Chapter 136: The True Battle Rages
Ripley charged at me, and I set myself. I’d change tactics now, going from defensive and focused on avoiding attacks to offensive, trying to drain her Stamina with Noxious Grasp.
She swung her axe at me again, but with Expedite, which I was getting more and more used to over the course of my time with four stacks cast on myself, I was fast enough to dodge under her axe and tackle her.
It wasn’t just Expedite helping me hold my own against her, either. I’d done the math a while ago, and in total, counting the Intelligence given to me with Trailblazer, the random Stats from Recursive Growth, and the 4 additional in Strength, Endurance, and Dexterity given to me by Ainad’s Bond, I had 216 total Stats. That was the amount of Stats someone Leveling normally would have by Level 30. And, of course, then I added on an extra 120 with four Expedites.
Now, sure, many of that was invested into Conjuration, but even just looking at my physical Stats, I didn’t have a terrible looking Status. Sure, Ripley still obviously dominated me physically, but it wasn’t quite as severe as she must’ve been expecting, considering I’m supposed to be a Magic-Type.
So when I lunged forward and tackled her, I wasn’t surprised to see her stumble backward a bit. I didn’t knock her over, but it wasn’t like hitting a brick wall, either. Well, she was wearing metal plate armor, so it’d be more like hitting a metal wall either way.
But still, Noxious Grasp did its thing, quickly draining Ripley’s Stamina, and when I let go and stepped away, it left a five-second Fester behind, doubling all of her Stamina consumption for the duration.
She snarled, clearly enraged—though I suspected she’d be enraged anyway, considering she was under the effects of Berserk—and stepped forward, swinging at me with her axe once again.
One interesting thing Index had told me before about the Fester was that, by doubling all Stamina consumption, that also meant it’d double the Stamina costs of any Martial Arts activated. Even for a Melee-Type, who’d obviously have much more Stamina than someone like me, those Martial Arts typically carried a heavy cost. I knew that for Swordsman, at least, those Arts would commonly cost 30, 40, even upwards of 50 Stamina per activation—and that was just at the lower Levels.
So by doubling the costs of Ripley’s already-costly Martial Arts, I was effectively locking her out of using them. Berserkers would already need to be careful about Stamina consumption because of Berserk’s constant Stamina drain that came with it, but up against me, Ripley would have to be extremely conscientious about using any Martial Arts at all.
Really, when I thought about it, I was kind of like a Melee-Type’s worst nightmare, with my entire build focused on denying my enemies of a resource that they counted on so heavily.
Ripley charged and swung again, her eyes feeling like they were close to catching aflame. I backed away, but the blade of her axe caught my bicep.
You have been sliced. 4 damage.
Your Health is 31.
I was able to pull away with my boosted Dexterity, quickly enough that it only nicked me, but…
You have been inflicted with Burning Blood.
For the next 10 seconds, you gain the following effects:
You lose 1 Health every second.
Whenever you take damage from a physical source, that source deals an additional 50% damage, up to a maximum of 25 additional damage.
Her axe was Enchanted. Each time I got hit, I’d take a minimum of 10 extra damage, and that was assuming I could avoid getting hit again for the next ten seconds.
With my entire arm feeling like it was warming up to feverish temperatures, I backed away and activated Gravity Well on Ripley, this time keeping it active as I tried to create distance between us while I waited out the weapon’s Curse.
My Stamina was at 61, so I could activate Regenerate if I needed to, but doing so would drop my own Stamina so low that I’d have trouble moving as freely as I was right now.
With Gravity Well increasing her weight by over 60%, Ripley trudged over to me as I scrambled back. The Spell was hefty in Mana cost, but helped as a panic button at times like these when I really needed to slow someone down.
I heard an explosion and glanced over to see a blast coming off of Astintash’s scaly hide. It was still fighting over in the rubble of the ruined wall, and it looked like someone salvaged together one of the ballistas that’d been used in defending the fort when it was still intact. Still, I doubted that bothered Astintash much at all.
It seemed like most of the soldiers there had either died or fled, really. But the remaining ones were still fighting back, so Astintash and Ainash weren’t done yet, it seemed.
A grunt from Ripley pulled my attention back to her, just in time to duck under another swing of her blade. She functioned remarkably well under 60% increased gravity, reduced Dexterity from Crippling Chill, and extra-drained Stamina from Noxious Grasp, really.
She swung again, and I backed away, but then she spun all the way around, letting the battleaxe’s momentum carry her in another swing that hit me in my ribs with the flat end of the axe.
You have been slammed against something. 9 damage.
Your Health is 12.
Your ribs have been fractured.
You have been inflicted with Burning Blood.
For the next 10 seconds, you gain the following effects:
You lose 1 Health every second.
Whenever you take damage from a physical source, that source deals an additional 50% damage, up to a maximum of 25 additional damage.
It seemed like she’d used some sort of Martial Art there, because I was sent flying backward—much further back than I should’ve been. And it seemed like, even if I didn’t technically get my skin cut open by the axe, it still hit me with that Burning Blood shit.
My ribs stung like the hells, too. With my already-low Health, I barely had anything that could protect me against blunt damage like that, leaving my body without a shield to prevent my bones from breaking. Which was exactly what happened.
My hurting body rolled across the dirt path we were fighting on, and I landed on my back.
Yeah, things were dire. I needed extra Health, even if it was at the cost of my dwindling Stamina.
You have activated Regenerate. You will gain 25.4 Health over the next 10 seconds.
45.7 Stamina Cost. Your Stamina is 14.
I still had Gravity Well active on Ripley, so she was forced to walk over to me, each step landing heavily on the gravel pathway.
But with my now-low Stamina, I was suddenly finding it difficult to stand up. I coughed. The metal plate crushing my ribs definitely didn’t help, either.
I held up a hand and weakly fired off Rays of Frost at her, my shaky hand making it difficult to aim, but they only barely seemed to slow her down. Coughing, I managed to get to my feet, but I could still barely move.
Ripley kept approaching, both of us exhausted, but unable to stop fighting. Ripley looked like she was about to collapse right there on the ground, but the fire in her eyes refused to die out.
But then, I heard a voice.
“Ripley!” it said. It was Asmo.
I looked over and saw her. She had her bow drawn and aimed at a fallen piece of the wall that Erani was taking cover behind. I saw countless arrows embedded into the stone surface of the rubble. She was still staring down at Erani’s cover, but she continued talking to Ripley.
“Command is messaging me. Most of the forces are dead. They’re going to port us out.”
Ripley snapped her head back at Asmo. The effects of the Berserk Talent didn’t technically take away one’s ability to speak, but apparently it did make someone so enraged they barely had the room in their mind for a long discussion. She just yelled out an angered “No!”
“Yes. We’re going to die if we stay. That Dragon will kill us. They’re porting us out.”
“He’s almost dead!”
“Irrelevant. We can find another time to kill him. All living VIPs are to leave immediately. They’ve already ported some.”
“No!”
This time Asmo actually looked away from her opponent to stare Ripley down. She had a surprising softness in her eyes when she looked at the Berserker. “You’re not in your right mind. Let Berserk wear off and—”
“No! If he stays alive, the Demons won’t leave!”
“Ripley. They’re porting us out, and you can’t do anything about that. It’s not your choice to make.”
Erani, now that her enemy was fully not even looking at her, popped out from behind her cover and held out a hand to shoot off another Firebolt. The ball of flames formed, left her hand, and flew true, straight at Asmo, and then it collided—
Or, no, it didn’t collide with her. Just before it would’ve hit Asmo, a ring on the woman’s hand glowed, flashed a golden light, and then she was gone. And this time, she hadn’t reappeared elsewhere on the battlefield. She was fully gone. The Firebolt continued on in its path, hitting nothing and fizzling out a dozen paces later.
Ripley looked, wide-eyed at where Asmo had been standing. Then, she shouted, seemingly to nobody but herself, “No!” And reached over to her hand, where a similar ring laid on her finger. She grabbed it, frantically tugged it off of her finger, and tossed it aside.
Just as it hit the ground, it glowed a brilliant golden light, and then flashed away, disappearing just as Asmo did.
Only this time, Ripley didn’t disappear with it.
She was still standing right there in front of me.
She pointed her axe at me, breathing heavily, and said “You will die today! I will make things right!”
And, with renewed vigor, she charged.
I backed away and raised my hand to shoot her with another Ray of Frost.
But before I could do so, a Firebolt exploded against her, flinging her off to the side and tumbling to the ground, herself. Ripley’s axe was flung from her hands, clattering to the ground just as Ripley’s own body was slammed against the ground. Erani ran up beside me.
“Are you okay?” she breathed, then gestured over at Ripley. “Why didn’t she leave like the Archer did?”
“I think they were wearing Enchanted rings,” I groaned, Health and Stamina still so low that it felt like I was dying, “that could teleport them out when someone else activated them. She threw hers off right before it was activated.”
“What? Why would she do that?”
“She’s a Berserker,” I explained. “I think she’s not really in the right state of mind to retreat right now.”
“Oh,” Erani blinked, then looked back at our enemy. “Okay.”
Ripley struggled to get up from the ground, covered in burns from the Firebolt.
“If I have to,” she groaned, “I will kill you with my bare hands!”
But then Ainash leaped forward from behind me, landing with her feet square on Ripley’s chest, kicking her right back to the ground with a metallic clang.
It seemed like she’d finished her fight with the enemies in the rubble of the wall.
“Why not killing bad guy?” she asked, drawing her flaming whip. “Okay if I kill bad guy?”
“Give it a second,” I said. “She seems like she’s pretty high-up among the bad guys. She might be able to give us some information.”
“Then kill her?”
I sighed. “Probably not, but we’ll see.”
I got a notification that Crippling Chill wore off of Ripley, so I re-cast it to drain away the rest of her Stamina. I wasn’t worried about her Health, since apparently I’d barely been dealing any damage to her at all. And once her Stamina ran out, she’d be forced out of the Berserk state and could finally listen to reason.
Though I had no idea what this woman was like while not under the effects of Berserk, so who knew if she was reasonable to begin with. Despite just having had an extended fight with her, it seemed like Berserk took over a person’s mind so much that I could barely say I knew a single thing about the woman.
She opened her eyes, and for a moment, it seemed like she was about to try and get to her feet again to attack us, but then it seemed like that fire in her gaze faded away. Her scrunched up, enraged face got a little softer, the snarl in her mouth faded away, and her entire body seemed to lose the tension it’d been holding.
She blinked, and the color drained from her face.
“Oh, oh gods,” she said, glancing around to see that she was alone and surrounded by enemies.
“We aren’t going to hurt you,” I said, “we just want to ask some questions.”
“I’m against the Demons too,” she rushed to say, panting from what I was sure was the extreme exhaustion of having dangerously low Stamina. But despite her exhaustion, she continued. “And I think there’s something wrong happening in the kingdom. I’ll tell you everything.”
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