With the benefit of hindsight, Symon could admit that he'd been a little overconfident after getting his Swords skill. He'd cut off that monster's leg pretty smoothly, but he didn't have the experience needed to do well in such a fast-paced and scrappy fight. Ultimately, he wasn't that much more capable in a fight than the average man from Earth, but he did have experience responding to emergencies.
Time felt like it slowed down as he triaged his own situation. He felt dizzy, weak, and his vision was simultaneously blurring and darkening. Not good, but he didn't know what the cause was and guessed it would take too long to figure out — he had more immediate concerns. He had rolled onto his back, so one monster was lying across him as it chewed on his left forearm, while the second, three-limbed monster was attached to his left leg. Certainly a more pressing issue than some vague feelings.
He knew the current problems he faced, and the order he would fix them in. He had to take out the monsters first before he could fix whatever was causing the dizzyness, before finally moving to help his friends. But what tools did he have to do that?
His draining magic was already going at full intensity, so there was nothing he could do there. His healing magic was working in the background — he could direct it more precisely, but he didn't feel he could manage that, empowering the draining, and fighting with his sword all at the same time. His brain could only focus on so many things at once, after all, and he needed to prioritise.
With that in mind, his numb fingers tightened their grip on his sword, before raising it up into the air. In his weakened state, it felt ten times heavier than it should have been, but he still managed it. With a grunt of effort, he brought it down and impaled the monster that had been trying to chew through his arm.
Unnervingly, it didn't let out a single sound as it released him. He almost missed the centipedes and their constant hissing.
He then leaned forward, delivering a similar blow to the monster that had latched onto his leg. Neither of them had even attempted to avoid the blow, seeming to prefer to inflict as much damage as they could with no regard for their own life. This one took an extra stab to detach, but it too fell to the ground beside him, rapidly dying alongside its packmate.
His vessel had been flooding his body with waves of vitality, but he took control of it and directed it to his leg. His arm was more severely damaged, but it was his non-dominant hand, and his weapon was a shortsword designed to be used with one hand. He put pressure on his damaged arm as he slowly stood on unsteady legs, the muscle knitting itself together.
As he healed, he took in the ongoing battle.
Atabek appeared undamaged, casually cutting all the way through a monster with every swing of his axe. Looks like he doesn't need my help after all, Symon thought. Safiya also appeared undamaged, but she hadn't been able to take down many of the monsters herself. Not including Symon, Aslan was the worst off out of the group. None of the lamprey-like monsters were currently attached to him, but he had a number of freely bleeding wounds across his limbs. His bleeding wasn't nearly as fast as Symon's had been, so they didn't seem to slow him down too much as he deflected a leaping monster into the ground before skewering it with his sword.
By now Symon's leg had ceased all bleeding, and while he could have limped around he knew he still couldn't run or fight properly. No one needed immediate help, so he directed his vitality to his forearm, looking at the wound properly for the first time.
"Ah, fuck," he groaned, looking at the visible white bone. The monster had completely chewed a chunk of the muscle off, and then cracked partially into the bone itself, weakening it enough to snap it. Once again, Symon lamented the relative weakness of his Pain Resistance. He was glad he'd picked it when he'd gotten the chance to evolve a stat, as without it he would have surely been helplessly screaming on the ground, but he really wished it could do a little bit more, especially considering what he knew was coming next.
He painfully rotated his limp hand to get a look at his vessel tattoo — it was slightly higher than when the fight had started, currently sitting at almost three-quarters full. Seize was still ripping the life from the rapidly dying monsters at his feet, but he knew he already had enough vitality stored anyway. There was no putting this off any further.
Gingerly, he placed his arm against his stomach, taking a deep breath to prepare himself. Before he could think his way out of it, he dropped his sword and used his now free hand to push the bone back into alignment. He screamed out a wordless curse as his still blurry vision momentarily flashed red, the pain blurring his vision. Luckily, his magic didn't need him to think in order to work, so the bone rapidly fused back together now that the ends were touching. He pushed more vitality to the area, picking up his sword with his other arm as he started stumbling back to the fight. His vision felt slightly better, his balance improved just a little, but not by much. He still wasn't sure what was happening.
"Ugh, Keelgrave... so dizzy..." he thought, not trusting himself to speak clearly but aware enough to hope the spirit had some advice.
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Dizziness, weakness, loss of focus... all symptoms of bloodloss, Symon realised. It was the best fit, but Symon didn't understand how it had gotten so severe so quickly. He would figure out the cause later, as fixing the issue and helping his friends came first. His arm had stopped leaking blood, so he released his grip on his vitality and allowed it to spread out evenly as he thought about where to direct it. He knew that fresh blood cells were largely created in bone marrow, but he also knew that his healing only partially followed the natural healing process of his body.
Blood, blood, more blood... but how?
His heart beat a panicked but weak rhythm. It felt like a small bird was trapped in his chest, struggling rapidly but ineffectually. With a sudden surge of inspiration, he once more clamped his will down onto the vitality flowing out of his vessel, this time moving it only slightly. He shifted the vital essence to the side, focusing it in and around his heart, and let out an immediate sigh of relief.
As soon as the vitality touched his heart, the organ greedily absorbed it. In turn, it began pumping harder and harder until it was back to the strength and speed he'd expect from an adrenaline-filled combat. He stood slightly straighter, the blurriness of his surroundings slowly faded, and the dark edges of his vision began to recede.
Once he thought he could move without falling over, he released his hold on his vitality, once more allowing it to spread out to his still painful wounds. His stores of vitality had ticked up ever so slightly, Seize still working diligently in the background to finish off the monsters at his feet, so he remained still and allowed both it and Idealise to continue working as he planned his next move.
He'd wanted to charge in and help Aslan, but he also accepted he'd just get torn to shreds again if he tried. Instead, he needed to help one of the others, helping them with their section of the battle and allowing them to both go help Aslan.
First, he directed his attention back to Atabek. At first, he was shocked to see how quickly the tides had turned. The giant of a man was almost completely coated in blood, although he quickly realised that his worry was misplaced. Before his eyes, a monster leapt through the air and grabbed onto Atabek's arm, just as it had done to Symon. The man then shouted something in Dumosi before lifting the attached monster into the air over his head, gripping it with both hands, and then tearing it in half. The blood showered down onto his grinning face — some of it got in his mouth, but he didn't seem to care — before he threw the pieces away and turned to the next monster. It was the last one on his side.
It was the first time he'd seen Atabek properly fight, and the results were even more impressive than he'd expected. Maybe he could ask him for some exercise tips...
He was sure that upon killing his final target, Atabek would then pick the largest cluster of monsters and charge directly towards them. In this case, that meant the ones harassing Aslan. Together, the pair would mop up the monsters, so he instead turned his attention to Safiya.
She was doing fine, but her skillset and weapons weren't designed for dealing with several enemies at once. She was much faster than her foes, but it would only take a single hit to slow her down, that one hit quickly snowballing into more and more. She would probably be fine on her own, but there was no way Symon could just sit by and watch when he could be doing something.
The wound delivered to his calf had been minor in comparison to his forearm injury, so it was already mostly healed. It ached, but after testing his weight on it with a few steps he found it to be good enough to fight with.
The group had naturally spread out as they fought their own group of monsters individually, so Symon had some time to observe Safiya's fighting as well as continue healing himself as he walked towards her. She continually circled around the small group, feinting in and causing them to snap outwards, allowing her to deliver a quick slash with her dagger before dancing backwards. He couldn't replicate her style exactly — he was nowhere near quick enough for that — but perhaps he could accomplish a close enough approximation by using his Running for a hit and run tactics.
Aslan had previously brought up the synergy of a spear in tandem with a way to boost your speed, which would effectively turn Symon into a jousting knight, just without the horse. The more he considered it, the more the idea appealed to him. He was too undefended, especially considering his sword had such a short range, putting him right in the face of danger. A nice long spear to safely pick off enemies at a distance sounds wonderful...
There were only a few monsters left, but he noticed that Safiya had begun to slow down. She just didn't have the endurance everyone else did — except Symon, but he could fake it with his healing — and couldn't maintain such a superhuman speed for long. Not wanting to wait for her to be hurt, he sped up into a run. His leg protested painfully as he did so, but not in a way that would slow him down.
Holding his sword out, he ran past the monsters as he released a wide, sweeping arc with his sword. He felt the impact dig into something before sliding out, and when he turned around he saw one of the monsters had been flipped upside down by the sheer impact as it was cut nearly in half by the blade, instantly taking it out of the fight.
Of the three remaining monsters, only one broke away to chase after Symon. Without its ranged attacks — he still wasn't sure exactly why they'd stopped — and without a numbers advantage, Symon had a much easier time. Whenever it would approach, he would hop back and deliver a quick but weak strike. This happened a few times, until the creature snapped forward just a little too far, allowing him to plunge his sword all the way through its body, pinning it to the floor.
When he looked back he saw that Safiya was fine, although she was heaving down great gulps of air as she stood next to the corpses of the last two monsters on her side.
All that remained were those that had initially focused on Aslan, but he made short work of them in combination with Atabek. Before long, the last skeletal, doglike monster was cut in half by his massive axe, and the battle was over.