Chương 172: Chapter 170: Against strong defense and regeneration

It's frustrating, but it's also kind of fun. I know it's weird to say that fighting for my life is fun, but there is a definite feeling of joy that comes from dodging blows, ducking strikes, and fighting back. A joy that comes with scoring the stone bodies of the creatures. There's a fun that comes from all the movement, all the fighting. I understand why El likes fighting so much. Even when you're getting hit, even when the blow makes me stagger back a step, it's still fun.

I guess this is the same thing as when people enjoy playing sports. I've never been a fan of sports. I didn't like watching them, I didn't like playing them. They were basically just a waste of time, as far as I was concerned. On the occasions when I got to go to a live sporting event, I almost always preferred to run around and explore the stadium to actually watching the game. When I was really young, I would bring a book to baseball games.

My father had season tickets through his job, so we would go every time they gave away something to the kids who attended. My sister loved watching the game. My dad and I would read books, and want to leave before the end so we could avoid the traffic, and because we were bored. My sister hated that so much. But I think I finally get it. Maybe the problem was that I was never any good at the sports.

I didn't have the coordination to really have any skill, and I didn't have the desire to increase that coordination or that skill. So of course I never had any fun. I wasn't good at it, and everyone I played with was. So they would hate me being there, hate being saddled with having me on their teams. They made the whole experience even less fun. That's one of the major reasons I avoided sports for so long. Now, though, I have the coordination. I have more coordination than anyone around me.

I've got more agility than my friends do. I think I have about as much as Amanda does, in fact. I'm faster than any human by a significant factor, and my blades dance through the air in a mesmerizing pattern as I block, counter, and strike in a single flowing motion. I bet watching me fight is entertaining. I bet people would enjoy seeing how deftly I maneuver myself, how carefully I contort my body.

I bet they would gasp in awe when I manage to dodge a strike by a few inches, or when I weave through the swinging arms of the three cave spikes without taking any damage. Being really good at something is fun. Being able to perform at a really high level of athletic ability makes it enjoyable and entertaining to others. So I guess I get it now. I understand why people like to watch sports. I still don't want to, but I get it.

The closest I want to get is taking a second here and there to glance over at El and enjoy her movements. She whirls and twirls, her axe blades making sparks against the cave spike she's fighting and sending rivulets of blood flying from the cave trolls that dare to get near her. She moves like a wild creature, and it's amazing to watch. The others are less fun to watch. Ash is very methodical in her movements. She never moves two inches when one inch will do.

She slams her shield into the attacks coming at her, and she swipes her mace with disciplined strikes that seem to do a fair amount of damage even to the living rock. She's tight, she's a study in perfection, but she's not exactly entertaining to watch. The same could be said for Gigi. She moves a little bit more than Ash, but she's still using her shield more often than her sword. She's still blocking most of the blows, trying to get her enemy off balance and off guard.

She plants her feet and stands there like the mountain is growing out of her, unmovable, unshakable, and unstoppable. Powerful, but not entertaining. Finally, four minutes pass by. My stamina is holding steady, but I can see that my regeneration isn't going to be able to keep up for long. But then, suddenly, the cave spikes in front of me just stop moving. Mab's Rage has started, and the creatures are frozen in place. With them frozen, I start doing a lot of damage to them.

Because now, they are not only flanked, but they are also vulnerable to my sneak attacks. Those levels of rogue, all that time ago, are still working in my favor. I only have thirty seconds, but I don't need to worry about being defensive for that time. I can focus entirely on attacking. And I can attack for 1, 156 damage with every single hit. Over the course of thirty seconds, I manage to get off twenty strikes. That brings the cave spike in front of me down below half health.

It also allows Gigi and Ash to team up with El and take another of them down completely. It's not much, and it's not as good as if I had cast the spell, but it makes a dent and it kind of turns the tide of battle back into our favor. Vincent recasts the fire storm as soon as it peters out, and manages to catch one of the cave trolls in the storm. The cave troll used the fading spell as an opportunity and tried to charge through, only to get caught in the second casting.

It roars in pain and steps back in frustration, but the damage is already done. And that damage, the thing can't heal from. I focus my attacks on the one that's down to half health, and I see that El has moved behind it to help me take it out. She's exposing herself to attacks from the cave trolls, but I don't think she cares all that much. She may stumble a bit from a blow here and there, but I don't think she's taking that much damage from them. El is a powerhouse, a tank in the truest sense of the word.

And between her constant slashing attacks and my own frequent cuts and stabs, we take out the second of the cave spikes, leaving only four remaining. Two of them fighting me, one each for Gigi and Ash. El turns and starts carving through the cave trolls. I bet they regret attacking her now. More minutes pass. My stamina is draining at two points a second even with my regeneration, even after I stop using Stinging Defense.

I can still keep up the battle at this rate for like two hours, but the drain is a sign of things to come. I don't know if we'll be able to step back and give each other breathing room, to let the stamina drain slow down and maybe recover a little bit. We don't have any more potions either. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. We really should have bought more potions. I knew we forgot something.

Ash and I spent all that time and energy trying to think of the things we'd need for this quest, and all we focused on was climbing equipment. We forgot to get ourselves the support items that might help us through. I still have two health potions, but they're only good for 600 hit points. I'm better off casting a healing spell. Six hundred points in the middle of combat isn't really going to make much of a difference. I growl in frustration and speed up my attacks against the two cave spikes that I'm fighting.

I don't have a free hand to cast ice spike, but every so often one of Vincent's ice spears hits one of them, allowing me to take a powerful strike or two against it before it starts moving again. We're making progress. They're doing about two thousand damage to me every minute that passes. My Shell is down below ten thousand, and rapidly approaching five thousand. Another few minutes and I'll need to recast it.

I'll be able to keep casting it forever at the rate of damage that they're doing, but I have to make sure that I pay attention and don't wait too long to put the Shell back up. I'm not a fan of pain unless its consensual, and I don't know what kind of carrier attacks these guys might have. Maybe the claws of the cave trolls are poisoned, or diseased, or something like that. They can't carry that attack over while my Shell is up, but I have to make sure to keep it that way.

While I am taking two thousand damage a minute, I'm dealing quite a bit more. Thanks to Vincent and to the others flanking the creatures, I'm able to concentrate my blows and do about fourteen thousand damage per minute to the creature in front of me. By the time my stamina is draining at ten points a second, and recovering two, I take out another of the cave spikes. We've been fighting for ten minutes, and while we are making progress, there's still a long way to go.

Vincent has switched his tactics and is now throwing lava lances at the cave trolls, all four of whom are attacking El. Her Shell is still going strong, and she continues to put their regeneration to the test with her quick slashes and cuts. I notice that I'm starting to breathe a bit heavily, though I still have a ton of stamina. On a whim, I use Killing Blow on the healthier of the two cave spikes that I've been facing off against.

It doesn't die, and it costs me two hundred stamina, but it might help increase the ability. I don't know if it was justified to use. I don't know if it's ever really justified to use. The ability can kill a monster in a single blow. Not a boss monster, but these aren't that. It could in theory wipe out an enemy with a single strike no matter how powerful they are, and that makes it incredibly useful. But only in theory. Two percent chance means one chance in fifty times of using.

That means that I could spend ten thousand points of stamina before it actually worked, and it might not work even then. Maybe I should stop trying it. Maybe there's some hidden calculation I'm not aware of that means it will never work on the monsters of this continent. I mean, what if the percentage chance is altered because of the amount of hit points that it might take away with a single blow? What if there's really a zero percent chance, and I just don't know it?

But on the other hand, when it does work, it's awesome. In those very rare times when it actually goes off, it all seems worth it. Killing something with many thousands of hit points feels awesome. It makes me feel like a true badass. When it works. If it works. I do keep using Vital Slash, even though it makes my stamina go down. The extra sixty percent damage makes a real difference, especially with all the armor these things have. So I consider it worth the cost.

I don't have an endless stamina pool, but it's still pretty damned deep. Even now, more than ten minutes into the battle, I still have more than twelve thousand stamina. I cast Shell on myself just before the old one drops, and pretty soon I find myself fighting the cave spike one on one. I glance around and see that El has taken out two of the cave trolls, with Vincent's help, and that Ash and Gigi are currently pounding away at the other remaining cave spike.

We're definitely going to win this battle, but it's been a serious drain on our resources. By the time the battle is over, my cave spike is the last enemy standing. We end up surrounding it, the four of us, while Vincent throws ice spears into the creature. It doesn't last very long at all after that. You have defeated cave troll x4 and cave spike x6. You gain ((216, 000+306, 000)/5) 104, 400 experience. That puts me within forty thousand points of the next level, and gets Gigi up to level forty.

She wants to take a bit of a break to pick her new talent, and no one objects. I'm down more than four thousand stamina, and even with my regeneration, that's going to take a long time to recover. I do search the chamber, hoping to find some kind of treasure. I understand why monsters don't always have treasure. I mean, it wouldn't really make sense for a cave troll to be walking around with a pouch full of gold, and the fact that they don't use weapons makes it pretty unlikely that they'd have any.

I don't carry around a bunch of stuff that I can't use, why should they? But getting treasure is still fun, and so I hope that maybe I'll find something of value in the chamber. I wonder if Amanda already looted this place. She might have. She's flying around invisible, so she might have taken the time to rob these creatures before moving on. And it would be stealing. It's not stealing when I do it; I defeated the monsters. When I do it, it's looting. We deserve whatever we find.

But if I don't find anything, I'm going to have to assume that Amanda already took it. Which, frankly, is unfair. I don't find much, but I do find something. It's a skeleton. Most of the bones have been crushed or ripped away, but I do find an intact arm and hand, and there's a ring on one of the fingers. Ring of broken promises. Legendary. +5 charisma, +4 negotiation. That's the best ring I've found so far. Which of the rings that I currently have do I want to give up?

One gives me a bonus to sneak, the other a bonus to awareness. My sneak is already at 44. I think I might be willing to give that one up.

"Does anyone want a ring that gives a plus four bonus to sneak?" I ask.

"I just found something better." No one argues with me for claiming the ring that I found. We do split all the treasure we find, but this is the only thing that I've found, so I get first choice. If I find something else, it will go to someone else. Vincent ends up taking the ring of the assassin. I don't know that he has much trouble with sneaking, but if he wants it I'm not going to argue. I toss him the ring and go back to keep looking for more treasure.

Maybe there will be something else on another part of the crushed and shattered skeleton. I do notice that several of the bones that have been ripped away have chew marks on them. I really hope that guy was dead before they started ripping him apart. Or ripping her apart; I shouldn't assume. Whoever they are, they are long dead. I just hope that they didn't suffer too much when they did die.