Ashley

Not long after I wake up and have my disgusting breakfast of more burnt drake at the cost of another annoying comment from Chaos, I find myself blankly staring at my inbox. Something I only noticed when I checked out the hub menu to go spectate Blake again.

And it’s… uh… full.

Hundreds of thousands of messages full.

Why is it full? Why are people messaging me so much out of nowhere?

No idea.

Not many people are really stating the reason in the few messages I check.

Other than them profusely apologizing for something that I didn’t even know about.

With some of them even begging me to spare their lives.

I just kinda stare at it for several seconds before eventually closing out of it, deciding to act like I didn’t see it.

Then I get up and stretch a little bit, having rested up a bit and restored some of my health. And after that, proceed to open up the way out of my little cavern.

To find myself staring at a few dozen kobolds, each with bows trained on me. Not to mention standing just outside of the range of my Enhanced Perception skill.

I blink. They fire.

I duck down behind my barriers, only for a good number of arrows to slam into my barrier as a bunch of vines and other types of spells similar to them, like tentacles of shadow and chains of light, all try to wrap around me and stop me. Without any success thanks to Unchained. Letting me stay safely under my cover as I cover up the hole again with another barrier.

What. The. Fuck?

Why were they just standing there? Was it an attempt to ambush me?

Actually, how do they even know the span of my Enhanced Perception skill anyways?

And why are there so many just sitting out there?

I move to peek through one of the other holes, finding them still hammering away at the wall, with a particular focus on the place I sealed off. But it doesn’t take long for them to see me peeking through, at which point they start focusing on the hole.

Then a thought comes to mind.

Huh. That could work…

After all, I know the general structure of the fortresses thanks to Blake’s livestream. Assuming they’re designed similarly.

And if he can try taking over a fortress, so can I.

Ignoring the fact that he’s been pulling back and taking days to do his assault rather than taking it over in a single day.

Probably because of mana problems. The same as me.

Wait a second…

The corners of my lips twitch downwards before I activate Assimilate and go ahead and look outside of the cavern again. Then I go ahead and fire off two destruction mana arrows to kill one of the kobolds.

{You have been granted 3 Skill Points for killing a monster within a Unique Domain.}

{You have slain a being while Assimilate is active. You have now unlocked the Skill Tree: Destruction-Touched Kobold}

{You have unlocked a new Skill Tree, therefore the root skill of the Skill Tree, Minor Destruction Resistance, is now unlocked for your usage.}

Who and the what now?

Destruction Resistance?

An arrow almost takes me in the face, quickly making me move back behind cover again.

Without hesitating, I check the description of the new skill before grinning.

Okay, that’s nice.

{Minor Destruction Resistance – Grants the user a minor resistance to destruction. All attacks that cause damage to the user’s body will be resisted based on the level of this skill.}

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Although not as nice since the level is only level six. But still nice.

Resistance to being destroyed basically.

It would explain why these kobolds are out here in rather large numbers using weapons rather than any sort of magic. Other than the magic they used to restrict me. They likely don’t have as many offensive capabilities as the other monsters here and group together to fight them off using their resistances.

And now that I think about it, the kobolds did seem oddly resistant to Blake’s attacks when he was assaulting their fortress. Plus the glowing red cracks on their body shined with crimson light every time they took a hit.

I glance at the barrier as their arrows continue to strike at it, each of the arrows seemingly infused with a bit of mana. Slowly deforming my barriers and breaking their way into my cavern.

Well, shit. Goodbye home, I guess.

At least they waited for me to come out after a good night’s rest. It let me restore almost half of my health, and most of my mana and Chaos Energy.

Right when one of the barriers completely break inwards with a few arrows flying through it, I push my way straight out of that barrier before flying into the sky and sending a wave of destruction breath at the kobolds. Then I follow it up with dozens of arrows made of destruction mana that I send flying at the kobolds still aiming at me.

And after killing over a dozen of them like that, taking a couple arrows myself in the side that has me gritting my teeth, I fly away from them as fast as my wings will carry me.

Straight towards the closest fortress.

The fortress I’m guessing these kobolds are from. Especially considering the walls that aren’t manned as strongly as I’ve previously seen.

I dodge one arrow after another as I fly towards the fortress, not even stopping after I make it to the walls. Instead searching around the walls for the mechanism for the gates to the fortress.

A process that isn’t particularly easy considering the kobolds still here shooting arrows at me. Not to mention the few larger kobolds I notice charging at me with strange looking swords.

But I ignore them all as I rush through, only countering, blocking, and dodging attacks as I go straight towards the gate lever. Something I can only find thanks to my Enhanced Hearing skill that lets me clearly hear the lever as it’s being pulled in order to open the gate to let the kobolds chasing me outside of the fortress inside.

Once I make it to the lever, I find one of those larger kobolds pulling it.

So I finally identify the creature.

♢ Level 54 Destruction-Touched Kobold Guardsman – 241 Potential Skills – X ♢

Shit.

I immediately form several barriers in front of the door to the room behind me to block any of the chasing kobolds from entering. Then I tighten my grip on my blades that I’d summoned at some point during the chase and focus all of my attention on this guy.

At an estimate, I should have somewhere around two minutes before the majority of those kobolds outside chasing me here arrive at the fortress.

Two minutes to fight this big fella in armor with those two strange, curved swords and close the gate again.

Thankfully this place only has one gate. Probably because of the dracoraptors that I’ve seen charging at that one gate from time to time. So that they only have to defend one gate.

The guardsman lets go of the gate lever, making the thing begin closing the gate on its own, before it turns to me and draws its blades from its sheaths.

It lets out a hiss at me, startling me for a moment as it’s the first time I’ve heard a kobold make a sound. Then it rushes at me with the blades raised, proving itself to not actually be that fast.

Although when I dodge the blades and they slam into one of the stacked barriers behind me, leaving large dents in them, I realize he is quite strong. And he’s not alone either, as I hear more slamming sounds of metal hitting metal on the other side of the barriers, where the other kobold guardsmen are no doubt attacking.

And it’s at this point that I’m starting to question my decision to come here.

Because these guardsmen are even more dangerous than the kobolds outside.

Even if a good chunk of their forces are, in fact, outside. Not in the fortress.

Wait… why should I even bother with this guy if he’s slow?

I ignore the guardsman as I flap my wings, flying straight towards the lever.

The guardsman lets out an angry sounding hiss, but I ignore him as I swipe both of my blades straight at the large, wooden level. Making them both heavier in the process.

Then my blades pierce straight through the lever at the very bottom of the contraption. Making it pretty much impossible for anyone to lift that gate anymore.

And without pausing, I quickly run to the window of the room before jumping out while spinning around. Just barely avoiding one of those blades flying straight at me that now goes over me instead, mere millimeters from piercing my head.

I feel a cold sweat form as I flap my wings to stop myself from falling. Because that was close.

Way too close.

I spin around before flying up towards the top of the wall again, leaving the kobold guardsman sticking his head out from the window and throwing his other blade at me.

Which doesn’t really work out well for him since gravity kind of makes it go back down to almost split his face in two.

Actually, I take advantage of that to send multiple destruction arrows at him along with some feathers. And since he’s sticking his body half out a window while frantically moving to avoid being scalped by his own blade, he doesn’t dodge my attacks.

Not that my attacks actually do that much alone.

But with Chaotic Surge activated throughout this whole fiasco? And him still leaning out over the window?

Even with my attacks only doing some minor damage to his armor and the skin beneath, he ends up slipping and falling while choking because of one of the effects that were placed on him. All the way till he slams hard into the ground below. Somehow still alive.

I stop flying away, feeling more than a little surprised at that.

Wow. That kobold just survived falling several stories while feathers were stuck about an inch into his skin while mutating the surface of his flesh, parts of his armor were disintegrated with some of his skin along with it, and several effects including some poisons were ravaging him.

Talk about sturdy.

I purse my lips a little, my eyes lingering on the glowing crimson cracks across his body as a thought comes to mind. The thought that this fella may have an improved version of the other kobolds’ minor destruction resistance.

And that thought makes me want to capitalize on this.

I glance at the other kobolds, finding them still probably a minute and a half or so away. Then I look at the ones now sticking their heads out the window from that room, clearly not happy despite also clearly having broken my barriers.

Hmm.

Well, if I’m gonna survive here, I’m going to have to take risks.

Time to kill that guardsman.