Two days later, the attack teams had gathered in Wolford. They were preparing to fight both the last lieutenant and the general. Everyone knew that the lieutenant would be a stepping stone towards the general, but it was vital that they had the mana and stamina needed to kill the general after the first fight. One thing of note that did come up was that no one had seen or heard from Jace after the gathering at Llyn. The teams quietly wondered if he had abandoned his post or was doing it from the shadows. Since Jace was assigned to it, nothing had attacked the town, but he was also supposed to meet up with them when they arrived. They waited a couple of hours before Luke called it. "It's clear that Jace is not going to make it here in time, so we'll have to move on without him. Hopefully, he can meet up with us later. It's time to move out. Tabitha take the front with Sarah, Elizabeth guard James in the middle, and I'll cover the rear. I'm acting as the support for this expedition. Tabitha and Sarah are the tanks, Elizabeth will be the skirmisher, and James will be our DPS. While I would like to add more people to make the fight more manageable, I believe that nobody but us has a decent shot at staying alive. I won't sacrifice people to make this easier. With that being said, it's time to move out."

It didn't take them long to find the lieutenant, only two hours. That really stressed the importance of this fight. With the lieutenant so close, they were really pushing it, but the fight shouldn't be too hard. They rushed the lieutenant; Tabitha shot forward like a frozen rocket slamming into the lieutenant but only pushed it a couple of feet. It went to open its mouth, but Luke cast a silencing spell, making the lieutenant confused as it tried to talk. Before it could retaliate, the butt of Sarah's spear cracked into its jaw, whipping its head around.

Luke flashed forward and sunk his sword into the lieutenant, but it only went a couple of inches in due to its high resilience. James, well, James sat in the background doing nothing as his spells have too high of a mana cost to be used in sequential fights. On the other hand, Elizabeth had positioned herself behind the lieutenant and fired her sound rifle at its back with a distortion of sound. The wave rippled through the lieutenant, causing massive internal damage. The lieutenant coughed soundlessly, and blood speckled into the air. Its eyes went wide in surprise, and repeatedly tried to yell out something several times but was still silenced. Tabitha was trading blows with ice-covered punches that could bend steel. Sarah was stabbing into joints with her spear while Elizabeth opened fire with her rifle whenever she could. Luke would flash in and out of combat, creating numerous cuts along the lieutenant's body.

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Over the next minute, the lieutenant was beaten down and finally killed. Once they got the notification that it was dead, they all went on guard. It was time for the general.

~~~~~~~~~~

Breath in breath out, I grunt as another punch lands on my ribcage, causing my whole body to vibrate, but nothing broke. I checked my health, hoping it had gone down. [Health 1538/1640]. At first, I had thought that I might have a chance to win, given how minor damage I had taken was. I was wrong. My copy was capable of doing much more damage than this but true to his word, he didn't want me dead, just broken. By this point, I was surprised that I was still sane. After my web attack, he punished me using that increased pain skill for the last 48 hours.

My mind was barely working now and was focusing on everything that wasn't in pain. He hit me once every minute and always in a new spot. He made sure that every inch of my body was in an extreme amount of pain. I didn't look around for fear of pain, but I knew that the ground was soaked in my blood. I could feel the mud that formed from it covering my feet. My copy was still talking, but I could no longer hear him, for my ears had stopped working. Through this all, I had a shit-eating grin plastered on my face. Much to my horror, I was no longer able to take it off even as I begged my body to let me do so. My copy hated that smile.

At the start, I had hoped to win this fight or to die trying, but now I just wished for death. The torture was able to break my mind in ways I had thought impossible. While my instinct to fight back to push him to kill me was strong as I was breaking, it stopped the first time he got serious. I still couldn't remember what had happened, but my body would start to tremble whenever I tried to think about it.

The next punch came, and I blacked out for a second, bringing a sweet silence. Then reality came crashing back in with an orchestra of pain. A scream tore its way through my bleeding throat, bringing more pain. I was still on my feet in the same position as before. My body had long since locked up.

Then I felt an attack about to hit me before stopping. I felt more than heard a notification sound, but my mind couldn't process what it said. Suddenly the wind buffered against me, causing spikes of pain before an avalanche of blows followed it. At this point, I had hit the maximum amount of pain I could feel, and the punches were barely registered. The impacts continued for much longer than ever before, so I pulled up my current health.

[Health 1201/1640]

It was dropping faster and faster.