Fire erupted in the middle of the battlefield as the fire elemental took down the Gnolls with surprising ease, the elemental's heat made the Gnolls hesitate, and those that did get close were squashed to death by its elephant-like hands. Since the Gnolls were unwilling to go near it, the elemental roared and lunged for the creatures, taking the fight to them, it rampaged across the horde of creatures and started a slaughter, arrows flew and struck the elemental, proving that attacking it was futile as the arrows did nothing more than melt within the charcoal like skin of the creature.
Though the arrows did cause it to roar in irritation and rampage even harder, its attacks were now much like the Gnolls it was trying to kill: mad and chaotic.
Kaxa pried his eyes away from the burning fae and faced the Gnolls that ignored it, their number was much larger than he had expected and he feared that the creatures had a stronger variant waiting at the back, if it was a Warbeast, then he'd better tell the others to start running while he and his men try to hold it off, and maybe, with the help of the elemental and Jacob, they may even be able to succeed in killing the beast.
The first of the Gnolls to arrive attacked him by virtue of him looking much larger than the rest of his men- a deliberate thing that he had chosen to do because he knew this would be the case. He knew that Gnolls were primitive and that they couldn't differentiate what's between a man riding a horse or a creature twice their height.
Kaxa slammed the but of his sword at the skull of one of the creatures, shattering it and causing the unfortunate Gnoll into unconsciousness, then, activating one of his spells, [Sharp Blade], he sliced through the three Gnolls that were grouping on his right, the blade of his sword cut through bone and flesh with the ease of an arrow flying through the sky-
Kaxa grit his teeth when an actual arrow hit his helmet. But as luck would have it, its tip wasn't blunt, so it didn't hammer against his helmet but one can only rely on luck for so long before they die.
"Raise your shields!" Kaxa yelled as he waited for another flurry of arrows to come from behind the thick forest, the people followed and raised their hastily crafted shield made of insect chitin. And as he expected, a wall of arrows rose emerged from the forest and rose into the sky, flying in a straight line before arching down in their numbers.
The Gnolls around him didn't seem to care about the rain of death that was about to arrive as they charged forward with increased ferocity, some even went as far as attacking the fire elemental tearing through their midst. Kaxa raised his sword and swung down at the head of one of the many Gnolls running around him, then, before a few of them managed to converge around him and his horse, he kicked the saddle and commanded the stallion to start running, with a jump, they broke free of encirclement of Gnolls and came out of the other side unharmed.
Kaxa patted the neck of the brown horse in gratitude and congratulations before once again using his sharpening spell, this time, he used its 3 second duration to its fullest capacity as he sliced through Gnoll after Gnoll, he couldn't see just how many he killed, but the corpses he left in his wake spoke of how much he did against the monsters.
Now, if only he can use his spells more than three times every hour.
Kaxa shook his head and readied himself for the fight to come, he wasn't like Jacob, who seems to be capable of just producing a nigh-endless amount of spells out from that hand of his, he was just a regular knight who managed to wield the power of the arcane, he wasn't even a magic swordsman, just a man with three extra tricks up his sleeve.
And quite frankly, he plans on using those tricks well and so, closing his eyes, Kaxa prayed to his God to bless him and his men's minds and heal it of any corrupting thought. When he felt her hand wrap around his own, he knew that the Goddess had chosen to bless him once again with [Encouragement], Kaxa smiled gratefully, now, with the minds of his men healed from fear, their fighting chance against the Gnolls had increased.
And speaking of that, Kaxa eyed Jacob and simply stared as the man less than half his age slaughtered the Gnolls with laughable ease, the [Bolt] spell of his had been sharpened to the point of perfection and every shot took out the lives of one or two of the dogs, piercing through one body before moving on to the next. It was a sight to see but unfortunately, Kaxa didn't have the luxury of doing so and with a final, resigned sigh, he turned his attention to the battlefield once more.
With a yell, he used another [Sharpen Blade] and proceeded to slice through the enemy ranks.
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"We have another bottle of poison!" Yelled one of the many handmaidens around Asya, right now, all of them acted as though they were on the ground, fighting for their lives. Their movements were erratic and their dexterity squeezed dry, the women around her couldn't have been any less obvious about panicking. Asya knocked another arrow out of her bow and sent it straight through the eye of one of the Gnolls as a woman right next to her grabbed a bottle of potion and chucked it far into the battlefield.
As she eyed the potion's travel across the sky, Asya noticed Jacob riding around a horse with great familiarity, he fired off one spell after the next, seemingly endlessly.
She fired another arrow, one that missed, and noticed that the base of her fingers were feeling painful, she hissed but ignored the pain as she grabbed ammo from the quiver at her back, she placed it in the middle of her bow, and with practiced finesse, pulled it back and shot the arrow out, striking a Gnoll in the chest and sending the poor fucker down to the ground where it was crushed underneath the hooves of one of the horses running around.
Two kills for every one miss, Asya noted, is good enough for any ranger out there though she did make sure to humble herself by thinking that the battlefield she is on is not only chaotic, but she also had the vantage point against enemies that chose to get close to her on purpose.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Another arrow fired, it missed. Asya hissed once more and took another one out of her Quiver, then she fired again, another miss.
She was sure that between the poisons, the knights, Jacob, and all the women around her throwing things at the Gnolls, her kills are probably on the down low but she didn't really care, every kill helped buy them a few seconds and as she heard a roar come from the forest, she just knew that they were running out of time.
Gritting her teeth, Asya took out another arrow, idly noting that her quiver felt empty, lighter.
She turned to the women around her, pale as a specter and hands trembling. She ignored the way hers did as well and nodded at one of the handmaidens at the back, "give me a bottle of poison," she commanded and the girl followed, handing her a transparent bottle made of glass with brown liquid sloshing inside of it, she opened the cork and her nose scrunched up from the smell of herbs and she quickly dipped the head of her arrow into the mixture before pulling it out and quickly closing it.
Asya waited as another roar erupted behind the trees, then, something brown jumped out of it and immediately, the creature started running down the hill the moment that it was out.
Taking a deep breath, Asya ignored the yell of Kaxa about how it was a Warbeast and focused on the arrow dripping with poison in her bow, it was primed and ready for shooting, and all she needed to do is either hit the Warbeast in the eye or send it straight to its mouth.
Sounds easy enough.
Her fingers tensed and she looked at the spot where she thinks the Warbeast is gonna go next, she changed the aim of her bow and then without wasting a second longer, let the arrow loose.
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A smirk tugged at Jacob's lips when he saw that an arrow flew inside the mouth of the Warbeast, forcing its jaw to snap shut and its mad cackle to stop indefinitely. It opened its mouth once and then quickly closed it, causing the body of the arrow to break in half, though, only the part that was outside came out of the mouth while the other half got swallowed by the Gnoll.
He eyed the creature, it was purely brown and stood at a height that almost reached his even when hunched, a dog like face snarled as its clawed hand scratched at the nuzzle, its fingers constantly twitched as it scratched as though tempted to drop the stone Warhammer it was carrying. It had a set of primitive armor and much like its weapon, the gear was made of wood tied together by rope fibre.
Its primitive gear is why Jacob found it strange it was carrying a shield made of metal, one that glistened a pale blue that managed to overpower the orange light of the fire.
Warbeast- Jacob reminded himself as he fired off one [Sharp Bolt], at this distance, aiming wasn't even a problem and the yellow bullet struck true, hitting the oversized Gnoll in the chest and causing the monster to stagger back from the hit.
Jacob raised an eyebrow when he saw that his spell did nothing to its skin when he caught a glimpse of it as the Gnoll pushed itself upright. He looked up and met the eyes of the monster and for a split second, Jacob thought that he saw the jaw of the Gnoll clench itself in anger before running at him and his horse.
With widened eyes, Jacob grabbed the reins of his horse and kicked, the animal followed and ran in a straight line fast enough for them to dodge the lunge of the Gnoll. Jacob started running just as he felt a wave of calmness washed over him, Kaxa used his calming spell again, and looking back, Jacob saw that the people that were supposed to be guarding the Caravan were shivering from the Gnoll, they were hiding it, but it was obvious enough that Jacob managed to spot it through the shadows.
Turning back to the Warbeast chasing after him, focused on what was in front of him and another kick got his horse to go faster, the Gnoll was slowly catching up and the horse can barely even make turns but Jacob is confident that his [Shield] will pull him through.
He started channeling his spell when he saw that the Gnoll was preparing another lunge, the spell was almost full when it crouched down and bent its legs and a yellow barrier appeared in front of Jacob the moment that it jumped, it crashed against the energy wall, sending kinetic ripples across its surface and Amp into Jacob's reserves.
The Gnoll though, unphased by its sudden failure, managed to grab a leg of his horse and it grinned as it stood up and hefted both the man and stallion way above its side before slamming them face first into the ground to its side.
Jacob groaned in pain, the shadow of the Gnoll visible as a silhouette in his blurry vision.
He heard the sound of something crashing against his barrier, and like always, the strike against his [Shield] failed.
Until it didn't-
The sound of something shattering filled his ears and then-
Shield has leveled up!
Lvl 1 > 2
His ears were ringing and people all around him were shouting, he groaned and tried to pull himself up- but his arms didn't have the strength to do it, everything felt like stone, even the grass. When he tried to dig his hand through the dirt, it was like he was pulling on clay and when everything went dark, Jacob knew that the Warbeast was in front of him, ready to smash him to a clean paste and then everything went bright, he felt hot, and a loud, animalistic screech assaulted his ears, worsening his migraine and making him shudder.
Then it was suddenly all over and he stared at the sky, his body in pain and his head feeling like it had been drilled for ten hours straight.
"Ugh." Was all he could say as he pushed himself upward, when he stood straight, his vision started to clear and a quick look around let him see a bunch of Gnolls surrounding the caravans and wagons, the knights- everyone else was too busy fending them off and making sure that the monsters didn't reach their women that no one had the time to fight the Warbeast.
'Fitting name,' Jacob thought as he grabbed his head. It was still painful, but not so much that he couldn't walk.
To his side, the Warbeast and the fire elemental he summoned fought one another, the winning side was the elemental, which Jacob already expected, and the Warbeast looked like it was trying to stave off the heat but was utterly failing, its face had turned purple while its mouth was fixed into a painful snarl as it tried to grapple against a being made of coal and magma.
Jacob got near them when he saw the Warbeast use its shield to bash the fire elemental and of course, the attack worked and caused the creature to stagger back in pain, liquid fire seeped out from the veins that ran across its body while its mouth dripped with the same liquid, it roared, splashing it on the face of the Warbeast and causing it to fall back, then a quick punch to the jaw was enough for the monster to lose its footing and fall to the ground.
The elemental ran after it and started to wrestle against the Warbeast, when Jacob saw that it was gonna use its shield again, he raised his hand and aimed at the elbow of the creature, it was the only part that was far from the elemental that he didn't risk damaging it with his spell. Then, channeling [Sharp Bolt], he started aiming and when he thought that his aim was lined, he fired off the spell.
The bolt struck the Warbeast's forearm, which wasn't what he intended but the shield was dropped regardless and all that was left was for the fire elemental to start killing it.
It took a lot of pained cries, powerful screeches, and a ton of fire before the Warbeast fell.
By the end of it all, the fire elemental met Jacob's eyes, its body was no longer black, revealing an interior of flame held together by magic.
It nodded before falling apart into ash.