Chapter 114.1: A Battle’s Beginning

Chapter 114.1: A Battle’s Beginning

Astintash charged.

Of course the Dragon was the one to move first—not only was it easily the most confident and motivated of anyone involved in this fight, but it was also the only one not sustaining serious injuries.

Several soldiers fled the moment Astintash took a step toward them, some of them stood their ground, but most were still trying to dig themselves out of the rubble of the wall.

The two soldiers leading the defense—calling for everyone else to stand their ground—were the royal guards. Asmo had her bow drawn, arrow notched and ready to loose, and the axe-wielding woman held her bloodied blade, prepared to strike.

I, on the other hand, felt not quite as ready to attack. There were probably fifty paces between me and the shattered wall’s remains, and that was a lot of paces to clear when up against enemies with ranged weaponry. I watched as Astintash took a dozen shots to the face from its bow-wielding opponents, uncaring of the twigs poking its scales, and wished I had the ability to just ignore things like that.

But at least Astintash made for a good distraction. I glanced over to Erani and Aina—oh. Ainash had already dashed forward, right behind the rampaging Dragon and whip ablaze, ready to strike down her enemies.

“You stay back,” I said to Erani. “You can use your last invisibility ring if you need to. Just try to stay safe.”

“You’re going in?”

“I don’t have much of a choice. Astintash’ll kill me if I don’t.”

She pursed her lips and nodded, and, with a couple stacks of Expedite on myself, I charged forward behind Ainash and her Dragon friend. Fortunately, Astintash’s body was so massive that, by running behind it, basically nobody ahead had sight of me, so I didn’t yet have to worry about being shot.

But as we approached the enemy forces, several Infernals circled around Astintash to come and attack me. There was a clear difference of interest between the Humans and Infernals here, since the Humans were the only ones risking their lives. As such, the Humans focused on surviving—either fleeing or trying to kill Astintash—and the Infernals focused on the primary objective—killing me.

So I was forced to slow down as the Infernals closed in to block my passage. They were all pretty severely damaged—as was I—but clearly they were ready to fight regardless.

A couple Firebolts flew out from behind me, Erani shooting at the crowd of Infernals to slow them down and thin them out before they could attack, which I was extremely grateful for.

Level 29 Draconiad has offered moderate contribution toward the slaying of Level 27 Infernal.

At least, it wasn’t enough to kill them without me putting in some effort to keep them above-ground against their wills.

With Erani still helping to hold back the Infernals, I could focus for a bit more time on fighting off these Hellions below me.

And there were multiple below me. I didn’t need Index to inform me of that. Even after the initial attacker burrowed under the ground, I could still feel a few more, each moving upward toward my feet.

“Now!” Index shouted, and I leapt out of the way just in time to avoid another monster bursting from the ground. It was obviously a new Hellion, without the frost coating of the one I’d just damaged and let go. But for this one, I wanted to kill it while it was vulnerable.

The moment it reached the peak of its arc midair, I activated Gravity Well on the monster, completely ruining its angled attempt to burrow straight back into the dirt. Instead, it fell with a flop onto the gravel, writhing in an attempt to burrow back into the ground under its newly-enhanced gravitational pull.

I didn’t let it escape this time, though. I tackled it, wrapping my arms around the surprisingly-rough skin of the monster, at least as wide as my own waist, and activated Noxious Grasp while also pumping as many Rays of Frost as my mind allowed point-blank into its body.

You have struck Level 17 Hellion for 62 damage using Ray of Frost.

You have cursed Level 17 Hellion with Ray of Frost. For the next 5 seconds, its Dexterity score is lowered by 7.77.

14.2 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 971.

You have slain Level 17 Hellion.

You have earned 94 XP. Your XP is 1.01k.

The moment the Hellion was dead, I backed away from its limp corpse, aware that staying still in any area would only invite more of them to attack. Sure, I could handle one at a time, but the moment several attacked at the same time—or they started coming for me when I was in the middle of fighting off the Infernals—I’d start having issues.

And speaking of Infernals, a few of them were finally approaching. Off ahead of me, I could see Ainash and Astintash rampaging through the main rubble of the wall, killing indiscriminately—whether someone was fighting back or running away, they died all the same, it seemed. But that didn’t prevent some of the Infernals from getting to me, despite Erani’s best efforts.

Okay, I thought, not exactly an ideal situation, but let’s do this.