Chapter 198 - Monke And Another Raid (9)

A/N: I apparently forgot to number my chapter titles correctly... Stupid author... It's fixed now...

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~ Third Person POV ~

Jionni swiped his hammer from right to left, causing Linuel to dodge backwards before propelling himself towards him once more.

Growling, Jionni encased his left hand in hardened earth and blocked the incoming attack, Linuel's blade sinking a centimeter deep into the gauntlet made of enhanced dirt.

Smirking, Linuel quickly twisted his body in the air as Jionni flung him off with monstrous strength. He laughed loudly as machinegun bullets pelted his form without making a dent in his defenses, landing on both feet.

"How the hell does that work?" Jionni scowled, irritation beginning to surface in his chest. The response he got from Linuel was more laughter.

"Enchantments, my wonderful friend!" Linuel got into a pose as he licked his blade stained with blood from the battlefield. Various human corpses surrounded them, the echoing gunfire raining down destruction upon the charging madmen. "Though, I still have to ask, is this all you can do?"

Jionni remained silent as he got into another stance, before he elbowed a soldier who was running at him with his sword raised. The soldier's head tore brutally off from his body, blood pouring out of the fatal wound as it stained the ground red.

Taking advantage of his momentary lapse in judgment, Linuel dashed forward and slashed at Jionni. Taking notice of his sudden action, Jionni quickly moved to counter, only to fall short as the speed of his adversary topped his.

Feeling a stinging pain in his chest, Jionni hastily retreated while swinging his hammer at Linuel, who jumped to the side and aimed his sword at his shoulder.

Instantly, Jionni used magic to create a small crater beneath Linuel's right foot, causing him to stumble when he landed. Capitalizing on his exposed form, Jionni continued with his swing, using the centrifugal force to increase his hammer's momentum as he spun around.

Because Linuel momentarily lost his balance, he was unable to strike when Jionni's back was turned, and could only defend against the powerful attack heading his way.

Combining his three direct attack skills, one of them consuming at least half of his current HP to increase the damage dealt, Jionni's hammer struck directly on top of Linuel's blade.

As if it was made out of some kind of impervious metal, Linuel was launched into the air once more as he turned into a ragdoll. The sword was seemingly unharmed as he flew.

The blood seeping into his hammer's head, Jionni felt his health restored, a wonderful effect on his hammer's part.

Sadly, as much as Jionni wanted the man to die, Linuel was proving to be a far more challenging opponent, even if his feats against him were a light slash on his chest and being turned into a ragdoll.

"That hurts!" And as always, the lunatic man got up from the ground with a manic smile on his face. "Entertain me more!"

'Is this guy a masochist or something?' His thoughts taking an unnecessary, but reasonable turn, Jionni quickly blocked the slash with the pole of his hammer. As if his fatal injuries were non-existent, Linuel dashed around Jionni at speeds he wasn't able to catch up with.

A slash on his back drew blood, and Jionni groaned.

Turning around, Jionni swung his hammer coated with shadowy flames. Linuel backed up before rushing in again, ignoring the shadowy flames licking his body as his eyes focused on the monster.

Smiling, Linuel aimed his sword at Jionni's chest and thrust. Not willing to be made into a sheathe for his blade, Jionni's other hand let go of his hammer and encased it in earth before grabbing the blade.

The blade's tip fell a centimeter short of drawing blood, and without wasting time, Jionni pulled the blade away from him, while simultaneously dropping his hammer on top of Linuel.

In a seemingly impossible reaction, Linuel let go of the blade to avoid being pulled before dodging Jionni's blow once more, only for him to jump at him once the hammer landed on the ground.

A slight tremor spread across the battlefield, soldiers here and there tripping during their charge as bullets and arrows pelted them down. Right beside the wall of the town, the first soldiers to make it there quickly scaled the walls with the gear they were bringing.

Within some of the soldiers' backpacks, they brought adjustable ladders tall enough to scale a 20-meter-tall wall. The reason they could fit the ladder inside the backpack was due to the enchantments placed on them by the enchanters back at HQ.

Quickly taking them out, the soldiers adjusted them within the span of a few seconds and propped them up on the wall. Once they were done, all of them didn't hesitate to scale it with their hands trembling in fear, excitement, and zealotry.

Mariona, who saw the soldiers scaling the wall, scowled.

"The gun can't aim where they are! Inziz, tell the monsters to use the boiling oil!" Mariona quickly sent out a barrage of bullets towards more soldiers still rushing in like madmen, while Inziz set out to do as she was told.

Meanwhile, Jionni and Linuel's fight brought them near the walls, allowing them to take in a few more soldiers' lives as collateral. Linuel had already recovered his blade after surprising Jionni with his sudden unarmed lunge.

The result was Jionni's left eye being gouged out, blood trailing down his face as he scowled.

Now at a disadvantage with his vision, Jionni kept on accruing more and more injuries, while Linuel seemed to be moving faster every time he was injured.

Parrying Linuel's attack, Jionni felt a blade sink slightly into his left side, droplets of blood leaking to the ground from the wound.

'Shit!' Jionni growled as he grabbed the head of the soldier who got a lucky hit and squashed it to a pulp with his bare hands. 'At this rate, I'm going to lose…'

Linuel, who watched the exchange with visible glee, launched himself once more at Jionni, fully taking advantage of his foe's blind spot.

Jionni held out his hammer and caught the blade once more with its shaft, his teeth gritting harder than ever before.

Using Earth Manipulation, Jionni willed for a handful of sand to spray itself against Linuel's grinning face.

Due to the small amount and the chaos ensuing around him, Linuel didn't notice the attack and had his face covered in sand.

Closing his eyes, Linuel cried out, before getting his neck grabbed by the monster in front of him.

Roaring, Jionni smashed the man to the ground with his enormous strength, a dust cloud exploding outwards and a giant crater forming underneath.

Not done with him yet, Jionni brought him back up and slammed him to the ground again, another dust cloud emerging from the area.

This shook the entire field as more soldiers once again stumbled at the tremor that rippled underneath. Mariona, at the top of the ramparts, gunned them down with post-haste.

Jionni let the man go, seeing that his body was unmoving on the ground. He raised his hammer with both hands and quickly brought it down.

Only for Linuel to snap back up and pierce him through the chest.

Coughing out blood, Jionni roared out and pushed him away, the man letting go of his sword since it was stuck within Jionni's body. Not wasting the opportunity, Jionni slammed the hammer down on top of Linuel, who finally dropped dead as his entire body was turned to paste.

The last action the man did before his untimely death was smile in satisfaction.

Dropping to his knees, Jionni felt his entire body shudder as his vision slowly blackened.

'Not now…' Gritting his teeth, Jionni grabbed the handle of the blade and pulled it out with one tug. Feeling pain, the likes of which he had never experienced in his life, Jionni roared out, inadvertently stopping all sorts of movement in the entire Dungeon.

The smoke cleared, and every monster, human and demi-human able to view the field, looked upon Jionni with mixed reactions.

From the human soldiers' side, they were both celebrating and horrified; the former due to the fatal wound the monster sported, the latter because of the death of their own commander.

On the Dungeon's Residents' side, all of them stared in horror at what could've been the death of their Dungeon Master.

However, as is customary for Jionni, he had a get-out-of-jail-free card hidden within his inventory.

'This hurts like a bitch!' Jionni eyed his HP meter carefully as he grabbed a potion from his inventory and chugged it down like a madman.

HP: 542 / 10,960

His HP stopped dropping and he breathed a sigh of relief as his wounds closed. His eye, however, didn't regenerate, so his vision was still wonky.

HP: 3,761 / 10,960

'Thank Drakhan for this System. If I didn't have this, I would've died the moment my heart got pierced.' Exhaling out, he eyed the soldiers, who all had very shocked looks on their faces.

"ALL OF YOU! SURRENDER! YOUR LEADER IS DEAD!" Jionni roared out, and all attacks from both sides ceased. The soldiers all looked at Jionni for one second before screaming out and continuing with their charge. "Well, I tried."

Jumping into the fray once more, Jionni had one goal in mind. To get rid of these monsters that wore human skin.

'There's still a lot of them… This is going to take a long while…' Jionni looked up at the ramparts, where fighting had already begun.. Monsters, humans, and demi-humans alike dropped to the ground with wounds, fatal or not.