Chapter 129 - Strike Back (1)

Upon seeing the formation that the trolls had assumed, even a newbie would be able to say, that they weren't ferrying well in the battle as they were forced to assume a defensive position.

Four of the remaining trolls had formed a semicircle around the one wielding the crossbow, with their backs against him. As he was the only one who could have taken care of the cannons for them, the other trolls wanted to protect the arbalist at all cost. (An Arbalist, pronounced as arbelist, is someone proficient in using a crossbow)

After seeing how easily Dread managed to kill one of them, the trolls became rightfully reluctant to face him, and would only try to attack him if he got closer to them. Otherwise, they maintained a safe distance from him.

But Dread wasn't the only one they were wary of, Asterios wasn't going to let Dread steal all of the glory for himself either. Asterios certainly lacked the ability to swiftly kill his enemies like dread but his raw strength and unchecked rage were more than enough to make up for it.

Asterios was only an A ranked summon while the trolls were S ranked. It was given that the trolls were stronger than him, But the Warhammer he was wielding, was the thing which gave him an edge over the trolls. With a single swing of his hammer, he was able to destroy the hardened skin of the trolls. A feat even a concentrated barrage of cannonballs couldn't achieve. Together Asterios and Dread were a pair of shinigami for the trolls. (Author's note: To those of you who haven't seen 'Death Note' or simply don't know, Shinigami are gods or supernatural spirits that invite humans toward death in certain aspects of Japanese religion and culture. Shinigami have been described as monsters, helpers, and creatures of darkness.)

Even though Arnold was winning the battle, he was in a sore mood, because even though his summons had managed to put a hold to the active slaughtering of humans, the arbalist was still busy shooting arrows at the few cannons that were still operating. Each of his arrows at least took one life along with it.

Much to Arnold's relief, the Brigadier General finally gave the order to the others to retreat. Out of the one hundred and fifty soldiers that stayed to fight the trolls, only 19 were able to survive without a scratch, 23 got out having minor wounds while around 42 were critically wounded. Most of them were the people who Arnold's summons had managed to save.

Arnold desperately wanted to end the arbalist troll, but wherever he tried to use an ability to take the troll or at least his crossbow down, one of the other trolls came in between and take the blow on itself.

"Three arcane grenades and a couple of ice burst grenades... that's all I've left. If I don't use them now..." Arnold mumbled to himself and shook his head, "I have to find a way through, make sure to freeze the arbalist troll's legs and finish it off by arcane grenades and fire-based attacks. No... it'll take too much time. If I use them instead, it'll take less time but before that, I'd have to figure a way to get rid of their hardening skill first, otherwise, it won't be able to pierce through their skin. Then there's another problem I have to deal with before attacking the arbalist. The other trolls have to die or they'll just keep taking blows for him."

As if Asterios and Dread were reading their master's thoughts, they simultaneous charge towards the trolls in front of them.

The moment he saw it's enemies charging towards his comrades, the arbalist troll aimed for Asterios, but before it could take the shot at him, the ground beneath his feet suddenly became uneven, courtesy of Arnold's Elementalist abilities, which resulted in the troll losing his balance and instead of shooting Asterios, he shot one his fellow trolls whom he was trying to protect. The arrow managed to hit the troll in the back of his head, killing him in an instant.

Even though Asterios' target had already died, he didn't slow down. Instead, he quickly altered his direction and charged at the troll nearest to him. The troll, however, was prepared for the attack and quickly hardened his body. After all, no matter how strong Asterios' attack was, he wouldn't manage to one-shot the troll if he had hardened itself right?

Wrong.

In his hastiness, the troll forgot to harden its head. But it should be alright because the trolls were taller than Asterios, so even if Asterios tried to aim for the troll's head, the troll would have easily managed to block the hammer with his hands, right?

Wrong.

But then everyone on the battlefield knew that the Asterios' hammer was heavy and that added to his own weight, there was no way he'd be able to jump high enough to attack the troll's unprotected head, right?

Wrong.

"Wow..." A single word escaped from Arnold's mouth as he saw the minotaur jump in the air an Olympic high jumper, brandishing his Warhammer over his head. It felt like Arnold was watching it all in slow motion.

The troll was quick to react and crossed his arms over his head to protect itself from the minotaur's strike. A good but futile move. Even though the troll's skin had already hardened on its hands, Asterios' momentum was too much for just his hands to bear as it was clear the moment when Asterios successfully slammed his hammer on the troll's hands, which broke them in half, and then managed to hit it's head, shattering it into pieces.

Dread wasn't playing around while all of this was happening either. He too managed to catch a troll off guard and quickly got rid of him by cleanly cutting his head off his shoulders.

As the troll's headless body fell on the ground, Arnold noticed something unsettling... the only area that wasn't covered after being hardened was... his crotch. As gross as this weakness was, Arnold wasn't going to ignore this weakness if his enemies.

"Everything is fair in love and war, right?" Arnold sighed and grabbed something out of his inventory.

At first glance, it looked like a spear, on which a cylindrical container had been attached to. But in reality, it was the prototype of a weapon that Arnold had made for himself while he was making the katana and the Warhammer for Asterios and Dread. It was single-use, handheld harpoon.

"Looks like its time to finally test it out."