Wreathed in crackling LIGHNING, Duke plummeted at extremely high speed towards the ground in front of the advancing army. He descended in a glowing, crackling streak like a stroke of wrath from the heavens themselves. An instant before he slammed into the ground, he TELEPORTED three centimeters off the ground, shedding all his momentum to land in a perfect 3-point hero pose while unleashing the LIGHTNING all around himself in an expanding explosion. Those in the immediate area were thrown back from the shockwave.
The thunderclap echoed across the open plain, gathering the attention of everyone who had not witnessed his descent. Those that saw him were struck with awe as the dust cloud cleared and a man rose to his feet completely unaffected by his entrance thanks to a quick CLEANSE and RESTORE combo while the dust cloud dispersed. The entire marching column ground to a halt, stacking up as those in front did not want to approach this descended god and those in back pressed forward to see what the light show was all about.
Duke looked at the nearly cowering men in front of him and spoke plainly and simply. “Take me to your commanders. I would speak with them.”
The line of troops split in a disorganized mess as a mounted figure tentatively approached. The troops themselves stepped further backwards, putting fearful distance between themselves and Duke who kept LIGHTNING crackling in his eyes. It reduced his visual acuity some but with his DUNGEON SENSE running as well, he was able to see everything going on around him. His XENOGLOSSIA picked up the fear overshadowing the arrogance of the rider from the set of his jaw, the tension with which he held his reins, and the subtle involuntary twitch of his left eyelid.
The man’s voice nearly cracked as he spoke but he somehow managed to hold himself together enough to deliver his opening line. “Who are you and what do you want?”
Not the best opening line there bub. Showing your fear and delivering this weak a line…no wonder your troops are trembling from my entrance. It was pretty cool though.
“You are not the leader of this rabble. You are just the closest thing they had this near to the front of the column. I would speak to your true leader. Take me to them. Now!” While speaking, Duke began to hover off the ground as if standing on the same soil as his lessers was offensive. Occasional arcs of LIGHTNING snapped to the ground around Duke. He stared down the mounted soldier and saw the moment the man caved, quickly followed by the turning of his horse to lead Duke back through the troops.
As he followed, Duke leaned into his senses and a very liberal use of IDENTIFY to get an idea of the troops around him. The more he looked, the more bewildered he became. The troops were mostly leveled in the teens with an occasional one in the twenties and none of them seemed to hold a true combat class – these were farmers, craftsmen, and laborers. But the most interesting aspect was that their gear was all extremely high quality. Duke pondered what that meant as he continued to examine the troops he passed by.
An occasional arc of LIGHTNING struck the ground near soldiers’ feet, causing them to push back even further. Duke did his best to look impassive, ignoring the arcs as if it was just automatic or random and not directed. Without his DUNGEON SENSE running, he would have not been able to maintain his indifferent demeanor and still be able to strike with accuracy.
It took fifteen minutes to arrive at what Duke assumed was their command tent. A few tent poles were leaning in odd directions and soldiers struggled with ropes, attempting to secure the temporary structure. Duke smiled inwardly as the haste spoke of panic and that was entirely what he was aiming for in this case. He wanted them to fear him, fear what they didn’t know or understand. If he could get the army to leave without having to shed blood, it was a great political win. If not, he was ready to cut loose and see where the pieces fall.
He had poured excessive Mana into his LASTING DISGUISE Ability but had not changed his appearance at all. What he had attempted to do was mask his own information. Since the Ability had a duration of at least a day, he felt comfortable pouring nearly his entire Mana pool into it before setting out hopeful that it would work. Regardless, he had plenty of time to regen his Mana on the way to the army.
Standing around the tent in a show of force were the giantkin. There was a single mountain giant that towered over everything, standing nearly 30 meters tall. The next tallest of the giantkin was a giant troll of some sort that stood a mere 10 meters tall. The rest, Duke thought of as ogres as they were only 4 to 5 meters tall. In all, there were 15 of them and they would be an intimidating sight for most anyone. All the giantkin wielded swords of comparable size. Duke pointedly ignored them except for the disdainful glance he took when he fired off his IDENTIFY Ability on the mountain giant.
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*** You have encountered Gormak the mountain giant.
Tier: 5
Level: 192
Health: 1,204,328
Mana: 47,196
You have overcome Gormak’s resistance and have determined that his physical characteristics far outweigh his mental ones. He is immensely strong and heavily resistant to physical damage but is substantially weak to mental attacks.
***
Duke dismissed the giant immediately afterwards, realizing that he was the perfect counter to the brute, or at least he hoped he was. He maintained his “floating on electricity” appearance as he was led to the command tent. A guard pulled aside the tent flap as the nearly quivering rider turned aside and quickly bolted away. Duke smiled briefly before entering the tent.
Inside, there were a few decorations and some bits of furniture but nowhere near as much as Duke had expected. He wasn’t sure if it was the hasty set-up or if this was how things normally were in this tent. The crooked portrait of an armored man pushed Duke’s thoughts to the former. The self-same individual sat in a chair behind a desk attempting to look nonchalant at Duke’s entry and appearance.
Duke did not allow the man to speak or posture before cutting right to his own posturing. “Your army approaches the nation of the Wildheart Refuge. They are a peaceful nation and have no quarrel with you. Why do you seek quarrel with them?”
“They are an abomination before the gods! Half man, half beast. All monsters! They don’t even use proper swords but attack with claws and fangs. They must be eradicated in the name of the purity of the blade!”
“Is that truly what you believe? Is that the sick, twisted belief of your entire nation? Or did you somehow force these farmers and laborers that you stuffed into fancy armor and handed weapons that they don’t know how to use to follow your insane dogma?”
The man stood, emboldened. “The holy army before you is unstoppable. The faithful will wash this filth from the face of Teldin. Such is the will of Vithshrek!”
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me. He sent some upstart off half-cocked to attack my friends? Well, how about no. Turn your ass back around and go home right now!”
“We will do no such thing! Who are you to think you can comman-“
The man didn’t finish his sentence before his head landed on the ground at his feet. “I’m Duke. King Duke to you. And this conversation was getting us nowhere.”
Duke growled in frustration as he turned back towards the tent entrance. “Fucking fanatics. Religious fanatics, no less. Why does it always have to be fanatics?”
He stepped out through the tent, allowing his LIGHTNING to burn its way through the cloth. The guards reacted with alarm. First from seeing Duke casually float through the tent flap leaving it a burning mess and secondly upon seeing their leader’s headless body. Swords were drawn and the guards very pointedly attempted to cut Duke down where he floated.
Duke poured extra Mana into both his ARMOR SKIN and his LIGHTNING to bolster the aura he had created. The blades connected with Duke as he was not dodging at all, but two things happened. First, Duke’s ARMOR SKIN, even though bolstered by his Mana Enhancement, proved insufficient to completely stop the sword blows. The swords dug into the flesh of his torso but not deeply to cause any critical injuries. The second thing that happened was that the LIGHTNING aura explosively discharged down the length of the swords, through the bodies of the guards and to the ground.
The result of all this was that the swords themselves melted as they were blasted away from Duke’s flesh that immediately began to REGENERATE and the pair of guards dropped to the ground, their only movement residual involuntary twitching. Duke floated higher, until he was at eye-level with Gormak.
“This war upon the innocent has been declared unjust! Your leader has paid the price with his life. Two more guards have likewise paid with their lives. Return to your homes and end the bloodshed here.” Duke laid it on thick. He didn’t want to have to fight everyone here but if he had to, he was ready to do so.
The first answer he received was an earthshattering growl that sounded somewhat like the word “Die,” but Duke didn’t have time to parse it out as an enormous sword was plummeting towards the ground with him floating dead-center of its target. He TELEPORTED instinctively, winding up 10 meters behind where he had been floating and on the ground again. It seemed that Gormak wanted to play. Unfortunately for the few other soldiers who were trying to close ranks around Duke, he played rough. They were all sent flying from the shockwave of the impact.
Of course, the mountain giant wants to play. And he seems to have some sort of enchanted sword. Lovely.
Duke responded to the sword strike with a 100,000 Mana TELEPORT attack. He was not terribly surprised when it didn’t work. Despite the weak mental stats, the giant was still a Tier 5 monster and that significantly bumped up its resistances. Duke settled in for a longer fight, channeling additional Mana into his ARMOR SKIN as he suddenly realized that the entire army had decided to attack.
He smiled as swords bounced off his skin, the regular troops having neither the level, stats, nor the skill to cause enough damage. Restoring his LIGHTNING aura, he considered his list of area of effect Abilities and realized that the list was rather short consisting of LIGHTNING, ICE, FORCE, and HOLD UNDEAD. Since he had been using LIGHTNING so far, he decided to mix things up and released a wave of FORCE to push everyone away as he took to the air to deal with the towering giant.
This might be a long slog. Best to conserve some Mana and let it regen. Tonfa strikes will have to do for now.
Duke retrieved his Tonfa from his INVENTORY and flew straight at the giant ready to get things started for real.