Chương 71: (B2 Chapter 22)

The massive demon suddenly sped towards me, raising its mace high in rage. It was fast, and its mace was already descending on me. I used quick step to launch forward, narrowly avoiding the large mace and activating piercing strike to slash the demon's leg while I passed it. I noticed that the dagger faced more resistance this time than when I had pierced it earlier, possibly because of the skill that made it turn bright red.

The demon howled in rage again and swung its mace to the side in an attempt to swat me, but I was already far away. Omar hit it with another mana bolt right in its face, which staggered it to the right, and I immediately noticed it was close to another trap. I quick stepped my way closer to the still shaken monster and slashed its leg once again with a piercing strike, while at the same time I released a wind bolt right at the spot Omar had hit earlier.

It took a step back while swinging its mace through empty air once again. However, its step didn't activate the trap, somehow missing it completely and landing next to the pressure plate. Madelline's hex then arrived and sunk into its chest. This new hex of hers was light gray in colour, and this was the second time she was hitting this monster with the hex. Much like the first time though, the hex had no effect whatsoever.

Her other hex had an instant noticeable effect; slowing monsters down and making the weaker ones confused. However, this one was not showing any results, meaning it was either being completely negated by the demon, or its effects couldn't be seen. Lucas and Sam finally arrived and slashed their swords at the still reeling demon, making it finally step on the pressure plate and be struck by a few bolts that sank into its legs.

It felt like the demon had enough, as the mace lit up with a white light and suddenly smashed into Sam's shield. The strike didn't slow down at all, and instead Sam was bodily lifted and thrown to the side like a ragdoll. Sam landed hard on the ground, but otherwise was luckily fine and managed to avoid any traps, but I did notice that his shield had a layer of frost covering it. Not finished, the demon roared again and this time smashed its glowing mace to the ground.

I felt the impact in the ground and could see Lucas, who was much closer to the epicenter, having trouble keeping his balance due to the ground trembling. A layer of frost spread quickly through the ground and sped towards the spot where Omar, Madelline, Marcus, and Hannah were standing, triggering multiple traps along the way. Lucas immediately used his ability as the others scrambled to get out of the way of the frost attack and the numerous trap effects.

A wayward arrow released from a trap grazed Hannah's arm while a bolt struck Madelline right in her stomach. She let out an anguished scream and dropped to the ground, clutching her stomach while Marcus raced towards her. The demon was raising its mace again, presumably for a second frost attack, but before it could, I sped towards it, launching a wind bolt to its already injured face in an attempt to make it focus on me. It worked, and the demon swung its mace in my direction.

I used quick step to launch myself at the demon, jumping over the spreading layer of frost and leaving the traps it was about to release behind. With tactical insight making its displeasure at my probably suicide attack known, I used piercing strike and struck the demon's large eye while at the same time I used a wind bolt on its other one. I then used quick step again to kick off the demon's chest; however, I was too slow.

The demon screamed and its arm sped towards me, swatting me in mid air and launching me away. Intense pain shot through me and something definitely cracked as I sailed away and hit the ground hard, bouncing a few times and hitting a trap before finally rolling to a stop. I blearily saw the trap I had hit was releasing a black gas and I luckily had enough adrenaline still pumping within me to scramble away from it. I collapsed to the ground once I was far enough away from the gas, hurting all over.

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and saw the demon madly swinging its mace around in a blind rage. No, it wasn't blind, at least not completely. The eye I had hit with my dagger was gone, but my wind bolt had missed the other one, instead hitting it on its forehead. The monster wiped the blood from its face and locked its one remaining eye on me. Lucas taunted it and also slashed it with its sword, but the demon completely ignored him and instead started making its way slowly and deliberately towards me.

I fought through the pain to get up, but for some reason my body wasn't working the way it should. Numbness was spreading over my lower body, and I simply couldn't get the strength in my legs to make me stand up. The demon had almost reached me by now and I used my arms to back away from its once again grinning face. It raised its large mace over its head, but then Omar's new light lance spell hit it in its shoulder, tearing through it and making it drop the mace immediately in a howl of pain.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The mace almost hit me, but a last-second twist made it hit the ground instead of my body. The demon howled in pain, its arm now hanging uselessly with the shoulder almost completely gone. However, it still had one hand, and it seemed determined to finish me off. It reached towards the mace with its good arm, but Lucas bodily checked it with a shield right in its injured leg, making it stagger to the side.

Thinking quickly despite the intense pain that was radiating from my chest, I stretched out my arm and caught the large mace, depositing it in my inventory and depriving the demon of its weapon. The demon kicked Lucas in an attempt to move him away, but Lucas barely budged an inch and instead retaliated with a sword strike.

In a surprising move, Hannah also reached the boss and slashed at its leg with her dagger, despite us making it clear to her that she shouldn't involve herself in fights against bosses as they were too dangerous for her. Lucas pushed her back and shouted at her to retreat, but she stubbornly stayed near the boss, putting herself between the demon and me.

Sam also arrived, while Omar launched another light lance at it, this time hitting its face and finally making the demon fall over, where the three melee fighters started stabbing it for all they were worth. A surprising warmth started flowing through me, and I looked back to see Marcus had his hands on my leg and was busy healing it. I hadn't heard him approach, nor could I feel his hands on my leg, but I could feel the warmth spreading through me.

Soon, I started feeling tingles all over my legs, and as time passed it started to become easier to breathe while at the same time, I started feeling intense pain in my legs. Luckily, Marcus worked quickly and soon I was feeling a lot better. He backed away from me and took out a mana potion from his inventory, downing it in one go. I looked back towards the fight to find that the demon was finally down for the count and everyone was sitting on the ground, breathing heavily. This was too close for comfort…

Now that the intense combat situation had ended and Marcus had regained some mana, he started to heal me again, this time, with added unnecessary commentary.

"I really want to say 'I told you so' about jumping straight at monsters and then kicking off their chests to look cool, but I'm gonna be the bigger man and instead just heal you." I sighed, but didn't have the strength to rebuke him. He was right, I had been using this way to attack frequently, repeatedly getting away scratch-free and becoming overconfident in myself. I'm an assassin… I should stick to sneak attacks and ranged magic attacks instead of jumping straight forward.

Lucas and the others then came over, asking if I was alright. I wanted to assure them I was fine now, but Marcus just had to butt in.

"I healed him up so he's fine now, but you guys already know he's a masochist, so he'll probably end up back like this soon enough," he sighed dramatically.

"Oh, piss off," I said while everyone laughed. However, the moment was cut off by the system. Ding! You have levelled up! You have levelled up! Class stats distributed. Oh, two levels! This one was definitely much harder than that shade earlier, so it isn't a surprise that it gave such high exp. Or maybe I was right on the threshold for a level-up, as I hadn't gotten one when we finished off that shade fight.

I immediately opened my status and assigned the free stat points like I had planned; four in Wisdom, four in dexterity, and two in perception. With the latest injury, I really wanted to invest in either vitality or endurance, but I wanted to stick with my strengths for now. Oh… Actually… I should have assigned two each to Vitality and Endurance instead of Wisdom… mana regen is useless here!

Berating myself for not thinking of it earlier, I sighed and got up, making a mental note of thinking things through more carefully whenever I was assigning points. Situations in our new reality kept changing, and I shouldn't just make one plan and stick to it, instead I should be more flexible. Omar had already opened up the new chest, which was also silver in colour and revealed that the massive demon had been a mini-boss as well.

Apart from the useless coins, there was a mace inside, that Marcus picked up as he wanted to follow the trope of 'healers using maces', which was fine by all of us. Sam had also finally reached level 10, and had gotten an interesting ability called 'Burden', that allowed him to share the burden of one ally. We weren't sure what exactly was meant by burden, but the leading theory was that Sam would be able to take a portion of someone's damage upon himself.

It could also mean sharing other effects like hexes or fear. Hannah was now on the brink of level 10 as well, while everyone else had also levelled up at least once each. Once Marcus had healed all of us and we had regained our mana through mana potions, we got up and moved towards the exit of the cavern, where we stepped into a much better built hallway. It was also a very short one, as it ended just a couple hundred meters later.

There wasn't another cavern at the end though, instead two doors at least twenty feet tall made of polished white marble stood closed in front of us. I don't think another mini-boss is waiting on the other side…