Gloominess +2: Congregation. A LitRPG series: Book 2
Page 23
As soon as I stopped casting Tranquility of Darkness from the distance, increasing our allies’ regeneration and scaring away the enemies, and got in close combat, I got face to face with a Follower of Einar. The skill, although predictable, was not very pleasant. At least this Bimmy guy was only level 50 and had less than 100 HP as he was a common soldier.
Trident of Darkness.
Power Strike.
I hit three more times, forcing the guy to step back and try to switch places with a fighter from the second line. Defeated by my neighbor’s sword, he failed to do so.
Fighting in a close formation wasn’t pleasant. I preferred to fight at places with enough space for maneuvering. Having defeated three enemies, I began to retreat when Greiv appeared beside me.
“Senior Disciple, our people report that the enemy has scattered... I fear that they could surround us.”
“Tell Baron Gotz,” I ordered at once.
I understood very well what one of my best fighters was talking about. I noticed that the enemies had stopped pressing us on the main street, and began to scatter in small groups around the village. About a dozen of men were going round the house to the left of me.
“Follow me!” I waved to the two fighting groups of five villagers and a group of five baron’s warriors. We agreed that during the fight Alv Gotz, Una, and I could command any warrior, except the Disciples of other person’s God.
“Heh… I wish we had our Wolves…” Golin grunted, running beside me.
“You’ll get to ride them,” I replied. Deep inside, I agreed with the man. However, the narrow streets weren’t fit for riding. Cavalry was good on the field, but totally useless in a village among the buildings and people. Even the knights were fighting on foot.
“Woooo!!!” sounded a long, lonely howl, followed by hundreds of similar cries.
“Mention the fur-balls, and there they are! Now they’re gonna kick the enemies’ asses!” Golin smiled triumphantly.
The howling sounded closer and closer. Heh, another of my plans worked. And to think that Una and Gotz looked at me with suspicion, to put it mildly, when I told them that I could entrust only Vella with commanding the Wolves.
“So, you’re saying that a dog will be able to choose the perfect moment for attack?” the sorceress couldn’t believe her ears.
Seems I made change her mind. The Wolves’ task was to rush out of the forest at full speed and attack from behind once the enemy reaches the village. Right on time. Good job. I was starting to believe that we would not only be able to hold out till Glozeysk finished his ritual, but even win and annihilate the enemy!
“Fight!” I cried when my little squad, getting round the corner of the house, bumped into the enemy.
“For the God of Darkness!” A level 26 warrior fearlessly attacked with his axe the shield of a level 50 enemy. Bravery was a good thing, but the villagers’ task was diversion and support.
“Bulbe, move up!” I shouted to the commander of Alv Gotz’s group of five, reminding him that it was the Followers of Rugus’ job to take receive the full blow of the enemy’s attack, not my people.
Our little fight immediately turned into a harsh battle, where two of Tsunter’s men were attacked by three of ours.
“Bale!”
Turning my head, I froze seeing the pale, freckled face with a pointy nose and red hair. I didn’t expect to see the girl here. But what was more surprising was that she somehow managed to reach a high level. In this dark world, it was impossible for “mere mortals” to make such a leap in such a short period of time.
Ranger-commander Ilsa
Level 75
HP: 3248/3248
Chapter 31
The Gods
“I wish I could say that I’m glad to see you…” she said a bit lifelessly and averted her eyes.
She stood a little away and didn’t participate in the battle, but as soon as I got distracted, I almost got hit in my ribs with a flanged mace. I noticed the attack in time, moved aside with a half-turn, hit him twice with my pitchfork and shouted:
“Bulbe’s in charge!”
I ran at the huntress and stopped a couple of feet away from her.
I didn’t know what to do. I definitely couldn’t leave the level 57 “monster” that was near my guys unattended. But the thought of attacking the girl I knew just like that made me sick.
“Likewise,” I smiled. “Congratulations on both the promotion and level-up. I would love to chat with you, but I’m at war here. So, please, go away.”
“I can’t, Bale,” she said quietly, still addressing me by my old name. “I’ve been looking for you. Because of your tombstones, to be exact…”
Only now did I begin to realize, what Ilsa had just said. But I lost my train of thought after what I saw a moment later. The girl’s pretty face got distorted into a self-confident and smug expression. But her eyes suffered the biggest change of them all. Filled with remorse and sadness just a second ago, they now expressed a wild mixture of rage, power and realization of her own greatness.
“What’s wrong, worm?” she said defiantly. “Have you never seen an Avatar of a God?”
You have fallen under the effect of “Aerida’s Aura”. You will receive 25 points of damage for every second spent within its range.
You have received 25 points of damage.
I felt like cold, bony hands clutched my heart; a bell rang in my head, and everything reeled before my eyes. I tried as hard as I could not to show it, but my knees went weak, and my body staggered.
But I managed to remain standing.
“You’re so pathetic, worm. Even the smallest manifestation of my power is enough to hurt you!” Baring her teeth, she walked in my direction. Without slowing her stride, she took an arrow out of the quiver and nocked it. “You couldn’t even stand near my temple, worm,” she laughed and shot my knee.
“Ohhh…!” I wheezed, falling on all fours.
Aerida, the Goddess of Hunt has used “The Hunter God’s Simple Shot”.
You have received 2179 critical damage.
As it wasn’t full before, my HP bar reached the red zone. One kick would be enough to send me back to resurrection. What bad luck…
I couldn’t think straight from pain. I tried to remember what I knew about Avatars. I haven’t seen that word mentioned anywhere before. No, wait. In the Small Encyclopedia it was said that some Disciples, especially those close to a God, could not only be their eyes and ears, but also their vessels. Why would a God even need a mortal body? That wasn’t mentioned in the book. But I could assume that it was to save energy. When the vision of Einar appeared, I was losing 50 HP per second, but when Rugus appeared in flesh, it was 150 HP from afar and 300 HP up close. Didn’t that prove it my assumptions? Aerida even though she was close to me, hit for only 40 HP per second.
But the problem wasn’t only in her Aura…
“It was so easy, worm!” the Goddess chuckled, taking out a hunting knife and holding it to my throat. “I’m going to find your other resurrection points, little worm… Though… There’s plenty of time for that, isn’t there? Maybe it’d be better to torture you till you give me the part of Zurtarn? Hmm… Or should I just kill you?”
I’ve always strived to become stronger in this dark world. Even when I wasn’t training to level up, I tried to think of new combinations of my skills, and to look at the skills from another angle. Honestly speaking, I had seldom managed to do it. But I had one untested idea.
“But will you be able to?” I said with an effort, lifting my head.
Aerida’s nostrils widened with rage. She bared her teeth and lifted her leg for a kick…
Twilight Wanderer.
My weight immediately decreased, and the world around me turned black and white. The Goddess froze in bewilderment, and I noticed that her Aura wasn’t hurting me anymore.
I immediately sprang to my feet and took a bomb out of my inventory.
“Is he really in Twilight?” Aerida muttered irritably,
turning her head around. “Damned worm…! It can’t be!”
The lightweight things I touched in this condition also became invisible and intangible. But as soon as I let them go…
“Aaaa!” the Goddess cried when my invisible hand pierced through her chest. I unclenched my fingers and left the activated grenade close to the Avatar’s heart. Taking the opportunity, I decided to test one more thing and tried to snatch the Goddess by her wrist, imagining the process in my head as clearly as possible. The test failed; my fingers went through her flesh.
“Grrrr!!!!” Aerida growled. “What have you done, you bastard?!”
While the spell was working, I rushed to the nearest house and, moving my legs in the air, ran up the roof.
“I’m sorry, Ilsa,” I whispered, sincerely hoping that game conventionality of this world and the presence of the Goddess in her body wouldn’t let the girl die, at least not right away, but would just drop her HP.
From down behind me sounded a muffled explosion. I had acted against my morals, assuring myself that there was no other way for me to escape the crazy Goddess; that if I got captured, no one would take care of the villagers of Ilyenta, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to help anyone else; that…
…that all was fair in war.
The spell’s effect faded and I turned around uncertainly.
Ranger-commander Ilsa
Level 75
HP: 251/3248
HP: 238/3248
HP: 229/3248
Yes, she didn’t die right away. As far as I understood, it was impossible to “one shot” anyone. Even an extremely powerful single attack would just drop the enemy’s HP to one point. But its consequences, or a follow up attack, could finish you, like it happened with Tsunter’s fighters and our Bear.
Breathing heavily, Ilsa was laying on her back, with chest her mutilated. Blood and life were pouring out of her terrible wound.
Even though we were enemies, and even though I did everything right from a rational point of view, I still felt like a real bastard. Of course, I wasn’t just going to leave the poor thing like that. My HP wasn’t dropping anymore, which meant that there was that the Goddess wasn’t around. I drank a Healing Potion and was about to jump from the roof, when a semi-transparent silhouette of a slender, athletic girl with her fair hair fluttering on the wind, appeared above Ilsa’s body out of nowhere. A quiver hung over her shoulder.
“Ugh! Useless puppet!” The Goddess snorted and kicked the body of the wounded girl with all her might.
You have fallen under the effect of “Aerida’s Aura”. You will receive 50 points of damage for every second spent within its range.
You have received 50 points of damage.
The pain pierced through my body again. Through the veil that covered my eyes, I could see how Ilsa shuddered from the Patron’s kick, and the next moment the wound on the girl’s chest healed.
“Get out of there! Why are you lying?!” Aerida looked down at her Avatar. “Today’s battle is over for you. Get out!”
“As you say, Great One…” whispered the ranger-commander barely audible and crawled in the direction of the village’s border.
You have received 50 points of damage.
“You’ve caused me trouble again, worm!” The Goddess lost any interest in the wounded Ilsa and stared balefully in my direction. “But don’t think that you can hide from me in the Twilight again and attack me in such an underhand way. A God’s ghost is stronger than their Avatar. Your childish ruses won’t help you anymore.”
Heh, even if the Twilight Wanderer could help me again, its cooldown lasted five minutes. That was more than enough time for a God to kill someone like me.
What was I to do now? Should I use the Power of Light? I wasn’t sure if it would help. I didn’t have a lot of lives left. In the last three days I accumulated two hundred and thirty nine of them, so I could spend two hundred for an attack. According to my calculations, that should be enough to deal about twelve thousand points of damage. But was that enough to kill a God? I really doubted that.
You have received 50 points of damage.
Aerida disappeared for a moment, but then immediately appeared on the roof beside me. Was this the end for me? Sure, there was an Altar in my hands, but still...
Suddenly, a figure woven from impenetrable Darkness, appeared near the Goddess and hit her ghostly body in the jaw with all its might. Aerida gave a cry and plummeted down, like a cannon ball out of a cannon. Smashing into the ground, the Goddess left a deep crater, at the bottom of which she coughed a second after the landing, stood up on her feet and spat out her divine blood.
“Take my Followers to the Lake, boy,” said the Old Man without turning to me. “This fight is getting too dangerous for you.”
I looked at my savior in awe. Fifteen feet high and in the flesh, in front of me stood my Patron in his fighting form.
“The God of Darkness? Ha! That’s how you call yourself now?” Aerida chuckled, immediately growing in size and getting flesh.
You have fallen under the effect of “Aerida’s Aura”. You will receive 100 points of damage for every second spent within its range.
You have received 100 points of damage.
“Cough-cough…” the Old Man wheezed, barely audible. Damn, did the Auras of other Gods influence him, too? “Ha-ha!!!” Aerida laughed loudly. “Is it hard for you to even be near me? What were you thinking when you decided to come back into this world?”
“Leave, boy,” my Patron said in a low voice and pushed my chest. Shrouded in black smoke, I flew some two hundred yards away and landed painlessly in the middle of the street.
“Senior Disciple? Senior Disciple is here, let’s help him!” Bulbe and two of baron’s warriors rushed to me; they were all that was left from the fighting five.
When they reached me, I had already stood up and looked in the direction I had just come from. Two figures were fighting in the sky above the village — one, covered in black smoke, and another, glowing with jade light. Each clash was followed by a clap of thunder and waves the color of their energies spread in every direction.
“What’s with Golin?” I asked quickly, averting my eyes from the battle.
“They all felt ill when the girl turned into Aerida’s Avatar. They retreated. Those who fell unconscious were carried off to the field hospital.”
“Good,” I nodded, “we need to get to Una.”
“Let’s go! I know where they are,” Bulbe told us, readily darting off.
The battle split into dozens of smaller fights in the last moments. Someone was fighting with someone at practically every corner. Aside from the rumble in the sky, cries of fury and pain, howling, screaming and the endless clung of metal sounded from everywhere. Scattered about were mutilated bodies of people and animals, and a spell would flash every now and again the flashes.
As it was expected, the Gleam of Rugus was in the largest; even from afar I saw her at the square in front of the temple. Despite the fact that the enemy managed to push our troops that far, we were still somehow winning. Carl Tsunter had to fight against three enemies simultaneously: Alva Gotz, Una and Rigar, the strongest knight of Shelt, a gray-haired, level 118 giant. Twenty more senior officers were fighting around their commanders.
“Shawn.” When there were about fifty yards to Una left, I noticed a small group of villagers. With the help of the Wolves they cornered five enemies between the houses and were now finishing them off. “Tell everyone that the God of Darkness is fighting for us right now,” I pointed at the night sky and the black and jade flashes. “And that he ordered all his Followers to retreat to the Lake of Grace immediately. Understood?” The chief nodded fervently. “Do it! Bring all our people to the source! I’ll join you soon.”
“Yes, Senior Disciple!”
Having given the orders, I ran to Una and the fighting barons. Why? Well I couldn’t send my people away without saying a word and leave the allies fighting for us alone.
But
perhaps, I shouldn’t have gone there…
“I see that everyone is here!” a booming, bass voice sounded over the battlefield.
People, surprised, froze with weapons in their hands and looked up. A huge figure of a bearded, broad-shouldered man in bast shoes and a shirt belted with a string, hovered above the ground.
You have fallen under the effect of “Karus’s Aura”. You will receive 100 points of damage for every second spent within its range.
You have received 100 points of damage.
“You are right, my friend, but haven’t you come too early?” The familiar, armor clad “giant dwarf”, the God of Military Virtue, appeared beside the God of Household. “There is no honor in interfering in the battle of the mortals.”
You have fallen under the effect of “Einar’s Aura”. You will receive 100 points of damage for every second spent within its range.
You have received 100 points of damage.
“Then maybe you’ll just stand aside?” A third, thin figure in a rich kaftan and a turban emblazoned with gemstones, materialized above the astonished people.
You have fallen under the effect of “Rugus’s Aura”. You will receive 100 points of damage for every second spent within its range.
You have received 100 points of damage.
Already on my knees, I heard the words of the God of Control.
You have received 100 points of damage.
My body trembled and I felt sick; blood was pouring out of my ears and nose.
You have received 100 points of damage.
I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t even move. Three Gods, gathered in one place, was too much for me, even though they were not standing close to me.
You have received 100 points of damage.
A thought about using Twilight Wanderer appeared somewhere at the back of my mind…
You have received 100 points of damage.
Though, I wasn’t sure if the spell’s cooldown was over or not.
You have received 100 points of damage.
I didn’t care…
You have received 100 points of damage.
That was the only…