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Extant Expanse
005 Prelude 05

005 Prelude 05

The ogre crouched, leaning forward, using gravity. With a burst of speed, it charged forward impaling two more on his right sword and three on the left. Not bothering to pull them off this time, Swinging left and right the centrifugal force releasing the impaled bodies as they impacting into those nearest knocking them over in a shower of blood. The ogre had created space for himself with this move. From the first attack to this moment maybe 8 seconds had passed.

The brutality of this monstrous bastard had stunned everyone, including Sasha, who failed to react simply through the sheer brutality and speed demonstrated. Still, he was extremely experienced and the stunning moment only froze him for a second. Reacting, he called for tanks to surround and contain this mighty ogre.

It responded in turn, “too late human, but thanks.” The ogre then charged through several melees, accelerating as he blasted through, then leaping over the heads of half a dozen before stabbing both weapons down. The swords landed with pinpoint accuracy each side of Sasha's head piercing into his body through the clavicle and both lungs before twisting and ripping out creating twin fountains of blood. “Leader dead?” he inquired before chopping through the less armored ranks. The ogres kept moving and changing attack direction, leaving a dozen more corpses until he stopped and roared.

Of course, group 3 were reacting to this sword-wielding monster, the melee charging it and caster beginning their spells. Unlike the previous warrior and healer, this ogre with twin swords was stronger but more importantly far quicker. Often avoiding projectile magics, leaping overhead rather than getting hemmed in and carving through the group like a child stepping on ants. This was one warrior yet everyone felt its pressure and overwhelming fighting prowess. Still, there was nothing left but to fight and at worst, respawn.

What group 3 was not aware, that mighty roar the ogre released was the call to attack. Seconds passed, the noise of combat, cursing and screaming of wounded blocked the telling noise of the ogre charge. They ran in silence, no screaming morons here, these hunters wanted to take maximum advantage of their war leaders efforts.

They did, while group 3 was focused on Nag'Feesa a brutal assault from three directions simply crushed through the outer ring of humans. In an instant over fifty were crushed, the ogres commenced, pressing with a methodical pulping of the humans, ensuring they were all thoroughly, made dead.

A few on the far side of the vanguard broke off running from the fight, hoping to survive a bit longer to message the forum for assistance and warning. Too late, a mere 4 minutes into the charge the humans and ogre were at even numbers, bodies broken, oozing blood laying thick on the ground. It was at this moment that group 4 began arriving. They had run full tilt towards the action not worrying about maintaining formation, hoping to get a piece of the action. It wasn't the piece they were expecting, the trickle of early arrivals at the scene were turned upon, by two ogre warrior with tree stump thick clubs. Swatting humans, sending them meters through the air to the left and right. No need to assume, they were not getting up without a [Resurrection] spell cast on them.

The trickle turned into a river of bodies, one of the two ogres facing them calling out a warning for the rest of the hunting group as they were busy finishing off the last of group 3.

Turning to look, Nag'Feesa ordered a few ogres to finish off the few humans left before them. Turning he charged off towards these new arrivals with the majority of his tribe's hunters. He was happy to receive a couple of heals as he passed where the healers stood. The ogres started forming up a line ready to smash this new group of humans properly. More were joining their rank, it was ridiculously imposing. The humans stopped running into the wall quickly, losing 20 of the early arrivals before they began gaining some order. They also formed up a hundred meters away before starting to move to engage, they might get smashed but it was no harm, this was the end of beta and there were no re-spawn penalties anymore. Before the two groups engaged in combat though group 2 began arriving on the scene from the opposite direction. Less spread along the route as they raced to the fight they had maintained a semblance of formation. They didn't stop maintaining their velocity and turning it into a bone-shattering charge. For them. They plowed into the few remaining ogre that had cleaned up the last of group 3.

With the majority facing group four, these 8 ogres saw the charge coming yet against such overwhelming numbers they were calm and coordinated. They warned the healers who were already moving closer to the main bulk of the ogre combatants putting these eight between them and the human horde.

This was the group that tank Hyun Ki and caster Mal-Chin were part of. The two stuck together on the run over keeping near the middle back of the group. In this way, they didn't become a part of the fight immediately and gained a chance to observe and assess. Hyun Ki and Mal-Chin were persons with [Architect], and several construction skills. Mal-Chin had heavily invested in the [Mana Crystalisation] skill and its subset. He was the person with the highest investment in this skill, spending a significant amount of time creating the ECC for the test dungeon.

In order to achieve the final milestone of creating a dungeon core crystal, the two had spent great efforts grinding mobs for experience. Hyun Ki investing heavily in his melee resistance, health, and endurance regeneration, along with a skill to taunt a mob, simply he chose the role of a tank.

Mal-Chin, on the other hand, chose the route of the caster. After a great deal of effort during his off time gaining reputation with the mages in Cheon Chilbaeg. His efforts were rewarded, allowing him access to create a spell he called [AP Touch]. This particular spell was quite unique, it required a six-second cast, followed by a four-second hold time in which Mal-Chin had to touch the target and maintain contact for one second to successfully initiate the spell. But the spell didn't end there, he then had another eight seconds to run to safety. Finally, in a safer location, he channeled mana into the spell to maintain it maintain it as the damage ramped up. If he was attacked then the channel would break and the spell would cancel. This difficult combination, however, when used successfully and once the damage over time ramped up, could produce incredible damage for a quite reasonable mana cost compared to other spells.

Developing mana reserves and decently damaging spell at the cost of defence and health was common among the beta testing casters and unlike games similar in genre to this world, growth did not happen quickly. So the testers generally went with that age-old trope of a glass cannon mage. With such being the case, having to maintain a touch, even for a second, with an aggressive target was an approach counter-intuitive for a damage dealing spell user to have. Yet Hyun Ki and Mal-Chin had taken this comedic idea and turned it into their cornerstone for gaining experience. It was a combination that required a great deal of intestinal fortitude, yet with them successfully using this combination thousands of times they were confident in its application.

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So when facing raging brutal ogres, the duo took a rectal clenching moment and waited. A gap opened up and Hyun Ki filled it while Mal-Chin stood behind him and began his cast. When ready, Hyun Ki slid sideways opening space for the touch to activate. Mal-Chin held the touch for the second then pushed away through the crowd with Hyun Ki trailing for protection. Mal-Chin channeled, and the two damage types, acid, and poison ticked up each second.

[You hit with AP Touch, dealing 34 Acid damage and 28 Poison damage]

[You hit with AP Touch, dealing 36 Acid damage and 30 Poison damage]

[You hit with AP Touch, dealing 38 Acid damage and 32 Poison damage]

Capping out at a combined 120 damage per second before resists reduced the acid damage down to 56 and poison to 50 damage each tick or second. Mal-Chin had to sustain the spell for 32 more seconds before that ogre finally dropped. He skolled a mana regeneration potion, checked how much experience he received for his contribution, enough for two Development Points (DP). Damn, he still needed two more to increase the stepping from two damage to three per tick. With a deep breath, he looked at his friend, ready to repeat the process.

At the same time, group 4 had been facing the majority of the ogres and more specifically Nag'Feesa. They were taking terrible damage, nothing they did seemed to matter when versing that ogre with the twin swords. Yet they still held and this allowed group 2 to pile up on those eight other ogres and take several of them down. Three of the ogre healers moved towards this group to lend their support, this opened up an opportunity for Hyun Ki and Mal-Chin to take out a support member. As numerous others from group 2 surged around the healers since there just wasn't enough space for more than more than 300 to attack a mere eight ogres. The duo repeating the process, Mal-Chin got his touch in and bolted to hide, chugging another regeneration potion while he moved then formed that vital channel, linking his mana into the spell so it could keep going. Again it ramped up, though this time the spell was in direct competition with the healers own heals. Fortunately, all three of the ogre healers were being attacked by numerous others, so Mal-Chin's spell was simply doing battle with the healers own self-targeting instant heal over time. A spell that was far more mana costly, it being an instant cast. Mal-Chin kept his [AP Touch] spell running, gradually burning down the health of the very tough ogre, helped along by a couple of other casters nearby. Again he won out. Though it took around 80 seconds, his damage contribution to defeat this particular ogre was significantly more than last, netting him another 4 DP. Using his accumulated points he upgraded his spell once more.

Group 4 were done, their bodies were strewn all over the place, just like group 3, it was now group 2's turn to be smashed. Yet they had weathered the eight warriors well, defeating six as well as the one healer while losing nearly 40. The final two ogres were getting low on health and not receiving heals as the remaining two healers nearby were thoroughly harassed themselves. The other 40 something ogre warriors charged the lines, where before the fight was controlled, now it was utter chaos.

Mal-Chin swallowed another mana regeneration over time potion while Hyun Ki ran over to him. It was inevitable, group 2 was going to get wiped, yet Mal-Chin couldn't help but smile. “Truly, I have the best spell of all casters here.”

“How're the resists for these guys,” asked Hyun Ki.

“Low acid, average poison, the warrior was 4 and 10, the healer was 6 and 12.”

“So, you just did some massive damage there.”

“Huge, with the experience I received I upgraded the spell ramp up.”

“Nice, what next then, this isn't going to last more than 5 minutes,” indicating toward the continuing battle.

Mal-Chin nodded agreement, looking across the field he watching the ogres, trying to decide on a target. “Let's go for the sword one, if I can get a touch on it and get away...” he shrugged to Hyun Ki.

“Lets RNG this,” Hyun Ki smiled at his friend.

The two began moving and 20 seconds later after getting into a decent position the two started the process of that long six seconds of casting once again, coming in from behind Hyun Ki, Mal-Chin went for it with a running, diving to wrap his hands around the agile ogre's ankle rather than risk losing contact and having to start the spell again. He held on for the second before letting go, Hyun Ki grabbed, yanking him out of the way and back to his feet behind him before turning back ready to ensure Mal-Chin had time to get away.

The ogre war leader was on an entirely different level though, front or back it didn't matter, no melee opponent could do much other than be meat for its grinder and those blades it wielded were hungry for more meat to cleave through. The war leader didn't notice Mal-Chin holding his ankle, not when it was getting attacked from all sides and getting regularly blasted with spells. Hyun Ki's luck ran out though with a brutal sweep carving diagonally from right shoulder to left hip, chopping deep into the shield while his arm was knocked away broken. The arm was nothing to the damage on his body, all he could do was drop, strength-less in his legs while his health evaporated in seconds from the massive damage and a critical bleed effect.

Mal-Chin once again got behind a tree with low brush. Engaging the channel linking that wonderful damage over time spell to his mana pool. The spell ticked away, gaining damage with each second. It was terribly painful to see this war leader had resistances of 14 for acid and 20 for poison. This meant his the acid damage peaked at 46 and poison damage was a cut down by a third at 40 damage per second. Still significant, yet this ogre had more than double the resistance of the ogre healer. To Mal-Chin it was a tragic reduction in his damage potential, yet what could he do other than accept these resistances, be grateful he wasn't meleeing skilled and continue channeling his mana.

Mal-Chin had noticed a lovely tree to hide at when he attacked the healer, he had gone directly to the spot for the sword ogre. It was perfect because it had several low hanging limbs which offered a significant amount of foliage cover. While he channeled he also swallowed down a mana regeneration potions every thirty seconds while he was still waiting for the notification that his target had died. Three minutes later and Mal-Chin could hear the waning combat sounding out. It was amusing because that ogre was calling desperately for heals and dispel, yet the way the spell worked, dispel could nullify a single tick but not remove the spell being channeled. It took another 3 minutes and 6 more potions consumed before Mal-Chin was discovered.

The sword ogre gave orders to ensure everyone was properly dispatched as well as finding the annoying one still keeping this spell going and bring them to him alive and unharmed.

One of the ogre warriors eventually found Mal-Chin in his hiding spot. Grabbed him and dragged him out before his war leader. Laying hands on him had been enough to break the channel ending the spell. Standing before the ogre this human simply looked the war leader in the eye then bowed at the waist to him for a moment before standing back up and saying “Greetings war leader.” It was as though this human was completely oblivious to his circumstance.

“Little human, it was your magic that had me so worried?” the war leader asked.