Barry rushed forward as fast as his feet could carry him, eyes focussed only on Peltra. He summoned a clone to either side of him as he ran, all three versions of him screaming senselessly as they charged with their chains hanging from each hand. Barry had known he could summon more than one clone simultaneously for a while now, but it was such a heavy drain on his mana that it was more of an all or nothing tactic, only to be used in very particular situations… like this. He activated his heavy fortification skill in anticipation of the inevitable onslaught he was about to face. As he ran, he pushed his hand forward and activated remote chain, summoning a chain at Peltra’s feet, which he controlled to curl up and around the surprised man’s leg, locking him in place. With an unexpected burst of wit, Barry realised that his illusion chains did not need to be summoned directly from his hands, he could create them from a distance the same way as his new remote aura chain could. If he wasn’t in the midst of a life-or-death battle right now, he would have kicked himself. His clones summoned remotely, why had he never thought that he could replicate this with his illusion chains? He scattered the battlefield with illusion chains that shot up vertically from the ground and swayed slowly in the air, like seaweed flows within the ocean. If anyone got close to the illusion chains, he aggressively whipped them forward at them. This shocked the numerous enemies all around him and they jumped back away from the seemingly menacing shackles. The key to Barry’s deception, was to always ensure his illusion chains just missed their targets. A task that was made easier, but not perfect, by utilising the additional vision from his clones. With his second remote aura chain, Barry locked up a random possant female, not because he thought she was a particularly worrying threat, but to prove that not all of his chains were illusions even if some were of them were uncovered. This had the desired effect, as most of his foes refused to move anywhere near the frightening weapons.
Peltra had no time to relish the massive influx of energy, or soul item level up, he had just received for killing the vixant girl.
“Kill them now!” he roared as he saw the human rushing towards him. “Kill the tall one with the headband, he is the greater threat!” he added as a chain appeared from nowhere and wrapped around his leg, holding him in place.
Peltra tried to pull his leg free with no success. He tried to break the chain and cut it with his axe but again he had no luck. With his initial attempts to free himself failing, he activated his command skill and summoned his follower, the vixant man with the earth affinity, to his side. He instructed the vixant to remove all the earth from around the chain. The vixant nodded and immediately placed his hands on the ground until the earth softened and Peltra was able to yank his leg out. The chain still remained wrapped around his leg, awkwardly locking his knee straight, but at least he could move. Looking up he saw some of his idiotic followers launching attacks at all three versions of the man running towards him, whilst some other melee fighters stood back, afraid to move too close to the waving chains.
“Attack the central one, the others are clones!” Peltra yelled as he readied himself for the incoming clash.
Barry ran forward without any hesitation. He felt his back and sides get hit and swiped by various sharp objects launched at him from the surrounding attacks all around him. Whirling waves of water flowed with the ferocity of a waterfall straight for his head. Striking bolts of lightning fell down from the sky above him, trying to stun him still. Dark pellets of nothingness shot forward at him from the side, like a shotgun from the void. The very ground below him shook and rocked, threatening to upset his footing with every step. But he ignored it all, dodging left and right as he ran, praying that most of the attacks would miss his vital points. He made sure to constantly weave in and out of his clones after he heard Peltra’s shouting so as to further confuse his attackers.
Despite his best-efforts Barry felt multiples stinging pains from behind, and as one of his clones moved in front of him, he realised he had at least three separate projectiles lodged into his back, and numerous cuts to his sides. In these short few seconds Barry had learned so much about his own abilities. To add another discovery to the mix, he had never realised that his clones updated their image immediately in line with the damage he received. But that was only a fleeting thought in his mind as he focussed on Peltra, and before long he was but a few metres away from the orc. Now that he had closed in on Peltra most of the longer ranged attacks had ceased and instead a smaller band of eight or so melee fighters had formed around their leader. Barry sent in one of his clones to distract the front-line attackers before he flew at them with his true form. He held an aura chain in each hand and let them fly wildly at anyone within reach. With his right hand chain he landed a heavy blow to the neck of a human wielding a mace, causing them to fall backwards gasping for air. His left-hand chain flung at an orc woman with a wooden wand, smacking her in the eyes and blinding her. She reached her hands for her face and screamed in pain, but he didn’t stop. He summoned more remote illusion chains and startled the two closest warriors to Peltra long enough that he created an opening between him and his target.
The moment he created his illusion chains Barry felt an unexpected influx of energy and he knew he had just levelled up in his soul magic, bringing it and his power level to ten, but also unlocking some new skill options. He didn’t have time to read the messages in his mind, but he knew that any advantage he could gain would be better than nothing. He accepted the first ability option that popped up without any further thought as his focus was on the battle in front of him. He only had time to read the two-word name of the skill he chose, ‘clone transfer’, as he felt the information on its use enter his mind. There were some other messages and choices he had to make, but there were too many words, and he didn’t have the time to look through them, so he waved them away for now. Refocussing, Barry sent his clone forward and behind Peltra, who completely ignored it as he had come to understand Barry’s tricks. Barry swung heavily with both chains to meet the swing of Peltra’s battle-axe but found himself being easily pushed away. It was clear that the orcs strength was far superior to his own. Suddenly, Barry felt a new burning pain in his left hip, and he glanced back and saw a male possant wielding a flaming longsword that was poking through the top of his left thigh. Barry panicked for a moment until the possants eyes glazed over and Barry saw a familiar straw tendril wrapping its way up around man’s body, and now that the man was under Knobs control, the flaming sword was immediately retracted from his flesh. Matching another of Peltra’s swings with his own Barry saw that Knob was only a few metres behind him, now using the possant for offense, and a particularly large rhinoceros like man as a walking meat shield. Barry felt his heavy fortification skill timeout and the pains across his body sharply increased in response, but he shook off the agonising discomfort as he refocussed on his battle with Peltra. The pair traded blows whilst the possant held back two of the other villagers that were attempting to assault Barry from behind.
“You cannot possibly expect to survive this human. You will soon join your friend as a bloody corpse,” screeched Peltra as he swung down heavily with his battle-axe, pushing Barry back from the force of the blow.
Barry didn’t offer a response; this man didn’t deserve it. The only thing he deserved was to have the life drained from him.
By now Barry had all three versions of himself surrounding Peltra, but the orc only had eyes for his true form, refusing to be distracted by the harmless actions of Barry’s clones. What Barry lacked in strength; he was able to make up for in mobility given Peltra’s leg was still trapped by his chain. However, despite his best efforts he was still being forced back with every clang of steel. Although Peltra was winning the clash, his rage continued to build as the human refused to be defeated. Irritated, Peltra squeezed and heaved the battle-axe overhead in preparation for his most powerful strike thus far. He activated his item ability ‘density’ as he let it crash downwards towards Barry. Waves of power radiated from the glowing weapon as its weight tripled from the effect of his skill, speeding up the swing and greatly increasing the force of the attack. It hummed through the air directly towards Barry’s head, slicing through from his skull to his groin, splitting him in two before he was even able to react. Peltra grinned as he saw the axe slide effortlessly through the man’s body and lodge into the ground with a thump. The attack was so swift, and so perfect that Peltra didn’t even feel any resistance, it was as if his axe had cut through the air itself. But surprisingly the usual influx of energy didn’t occur, and Peltra’s grin quickly flipped into a confused frown as he tried to come to terms with why this was the case. At that moment he was struck with a heavy blow to the top of his head, momentarily causing his vision to go black and his legs to collapse under him as he tumbled to the ground.
Barry put everything on the line in trusting his new ability. With one hundred percent focus, he watched as Peltra, fully committed to his swim, slammed down with his glowing battle-axe. Just before the weapon pierced his skull, Barry activated clone transfer for the first time. Instantly, he found himself swap places with the clone he had placed behind the orc and he watched as Peltra attempted to bisect the illusionary version of himself. Whilst Peltra was distracted by his apparent victory, Barry gathered all his strength and heaved down with both arms, slamming his dual chains directly onto the top of Peltra’s skull. Barry relished the feeling as the chains sent a vibration up his arms from the heavy clang of metal on bone. He watched as Peltra began to fall down, rattled from the blow. Barry readied himself to strike again as Peltra shuffled on the ground with his hands covering his head, clearly expecting the follow up blow. The once proud orc looked weak and disorientated as he crouched in a defensive position below Barry’s feet. As Barry raised his chain, ready to deliver another crushing slam of chains to Peltra’s back, he was hit with an arrow to his right arm just above his elbow. This wound stung more than any of the other attacks so far due to the fact that his heavy fortification skill was no longer running, and it forced him to drop his chain from his right hand. It was as if the pain shocked him out of his frenzied, narrow minded obsession with getting revenge on Peltra, as Barry glanced up and saw Knob frantically trying to fend off various attackers using his manipulation of the possant and rhinoceros man. He then heard the hysterical crying of Swirly and he turned his head and saw the ape sobbing and clutching at the hair of the deceased Tuti. Barry’s stomach sunk and his eyes watered as he remembered the real reason he was fighting. It wasn’t to kill this man, as much as he deserved it. No, his reason for fighting was to save his friend. A task he had failed. However, he still had a chance of succeeding in saving Swirly and Knob, but only if he could let go of his rage and start to think clearly. After all, Barry felt he had got them into this mess, so it was up to him to get them out of it. With that burst of inspiration, his moved his focus from fight to flight, and a plan started to form in his mind.
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“Knob, grab Swirly and run. Get away from here as quickly as you can. I will catch up to you,” Barry screamed over the top of the sounds of battle.
Knob looked at Barry with befuddlement, but before he could speak Barry continued.
“Trust me Knob, I promise you I will be fine. But if you stay, you will die!”
Knob trusted his friend and despite his hesitation he did what he was told. He forced the possant to push forward by swinging his flaming sword side to side, clearing a path through the villagers for Knob to move towards Swirly. Barry helped by smacking down two other people with his chains and soon Knob was able to reach the trembling ape. Barry and the large rhinoceros man held the waves of fighters back long enough for Knob to carefully scoop the trembling ape up and cradle him in his hands whilst locking his staff in place under his armpit.
“I’m sorry buddy, Tuti was a wonderful person. I know it hurts, but we have to go now,” comforted Knob.
Swirly squirmed and sobbed, fighting meekly to stay next to his beloved friend. Knob welled up as he sprinted away from the battlefield, not allowing himself to look back for a second.
Barry smiled as he risked a glance back at his friends disappearing into the forest back in the direction of the village before turning back to the wave of enemies rushing towards him. By now nearly all of the remaining villagers had discovered that his numerous wisping chains were mere illusions and they ran straight past them on their way towards him. As he kept swinging his aura chain, in a frantic attempt to deflect the weapon strikes and magical attacks that flew his way, Barry began to appreciate the seemingly helpless situation he had got himself into. His mana was at one percent and was about to fully expire, his stamina at thirty percent and his health at fifteen percent. He’d revealed every ability available to him, had an arrow sticking out of his arm, a hole in his leg, numerous objects protruding from his back, was drastically outnumbered, and he’d just sent away his only allies. His injuries were slowly bleeding him out, and that was before receiving any more wounds. He was truly running on fumes. Finally, Peltra stood back to his feet, red-faced and irate, as he moved to stand in front of Barry, at the same time as Knob’s control over the rhinoceros man faded, and Barry found himself alone facing down an army of relentless warriors.
“Stop your attacks!” Peltra growled loudly and with such venom that it halted the movements of all the villagers instantly.
The battlefield went eerily silent as all eyes, including Barry’s, fell on the orc leader. The man’s shoulders rose up and down with his heavy breaths, and he snarled at Barry with each effortful exhale. The unexpected blows to his skull had taken more out of him than he had expected. His head throbbed, and blood trickled down over his forehead, with some of it dripping off his chin, and the rest pooling in his mouth. Peltra spat red saliva loudly onto the ground and his mouth formed an evil smirk. Barry gulped as his eyes met Peltra’s. There were no words to describe the intense, unrestrained fury in the orc’s glare.
“This pathetic, pitiful excuse for a man relies on his cheap tricks to succeed in battle. He has no honour,” Peltra roared loudly enough for all to hear.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Barry couldn’t help but scoff at the irony of his comments. This action only fuelled the fury within Peltra.
“You think this is funny? You are going to die here fool, just like your friend did. The other human and monkey will quickly follow, and then all your bodies will be used as fuel for our fire!” seethed Peltra.
“We’ll see about that,” countered Barry, as he reached into his spatial storage and grabbed out a black and grey swirling stone.
Peltra recognised something was up and leapt forward towards Barry, just as the stone hit the ground and a thick, growing array of smoke encompassed the entire area.
Barry’s could see the smoke around him, but instead of blocking his vision, it just made everything he saw appear to have a strange grey tinge. To his opponents though, the smoke was blinding. Anything more than thirty centimetres or so in front of each of the villagers was just a greyish nothingness. Peltra swung wildly into the fog where Barry had stood mere milliseconds before, but his axe did nothing but swirl the fog around his blade. Barry saw the large battle-axe glide aimlessly through the air, and easily dodged it by dropping down below the swing. He paused in a crouched position and kept his focus on Peltra’s eyes which were now unfocussed and darting side to side. Clearly his smoke stone had worked, but he could feel it would only last for a matter of seconds. With no time to waste, Barry flung his aura chain forward and wrapped it around Peltra’s thick calf. He got great satisfaction out of watching the surprise appear on Peltra’s face as he pulled strongly backwards and knocked the orc onto his back. Now that the immediate danger had momentarily faded, Barry opened his stats page within his mind and threw his two free stat points into mana, bringing his level to nine and boosting his stores back up to around ten percent. Barry stood and as expected he saw most of the villagers were wandering around blindly through the fog, except for one. He was surprised to see a female archer with her bow drawn and pointed directly at him. It was Breya, the woman who had discovered Barry’s group when they had first come across the village.
“That’s right, she was a perception specialist. She must have some way of seeing me despite the fog,” he thought.
At that moment Breya released the arrow and it propelled towards Barry. He had just enough time to dodge it by quickly leaping to the left.
In his rush to get out of the path of the spiralling arrow his feet stumbled and scraped along the ground. Clearly the smoke didn’t block sound as the noise Barry’s heavy feet made alerted Peltra and he reached out with a hand and grasped Barry’s leg.
“I’ve got you this time worm,” scoffed Peltra as he once again swung his glowing battle-axe out towards Barry’s chest.
Unable to free himself of Peltra’s grip, Barry watched the glistening steel slicing towards him and he instinctively knew that his vitality would do nothing to stop this powerful strike. With just enough mana for one last ability, Barry activated clone transfer, and the battle-axe again slid harmlessly through Barry’s illusion.
“Bastard!” Peltra hollered, as the fog began to clear.
The first thing he saw was the irritating grin of Barry, or to be more accurate Barry’s clone. He clenched his fists so tightly together that his nails cut into his own skin, causing drips of blood to fall from his hands, matching the red flow from his head. Within another second the area around was completely clear of smoke, leaving Peltra and the other villagers standing around like stunned mullets.
“Where is he?” blared Peltra as literal steam rose from his reddening head.
Barry wanted to smile at the confusion on Peltra’s face as he watched through his clone’s vision before it finally dispelled as his mana stores ran dry. Barry ran as fast as he could manage. His stamina was quickly draining, now down to less than ten percent, but he had to push himself, he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted for a even a moment. Despite his amazement that he was actually still alive, he knew the danger wasn’t over yet. Peltra’s gang would soon be on his trail, so he needed to quickly put as much distance between him and them as he could. His decision to send one of his clones off just as the smoke emerged turned out to be a lifesaver. Plus, he was able to see the direction that Knob had ran and was gaining ground on his friends. It didn’t take him too long to catch up to the pair and the relief on Knob’s face removed any need for words between the two. Swirly was still whimpering in Knobs lap, but he did glance up at Barry with wide, teary eyes as he heard Barry approach. The trio ran onwards eventually passing through the deserted village and into the pine forest on the other side.
Around fifty metres into the pine forest, the ground suddenly dropped at a sharp angle downwards. At the speeds they were running neither of the men saw it before it was too late. Both Knob and Barry fell and tumbled uncontrollably forward and down the slope. Swirly was sent flying and the three of them rolled forward over twenty metres before coming to a stop in the grassy undergrowth of the pines. Barry rubbed his head as he leapt up and was shocked to see a strange shimmering wall that stretched vertically into the sky and horizontally as far as the eye could see. But what was most concerning was the fact that Barry lay on the far side of the shimmering wall, whilst Knob and Swirly were resting firmly against the other side from where they had just rolled from.
“Knob, Swirly, are you ok?” Barry frantically quizzed.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Knob confirmed.
Swirly let out an irritated humph in between his moans, but dusted off his still blood red fur, obviously uninjured.
“What is this thing?” Barry asked with confusion as his inspection skill failed to give him any information, a first for him so far in the training grounds.
“Didn’t you get a message when you hit it… or passed through it?” asked Knob, “It says it’s a milestone wall, and only those level ten or higher can pass through.”
Barry frowned in confusion at that, he’d not received any such message.
“No, nothing,” he replied as he got up and walked over to place his hands on the wall which was now rock solid even though he’d clearly just passed right through it.
Training ground milestone wall discovered – Initiates level ten or higher my pass through this wall to reach the second area of the forest. Once passed initiates may not return from prior areas.
The last line made Barry’s stomach lurch. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be left alone after all this could he? Even more than that, what about Knob and Swirly, they needed him to protect them. He slammed his hands onto the solid wall and dropped to his knees when the realisation hit him. Barry’s face must have shown the mental turmoil going on in his mind as Knob was the one to bring him out of his glum thoughts.
“Barry! Snap out of it. We don’t have time to stand around. Swirly and I need to get away from here as quick as we can. None of this happening is your fault. We will miss you, but we will see you again, that’s a promise,” Knob said.
Barry almost didn’t recognise the man in front of him. No longer was Knob acting meekly and anxiously. Instead, he was the one showing maturity and clarity whilst Barry himself was falling apart. With a sniffle, Barry stood up straight and placed his hand on the wall. Knob and Swirly did the same and the trio shared a special moment for the briefest of times, before Knob gathered up Swirly and disappeared back into the forest, leaving Barry truly alone… again.