33 Preemptive Attack

My body feels sluggish and I can feel my warmth escaping me. My mind is fading, no coherent thoughts are coming to me, even though I should know that this is the worst time to be fading away, all I feel is panic as darkness begins to cloud my vision.

Then, all of a sudden, I notice that I'm looking down upon myself. I see the arrowhead protruding from my back, I see Six panicking, wanting to do something and has no idea what to do. From here, from this third person perspective, my mind starts to clear.

"Michaela..."

I speak not with my body, not the one injured down there, as every time I tried opening my mouth, it's flooded with blood surging forth from my punctured heart and lungs.

"Miss Cecilia, I believe it's best that we abort this operation and land right now."

Nodding in response to Michaela, Cecilia turns towards the rest.

"All hands, mission abort! I repeat, mission abort! Land immediately! And Six, you grab Aurelius!"

With Cecilia's command, the troops begin to land. How we planned to do so with the minimum steering provided by the aircrafts? Well, we jump. It was decided that since landing the aircrafts within the densely packed forest would be near impossible, it's best that we just abandon them and fall onto our landing point. And thanks to the [Feather Weight] spell, there's no fear of falling to our deaths.

As we float gently towards the ground, Cecilia releases a might shout, strengthening the hearts of her allies and drawing fear and aggro from our enemies. It's the Knight skill, [Warcry]. A good call, since the Archer can easily shoot down any of us while we're falling in open, unable to move anywhere but slowly floating downwards.

As expected, another arrow cuts through the air and flies towards Cecilia who easily blocks it with her shield. However, the impact of the arrow was powerful and it sent the currently lightweight Cecilia flying backwards. But, just as it looks like she'd be flying all the way back to the garrison, she hits something in midair, a glowing transparent "something". It's a [Mana Wall], one casted by Toto.

With a big victorious grin, Cecilia kicks off the [Mana Wall], her sword glowing as she activates her follow up skill after blocking the arrow, [Counter Blast]. Yet, instead of swinging towards the direction where the arrow had came from, she instead swings her blade towards her back, launching the bladed beam towards the sky, in turn, as per the third law of motion, Cecilia propels forward.

"Michaela, [Dispel]!"

Heeding Cecilia's request, Michaela casts the spell, removing the effects of [Feather Weight] from her, causing Cecilia to fall at an ever greater speed.

***

While falling, I can't help but lick my lips. It's getting dry from all the wind hitting me while I streak through the air like a shooting star. But really, I might be getting a little nervous as well. I mean, this is quite a move I'm trying to pull. I'll bet Aurelius is going to have a real fit at me later, though I suppose there's no point worrying about that, since I'll be dead if I don't pull this off.

With my shield in front of me, the shield Aurelius got for me, I check the cooldown timer in my vision. Looks like it's almost done counting down. It's so odd, to have a HUD stuck to you like this.

Shifting my focus from the countdown, I see the trees of the forest getting closer and closers. I brace myself for the inevitable impact. Then, I turn my attention back to the countdown. Three... Two... One!

"[Guarding Stance]!"

Raising my defense, I approach the ground. In my way is a tree, thoroughly scorched by the fires we had caused but still standing strong. Shield first, I smash into the ashen bark, breaking right through while feeling a dull pain in my arm, however, it appears that this body of a 200 Lvl character is much sturdier than I thought, since my arm somehow still remains intact. Aurelius warned us that what is supposed to kill you will still kill you in this world, but there's still a certain amount of sturdiness that comes with these bodies. After all, according to himself, he was almost bled dry from a fatal wound. Something like that usually comes with various complications, even if you did recover from it. Not to mention, being a Summoner, he's build isn't all that strong in terms of defense anyways so I get why he has the impression that we might get killed easily. That being said, after that impact, half of my Hp bar disappearing in an instant and I think I might have some fractures here and there. I best end this quick.

After smashing through the ashen tree, I land feet first, skidding across the soil on my feet, and as I does so, another wave of pain runs up my legs while another portion of my Hp vanishes. However, it's all good, my legs are still holding, they haven't snapped. Everything is going as well as they can be. Now I just have to find this Archer and finish him off. That'll take a weight off our worrywart of a Summoner's chest for a bit.

I raise my sword, the black sword reforged from the other Champion that Aurelius had beaten. Though usually, the sword's pitch blackness seems to devour even the lights around it, right now, it is glowing with the intensity of a brilliant star. The damage I've received from my less than graceful landing, the damage I blocked with the shield. Now it's been converted into attack power for me to fire off as I please.

"[Counter Blast]!"

I swing my blade in a circular arc, bisecting the surrounding ashen trees with a force so great that the top halves launch into the air before crashing down. With this one move, the trees within a fifteen meter radius of me were mowed down in an instant. The ashen trees' to halves then crash to the ground, raising ashes and dust into the air, but before they obscure my vision, I spot a cloaked figure on the move. Of course, I have no intention of letting him escape. Having gone this far, Aurelius will be furious if I failed, though I suppose he's going to be furious either way with what I just pulled.

Charging through the ashes and dust, I run after the figure while maintaining my shield in front of me, hiding as much of myself behind it as I can while I sprint. The Archer's footsteps are swift and light, difficult to track with hearing alone. Fortunately, I'm close enough to see his vague outline even through the dust in the air, but soon, if this keeps up, I'm going to lose him. Knowing that, I draw a light breath, trying to avoid inhaling the ashes and dust, and release a roar. It's the Knight's skill [Warcry]. Being caught within the range of this skill, the cloaked figure can't help but turn around and have his full attention upon me. Unless he can run backwards, he won't be getting away.

An arrow pierce through the cloud of dust, unable to run, the Archer has apparently chosen to attack. But of course, I expected that, fighting back is his only viable option at this point after all. The arrow slams into my shield, causing a dull metallic sound to resound. The shock of the impact is great enough that I feel myself being push back slightly upon receiving the attack. Had this been a shield of ordinary steel, I'd say that the arrow would most likely have pierced it. I'll have to thank Aurelius for this shield afterwards, as well as the blacksmith that reforged it.

Still, even though my shield can take it, it's not wide enough to completely cover my entire body. This is the Archer that had shot Aurelius in the heart while he's in flight. If I keep letting him draw his bow, I'm sure I'll be hit eventually.

With that in mind, I stomp with all my strength into the ground with my right leg, making a leap forward with my shield facing my front. This is another one of the Knight's skill, [Shield Charge]. It's an offensive skill that allows the user to close the distance between them and their opponents in an instant and deals knockdown upon hit.

Without a hitch, my shield slams into the Archer Champion, sending him flying and into a tree stump of a tree that I've just cut down. Since I was able to land a hit so easily with my first attack, it would appears that this Champion is a pure Archer, likely subclassing the Assassin class and only picking up the passive skills that raises critical rates and damage multipliers in the Assassin's skill tree. This build usually have some stealth skills for moving around, and as for defensive skills, they would likely have [Shadow Step], a skill that lets the user move a short distance in a state of invulnerability. This Champion here must have used [Shadow Step] to avoid being hit by my [Counter Blast] and so was unable to do anything against my [Shield Charge] while [Shadow Step] remains in cooldown.

I walk up to the Archer Champion, his body lying against the tree stump. While the [Shield Charge] skill does not apply stun in Elysium Online, likely due to stun and knockdown combined would be considered overpowered, I suppose being hit by something with the force roughly equivalent to a mini truck would keep anyone from standing up for a short while.

As I raise my sword, the Champion looks up at me, and for the first time I see my enemy's face clearly. The Archer Champion has big round red eyes, his skin pale and gray, his hair silver in color and grown to shoulder length, and his ears are long and pointy. Somehow, I feel that I've see him somewhere before. Even though I don't know anyone with eyes redder than mine and with skin so gray and pale, there's something familiar about him that I just can't put my finger on.

Then, I feel the air shifting behind me. This sensation... It is the sensation of something suddenly appearing in the space behind, causing the air occupying that space to be pushed aside. There's only one skill that is capable of causing such an effect: The staple of the Assassin's skill, [Assassination].

With my shield still facing the Archer, I swing my sword towards my back. To my surprise, the sensation was akin to swing at air, and where my sword had swung through is a body of dark fog, gently drifting away before forming into a person shaped figure upon reaching a distance. There's no mistaking it, that was undoubtedly [Shadow Step]. But to use [Assassination] only to cancel it out with [Shadow Step] before landing an attack, why would anyone do that? Did he react to my swing? No, that couldn't be, few has the kind of reaction speed I do. Did he expect me to counter him then? But normally, no one would expect that I am fast enough to counter that move. They couldn't have seen that coming. So why, why did he... Don't tell me!

Quickly, I leap to the side just as the ground I stood upon starts to glow in the shape of sigils within an expanding circle. An instant later, electricity bursts forth within the circle and had I been even half a second slower to realize what was going on, I would have been caught in the midst of it.

To think that it was as Six had feared, there's actually more than one Champion. Would being right give him more reason to be paranoid, I wonder. He's anxious enough as it is too. Well, I suppose it won't make any difference if I just deal with them here, or so I would like to say, but after that one leap, I felt something snapping at the back of my heel along with a sharp pain that sent me collapsing onto my knee. Perhaps due to me suddenly jumping without caring for posture, or perhaps it's the injuries sustained upon my reckless impromptu landing, regardless of the cause, it would appears that the Achilles tendon in my right leg had snapped and I won't be moving with much liveliness anytime soon. The day just keeps getting better and better doesn't it?

***

End of Chapter 33