Chapter 199: Dogfight

A sharp whistle pierced the battlefield as Loth blew through her talons.

“Your attention please!” She shouted, waving from atop a chunk of fallen rock.

Will could hear Jean’s voice shouting something on the other side of the rubble, and what sounded like the exact tone of Reggie’s armor being struck, coming from behind him.

“Restrain the kobold! No direct attacks!” one of Caddock’s men shouted, and a sphere of stone erupted from the ground to surround Loth.

As she disappeared, Will spotted Loth pull out a fireball bead and shove it into her mouth.

An instant later, hundreds of Loth’s insects died at once, burnt to death in an instant.

OH! Will thought, recalling what Loth was wearing.

Cuirass of the Blood Lord

+10 Resistance

+3 kinesthetics

+1 Acuity

+14 Focus

Damage done to you is done to your minions first. Scales with Focus.

Whenever you kill a minion, all allies gain a boost to Strength, Resistance, Kinesthetics, Movement Speed, and Damage for the duration of combat or until an hour passes.

I guess it’s not too specific about who deals the damage, Will thought as a surge of power flooded him.

Caddock rushed forward and Will juked around him easily, sprinting for Jean and company.

BOOM!

Will stumbled as another bolt of lightning crashed down on him, turning his surroundings into glass and slightly melting his armor.

Really hope my armor doesn’t break.

Will tumbled for an instant, drawing a trough through the ground for a few yards before he leapt back to his feet, sprinting over the rubble, downing a healing potion as he ran.

Sourdough

35 Charges remaining.

When he got to the top of the mountain of shattered stone, he saw Jean on the other side, splitting into dozens of copies that were flooding the battlefield.

She…seemed fine? Not getting hit with a mental whammy, anyway.

Jason was huddled beside her, his snakes defending him while he hastily loaded smoking weed into the tomahawk.

Why? Will’s eye twitched as he recalled the tomahawk’s effects. Only one stood out that might explain what he was seeing.

Smoke drawn through the pipe will cure Psychic Venom and inoculate against psychic damage.

…what does inoculate mean anyway?

Caddock caught up with Will the moment he paused, attempting to skewer Will with his re-acquired spear.

Will caught the spear above his stomach and the two of them tumbled off the mound of shattered boulders and earth.

Even with Loth’s buff, Will wasn’t stronger than Caddock. Stats were a multiplier, and Caddock was already built like a mountain, so even if they had the same Strength – which they didn’t – Will would’ve still been weaker.

And yet…nobody said she was done.

Loth’s stone prison exploded, erupting with bone Maksu as hundreds more of her minions died, reinforcing all her remaining allies. The basic undead moved like veteran climbers as they swarmed outwards.

Loth was wielding the necromancer’s dagger, killing her newest generation ‘technically a monster’ insects by the dozens, mass-producing footsoldiers while simultaneously reinforcing them.

It seemed like Maybin Glasswind grew tired of people fumbling Loth, because a tree-width beam of lightning encompassed the kobold and sped the process along.

Thousands of Loth’s insects died in an instant, and Will got the biggest buff he’d ever experienced.

When color returned to the battlefield, Will spotted Caddock winding up a thrust.

Loth made a quick motion towards the Paladin, and Will felt her cantrip, Fumble, ripple through the air between them, prompting Will to lunge forward.

Caddock’s hands spasmed uncontrollably for an instant, and Will took the opportunity to tear the spear out his hands.

Will set his feet, the earth flowing up to his ankles to anchor him in place, twisted, then unwound his body, swinging the spear like a club with everything he had.

The earth around his feet shattered as the backblow of Will’s attack was transmitted through the ground.

Caddock’s cuirass folded inward an instant before the paladin was blown away.

The wound in his chest and shoulder sealed as the lifesteal strickled in.

Will glanced up with the intention of running into the sky, when he noticed at least six fliers forming a roof above him, and more Nukers just waiting for him to clear the ground.

More of Caddock’s soldiers crowded in around Will.

Man, If I had the Charge, Will thought as he hefted the spear, flowing around his clumsy opponents like water, the ground rippling around them as he moved. Always supporting him. Always twisting under their ankles.

I’m moving like I did during the tournament.

Will could see it in their eyes, in the way they gave fainthearted attacks that didn’t have every ounce of their will in it.

They were fighting a legend, and numbers meant nothing.

Will slid around a flurry of blows, caught a stab aimed for his neck with his palm, tore the blade out of the man’s hand and blew away another with a swipe from the spear.

I should be stabbing, but clubbing people with an ancient treasure just feel right.

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A prison of stone erupted around him and Will took three steps straight up, grabbed the stone with his feet and sent spears of stone out into the crowd.

BOOM!

A bolt of lightning dropped down on him again, his armor brightening from cherry red to glowing orange.

“GONNA TAKE MORE THAN THAT!” Will shouted, perched on top of the glassed stone.

I need a helmet, Will thought as he smelled burning hair.

At least I don’t smell exposed brain, Will thought, dashing to the side, hardening the air in front of him, creating a wedge to shove his opponents aside.

The soldiers raised their weapons then staggered backwards as the air itself shoved them aside.

Will broke through the encirclement and sprinted straight to where he’d heard weapons clanging off Reggie’s armor.

Reggie was ragged, standing in between half a dozen stone-faced Climbers and a weeping Alicia.

“They used some kind of sensory debuff on her!” Reggie shouted as he spotted Will, bodily shoving another Climber away from his ward. “She can’t see or hear!”

The two of them were covered in burns and minor wounds. The only reason they were still alive was because of Loth’s Party-wide buff providing a substantial amount of Resistance.

“Take her and run!” Will shouted.

Alicia’s only job was to insta-kill, and Reggie’s only job was to protect the glass cannon. Might as well take them both off the board if she’d been disabled.

Will stomped a half-circle of earthwave and shoved the circling Climbers back far enough for Reggie to scoop Alicia up and start running.

Reggie wasn’t the fastest, but Loth’s buff provided a staggering boost to movement speed, allowing the heavily armored Tank to scamper away like Will on a good day.

Will saw a contingent of Loths’ bone maksu form a wedge and impose themselves between the pair and the pursuit.

Will glanced up into the sky, and saw that the fliers only had eyes for him, rather than chasing the two.

Travis was nowhere to be seen, but Will wasn’t too concerned about him. The Master Decoy’s whole Class revolved around gaining and losing enemy attention. He was probably hiding under the illusion of a rock somewhere, sipping a health potion for a minor bruise.

Will directed the Phantom Eye up, making a quick sweep of the battlefield.