I looked at the two Orukthyri, feeling desperation starting to claw at my chest.

Sallia and I were both injured. Sallia’s arm was broken, and after getting punched in the arm and flung around like a rag doll, I wasn’t feeling very good either. I was incredibly lucky that I was wearing my {Lake-Gazer’s Dress}, or I might have also broken a few bones. However, I was badly bruised now, even considering my inhumanly sturdy body. These two creatures felt impossible to fight right now.

I spared a moment to glance at the walls, and saw the soldiers of the cavern swarming the two Orukthyri that Sallia and I had failed to distract. The two Orukthyri were almost overwhelming the soldiers, but through sheer force of numbers, they were still injuring the creature. Every soldier exchanged their lives to get in a few cuts, and other soldiers were physically leaping on the creature’s arms and legs and trying to drag them down. The Orukthyri on the walls were inflicting heavy casualties, but they would probably fall soon.

Unfortunately, since the soldiers were barely winning their fight, they were in no position to help Sallia and I. Worse, if we lost control of our two Orukthyri, the position on the walls would come crashing down in seconds.

I glanced at the Orukthyri spellcaster, and saw that part of its face was charred and injured. It looked like we were slowly winning the battle against the spellcaster as well. But Sallia and I might lose control of our fight long before the other two battles came to a conclusion. In other words, if nothing changed, we might all die here. Lauren, Ella, and the spellcaster soldiers couldn’t help us: they were tied up fighting the caster or the other Orukthyri. My mind raced for a solution, but I couldn’t find one. I didn’t know how to stabilize our battle, and once Sallia and I lost, the entire battle would tilt in favor of the Orukthyri.

I felt a helpless laugh bubble up in my stomach as I realized we might be about to die. These things were just too sturdy. They were incredibly hard to kill. And since they were even more resistant to magic than normal Orukthyri, it seemed that third circle spells were unable to do much against them.

Luckily, I wasn’t the only one who could come up with ideas.

“Miria! Can you hold off these two for a bit?” Asked Sallia, eyeing the caster in the distance. I wondered what Sallia had seen that I hadn’t. But I trusted my friend. If she had a way to get us out of this mess, I would do whatever I needed to. I wouldn’t let my friends get hurt in this fight as long as I was still alive.

“I’ll do my best!” I said, as I gritted my teeth. I wished I could give her a stronger affirmative answer, but I honestly wasn’t sure if I could hold down the two Orukthyri. But if Sallia needed me to keep them pinned down for a while, even if I died doing it, I would stop them for as long as I could.

Sallia seemed to see my determination in my eyes, and she hesitated for a moment. Then, she gritted her teeth.

“Look after yourself first. But do your best.” Then, she paused for a moment. “We’re a team. Don’t die before me, or I’ll definitely have some words with you.”

Still, despite her obvious worry, Sallia decided to trust me. She activated everything. I watched as she threw out spells, her rune abilities, and her attunements. In addition, she burned a massive amount of mana to strengthen her body and perception: I realized that she would run out of mana in less than a minute at this rate. She was going all out.

Then, she started sprinting towards the spellcaster. The less injured Orukthyri seemed to realize what she was doing, and tried to run between her and the spellcaster. Apparently, the Orukthyri were smart enough to realize that the battlefield was in a precarious balance, and if Sallia succeeded she would overthrow that balance. I needed to distract it.

I blasted the less injured Orukthyri with a bunch of soul-ocean water, causing it to wince in pain and narrow its eyes towards me.

At least these things were easy to distract.

The creature snarled, and then charged at me. However, the other, one-eyed Orukthyri’s single eye locked on to Sallia. I needed to distract it as well, if I wanted Sallia’s plan to work.

I hesitated for a moment, before I wondered if I could use general shaping to reduce the magic resistance of the Orukthyri a little bit. I kicked myself for not thinking of this solution earlier.

If I could deal enough damage to the one-eyed Orukthyri, I might be able to remove it from the fight, or at least cripple it enough that I could handle both Orukthyri at once. If I failed, I wasn’t sure if I could handle both Orukthyri at once.

I focused on the one-eyed Orukthyri concentrating on Sallia, and demanded that its body lose some of its magic resistance. It wasn’t too hard to imagine; after all, as far as I knew, most Orukthyri would be seriously injured by a third circle spell. These things were abnormally magic resistant, but I could easily imagine their magic resistance being at the level of a normal Orukthyri.

Forcing the creature’s magic resistance to disappear for even a few seconds turned out to be remarkably difficult. I felt alteration essence drain out of me like water gushing out of a broken faucet.

“Anise! Felix! Hit that one’s other eye!” I yelled, praying that someone had a third-circle spell they could spare. I knew Anise could cast a few third-circle spells, and I prayed that her accuracy was good this time.

To my surprise, it was Lauren who took advantage of the creature’s distraction. He was paying more attention to our battle than I had given him credit for, and the moment Sallia started sprinting towards the spellcaster, he seemed to have realized what we were trying to do. A fireball crashed into our side’s soldiers, nearly disrupting their attempts to swarm the two Orukthyri warriors on the wall. However, using the time the other soldiers bought with their lives, Lauren launched a massive ice lance directly into the other eye of Sallia’s Orukthyri.

Since I had temporarily dropped the creature’s magic resistance back to the level of a normal Orukhyri, the third-circle ice lance tore through its eye, blinding it. The creature roared in pain, before flailing around like a drunk chicken. It smashed its tree-club into the nearby cavern walls, but it didn’t seem to know where we were. As long as we stayed out of its area, one Orukthyri had been taken out of the fight.

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The other Orukthyri was nearly upon me now. I tensed my body, worried that it’s speed would suddenly increase again. Luckily, it didn’t seem able to speed up rapidly right now. It simply tried to slap the top of my head, an action that would probably shatter my skull like rotten fruit if I got hit directly.

I rolled out of the way, and then nicked its finger with my sword. I was out of alteration essence, so I had to hope this thing forgot about Sallia and stayed focused on me. If it focused on Sallia again, we were probably all dead.

It swung its tree club at me, trying to hit the areas not protected by my dress.

I ducked underneath the branches of the tree, and felt a few of the branches catch me in the neck, leaving bloody scratches on my skin. However, most of the branches splashed into my dress and then came out the other side, accomplishing absolutely nothing. I retaliated by cutting at its finger again, leaving a small but deep wound in its skin.

It grumbled at me, but I could tell that after failing to kill me for so long, and since I couldn’t do much damage to it, its attention was starting to wane. Its eyes spun around the battlefield again, and settled on Sallia.

I got desperate. Nothing was going to hurt my friends while I had anything to say about it.

So I did some very stupid.

Since the Orukthyri had deemed me a nonthreat, it wasn’t even looking in my direction right now. So I jumped onto its back and desperately started climbing upwards. If it continued to ignore me, I would stab it in the eye and make it pay attention to me again!

Jumping on its back got the Orukthyri’s attention again. Immediately, reached towards its back and tried to grab me. I dropped about half a meter, dodging its grab, and then stabbed it in the back of its hand.

This pissed the creature off even more, and after a moment, it came up with a different method of dealing with me. Instead of trying to grab me, it simply opted to fall on its back in order to crush me.

I realized what was happening just fast enough to position my sword between the Orukthyri and the floor.

Crunch.

Both of my legs broke, and several bones in my right arm shattered under the weight of the creature.

However, the Orukthyri also howled in agony. I had managed to use the ground and my wrist to brace my sword, and when the Orukthyri had fallen on me, it had also fallen directly onto the tip of my blade.

My strength was nowhere near enough to drive the sword into the Orukthyri’s skin. However, the Orukthyri could certainly hurt itself by falling directly onto a sword, especially given its massive weight. And the Market’s sword was several times sturdier than a regular sword, so it could handle plenty of abuse without breaking.

The Orukthryi whimpered and sprang to its feet, nearly yanking my arm off as it leapt away from me and my sword.

And then, it started coughing as blood oozed out of the massive wound in its back. As I felt dizzying waves of pain threaten to knock me unconscious, I grinned.

I had hit its lungs.

Which was lucky, because I was on the verge of passing out. My broken arm and broken legs hurt so badly I was barely able to stay conscious. However, the Orukthyri was now doubled over in pain, hacking its lifeblood onto the cavern floor. One of the two nearby Orukthyri was blind, and by a mixture of luck and willingness to nearly die myself, the other was probably going to die soon.

Sallia was safe. I smiled at that thought, even though my broken limbs hurt so much I felt like I would die.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sallia launch herself into the air. Ella must have noticed Sallia’s desperate ploy, and the caster once again doubled over in pain for a moment, distracting it while Sallia wielded her sword with her uninjured arm. As the caster was recovering from its sudden headache, Sallia rammed her sword through one of the creature’s eyes, and the muscles in its face started to squirm around.

The creature screeched in agony and angrily swiped at Sallia, trying to kill her. But despite her broken bones and severe bruising, Sallia still managed to dodge the creature.

And most importantly, the creature was now so distracted it wasn’t worried about throwing spells at the soldiers on the walls. Which meant Lauren could take the time to build a bigger spell, instead of defending us from the spellcaster’s magic.

Lauren wasted no time capitalizing on the time Sallia had bought. He spent several seconds putting together a much larger spell, before a fourth-circle beam of light tore into the creature’s injured eye. Since I had already seriously weakened its life force at the start of the fight, its already insufficient resistance was completely unable to handle Lauren’s spell. The creature collapsed.

Since the caster’s soul hadn’t finished leaving its body yet, I added a final drop of water to it just to make sure {Endless Hunger} activated. I wasn’t quite sure if the Ability worked off of last hits or not, but I wanted to make sure I got a new skill.

Slaughter: Assist in killing an Orukthyri Third or Fourth Circle variant Spellcaster for the first time

Achievement +500

Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured Orukthyri variant Spellcaster for the first time. New Skill created.

Crude Manifestation Essence: Your Manifestation Essence Stat is increased by 10 points. You learn the third circle spell crude fireball, as well as the prerequisite magic symbols (fire, force, wind). (This spell is notably inferior to more developed forms of the same spell)

I laughed, a painful burbling sound as spikes of agony lanced down my broken limbs.

I had two broken legs and a broken arm, but we had broken the stalemate on the battlefield. There were only two Orukthyri still in fighting condition. I looked at the Orukthyri near me that wasn’t quite dead yet, and used the last of my alteration essence to form a final droplet of water from the ocean of souls.

Its life was already on the verge of guttering out, so I extinguished it. I wanted to make sure its death counted for {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}, and I didn’t remember whether I had used water magic against this creature yet.

Its life force was extinguished. It died.

Slaughter: Kill an Orukthyri variant Warrior for the first time

Achievement +1,200

Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured Orukthyri variant warrior for the first time. New Skill created.

Exceptional Magic Resistance: You gain a major amount of resistance to shaping and spellcasting. Your physical Stats are all increased by 8.

With the two kills, my Achievement went from 2,818 to 4,518. And I immediately equipped the two new skills, since I had no reason not to.

I took one last look at the battlefield and smiled as I watched Lauren and Ella turn their attention to the last two Orukthyri at the wall. With the battlefield under control, we wouldn’t have any difficulty cleaning up the last two Orukthyri.

And then I passed out. Now that adrenaline wasn’t keeping me awake, the pain from breaking three of my limbs was too much for me to handle.