Chương 95: A suicidal action

The storm picks up as soon as I cast the spell, shards of ice flying through the air and cutting through my enemies as I wait, about ten feet above it all, hidden in a tree. They react quickly, trying to find me, trying to get out of the range of the spell. But they aren't ready for the spell to be enveloping so much of their camp, and I think I just committed a war crime. Is it a war crime to kill the wounded? It feels like it should be, if it isn't. And I think I'm about to kill all their wounded.

They're taking an extra 125 points of damage a second, and I don't think they're going to get out of range in time. I didn't plan it this way, but I probably should have thought of this fact. I feel bad about it. Not bad enough to stop the spell, but bad enough that I have the good grace to at least be embarrassed. They don't spot me right away, but I can tell they're looking for me.

It seems like one of their number has rushed out until he found the edge of the spell, then started walking back in, looking for the center of it. Not a great plan, but if enough of them do it from enough places on the outside, they'll eventually find my tree. The question is whether or not they can do it within the two minutes that Mab's Rage is going to last. I can't hear anything over the whipping wind, but I look down and see the orcs running around in something of a panic.

I don't think they were ready for this to happen again. Maybe they thought last time was a one time deal. Like it was an item we had that we must've used up. They weren't prepared for another use of it just two hours later. My hope is that this will be enough for them to break. Enough for them to decide that the war isn't worth it and just withdraw. Last time, I killed over three hundred of them. This time, I think it's going to be worse. Because there isn't all that much space for them to run to.

They can abandon their camp, they can run out into the field and get shot, and they can try to find the center of the spell, but they can't be guaranteed where it might be. Maybe I should've spent my points on awareness last level, made the radius even bigger. I could've made it 130 feet instead of 119. Oh well. Too late now. They still haven't found me, and orcs are starting to die. Anyone under 7500 hit points is dead, if they've spent the whole time inside the radius.

I wonder if I should start fighting my way out of the forest. Maybe I could drop down and start running, and just hope to dart through as many of them as I can. That might get me close enough to Ash and El that we'll pincer a whole bunch of the orcs between us. On the other hand, if I stay here, the orcs can't pull back out of the field, where they are being shot by the archers in the towers. If I stay here, then I don't have to worry about being killed at least until they find me.

I've got a lot of hit points and a lot of Shell to protect me, but the rate they were able to do damage last time makes me think that it'll only buy me a few minutes. Probably not enough to get out of here. I might have time for one more casting of Shell, but probably not for two. I decide to stay put, watching the orcs try to figure out where I am. They destroy the tent closest to the tree, but they don't see me yet, hiding just a dozen feet up the tree, among the first real branches.

Another thirty seconds goes by, and more orcs die. The spell has done 11, 250 damage at this point. Soon even the healthiest of orcs is going to start dying. Maybe when that happens I'll drop out of the tree and start fighting my way free. Already, they're wounded enough that I should be able to kill them with one or two strikes. I'm sure Ash and El are doing their best to cut through the orcs. I should probably join them. I drop down out of the tree and my Shell takes ten points of damage from the fall.

I land in front of a very surprised looking orc, and I immediately use Vital Slash for 721 damage, then stab him in the chest for another 481, dropping him. I orient myself towards where I know El and Ash are fighting, and I start just sprinting in that direction. I get maybe twenty steps before I'm surrounded by orcs. I do my best to whirl around them, trying to push them back. My strength is only 172 – 189 right now – but that's still a lot higher than most.

Maybe I can toss them aside if I focus more on doing that and less on doing damage. So I swing my sword to slash at the orcs in front of me, then swing a hand to punch one of the orcs in the jaw, trying to force him to step back. I keep stepping forward any time there's a chance. I dodge when I can, deflect what I can, but mostly just take damage. They only do 56 damage when they hit me, but they're hitting me basically every second. That's 3360 per minute.

Bump that up to about four thousand when we include the spells that are splashing off of me. The spells are only doing about 10 damage each, but there are a lot of them, and it adds up. I'm a fucking pin cushion, or I would be if not for my Shell. When Mab's Fury ends a few seconds later, I would hope that the spells would drop off. But they don't. They just keep coming. I'm the only target they have, so I'm the only target that's getting hit.

Thankfully, when Magical Darts hit me, they tend to do only one or two damage; my magic resistance is really getting a work out. I hesitate to think how much worse this would be if I didn't have a magic resistance over a hundred percent. I grab a spear that was thrust at me and yank as hard as I can, tossing the orc who doesn't want to let go of his weapon several feet through the air and making a gap that allows me to move a little bit further forward.

When an orc holds up a shield to block my sword strike, I shoulder check the shield and knock him to the ground. I'm not doing a ton of damage, but I'm making progress. I still can't see the edge of the forest, but I'm guessing I'm less than a hundred feet from it now. The problem is that I'm moving maybe ten feet a minute. And I'm taking four thousand damage a minute. Three minutes of that will take down my Shell.

The only perk I have right now, the only thing I have going for me, is that all the orcs I'm fighting are already badly injured. They don't have the hit points to stand up to much punishment, and a good Bleeding Strike or Vital Slash tends to either kill them outright or at least drop them to the point where a second strike will kill them. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. But that's not going to last forever.

Sooner or later, I'm going to get surrounded by orcs who were out of range of Mab's Fury, who were unharmed. And they're going to stop my momentum. They're going to stop me from moving forward. I duck under an axe swing, lancing my sword up under the armpit of the axe wielder with a Bleeding Strike, making him gurgle as he bleeds to death. I kick him out of the way and step over his corpse to move closer to El and Ash.

I can't tell if I can hear them or not; the sound of battle is everywhere, and I'm being pretty easily distracted by the sounds of spells, swords, spears, and axes hitting me. I don't know if I'm going to get another level of dodge for this, but I'm not entirely sure that I would deserve it. I mean, I'm dodging a lot of strikes. But I'm getting hit so often it doesn't feel that way. I'm fast. My attacks are faster than any of my opponents, and they tend to be pretty intense hits.

I am getting double damage from critical hits more often than I ever have, so often that it almost seems like I'm getting double damage every other strike. But for every time I strike someone, I get hit like four times. So in the next minute, I hit maybe fifteen times. In doing so, I kill three more orcs and move forward another ten feet. But during that time, I get hit close to a hundred times, between the arrows, the spells, and the weapons.

I renew Shell as soon as I feel the first strike hit my flesh and I take 56 damage to my actual health. At the pace we've been going, I have three minutes or so before this Shell goes down. That means two minutes of surviving with just my health. I can use a Healing Touch to bring back half my health, which means I'll definitely survive the two additional minutes before I can cast Shell again. But I don't know if I can continue that cycle. I don't bother with Killing Blow this time around.

It's not that the ability isn't useful. It's very useful. A 2 percent chance to instantly kill any orc that I strike is very appealing. The problem is that the ability is so stamina costly. Bleeding Strike and Vital Slash I can cast practically endlessly. Between their cooldowns and my regeneration, using those is only very gradually draining my stamina pool. But Killing Blow saps two hundred stamina every time I use it. And I need my stamina to keep up this fight.

That's something else that the tutorial didn't tell us. You can fight for a few minutes without any trouble. But once you get beyond about three minutes, it starts to really drain your stamina. Even with my regeneration, I'm losing one stamina a second here. In a perfect world where I wasn't using any stamina abilities, I could still fight for three days straight at that rate and not run out of stamina. But this isn't a perfect world, and the rate isn't constant.

After ten minutes, the drain becomes much more intense. I don't know if I'll last that long. I'm now maybe sixty feet from the edge of the forest. My second Shell is down in the hundreds of points, and I'm about to go into my health. I've killed another dozen orcs fighting my way through, and I think I can see Ash and El in the distance. But the orcs aren't as wounded now. I'm fighting healthy warriors who all have 12, 500 hit points, and my progress has slowed to a crawl.

I still take advantage of every gap in their line that I can, but instead of moving ten feet a minute, I'm now back to averaging about two. I'm on my own, and salvation is so far away that I don't think I'm going to make it. Sixty feet would take me half an hour at this rate. No way I survive for half an hour. The battle's only been going for about seven minutes at this point, and I'm already starting to take damage. In another two minutes, I'll be able to activate Shell again.

But I don't know if I have time to heal myself enough for it to really matter during that time. If I were just a little bit stronger, I could do this. Maybe I should have turned in the quests that I've completed. That might have gotten me another level. Which would've meant a few hundred more hit points, a bit more damage on attacks, and a better chance of surviving. Maybe one level wouldn't have been enough, but it might have made all the difference. In the thirties, every level matters.

The difference between each level remains the same, but with all my buffs, it might have been enough to make a difference. An orc stabs me in the leg, and it goes through the rest of my Shell. The stab hurts. Not that much, more like I'm being poked with a stick than actually stabbed with a sword, but enough that it's annoying. I snarl and reach out with my free hand, grabbing the chest plate of the orc.

I hurl him back, pushing over several other orcs, and sprint forward, gaining five feet of distance and dodging a good number of attacks. I get another notification. I've been ignoring them all this time, and I'll continue to ignore them. I wish there was a way to turn them off. There probably is, but no one ever taught me how. A minute passes. I get a few feet closer, and now I'm all but certain I can see my friends fighting their way towards me.

I can't see them directly, but I see an orc fly through the air, and figure that must be El tossing someone out of the way, the same way I just did. I don't know if she has the strength buff too, but she doesn't really need it. She's such a beast. The constant barrage of spells that are still hitting me feel like someone throwing sand at me. It's annoying, but not exactly painful. More like a tingling sensation as nearly a hundred spells a minute hit me.

I prefer the Magic Dart spells, as they only do one damage at a time, but even the more powerful spells barely get to the double digits. I just know that's what's going to actually kill me, though. A spell, one that does so little damage I might normally not even notice, is going to be what takes out that last sliver of my health. That would be ironic and appropriate.

All these orcs doing their best to kill me, trying to impale me on their spears and cut my head off with their axes, and it'll be a Magic Dart that does the job. I cast Healing Touch on myself, bring back a little over six thousand hit points. I wonder if that's disheartening to the orcs, seeing my health jump back up like that. I'll do it again before I cast Shell. I can't keep this up for long, though. I only have about 400 MP left.

Healing Touch takes fifty of those, and Shell takes another ten every time I cast it. So I can maybe fight my way through another cycle of Shell, but not much longer than that. I dodge around an orc, essentially switching places with him, and back stab him with Bleeding Strike, doing 1, 442 damage to him. He answers with another 56 damage, opening a small gash on my arm. I'm amazed that my armor is remaining intact. I mean, I don't know how badly damaged it's going to be when this is all over.

I'm not sure it will still exist when this over; if I only get to keep one item in my equipment after this, I'm hoping it's the sword. Which would mean that the armor will be gone and I won't be able to see the tatters it's been reduced to. Another step forward. Another step closer to Ash and El. But will that mean salvation, or will it just mean dying with my friends?