Chapter 68: Halt

Chapter 68: Halt

Erani, the Dryad and I stood at the edge of the clearing, the blockade of tents and soldiers in front of us, and fire behind. They were so well-manned that it was incredibly unlikely we’d get through undetected, and they were well-equipped enough that I doubted we could just charge through.

“Shit...” I muttered, glancing around to try and find some way through this. Unfortunately, this situation wasn’t like the ravine with the tree before; there were no clever solutions. Only an impenetrable wall in front of us, and an unstoppable force of nature pushing us into it.

“Think we could go around?” Erani whispered to me.The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.

“Doubt it,” I shook my head. “Look to the sides – it goes on further than I can even see. And I doubt that, if they went through all this effort, they’d make it short enough for us to just walk around.”

The Dryad seemed similarly frozen with indecision. What could we even do?

Before I could decide on anything, though, I heard a distant blast, and then saw a projectile hurtling toward us. The huge metal sphere came from a nearby cannon, its operator yelling to get the attention of the others. We’d been spotted.

“Duck!” I shouted and leapt aside to the ground. Erani and the Dryad seemed to understand, too, dodging out of the way just in time. A blast shook the ground and deafened my ears as the bomb impacted a tree behind us, creating a massive explosion to rival Erani’s Firebolts. Apparently, their ammunition was explosive.

“Shit, run!” Erani shouted and sprinted out into the clearing. She was right. We’d been spotted, and now there was little to do but rush forward and try our best to get through. The Infernals and Human soldiers quickly drew their weapons upon spotting us, preparing for a fight. We were still about a hundred paces away from them, but we were quickly closing the distance.

Humans from the back drew their shortbows and notched their arrows as the Infernals turned their ballistae and prepared them to fire. We were still out of range for any of my Spells to reach them, so I simply had to prepare myself to take the fire head-on.

In an instant, they all shot. Arrows sped toward us, ballista bolts launched forward, and bombs shot from cannons. I ducked beneath an arrow, and shot another with a Ray of Frost, the magic disintegrating the wood before it could reach me, but the cloud of projectiles was too thick, and I couldn’t dodge all of them. An arrow stuck itself into my stomach, and another grazed my cheek.

You have been stabbed by a point. 62 damage.

Your Health is 188.

You have been sliced by a point. 12 damage.

Your Health is 176.

I wheezed from the pain. It seemed like my high pool of Health helped keep the wounds from damaging my body too much, with the arrow that struck my stomach not actually impaling me. Instead, it just pushed into my skin, and bounced off. Still, it hurt like the hells regardless, and I wasn’t confident in my now-lowered Health pool’s ability to brush off a hit like that again.

Erani, with her lower Dexterity and fewer options to fight back against the arrows, couldn’t prevent them from hitting her. So instead, she stood still and let them, and the pointed steel tips of the arrows simply glanced off her skin, the glowing wires of Angelic Shield repelling the projectiles.

Before I could get my bearings after the barrage of arrows, the ballista shots and bombs came. I ducked as a gigantic bolt flew right over where my chest had been and looked up to see the explosion of Erani casting a Firebolt at one of the approaching bombs. It didn’t detonate the bomb midair – they must’ve been Enchanted against fire – but it still did push the bomb back, where it landed safely in the field in front of us.

The Firebolt’s blast flung away many of the other projectiles that threatened to hit us, too, leaving me with a brief moment of much-needed solace before the next wave of shots.

We continued sprinting forward, slowly closing the distance between us and the barricade. My furthest-reaching Spell, Crippling Chill, had a range of 40 paces. We were still around 80, maybe 75 paces away, though, so it was still effectively useless. It was times like these that I wished I had some better movement options. But it was okay – we’d proven that we could survive their long-range attacks, so all we had to do was keep approaching, and eventually we could get in range to start doing some damage.

But just as I thought that, as our enemies were reloading, a group of Infernals stepped out of their campsite, looking at us with angry eyes. I noticed they had an accessory that most Infernals didn’t have, too. Normally, Infernals were naked – they didn’t wear anything on their humanoid bodies – but these Infernals each had a shining bronze ring on their finger. It was clearly magical, but what did it do?

Before I had time to figure that out, they charged. Our enemies clearly didn’t want to give us the time to get within our effective range to their heavy weaponry. The Dryad surged forward at the sight of the approaching squad of Infernals, far surpassing me and Erani in speed. She had a look of rage on her face that told me to be worried for the Demons, not her.

She lunged through the tall grass and quickly closed the distance between herself and her enemies as Erani and I moved forward to support her. As we charged against the Infernals, though, I noticed them grinning, like they knew something we didn’t.

Just as the Dryad got within about 50 paces of the line of tents and weapons – and only a few paces from the Infernals – something happened. She stepped on the ground and pushed off to leap up at them, but just as her foot impacted the dirt, an explosion came from right under her, shaking the earth and blasting her backward. She tumbled through the tall grass and came to a stop near us.

I slowed to a halt, trying to see what’d blown her up. Nobody had shot a bomb at her or cast a Spell – I would’ve noticed that. It was like the explosion had come from under the ground.

I blinked and looked down. Could it have been...?

“Erani, stop,” I said. “I think they have explosives planted in the ground.”

She halted and glanced around. “Fuck, you may be right.”

Another barrage of projectiles launched just as the Dryad began getting to her feet. I shot a couple more arrows with Ray of Frost, and backed away as a bomb impacted the ground. The Infernals continued approaching, and this time I wasn’t sure how to handle them.

How were they not triggering the explosives? If they were weight-triggered, the Infernals were obviously much heavier than her, so they should have blown themselves up many times by now. I didn’t know if I could approach, or if I needed to fall back. Was where I was standing even safe?

Regardless, I could at least fight from a range. Right when the Infernals entered my effective radius, I cast Crippling Chill on each of them. There were six in all, which was a hefty drain on my Mana, but by now, my Conjuration could handle it.

You have cursed Level 27 Infernal with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, it loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and its Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.

56.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 579.

You have been stabbed by a point. 49 damage.

Your Health is 127.

I turned and saw a barrage of arrows flying toward me from the soldiers. One of them had pierced right into my shoulder.

“Fuck!” I quickly ducked and avoided one aimed straight for my head, then looked back at the Infernals, three of which had approached and were preparing to attack. I leapt forward, rolling across the ground and snapping the arrow shaft that was still stuck in my back in the process.

You have irritated an open wound. 15 damage.

Your Health is 112.

I got to my feet and shot a few Rays of Frost at the closest Infernal, which, if I’d been tracking them correctly, was the Level 21 one. My Mana fell to 93 and I dealt something like 200 damage to it, which seemed to be enough to injure it and slow it down. I heard an explosion behind me, and turned around again to see the next barrage of projectiles – this time the cannon-shot bombs and the ballista bolts – flying toward me.

The bombs soared over my head and toward Erani and the Dryad. I didn’t dare look back to see how they fared – I’d just have to trust that they’d make it out. As for the half-dozen ballista bolts, those seemed to be all aimed at me specifically. I took a step back, wary of the Demons behind me, and just as the bolts were all about to collide with me, I leapt up to jump over them.

One of the bolts caught my foot, though, tripping me mid-air and flipping me around so that I crashed into the ground head-first. Another damage notification informed me that my Health was now in the 30s. But then I heard the gory sound of impalement and turned around to a grisly – but fortunate – sight.

The Level 21 Infernal had been standing in just the wrong place, and caught two of the ballista bolts to its chest. They’d sunken halfway through before wedging themselves to a stop, poking through its back and causing the Infernal to spurt blood from both its front and back, through both of the newly-created in its upper body.

It groaned and breathed raggedy breaths, falling to its knees, as the other Infernals stopped to look at it in shock. Sensing my opportunity, I aimed my hand and shot off a couple more Rays of Frost straight at the near-dead Infernal.

You have struck Level 21 Infernal for 49 damage using Ray of Frost.

You have cursed Level 21 Infernal with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, its Dexterity score is lowered by 6.7.

23.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 70.

You have struck Level 21 Infernal for 49 damage using Ray of Frost.

You have cursed Level 21 Infernal with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, its Dexterity score is lowered by 6.7.

23.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 47.

You have offered moderate contribution toward the slaying of Level 21 Infernal.

You have earned 282 XP. Your XP is 348.

I took a breath. With my Mana so low, I wouldn’t be able to handle these five remaining Infernals, much less the entire blockade of soldiers. And I still wasn’t even sure how to get to them if I could fight them off. I had no idea what had blown up the Dryad when she’d tried to cross over the clearing to get to them, or how to avoid it happening to me.

I backed away from the approaching Infernals as I looked back at Erani, who was still working on getting the injured Dryad to her feet. Were any of us in shape to fight past these enemies? I felt like it was time to cut my losses and activate Time Loop.

And I almost did, right then.

But then I had an idea.

If I accepted this timeline as doomed, then there was no reason to get a bit more information out of it before I went back. It’d suck, sure, but being dead because I didn’t know enough would probably suck more. So, y’know, lesser of two evils.

I backed away from the Infernals more, and more, then turned around and broke into a full sprint toward the soldiers in the barricade. My enemies manning the ballistae and cannons looked at each other, obviously surprised and cautious at my sudden decision to charge at them, but mostly just looked excitedly at me, like they were anticipating a victory. Of course they’d expect a victory, though. I was running straight into their trap.

I looked down as I ran, trying to peer through the tall grass and find whatever it was that had blown the Dryad up. I searched the dirt for the answer, until–

Clank.

I stepped on a small metal plate. About a second after I put my full weight on it, I felt the Enchantment inside activate, and–

You have been blown up. 208 damage.

Your Health is 0.

You have died.

Well, now I knew what was causing those explosions.