by Elian Tars
Power strike.
You have dealt 348 points of damage.
“I… don’t… know…” Wing No. 1 croaked. “About… fifteen… minutes…”
Tranquility of Darkness.
I hit the wounded Warrior that had just come to its senses and was attacking Kazimir with black smoke. I got lucky — the debuff got triggered, turning the Warriors into rag dolls. The giant slowed down at once. Having gotten tangled up in its own legs, it fell down, crushing a few Scorpions. Unfortunately, it immediately began to rise back to its feet.
“Finish it!!!” I shouted, jumping on the head of a giant Cobra. Pushing off it, I flew a few feet and landed on the back of a disoriented Warrior. I began hitting it with the trident. Arrows and crossbow bolts covered with black smoke flew at it at once.
A few seconds later, the enemy was defeated.
“Finish it,” I ordered Vella, who appeared beside me. “And see that there is no Will of their Mother left!”
She understood even though she had never seen the Will of the Mother of the Decayed. Vella sank her teeth into the giant’s body and yanked out a black bubble. Just by scratching its surface with her teeth, she dropped the Will’s HP down to one point. The bubble then burst having destroyed itself.
“Aaaa!!!!”
A bloodcurdling cry sounded over the battlefield. I turned around and saw Wenceslaus’s dying moments. He was one of Kazimir’s commanders and level 101...
They tore such a powerful warrior was in two like it was nothing! Damn it, how many people are left?
“Retreat!!! All troops, retreat!!! Thane’s orders!!!” the vaguely familiar voice of one of the mercenaries reached me.
Although we managed to kill one of the giants, my soldiers were barely holding on. We needed to regroup as soon as possible; otherwise, we’d all die. No matter how proud we were about our strength and skills, we were, right now, at the walls of Al-Harum, where the Decay’s dominance was absolute.
“Kazimir! You heard them!” I roared and jumped on Vella’s back.
Chapter 31
Equal
“Ken, how’s the digging going?” We retreated deep into the city and ran into Horn, who bombarded me with questions at once.
“It’s still on. Ten more minutes, I think…”
“Ten?” Horn clenched his teeth and shook his head. “Listen, the battle’s great. But the losses are terrible.”
“Be that as it may,” I said dryly, “it’s not just our lives that are at stake, but the fate of this whole world.”
Horn squinted, but didn’t take his eyes off me. Then he nodded slowly.
“I know. The Great One told me.”
I couldn’t say that his words were unexpected, but they still surprised me. Was Noriduel our ally now?
“Thane!!!” Tilda shouted, peeking from behind a long, two-story building together with a few fighters. “They’re close.”
Horn shook his shaggy locks, shifted his poleax in his hand so that he’d be holding it more comfortably, and roared.
“Great! Don’t fret, guys! Let’s send those Decayed bastards to the great beyond!”
“Yeah!!!”
“Don’t spare phials or grenades! If you save them now, you won’t get a chance to use them later! Let’s give it our all, is that clear?!”
“Yeah!!!”
I didn’t want to spoil their moment, especially because Horn looked like he was about to rush into the fight, but I needed to make something clear.
“Horn, about the grenades and the phials... If you have any, give them to me. You won’t regret it.”
There was no point in hiding my Wanderer. Firstly, in the current situation, “showing what shouldn’t be showed” to the mercenaries would be the lesser of the two possible evils. Secondly, despite the human love for gossip, I wanted to believe Tael when he said that professionals kept their clients’ secrets to themselves.
Hiding behind the buildings and on the roofs, we managed to ambush the Decayed. As far as I understood it, there were at least three battlefields in the city right now. And I, together with my army and the strongest of the hirds, was fighting in the central one, which was the biggest of them all if the enemy numbers were anything to go by.
Grenades, arrows, and phials were being tossed at the monsters from all directions. Using Wanderer, I managed to plant grenades in four Warriors. I had returned to my people and was fighting side by side with Kazimir and Vella when the explosions went off.
Trident of Darkness.
Power Strike.
Attacking one of the giants, I caught myself thinking about something that made me feel unpleasant. In video games, there was a term “damage per second,” or DPS for short. At the begging of the battle, we had been dealing colossal amounts of DPS, but that wasn’t enough. The Decayed outnumbered us. That wasn’t an exaggeration — we couldn’t see the end of them. Lifting my head, I looked at the dark that had covered the street. I saw only the pitch-black river of monsters’ bodies.
“Aaaa!!!” Someone screamed and a human arm fell on the sand beside me. I glanced at it with the corner of my eye. It was Zulif’s. He was a young and promising guy, and one of Kazimir’s soldiers. I remembered him because his pregnant wife would often come to the training field, bringing her husband dinner and words of love.
Pincers that had cut the guy’s arm off ripped his stomach open…
“Nooo!!! Help… Cough…” A huge, black Snake broke Vishimir’s neck. He was a sturdy and good-natured guy with a family that was waiting for him back home. How will they feel when they find out that he had died in the very first campaign after having survived the escape from his homeland and having found a new home with my people and I?
The situation was bad. We needed to hold on for seven-eight minutes more, which seemed impossible now that the Decayed had filled the city. They wouldn’t let us retreat as easily as we did the last time. They would destroy us. Even if Kane got lucky and his group quickly dug out the artifact, it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
The effect of the Aura of Darkness worked on one of the Snakes. I didn’t even see the debuff trigger, just caught a glimpse of the info in the logs. A second later, a Salamander fell unconscious on the sand in front of my feet, brought down by a sweeping strike of my trishula. Its place was immediately taken by a level fifty Scorpion with full HP.
When would I use the aces up my sleeve, if not now? I could use Tiara’s gift against the crowd of enemies, and then the Power of Light and the Small Avatar of Darkness… Damn it, I doubted that even that would turn the tide in our favor! Wouldn’t that be a waste of all of my most powerful attacks? Would that leave me helpless when the final boss appears? We had to hold on for several more minutes... Once Kane has found the Part, we’d need time to evacuate. How would I buy us that time, if I’m left empty-handed?
Boom!
Something huge flew over our heads and landed right in the center of the Decayed army. The explosions went on and strange, flying object kept falling on the heads of the creatures.
“Finally!” Horn cried happily.
I looked around and saw the biggest and the most muscular mercenary — Derek. It seemed like he had spent most of his stat points on strength, and even got a skill from his God that allowed him to temporarily increase the said stat. That was the only explanation I had for his ability that allowed him to throw people around as if they were ragdolls.
“What are they doing...?” Kazimir muttered in surprise. I noticed that Derek had assistants — some of the mercenaries had found a cart somewhere and used it to bring over the tied and unconscious Ishirians. Having left the gas zone, they were slowly coming to their senses.
Meanwhile, another group of mercenaries was pulling in two more carts full of captives.
Gaining speed, one of the carts got ahead.
“Step aside!!! Step aside!!!” shouted the three mercenaries that were pushing it at the top of their lungs.
“Let them pass!!! Quickly!!!” I commanded, maki
ng sense of the situation.
“Retreat! Everyone, retreat!!!” Horn shouted.
By some miracle, we managed to clear a path for the cart. When it rushed past me, I saw the faces of the Ishirians — they were the ones who had been finishing off the knocked out mercenaries. Damn it! Because of the shackles, they won’t be able to die fighting…
“Get the wounded and retreat quickly!” I angrily cried.
“Run to the inner gates!!!” Tilda instructed. “The rest will be there, too!”
Retreating, I glanced over my shoulder. Horn’s idea had worked — the Decayed got distracted by the captives and were tearing them apart. Blood was being spilled in every direction and innards were being sent flying left and right… Apparently, Horn had ordered that the same strategy be applied at the flanks, too. This way, Horn avenged his fallen brothers and sisters, and at the same time, bought us time to retreat.
Damn it…
I picked up an unconscious warrior and continued retreating, shouting to my people to hurry. I felt awful that we were saving ourselves at the expense of other people’s lives. However, I couldn’t blame Horn for what he had done. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I had thought about doing the same. And even though I was gradually becoming cold-hearted, there still seemed a lot of humanity left in me. I wouldn’t have used the same tactic as Horn. He made the choice for me.
The only creatures who tried to follow us were the Warriors. To our credit, the remaining giants were pretty battered and slow. We had kicked their asses pretty well. The enemy couldn’t heal them or create new ones now, because they were busy eating. For some reason, they didn’t seem to be answering the calls of their Mothers.
We were pretty far away now. One more turn and we’d see the inner gates.
“What a dirty… trick,” spoke a raspy voice behind us. “But I’m not… surprised…”
I turned around. At the end of the street, where a crowd of Decayed was busy devouring Ishirians, I saw a blonde woman in a crème dress. Because of the distance between us, I couldn’t read her stats or name, but I had no doubts about her identity.
As if summoned by my thoughts, a Mother of the Decayed came to aid her children.
She raised her hand in front of her…
And I immediately realized what we should do.
“Run!” I roared throwing the unconscious man forward.
Twilight Wanderer.
“Do it! Focus!” Berg shouted.
I found myself right in front of the Mother.
Unfortunately, the skills of other Elements didn’t work in the Twilight. I didn’t have any more grenades, so the Wanderer was useful only for quick teleportation. With all the tricks that I had up in my sleeve, there was a good chance that I’d be able to defeat her.
Just as I had thought about it, two Salamanders that had crawled to her turned into women in dark, velvet dresses. Now I had a ginger, a blonde, and a brunette looking at me arrogantly. The fact that I was in the Twilight didn’t bother them at all.
The brunette outstretched her hand to me and suddenly jerked it back, backing away from a sword.
“Don’t you dare touch my client, sweetheart,” Tael sneered from my right. “He owes me a great sum of money for my troubles.”
“You personally stood up against them and decided to help my boy,” spoke a drawling voice to the left of me, “does this mean that you’ve decided to stop fooling around, Noriduel?”
“I’ve never been fooling around, oh, Ancient one,” Tael answered the Old Man calmly. “It’s just that a God’s life isn’t for me. It’s not as liberating...”
Tael began to change right in front of my eyes. He became taller and his shoulders became broader, but his trademark smile remained. He was now wearing a shining, dark-brown scale armor, and the sword in his hands had changed into a glaive.
“What a picture…” the ginger Mother smiled charmingly. “A God… an Ancient… and a human… are going to fight side by side? And they think that they can defeat us? Hah!”
Black streams of energy flowed to their feet. I glanced behind her and saw the Decayed dying one by one. The first to die were the Warriors because they were the nearest. The weaker beasts soon followed.
“Leave,” the Old Man said quietly to them. I could feel the coldness of his voice even in the Twilight.
“After we get… the Cradle of Gods…” the blonde replied, outstretching her arm and almost touching my chest. “The human… has it, doesn’t he? It was stupid to leave it to the weaklings…”
“It’s your funeral,” the Old Man sighed heavily. I could’ve sworn that I heard sadness in his voice.
In the next moment, he blasted a ball of Darkness into the face of the ginger Mother. She managed to block his attack with her forearm. Roaring in pain, she jumped up several feet. A sphere of energy appeared around her fist, glittering with acid-green and black. She landed a hit from above.
Tael, or Noriduel to be exact, fought against the brunette. She looked somehow funny, if such a word could be used to describe a deadly monster. But it was difficult to find any other adjectives to accurately describe a woman in a beautiful dress who was swinging a two-handed sword made out of Decay’s energy.
“How long will you hide… in the Twilight?” The blonde smiled at me. I didn’t like blondes much, being more into gingers, but the Old Man had already called dibs on the latter.
All kinds of nonsense was going through my head. I was fighting side by side with two Gods against invincible monsters, Of course I was nervous.
I didn’t move, which helped the Wanderer remain active. But in a couple of seconds it would disappear. One… Two…
“Activate the Amulet of Righteousness.”
You have used the “Amulet of Righteousness.” You have become immune to all Divine and “Decay” attacks. The action time…
A glance was enough to read the entire message, but even without it, I knew that my invincibility would last for only five seconds. Not to mention the day-long cooldown...
Small Avatar of Darkness.
Thick, black smoke began to rise from under my feet. Rolling around me, it wrapped me into a cocoon. The activation time was horribly long — two seconds seemed like an eternity now. I couldn’t skip it, but I could get killed while casting it. I was sure that my opponent would find a way to drop my remaining 2,000 HP to zero in one hit, which is why I had to rely on the effect of the Amulet.
A ball of black-and-green energy pierced through the smoke and hit me in the chest. I didn’t feel any pain. Her attack didn’t do any damage.
The next moment, my cocoon stopped obscuring my view. I cast a quick glance at myself — I was now one and a half times higher and bigger and looked as if I was made of Darkness. In fact, I looked very much like the Old Man. It’d be interesting to look in a mirror — I supposed that I wouldn’t be able to see my face.
The world became dark gray for me. No, not like in the Twilight — I could still see colors, but it felt as if I was looking through a tinted glass.
The face of the Mother froze in puzzled expression. She waved her hands, trying to take control of me with the help of her Will, but failed to do so.
I swung my trishula, which was also made out of concentrated, black smoke.
Because all of my stats had increased tenfold, the speed of my attacks was now amazing!
You have dealt 4,678 points of damage.
You have used a random elemental skill, “Corroding Darkness,” against the “Mother of the Decayed.”
“The Mother of the Decayed” has received a “Minor Injury.”
“The Mother of the Decayed” will receive 233 points of damage for the next 20 seconds.
She yelped in pain and jumped back. I immediately rushed after her.
My brain was working extremely fast. Having sucked the energy out of her minions, the Mother’s HP increased by two and a half times, and she now had almost 220,000 HP. I spent half of my HP, mana and Energy to activate the Small
Avatar of Darkness, but all the bars had been restored right after the activation (this was necessary to avoid using the skill in the last moment, which would kill you before its activation). Now I had almost 41,000 HP. I didn’t care about the difference in HP — I was faster.
Trident of Darkness.
You have dealt 5,870 of damage.
You have dealt 1,000 points of damage to the secondary target.
You have dealt 1000 points of damage to the secondary target.
You have dealt 1,000 points of damage to the secondary target.
Two black rays hit the other two Mothers. The third flew far away, hitting one of the weaker decayed beasts that were hurrying to help.
“Don’t get too cocky!” my opponent cried out. She waved her hand and a giant scythe, the size of a two-story house flew toward me.
I rolled to the left, jumped to my feet at once, and with one leap closed the distance between us.
Power strike.
The skills name has been changed to “Power Strike of the Darkness.”
You have dealt 7,469 points of damage.
“Aargh!” she cried, clutching at the three deep wounds that had appeared on her torso. Her dress was drenched in black-green blood.
Unfortunately, she had a lot of HP left and I was running out of time.
An energy whip appeared in her hands. She tried to get me with it, but I dodged and took out the Altar of Light out of my inventory. The time had come to use up my reserves.
“Use a 1,000 lives to activate the Power of Light.”
Attention! It’s impossible to use skills of another Element while the “Small Avatar of Darkness” is activate.
Deactivate the “Small Avatar of Darkness”? Yes / No?
“No!” I fearlessly rushed to attack the enemy.
Damn it… Who would’ve guessed it? What an inconvenient limitation. I made a mental note for next time that the Small Avatar should be activated only after the Amulet and the Power of Light had been used. But will there be a next time? The Small Avatar’s effect was near its end, and I definitely didn’t have enough time to kill the Mother…
What should I do? Should I use Tiara’s gift? It’s no good against one enemy. I’ll have to risk it... When the effect of the “Small Avatar” ends, I’ll use the “Power of Light...” I just need to time it well…