19.
Mature Dryad lvl. 68
(Dormant)
“I don’t think we can fight that,” Chloe said as she looked up at the giant oak tree. An ephemeral spirit was trying to force its way out of the bark, the limbs shaking violently as the dryad stirred from its sleep.
“I’m going to agree with you on that. Let’s kill the goats before they wake up the tree.”
“That’s a weird sentence.”
“It is, isn’t it. Together or split up?”
“Split up. I’ll take the two on the right and you get the three on the left?” Chloe suggested.
The two on the right were both weaker singers, only in the low forties. The three on the right had a level fifty-three hunter standing silently as its two charges, both high forties singers, did their work. Chloe would be able to burn through both of the singers if she could catch them off guard.
The hunter on the other hand was alert, dark eyes scanning the field around the towering tree, long conical ears twitching back and forth as it kept all its senses alert for anyone. Chloe was good, she had great equipment, but the level disparity was too much. Santi rolled his head, feeling his neck crack as he nodded his assent to the plan.
The distance between the corner of the block they were on and the middle of the park was two hundred yards or so. There was a slight valley that led to a soccer field that went back up towards the small hill that the giant tree sat on. They’d have to cross the street, down into the valleyl and across the entire soccer field to get to the five satyrs.
The distance between the two small groups was negligible. Chloe wouldn’t have much room to maneuver in her own fight unless she strayed toward his own battle. Santi wasn’t worried about the two singers she’d be fighting, but he didn’t want to get pincered in the fight. The hunter was too strong for him to focus on all five opponents.
“On three?” Santi asked.
“Three!” Chloe yelled, bursting from cover in a hard sprint. Her powerful physical stats showed as she was just a dark streak as she headed toward her targets. Santi didn’t let her quick burst of speed take him off guard, he was right on her hip, racing for all he was worth even as the hunter turned to look at them.
[Gust] smashed the hunter and its two singers, pushing them backward as their hooves tore furrows into the earth as they fought to hold their ground. The hunter’s sickle blade came out from a sash it wore around its waist as it lowered its head, bellowing a screeching warcry as the spell faded and allowed the monster to charge him. The two singers turned back to the tree, their music picking up its pace as they hurried to complete the awakening of the powerful dryad.
Santi and Chloe flew down the slope of the hill, hitting the soccer field and crossing it in the blink of an eye. The ground was dry and hard packed, giving Santi firm footing as he dug deep, rocketing up the hill in a single bounding step. The crest of the hill came up and he was inundated with an angry goat, its sickle dagger coming down and across to sever his throat.
“Fuck!” Santi shouted, the morph blade barely turning the dagger away from him as the heavier monster hit him in the stomach with its shoulder. Physics won out and Santi’s momentum was reversed, him and the hunter falling back down the hill while Chloe headed toward her targets.
His back hit the earth and he was able to wedge his foot up and into the satyr’s gut, pushing up and shoving the monster backward, toward the street they had come from. The heavy hunter was sent sailing even as Santi continued to roll backward, the explosive kick adding to his backward momentum.
Santi stabbed the morph blade into the earth and slowed himself as he got his feet back under him and stood upright on the soccer field. The hunter had already regained its feet and was launching itself down toward him with its evil looking scythe flashing in the sunlight. The glint of light twisted and stabbed as the hunter directed the gleam at Santi’s eyes.
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Blinking suddenly teary eyes, Santi lashed at knee height with a whip, feeling out where the goat was with his spell forms. The satyr leapt over the tendril whip and landed with ease. Right as [Crosscurrent-Orb] detonated. Earth and dried grass was shredded in a blast of power, the satyr picked and flung to Santi’s right. Dust rolled out as the dry dirt spread out in a haze, Santi racing through it without hesitation as the hunter rolled and came upright.
Both of their visions obscured, Santi relied on his spells while the satyr used its superior hearing, sensitive ears twitching constantly as it caught every whish of displaced air as Santi wielded the morph blade as a longsword, trying his best to cut down the higher ranked monster quickly. Chloe was by herself against four singers and he couldn’t spend time slowly whittling down his only opponent.
The scythe’s tip caught the edge of his blade and twisted, forcing him to strike the ground as a furry fist came flying at his face. Santi jerked his head to the side as hard as stone knuckles scraped across his jaw. The morph weapon turned to liquid and freed itself, forming up and over his fist into a thick spiked gauntlet.
Santi punched the goat in the side, bones crunching as he pulverized the satyr’s rib cage. The monster screamed in pain as Santi twisted his arm, ripping the spikes free in a spurt of warm blood. His free hand reached up and grabbed the goat’s horns, the smooth texture warm under his palm as he brought the taller satyr down to his eye level.
Pain blossomed through his leg as the satyr slashed him, but he was beyond that at the moment. Adrenaline was coursing through him as he reared back and hit again and again, mulching the satyr’s left side. The monster’s hot breath washed over Santi’s face as it screamed, pain and rage intermingling as it tried to gore him through the eyes with its horns.
His offhand strained as he kept the powerful monster from killing him while a smile spread across his face. He kept hitting the beast, anything that he could reach while the monster slashed wildly at him, scraping off his metal breastplate in showers of sparks. Twice more the blade found flesh, slicing deep on the outside of his leg.
“Come on, you have more! Fight me!” Santi screamed, his heart was racing as the curse surged through his body. Power was infusing him as he twisted the satyr’s head sideways and forced it to its knees. He rained blows down on it without hesitation, smashing bone and pulping flesh until the ding of the kill notification sunk through his killing haze.
He let the hunter fall dead as he shot up the hill, the wounds not slowing him as he continued to hunt for more opponents. Santi willed himself to force the red haze in his vision down. Chloe was fighting two singers at the same time, both of them dodging and twisting as she slowly whittled them down. Neither had any physical weapons, relying on their sharp hooves and wicked horns as they tried to avoid Chloe’s deadly black axe.
The other two were singing and dancing, their music a discordant harmony that raked at his soul. It seemed to be pissing off the dryad too, making it struggle fiercer and fiercer as it struggled to work itself out of the confines of the tree and into the waking world.
He attacked, morph piercing the closest one’s skull like a balloon. He twisted his wrist and ripped it free of the satyr’s skull as he lept over its falling body to slay the second singer before it could fully comprehend his arrival. The horrible sounds faded, lingering in the air for a few moments even with the death of the singers.
Santi spun and watched as Chloe finally landed a deadly blow. Eviscerating a singer that was just a bit too slow to back up. She shoulder checked it as it was bowed over and closed in on the final singer who had decided to try to flee. While fleet of hoof, it took a second too long to turn and Chloe’s axe was buried in between its shoulder blades as she rode it to the ground. With another brutal strike she took its head and gave a mercy blow to the first singer she had gutted.
“You good?” Chloe called over, standing over the headless corpse of the satyr. Santi was busy watching the tall oak tree to see if it was going to wake up or not. The thick chlorophyll green spirit had been strengthening in density the entire time they were fighting and now it had stopped, frozen partially freed of the tree.
“Yeah. Had a moment, but I’m okay now.”
“No homicidal urges?”
“No more than usual.”
“Fair enough,” Chloe chirped and came away from the dead corpse to stand next to him, her shoulders relaxed as she stared up at the entombed dryad.
“Could we kill it and harvest the experience?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. The system doesn’t seem to give us freebies so far. Probably wake it up the moment we hit it and it decides to kick our ass.”
“So, we don’t touch it and just leave it sitting here. Like an unexploded bomb?”
“Yup. Let’s get back to the others and get ready for anyone else who decides to come and challenge me for the pillar.”