Zeke hit the knight with a shoulder tackle, sending him ragdolling across the square until he hit a pile of rubble. He followed that up with a spinning, backhanded swing of Voromir that launched another knight into a long arc that ended hundreds of yards away. The collapse of the building where he landed was like music to Zeke’s ears. However, he was quick to note that he didn’t receive any experience.
“I hit that guy with enough force that he should have burst,” Zeke remarked as a greatsword dug into his side. He reacted by pinning the blade to his body, then twisting. It snapped a second later, and even as it clattered to the ground, he snapped out a vicious punch that drove the wielder into the ground. A quick kick sent that knight rolling across the square. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m working on it,” Eveline answered. “Something is strange about their armor.”
“Work faster,” he grunted as another knight rammed into him. Zeke skidded sideways almost fifteen feet before he managed to arrest his momentum. As he came to a stop, he elbowed the man in the back. Once. Twice. Three times. Each blow rang like a bell as his metallic form collided with the knight’s gilded armor. The crunch of crumpling metal came next, and Zeke dismissed his hammer before wrapping his hands around the fellow’s torso, spinning, and throwing him as far as he could.
And given Zeke’s massive strength, that was quite a long way. At least a mile. Maybe two. But instinctively, he knew it wouldn’t matter. Soon enough, the knight would return, and given the recovery he saw among the first few he’d attacked, he’d come back unharmed.
As for the others, the ones he’d already hit had begun to recover, and remaining knights were closing in on him.
Zeke re-summoned his hammer and lashed out, activating Voromir’s ability. A huge, read projection of the weapon manifested, sweeping across the square and smashing into four knights who’d clumped together. The attack halted their charge, sending them stumbling backward.
“I think they’re getting stronger,” he muttered to himself. “Tell me what’s going on here, Eveline. Sooner rather than later would be great.”
“I think…the armor is all connected,” she said. “Like a rune formation, but not.”
“So, I need to destroy one of them? Like smashing an enchantment node?”
He kicked another knight, and though he put a good deal of his strength behind the blow, the man only flew a few dozen feet before he hit the ground. He rolled a few more feet before coming to a stop. A second later, he twitched, then rose, looking as if he’d not taken a bit of damage.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” she said. “The sense I’m getting is that the source of the – watch out!”
Just then, another sword hit Zeke’s side, cutting deep into his hip and stopping only when it hit his spine. He grunted in pain as he threw himself aside. The blade wrenched free, and he employed [Hand of Divinity] to heal the damage. However, it worked much more slowly than normal.
Clearly, the attack had been coupled with a skill. Whether it only hampered his healing or if it was something more complicated, Zeke wasn’t certain. But the fact remained that it did not bode well for his survival.
Zeke held his ground, unsure how he was meant to respond to the threat. Killing the knights – quickly, at least – didn’t seem to be an option. Perhaps he could wear them down, but something told him that he lacked the punch to do that. They could heal more quickly than he could do damage, which meant that ending them would take quite a lot of time.
If it was even possible.
“The source?” he asked Eveline as he backed away. Worst case scenario, he would just run away. As much as that wounded his pride to even consider, Zeke would endure it if it meant his survival. However, going down that route would doubtless put his allies in serious danger. After all, if he couldn’t stand up to them, then the kobolds certainly could not, especially not without significant losses.
And he valued their lives too much to go truly consider that route.
Eveline answered, “To your left. The big one.”
“It’s him?”
“No. But there’s a thread of mana emanating from him. It’s a little thicker than any of the others, and I think it might lead to the source,” she explained. “But I need you to get closer so I can see it properly.”
“That might be a little bit of a problem,” he muttered to himself. The largest knight – the one that had been attacked by the Inashi – stood next to five others. They weren’t quite the threat he was – Zeke expected that he was a peak entity, while the others were a few levels his inferior – but altogether, they posed quite a danger. And it was one he wasn’t eager to confront.
“Suck it up,” she said. “You think of yourself as some indestructible berserker, right?”
“That is not accurate at all.”
“Please. You know it’s true,” she said. “Well, it’s time you put your own perception to the test. You’ve been working on your fighting technique for a while now. Show me what all that work is for.”
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Zeke knew she was just trying to manipulate him, but he wasn’t immune to attacks on his ego. He was a proud man, and he didn’t like the notion of anyone doubting his proficiency in battle. Regardless of how insincere he knew Eveline was in her assessment, he couldn’t ignore it.
“Who said I’m insincere? Now, go knock those guys down a peg or two, and let me see if I can find us a thread to follow.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he mumbled to himself.
“What?”
“I’m just saying. If I do what you suggest, it’s because I want to. Not because you told me to.”
“Is this really the time to –”
Zeke threw himself forward, moving faster than he’d ever moved before. Even under the effects of [Shifting Sands], he’d have had difficulty keeping up. It was the effects of his upgraded attribute tiers pushing him to new feats of ability, and he was more than willing to finally let loose.
The ground cracked beneath his first step, and the shockwave of his movement tore the rest of the flagstones apart as he raced into battle. When he hit the first knight, it was with enough force to crush his chest. Even so, Zeke could see the damage repairing itself in real time, and before the man flew backwards, the effects of the blow had already been mended.
But Zeke wasn’t concerned with that. Instead, he aimed a horizontal swing at the next knight in line, and it connected with a vicious crunch that echoed across the square. Next came a spinning blow that crushed one of the remaining knights’ knees, which Zeke followed up with a kick that sent them sprawling across the ground. After that, the melee devolved into a series of rapid attacks that knocked the remaining knights out of range.
Zeke took a few wounds along the way, but he ignored the pain they caused. Instead, he had only one overarching objective – to isolate the leader – and his every action was meant to serve that goal. Once that was done, he latched his arms around the smaller figure and squeezed.
“Figure it out yet?” he asked inside his own mind. The strain of his efforts was evident even in his thoughts, and rightly so. With every passing moment, the knights grew stronger. Even now, the leader was on the verge of escape.
He flexed, battling the increasing power of his opponent.
Then, the knight broke free. Before Zeke could recover, he took a massive fist to the face. His bones crunched under the blow, and his vision erupted with stars. He hit the ground a second later, but thankfully, he managed to roll free before the knight’s foot fell in a vicious stomp that tore a crater into the ground.
“Eveline…”
Zeke continued to roll away, using every point of his incredible attributes to avoid the next attack. This time, the knight’s sword cut through the paving stones, digging a deep rift in the earth below. Instinctively, Zeke tried to activate [Shifting Sands], but as had been the case since he’d discovered divine energy, the skill remained just out of reach.
“Eveline!”
“I’m trying!” she screamed. “I’m using your senses! If anyone’s to blame, it’s you!”
Zeke threw himself to the side, then sprang to his feet. However, his leg collapsed under him when he tried to put any weight on it. Only then did he realize that another of the knights had finally recovered to jam a sword into his thigh. Zeke reached down and ripped it free, but that short delay cost him.
The leader hit him with a baseball swing, his sword very nearly cutting Zeke in half. Again. It came in at an angle, slicing between his ribs and cutting through his vital organs. Fortunately, his immense endurance and vitality meant that he wasn’t immediately crippled. However, he wasn’t so durable that having his lungs and heart destroyed didn’t slow him down.
He stumbled again, channeling [Hand of Divinity], but the skill was far less effective than it should have been.
The knight’s leader loomed over him, his sword poised for another attack. His helmet disappeared, revealing a square-jawed face that made Zeke think of Captain America. But that look was ruined by the man’s smug expression, which somehow managed to convey hatred and disdain at least as well as any words ever could.
“You stood before the Hand of the Goddess, and you have been found to be just as pitiful a creature as any other monster,” he said. “You will –”
“Grab him!” Eveline shouted.
Zeke didn’t hesitate to follow her directions. Nor did he need any further elaboration. She’d given him everything he needed via her unspoken thoughts. Because of that, he knew precisely what he was meant to do, where he was supposed to go. So, even as the knight leader opened his mouth to voice another insult, Zeke threw himself upright. He summoned all the willpower he could muster, then sprang forward. His shoulder hit the knight in the midsection, but instead of knocking the man aside, Zeke wrapped his arms around his waist.
His dash turned into a mad sprint that obviously left the other knights confused. The one over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry pounded his fists against Zeke’s back, but it did nothing to dissuade him from continuing on. Instead, Zeke followed Eveline’s directions, aiming for a shadowy alley on the other side of the square.
“No, no!” the man screamed, already activating some sort of skill.
Before he could finish, Zeke rushed into the alley and saw a simple spear that had been thrust into the ground. The entire thing was made of silver, and it pulsed with so much mana that he wondered how he hadn’t sensed it before.
“Part of its effect,” Eveline said. “It’s masterfully enchanted to tie the knights’ armor together, and it redistributes damage across everyone. It’s also…oh, you’re not even listening, are you?”
“Not really,” Zeke admitted, finally closing on the spear. Then, he didn’t hesitate before hefting the knight over his head, grabbing the man’s ankles, and swinging him like the world’s most unwieldy sledgehammer. As it happened, the butt of the spear was sharply tipped, so when the man hit, it had no trouble piercing his armor. It punched through the breastplate, tore through his torso, then exploded out the other side in a shower of blood.
Without further hesitation, Zeke let the man go, grabbed the spear, then used his immense strength to break it in half. The second it snapped, a wave of mana swept through the area, and more importantly, the knight’s leader went limp. He wasn’t dead, but it was clear that much of his power was gone.
That made Zeke’s next task much easier.
With a massive stomp, he crushed the man’s chest. The next stop burst his head. And a third finally killed him.
That was when the other knights finally reached the head of the alley. They stuttered to a stop, clearly horrified at what they saw.
For his part, Zeke only turned to face them, then in a dramatic show, cracked his knuckles.
Without their protective enchantment – and with the best of them having already been killed – they had no interest in facing him. So, they turned to flee. Zeke, of course, refused to allow that. He didn’t have access to his skills, but as he’d already established, he could move quite quickly when he so desired.
And in that moment, he wanted to go very, very quickly.