Chapter Twelve - The Second Round of Fabre, part 2
“Fabre Inmos. Your ability to lead your men has been observed with great interest. As you have successfully protected your barricade before the other candidate, I will allow a total of eight additional men to accompany your next battle.”
The noble’s eyes were shining with pride at the prince’s words magically transported to his ears. This was his first chance to command others to lead victory and yet he was doing it magnificently.
Fabre chose four more spearmen for extra defence and four Elementalists who were newly added, his initial caution of having multiple types of soldiers to command diminished. He told himself not to become conceited however, recalling back to the first round’s results. ‘No,’ he told himself. ‘I did not select them without a thought. As a summoner, I know the importance of magic in combat.’
The battle with the third horde introduced aerial enemies to Fabre's dread; huge bats. Accompanying them were spiders of monstrous sizes. He tensed, instantly shouting commands at his army.
“Archers to anti-air tactics, aim for their wings and the head. Spearmen to shield-wall formation. Elementalists try each elemental spell, then go for field magic of the element spiders are weak to.”
The bats were soon falling out of the air as arrows pierced the skin and bones which made up their wings. Fabre observed them with caution and soon enough he saw that gravity wasn’t enough to kill them. As he approached the crawling bats, his face creased in disgust.
“What is this putrid odour?”
He blurted out loud as he was forced to take a step back. He lifted the scarf around the neck to his nose and mouth. He chanted a spell, and the scarf glowed with a certain light for a second or so as the enchantment took effect.
‘To think a situation where I’d use the gas filter magic on the scarf would happen…’ The noble thought to himself as an image of a certain female appeared in his mind. He pushed that thought to the side, focusing on the battle ahead and approaching the bat once more with his weapon ready.
The bats proved to be very nimble and shrewd, using its useless wings as defence. When Fabre attempted a thrust, the bat would lead the rapier’s course astray by allowing it to pierce its wing, then pulling at it sharply. When Fabre tried a slashing attack, all that he was able to cut were the skin and bones of its wings. Of course eventually the bats also attempted to strike back, but Fabre easily blocked those with his metal-protected left hand for its strength wasn’t all that great. The problem was that each fight with the bat was taking a while and that meant the bats which weren’t dealt with were closing in towards the barricade. He attempted to apply Salamander’s strength to finish off the bats quicker, but he knew that apart from the hairy body it was resistant to flames. It was still time-consuming to attempt a fiery strike to the hairy body, Fabre found. The wings were especially capable of quelling the blaze with a mere fold.
A sudden tremor made Fabre glance towards the source. The Elementalists were chanting and motioning their staves in unison and a huge boulder was summoned to crush the spiders underneath. It effectively made a rocky blockade on the path; the tremor was from the Elementalist dropping such a big boulder on the spiders. The remaining spiders were few, and even those were considerably damaged. There were a few spearmen who were trapped in webs, but overall they were victorious with the spiders.
“Spearmen, strike formation towards the bats. Elementalists supporting fire.”
Fabre commanded, and each soldier went to fend off the bats. Soon there were no more monsters standing.
The noble took a deep breath after the last bat was killed, his scarf removed to save the enchantment left in the scarf. The enchantment, gas-filtering magic, was not a limitless supply; after a time, he knew, the scarf would lose its effect until an Enchantress such as Lady Mabel, his mother, was able to enchant Mana back into it.
As he was waiting for Prince Edel’s voice to flow into his ears, he glanced towards the stone wall the Elementalists had created. As he observed, however, ugly cracks were appearing. His attention snapped back into caution, barking an order for his soldiers to get ready. Through the cracks, something dark seeped out. It dripped down the boulder slowly, the way it dripping reminding Fabre of something he had seen before earlier this morning; black oil.
As if to confirm the answer to a certain assumption of the monster he was about to face in his mind, the boulder crumbled at one point, spewing thick black liquid. Soon the boulder was mere rubble, its base crushed by the force of the flowing black liquid. The liquid melded together in front of Fabre, forming a certain shape as more and more liquid piled from the other side of the boulder. The form had a humanoid torso with a bald head, its complete lack of facial features being compromised with an oily black crown atop its head. Its arms were freakishly long, the four digits dragging on the ground. Its lower half lacked much shape, looking like the base of a root-less tree. Its height was easily as tall as the barricade wall itself.
“King Oil Ooze,”
Fabre breathed in disbelief. He had read about it before, and he knew how to deal with one. He did not, however, realize exactly how big it would be. The noble snapped back into attention as the King raised its arm.
“Archers standby! Spearmen at front, shield-wall formation! Elementalists shoot ice magic at the King’s arm!”
Fabre commanded, stepping behind the spearmen who were obliging to the command. As the King reached out to the spearmen, the Elementalists’ chanting was complete. A shivering breeze went past Fabre and to the King, freezing its limb solid. The limb fell off from the main body, landing with an enormous crash and shattering to millions of pieces. Fabre crouched with his armoured arm over his face at the impact. When he recovered enough to look up, the situation wasn’t exactly good; part of the frozen arm had landed on top of some of the spearmen as the spell wasn’t casted fast enough. His spearmen count went from eight to five in mere seconds with one heavily injured spearman to boot. The injured spearman had escaped death solely due to being right next to the fallen King’s arm and not under it, but it was clear that his arm and a leg will be useless, judging by those limbs hanging down from their side and due to the countless number ice-and-oil shards impaled in them.
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Fabre grimaced, but he had recovered from his panic and commanded again.
“Injured spearman, fall back; Elementalists continue with the ice magic. The other spearmen continue with the shield-wall formation, protect the Elementalists from every harm possible.”
He knew archers were useless, as was any other physical attacks which were not regulated with Mana. That meant only the Elementalists and himself were capable of damaging it. Even then, Fabre’s options were limited to fire spells - while that, too, was the King Oil Ooze’s weakness, the explosion from an Oil Ooze this size would surely end up burning the entire forest, if not more. Initially Fabre planned to freeze the Oil Ooze’s body to small portions and burn those so that little by little the King would run out of oil to form a body, but the impact from the frozen arm was completely out of his expectations.
The King formed a replacement arm in moments, the exact replica of the frozen one. It was a head shorter however, using what was left of its body to form the replacement.
“Spearmen protect from attacks. Elementalists aim for the body and ignore the arms.”
Fabre said, coming to a decision. It was risky, for the shields weren’t completely capable of blocking the King’s attacks but at least it would draw attention away from the Elementalists as they chanted and casted the spells. Freezing from the body, Fabre mused, would prevent another incident like the arm. At the very least, if it happens again it would be due to its body falling. In that case, there wouldn’t be much oil left anyway to deliver the final blow.
Fabre watched as the King’s arm moved towards the Elementalists. Its finger-like digits spread out much like two pairs of pinchers around the Elementalists. The spearmen however got in the way, using their shields to fend the oil away from the Elementalists. The oily arm had a grip force strong enough to rebel against the spearmen’s defences much to Fabre’s discomfort, but they were able to hold their ground until the Elementalists were able to successfully freeze a huge chunk of the King’s body.
“Archers shoot at the frozen parts to make it shatter.”
Fabre called out urgently; the reason physical attacks were ineffective to the Ooze species of monsters was due to their ability to reattach and reform their lost parts. If it was frozen, however, the Ooze weren’t able to reattach using the same amount of oil.
As the King lost more oil, the grip around the spearmen loosened. It noticeably dropped in size once more to reform its body. That was when it completely abandoned its humanoid shape, stretching itself into a sphere and puffing up itself much like a balloon.
Fabre’s eyes widened in surprise, desperately shouting commands as he brought the enchanted scarf to his nose and mouth again and activating it.
“It’s going to explode, spearmen protect the Elementalists with your life! Archers get down, shield yourself with the barricade wa-”
The King exploded with a noise that cut off the noble’s words. Oil shot in every direction with the force matching that of a cannon, each drop of oil becoming a deadly projectile. If the explosion wasn’t loud enough to cover all other noises, one would hear the endless clash of oil ricocheting the spearmen's shields and digging deep into the barricade walls.
When Fabre got up as the noise and the oil died down, his eyes met a grim sight. There were oil spread out everywhere; the dirt path was dotted with oil seeping out, the trees and the barricade wall were full of dripping holes. The spearmen were crouched behind their shields but two had been too slow to cover their entire body. They were injured, albeit still alive.
An Elementalist was dead, perhaps due to being too slow to take cover, but the other three were okay. Likewise, as Fabre looked up to confirm, the archers managed to escape unscathed.
Fabre rose from his spot unscathed. He was too far away from the spearmen to be protected, but that wasn’t an error in his judgment. He looked down at his vest, specifically to a corner where a soft light was fading away, reverting back to a detailed design sewn into the vest. In actuality, it was a shield; another enchantment from his doting mother. It was a high-level enchantment unlike the scarf; it had to be engraved or sewn into something to be able to use it and was limited to two uses before the object will crumble away, but in return it allowed a more powerful spell than the type of enchantment on Fabre’s scarf.
The oil started gathering at the spot the King was standing before the explosion. Fabre went into full alert at that moment, barking out orders.
“Elementalists ice magic at the gathering oil! Back row of archers come down and support the injured back into the barricade.”
After a moment of thinking, Fabre opened his mouth again.
“Salamander, appear before me and burn any oil that is smaller than the size of my fingernails. Do not let anything bigger than that ignite.”
Flickers of fire appeared and dispersed. The oil which was gathering started to crackle and spark out of existence like small fireworks, but just in case he ordered the two uninjured spearmen to protect the Elementalists with their lives. Even so, they were not able to freeze or ignite all the oil.
The King reformed itself to the humanoid form, although it was only as tall as the monstrous bear they had fought. The noble frowned in annoyance, but told his familiar to rest once more.
“Elementalists, prepare for Ice Cage.”
Fabre commanded, sheathing his rapier into its scabbard. He then untied the scabbard from his waist, holding the weapon by the neck of the scabbard with the blade towards the ground. The sapphire etched into the scabbard glowed with a violet-blue at the waning sunlight, and with that the noble approached the King.