A loud Kaboom echoed across the battlefield as Grangar's fist slammed into a green bubble shaped barrier made by the corrupt mage. Dust billowed from the explosion with an explosion blowing it away, clearing up the line of sight. The fist made a crater in the shield. Unlike my mana barrier which was 1 layer thin, the corrupt mage's was several layers thick, about 15 layers thick to be precise with each layer being 1 cm thick. Grangar's fist had punched through 5 layers of the barrier, with large spiderweb cracks going across the front half of the barrier.
The mage cackled and said "A nice show of force my friend but how about we end this farce." With that he raised his hand and aimed it at Grangar. He jumped to the side right away, knowing something was coming at him but was a second too slow as a large green bolt of mana slammed into his left side, sending him tumbling.
"Agh!" He slammed his hand into the ground to stop himself from rolling farther away and stood up. The armour on his left side had a large crack where the bolt of mana impacted it but he was otherwise fine. He turned towards the corrupt mage and yelled "Oh don't worry. I'm just getting started!" as he dashed towards him channelling mana through his fists.
Meanwhile, I, on the other hand ducked as an ogre swung his club at me, nearly taking my head off. I was rather annoyed and yelled "Piss off you big ugly bastard! You're getting in the way of the fight!" I fired an ice shard into his skull, which imbedded an inch into his skull but I wasn't done there. I swung my sword at the ogre's face and whacked the flat side into the ice shard sticking out, shoving it deeper into its skull, killing it. I looked back towards the action but there were more ogres running towards me.
"God damnit just when the action was getting good" I complained as I readied my sword along with the others. The ogres were getting close when there was another explosion, which wiped out almost all of the charging ogres. I looked over and saw that it was those 2 still duking it out, with Grangar sending titan sized punches one after the other at the barrier. The barrier was heavily cracked, with 12 layers of it caved in or torn off by his bare fists.
Off to my left I heard some random adventurer mutter "And I nearly called him a weak old man to his face..." The muttering was followed by shuddering by several people here. Those 2 were simply in a world of their own wit hte level of power they were slinging. Ogre's were turned to puddles of blood in an instant, walls of stone raised and torn down within seconds. It was chaos, and I was enjoying every minute of it. "I can't wait till I level up again and can fight shit like that. Man it'll be great. I wonder how long it'll take me to get to a higher level than the guild master."
My drive to get stronger had been rekindled watching this fight. I was simply getting stronger before for the sake of it but now I was going to get stronger for a different reason. One of the very reasons I played the game in the first place.
Because it was fun.
While I was lost in thought about all the epic fights against dragons and giants, I heard Ronia yell at me from behind me. "Oi Zane! Get your head out the clouds and focus on not dying would you?! Less thinking more killing!" An arrow whizzed past and impaled an ogres eye all the way to the feather on the end, sending me out of my thoughts. I got back into the swing of things and thanked Ronia for covering for me and got back to fighting. We were still in a warzone technically, so daydreaming could come later. Living through the battle came first.
I heard numerous loud explosions along with the guild master screaming "STOP RUNNING YOU DAMN COWARD!" followed by more explosions. I occasionally saw the 2 powerhouses whiz by, with the corrupt mage slinging several spells at the guild master and sometimes a few at the adventurers if he had enough time to. Each time he fired at the adventurers it always resulted in critical injuries and several deaths., but there was nothing we could do about it. He was that damn powerful. The only powerful adventurers that were around were busy fighting dozens of ogres at a time or were off somewhere in the city fighting Horbrot Splitters.
This whole mess seemed rather well planned out. He sent numerous boss class monsters throughout the city to split up the adventurers and weaken them for his main strike on the guild. "I wonder what the bastards goal is in the first place? Y'know other than taking over the city and all that jazz. Does he want to take over the city to stage some assaults on other cities nearby? Or is he just going on a rampage for hthe hell of it?" I shook my head as I tried to ignore those thoughts and focus on fighting.
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I heard a grunt as Herald swung his sword and then responded to my random muttering with "I don't know man. This seems too well planned for it to be a random rampage. I feel like this guy has far larger plans in the works, all of which are hinged on this city belonging to him. Think about it, why else would he try to take over the city with such little destruction. He could have easily blown a hole in the walls and sent forth an endless wave of monsters to take us out and destroy the city, but he didn't."
Herald went quiet as he focused on killing an ogre that was charging at him, leaving me to mull over what he had said. I kept thinking and fighting, completely ignoring the fighting of the guild master and the corrupt mage other than listening to the odd explosion here and there.
~~~
"Gahaagh!". I heard that as I was killing my umpteenth ogre. I looked to see which moron had let an ogre whack em and was slack-jawed. There was the guild master Grangar, flying back into view like a ragdoll. He slammed into the ground, leaving a crater in the road and got up with a groan. His right arm was limp, with several cuts bleeding all along it. The armour on his right arm and right side of his stomach had been shattered and he was bleeding from there.
He spat blood and yelled out "Need a bit of healing! Quick!". Immediately several people started healing him but they didn't get to heal for long. The corrupt mage literally flew over with his feet emitting green mana.
He cackled and looked down at the guild master being healed and said "Well that was a bit of a disappointment now wasn't it Grangar? Guess old age really has done you in hasn't it?" The mage's barrier was completely shattered. His robes had several tears in it and he looked like he was wheezing slightly. Guess the tough guy was putting on an act.
The mage fired 3 green bolts of mana at the guild master. He managed to dodge 2 of them but the third slammed into his left leg, effectively stopping him in his tracks as the guild master struggled to stand and not crumple right there. He took out a blood red potion in an ornate bottle and downed the whole thing in one gulp and took out a second one. Before he could down that as well he had to dodge to the left as more bolts of green mana bored into where he had once been standing. He tripped and tumbled onto the ground since he was still badly injured on his left leg. Hell I could see the sinews and bone in his leg from the severity of his wound.
The potion was doing its work though as the injury was rapidly healing. It looked creepy with the muscles wriggling like worms and knitting back together but I didn't get to focus on it too much as The guild master was impaled through his gut with a large spear of green mana. The mana seeped into the wound and started to mess with the injured area, further worsening the wound.
I heard several people scream "Guild Master!!" as he dropped to his knees clutching his stomach. The corrupt mage sauntered over while he was rebuilding his barrier of mana. He had 3 layers done so far and was working on his 4th.
The mage's face was still hidden by his hood but you could hear the glee in his voice as he said "Finally! You're finally down for the count! Hah! You nearly killed me several times there but it was all worth it in the end. I get to hand in such a great specimen to the High Council. I wonder If I'll get a promotion. Hehehe, I can't believe that the months of planning will finally pay off! It was well worth the blood tithe I paid to those infernal creatures, as creepy as they might be. Still, I wouldn't want to deal with one of them again. I hate D-"
He didn't get to finish as he was sent flying, all 3 layers of his barrier shattered. He slammed through a wall and into the next one. I heard him scream "Cough That hurt you bastard cough!"
I looked to who the hell could pack a punch as powerful as the guild master and there was someone standing right next to the guild master. boom.
Another explosion occurred as a man in a butler suit with white gloves brushed his coat and cleaned the dust off. He sent a wave of mana to the guild master and his wounds started to heal up.
"Oh its the butler dude, Seba-wait...I don't even know his name. Hey old man, what's your name? You won't disappear on me like last time will you?" I was so excited to see someone who resembled one of my favourite anime characters that I forgot I was in a warzone. I was bouncing on my heels in excitement, with my eyes practically shining. I had forgotten that this dude wasn't actually him but that didn't matter at the time to me.
The old man helped the guild master up and chuckled. He looked at me and said "The names Alfred Jeoffson. You look quite excited even though it's our second meeting. Well, how about I show my appreciation for such excitement by helping out with this problem."
The way he said problem sent shivers up my spine and I froze in place, but only for a second as the feeling passed. Alfred went back to looking like a kind old butler.
The corrupt mage got out of the hole in the wall and saw Alfred and froze. He stammered, saying "W-w-why is ALFRED JEOFFSON THE DEMONIC BUTLER HERE?!"