NOVEL WEB
Chapter 115.1: A Pair of Guards
PART 1/2
I stood in the battlefield, still covered in the blood of the Infernals that had just died by my hand—and by Asmo’s arrow. That Archer, who was standing just a couple dozen paces away from me, bow drawn, was in my way alongside the other axe-wielding royal guard.
Behind them, I could see Ainash and the Dragon still rampaging through the enemy forces of the wall, though those forces seemed to be dwindling—if just a bit. At the very least, the constant notifications I got about Ainash killing enemies and giving me XP were getting a little less frequent by now.
Thinking back to my encounter with the Royal Guards, way back before I’d even gotten to Level 10, I remembered they had been around the mid to high Level 20s. I’d certainly gotten a good bit stronger by then—and these two people were probably pretty damaged by Astintash’s assault on the wall—but I had no doubt I’d probably lose in a fair fight against the two. I’d just gotten out of a fight of my own, so even my basic advantage of them being a bit beaten up was nullified.
“Listen,” I said, trying my best to keep things from resorting to violence, “I’m sure you hate the Demons too. If we just work together–”
And then Asmo shot an arrow at my head.
I ducked underneath it, just barely dodging in time, and the woman with the axe rushed forward, preparing for a full-force swing at my torso. I leapt back and cursed them both with Crippling Chill.
You have cursed Level 25 Human Berserker with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, she loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and her Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.
31.8 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 484.
You have cursed Level 24 Human Archer with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, she loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and her Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.
31.8 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 452.
Level 25 Berserker, and Level 24 Archer, huh? Yeah, so they were both mid-20s. Not exactly the highest in the Kingdom, but it was still plenty high enough for them to kill me.
Generally, guards didn’t have very high Levels when compared to adventurers, since their jobs didn’t involve them actually going out and fighting monsters to get XP, and it didn’t seem like that rule was any different even when the guards were royal. However, what they lacked in System-granted power, I was sure they more than made up for in high-quality training and gear. They’d probably been given personal mentors, Enchanted weapons, anything they could ask for to defend the king. And now it was all being turned on me.
The Berserker woman swung her axe in a wide arc, stepping forward at a supernatural pace using what was probably a Martial Art in order to hit me despite my attempt to evade her strike. The battleaxe swung around, straight toward the side of my stomach, and I knew I wasn’t fast enough to dodge it this time.
So, in a split-second decision, I decided to activate Expedite two more times. I’d already put two stacks of the Spell on myself, so this would raise my Dexterity to an absolutely blistering score of 148. A score that I was in no way prepared for. But I’d die without it, so I grit my teeth and prepared to focus every drop of effort on staying upright.
The effects of the Spell hit me like a Dragon’s stomp, and in an instant I kicked my foot to fling myself backward.
You have been sliced. 4 damage.
Your Health is 61.
You have been inflicted with Burning Blood.
For the next 10 seconds, you gain the following effects:
You lose 1 Health every second.
Whenever you take damage from a physical source, that source deals an additional 50% damage, up to a maximum of 25 additional damage.
I mentally cursed. The blade of the battleaxe just barely grazed my stomach, but of course the damn thing had been Enchanted. I’d take a minimum of an extra 10 damage from the Burning Blood curse, but if I got hit again, it’d deal extra.
The combination of the pain from my new wound and the disorienting nature of Expedite caused me to land wrong when I hit the ground, and I tumbled backward to the dirt.
“Ripley, to the side,” I heard Asmo’s voice say, and looking up from my sitting position in the gravel, I saw the Berserker woman—apparently her name was Ripley—step to the side while she charged forward at me with her axe. Behind her, she revealed Asmo, with her bow drawn, now having a clear shot straight at me.
In an instant, I raised my hand and cast a Ray of Frost at her head just as she loosed her arrow.
You have struck Level 24 Human Archer for 54 damage using Ray of Frost.
You have cursed Level 24 Human Archer with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, her Dexterity score is lowered by 7.77.
14.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 377.
The Ray shot straight into her eyes, and luckily, caused her aim to waver just enough that the arrow shot to my left, narrowly missing me.
I activated Gravity Well on the still-approaching Ripley to buy just a bit of time as I scrambled to my feet, just barely getting to a standing position as she swung her axe diagonally across my chest. This time, I let up Gravity Well in the middle of her swing to try and trip her up a bit, and lunged forward, too close to her for the axe to be effective, grabbing onto her face in a half-tackle and activating Noxious Grasp.
I had to let go just as quickly and flee, though, because Asmo had drawn another arrow and was about to shoot.
You have struck Level 25 Human Berserker for 3.2 damage and drained 3.3 Stamina over the course of 1.3 seconds using Noxious Grasp.
0.6 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 369.
I was stuck in a state of constant flight, fighting the two of them simultaneously. If I tried to attack one of them, the other would be there to fight me off and keep me occupied. Noxious Grasp, by nature, wanted me to hold onto an enemy, staying stationary while I drained away their Health. Normally, I could do that with the debuffing nature of my other Spells, keeping my enemy weakened and using a combination of Noxious Grasp and Ray of Frost to slowly chip away their Health.
But when up against a pair of powerful foes, I couldn’t focus my debuffs on a single one of them, and if I tried to use everything on both, not only would it totally drain my Mana, but it probably wouldn’t even be enough to severely weaken them, anyway—I’d need to also drain their Stamina to do that.
I didn’t have enough Health, Stamina, or Mana to take them both on at once. And I knew that going into this.
My goal wasn’t to kill them. My goal was to survive long enough for someone else to come in and even the sides.
Astintash would obviously be ideal—if it came over here, they’d be forced to flee—but I didn’t have much hope of the Dragon being so benevolent as to come and willingly save my life when it was so busy killing enemies of its own. Ainash was also too far to be able to quickly come over here, not to mention she was in the midst of fighting dozens of Humans and Infernals, too.
My only hope was—
A ball of fire flew across my vision and slammed into Asmo, the resulting explosion flinging her several paces away.
Before I could even say “thank you” to Erani, she rushed forward and yelled over to me, “I’ll take the Archer! You focus on the other one.”
She shot another Firebolt at Asmo, who was lying on the ground, covered in burns, but before the Firebolt hit, she suddenly disappeared from sight, reappearing a dozen paces back, standing on her two feet with bow drawn. Erani didn’t seem too worried at this, though, and simply raised her hands to cast another.
After a quick glance at the now-raging fight between Erani and Asmo, Ripley turned back to me and charged.
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