A voice called out from the trees. “Run, strangers. They’re scouts for an army, maybe you can get away from them. Get to Aval; they’ll send help.”
Serenity could hear the voice getting farther away as it spoke.
It was obvious what the man wanted; whether they got help or not, they’d have been seen by the forces headed their way. They’d have to split up to chase them, or simply follow the people on horseback. The man on foot might have a chance to get away.
Serenity grinned. This was a Tier One dungeon; there was very little here that could threaten him, other than simply numbers. It was unlikely that scouts would be enough, though an entire army certainly could be. Rissa should be safe, as well; she was only Tier Two now, and hadn’t finished her attributes from the previous Tier, but she was still quite sturdy. It helped that she’d recently hit him with the cluebat about her ability to avoid attacks, especially ranged attacks, by simply not being where they would hit; somehow, he hadn’t realized that. Even if it was obvious in hindsight. “I don’t think so.”
Serenity moved to put himself and his horse between Rissa and the oncoming riders. It was even odds whether they’d simply try to ride him down or attack him at range. Well, even odds because he didn’t know which their preference was; it was very, very likely that they had one.
Rissa was still at the side of the road, near the trees, with her horse, holding a crossbow. That was good; she could attack from there and duck into the trees as needed.
Serenity tapped the two throwing knives on his belt and duplicated them into his hands as he had his horse walk slowly forwards. He wasn’t quite ready to dismount, but he would as soon as he knew the attackers wouldn’t continue past him. He raised his voice to a shout to make sure the oncoming people heard him. “Who are you to pursue someone on the King’s road?”
He hoped that was the right term to use, but the Aval Kingsguard had been an option and he couldn’t see a road like this not being a King’s road. It was simply too expensive to create and maintain.
His question was answered by arrows. Serenity took that to mean that he’d gotten it right, or at least close enough, as he batted the arrows away.
It looked like there were six riders in the group; four of them had already slowed to shoot, while the last two simply kept coming. Serenity tossed his knives at one of the two men charging him. One of the knives was deflected by the man’s shield, but the other thudded into his mount’s unarmored shoulder. It reared, dumping its rider off its back. He must have hit exactly the right spot; these knives weren’t exactly dull, so they tended to cause less immediate pain, and that looked like a reaction to the pain.
Helpful; Serenity would only have one in melee at a time. Rissa might even be able to handle the man on the road before he was able to get back into the fight.
Serenity duplicated another throwing knife as he pulled his hilt from its sheath and flooded it with mana, creating the blade.
While he waited for the charging man to arrive, he heard the riderless horse whinny. He only got a brief glimpse before it was lost among the trees as it ran, but it looked like the knife he’d duplicated was the one he’d thrown into the horse; the knife had disappeared. Serenity knew the other one would dissipate soon, whether or not he made another copy.
As he was thinking that, the man who was still on his horse reached Serenity with his sword out. It was obvious that he was expecting to simply slice Serenity’s head off as he rode by.
Foolish, but what else could be expected of a low-Tier Dungeon monster? It wasn’t like the “man” had ever actually had a chance to learn better; he’d almost certainly only fought Tier Zero dungeon fill if that was something he thought would actually work. Even a trained Tier Zero human combatant could avoid what he was doing.
Serenity deflected the sword stroke with the dagger he held in his left hand, absently wishing he had a shield. As he pushed the blade up over his head, he struck with his own sword, avoiding the man’s shield.
Serenity expected to feel the crunch as his sword hit the man’s armor, but no force was transmitted back along the blade, only a drain on his mana as it was consumed to keep the blade active. Instead, the charging horse carried the man forward, where he fell off, a limp corpse. The horse kept going for several steps before starting to slow down and turn, looking for its rider.
A well-trained horse, then.
Serenity took a long look at the body. He could see blood pooling on the road’s surface, but there was no apparent damage to the armor. It looked like he’d probably cut through the man without even touching his armor.
Serenity had seen effects like that before; they were incredible (and incredibly rare) at low Tier, but became less impressive once people had magical shields and equipment that could stop them. It was the same equipment that made manablades (also incredibly useful and rare) less than completely insane at higher Tiers.
Serenity thought his sword’s blade was a manablade. The thing was, a manablade shouldn’t do that; a manablade would cut through anything, but it still had to cut through it. It didn’t phase through nonliving material like a phaseblade; that was a matter of very specialized magic. There were downsides to not cutting nonliving matter that made manablades generally preferable to phaseblades, at least for people who weren’t incredibly wealthy and willing to carry a dozen different specialized weapons.
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Wait. The reason manablades were preferable was that you couldn’t adjust the Affinity and Intent of an item, and the difference between a cutting manablade and a phaseblade using mana was a matter of Affinity and Intent. Serenity’s Affinities weren’t the traditional ones for a phaseblade, so he must have managed it by Intent, intending to kill the man inside the armor, not the armor.
The blade was a part of him; he could probably adjust the Affinity and Intent every time he brought it out, possibly even while the blade was out. The sword was even more powerful as a Form than he’d realized.
Serenity was wondering if he could do something similar with his armor Form when an arrow thudded into his shoulder. “I’m an idiot. Lost concentration before the enemy was dead.”
As he swung around, another arrow thudded into the road, shattering the arrowhead. The last two arrows were still in the air; Serenity swept one out of the way and blocked the last one, earning a painful but ultimately meaningless slash in his upper arm.
He pulled the first arrow out of his shoulder with the opposite arm. It came out easily, slipping right through the chainmail he wore, just like it had on the way in. Both of his arms were injured, but thankfully that wouldn’t take all that long to heal. It was also a good thing that Tier One dungeons were exceedingly unlikely to put poisons on anything that wasn’t specifically poisonous as its main feature; while his Poison resistance should be high enough to cope, it was always a resistance he hated using.
Rissa was standing next to a tree, clearly making her way towards the archers. It looked like she’d already taken care of the unhorsed man; Serenity could see the crossbow bolt protruding from his chest. Only one shot; he hadn’t realized Rissa was that good with a crossbow.
Another flight of four arrows headed Serenity's way and he easily knocked them out of the air. What was with these archers? They should be firing at their own pace, not waiting until they were all ready to shoot. Serenity focused on them, and saw that they were all moving identically.
Had the dungeon really created four identical archers to fill out the event? That was something Serenity had seen occasionally, but it was fairly rare. Dungeons usually took some pride in making each of their creations individual. Perhaps it was because this was such a young dungeon?
Serenity rode towards the archers at a slow pace. He didn’t need to get there quickly; he was in no particular danger from them at this range, and neither was Rissa. All he needed to do was keep their attention, and Serenity had the feeling that their attention would always be on the same thing.
He watched Rissa slip from tree to tree along the side of the road. Her woodcraft wasn’t great, but it was good enough that the dungeon archers didn’t seem to have noticed her yet with Serenity serving as a distraction. Especially since he kept knocking the arrows they shot away from him with either his hand or his sword.
His sword did seem to be solid enough to touch the arrows, which gave more evidence that the blade directly responded to his Intent.
As he drew closer, all four of the archers dropped their bows in unison. It was earlier than he’d expected; they could probably have gotten off one more shot if they’d tried. It wasn’t like he was moving quickly.
Three of them drew swords, while the fourth fell off his horse with a crossbow bolt in his eye. :Good shot, Rissa.:
:It should be,: she sent back, sounding grumpy. :I spent long enough waiting for it to line up. Don’t expect the next one to be as good!:
Serenity grinned as he dismounted. Yes, fighting dismounted was generally a disadvantage, but it was already clear that he’d lost a lot of the muscle memory (or whatever the undead equivalent was) for fighting mounted. He also didn’t need to keep the horses alive; it wasn’t like he’d be able to keep them afterwards anyway. They were simply dungeon creatures.
The three remaining enemies were still focused on Serenity; he wasn’t certain they’d even realized the fourth had fallen.
Serenity stopped moving forward and flicked another throwing knife at one of the enemies before duplicating a larger knife. He wanted one that could serve to parry reliably, since if he did this right he could kill in a single good hit. “So now what? Are you going to charge me, too? Or are you going to head home and tell your commander that a single Aval took out three of you?”
The knife, surprisingly, actually connected with the leg of the man closest to Serenity.
Either the taunt or the thrown knife seemed to work; the man in front yelled something incomprehensible, then all three of them charged. Serenity grinned and quickly took three steps towards the side of the road away from Rissa; that way, only one of them could really get at him.
As expected, they continued their charge. The one closest to Serenity leaned over, trying to hit Serenity.
Serenity was faster and far more agile, especially on the ground. There was simply no making up for multiple Tiers’ worth of Attributes, at least not when you did the expected. Serenity moved inside the arc of the man’s sword, deflecting it only slightly with his offhand, while he used his sword to slice cleanly through the man’s chest. Unlike his first parry, the fragile duplicate knife didn’t shatter.
The dead man fell off his horse. Like the previous one, the horse took a few more steps before slowing and turning back to look at its fallen rider.
As the remaining two ran by, the one closest to Rissa sprouted a crossbow bolt in his back. It was clearly a lung shot rather than a heart shot, but he slumped forward on his mount, which simply kept going.
The last one turned and rode towards Serenity, clearly ready for yet another round.
Serenity shook his head. Dungeon monsters were so predictable sometimes; even when it would have made more sense to retreat, they often simply kept coming. It could be dangerous, but much of the time it simply meant you wouldn’t have to face them again later.
The last one went down just as quickly as the previous one. Serenity was amused to see that he was not only sideways off his horse in a widening pool of blood but wasn’t even laying flat due to the crossbow bolt sticking out of his back. Both Serenity and Rissa had managed the kill at about the same time.