100]
Master Arcana [100/100]
Master Subterfuge [100/100]
Master Craft [100/100]
Expert Speech [75/75]
PERKS
Mana Regeneration
Skill Share
Empowerment (0/1)
Teleportation
COMPANIONS
[Titania - Level 35/38]
[Cornelia - Level 22/26]
[Helga - Level 22/26]
[Marianne - Level 21/29]
