CHAPTER 21 THE LAST ELF OF NALTHIEN

I was in terrible shape.

My health was down 60%, my mana was down to the last 10%.

And this was all not mentioning the fact that in my mad dash through the caves I had lost an arm. Chopped clean off by a demon who had been able to react just fast enough to take a swing at me, and at my heightened speeds I had been unable to avoid the attack coming from him. It was excruciatingly painful. My healing had stopped the bleeding, but I’d have to go back for the arm if I ever wanted to reattach it. And soon.

I glanced down at Penny. She was clutching on to me and trembling. She looked as bad as I felt. My heart started aching as my imagination ran wild with the horrors she had been through. My anger started to rise up again.

“Well, I must say, I’m impressed you made it this far despite being only in the first tier. Although it looks like you’ve suffered a loss to make it here.” The demon said.

Man he was big. Like huge. Stood roughly seven feet tall and looked to be made out of pure muscle.

[Level 723]

Yeah that wasn’t good. He easily outclassed me and all the Earth Raiders as well.

“Your arm…” Penny whispered, placing her hand where the stump was.

“Shhhh, just rest for now. Don’t worry about me, we’re gonna get you out of here first then we can worry about my arm.” I whispered back.

Penny just nodded meekly and just continued to let me heal her without saying a word. I needed to stall for time. The others will surely be close behind me, and it would take all of us together to handle big boy over here. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to handle him by myself.

Everything about this demon seemed completely off to me, he seemed way too calm. If I were him, I would’ve begun pressing my advantage in stats and moved to take out the opposition. But he was just waiting there. Watching and observing.

“What were you trying to do here anyways?” I asked the demon. Might as well see if I can get anything out of him while I wait.

The demon just smiled, but didn’t say anything. Odd, he seemed like he’d be the talkative type, the kind of person who enjoyed hearing their own voice as they talked about how great their plan was.

We had a staring match, neither one of us moving for several minutes as we just watched. Penny had fully healed up, now I was just trying to recover as much mana and stamina as I could while we looked at each other.

A few minutes later another demon came walking in. It was the one that had cut off my arm. And it was holding it too.

“Ah wonderful, you’re here. Let me have that, thank you.” He took my arm, and proceeded to burn it to ash. “Perfect, can’t be letting you have that back.” He smiled maliciously at me.

“Yeah, fuck you too buddy.” I said a lot more calmly than I felt.

Well that sucks. There goes my arm. That pissed me off a lot, more than it probably should’ve. I’m sure I’d eventually get an arm back, hell I could probably make one out of wood eventually. But for the time being I was now down one.

While we had our staring contest I decided I had more than enough points to stop being stingy with them so I bumped all of my enhancements to max level. Until I got to tier two myself, level 25 was the max for all these skills since they were tier one enhancements. My damage was up 25% with ranged attacks if the target was within ten feet, my agility was 25% higher, and my dexterity with my blade was up the same amount. This would be helpful, but not enough to change the outcome of the fight.

I could see how strong this creature was. I was vastly outclassed, and it scared me. I could feel my anxiety and stress building up as he paced around me. The only reason it hadn’t attacked yet was because it wasn’t sure how strong I was yet. I needed to keep the illusion up that I could potentially win a fight against this demon.

“You seem anxious, Elf. Is everything alright?” It said with a toothy smile.

“What’s your name anyways?” I deflected. I needed to steer the conversation away from this topic.

“My name is Miltaen, leader of the forces you see around you.” It said with a flourishing bow.

“That’s nice. My name is-”

“I know who you are.” Miltaen interrupted. “You’re Alexander King. World hopper and race changer. You are the last elf of Nalthien.”

“Huh… That’s actually a pretty cool title. I’m going to use that if you don’t mind.” I said with a cheeky smile.

“I would say I don’t mind, but you’re not going to live long enough for that to matter!” He roared and launched forward.

I quickly tossed Penny to the side and rolled the opposite direction, barely dodging his swipe. He was really fast. Faster than I was for certain. I pumped all my buffs to max and threw myself backwards drawing my blade.

Man, it really sucked to be missing an arm right now. Most of my spells had to be cast from my hand. I knew I could cast some of them from my sword, but not all. I barely managed to block his many ferocious blows, each one coming from a completely different angle that tested the limits of my prowess.

The demon didn’t seem to really be taking any damage from the lightning surrounding my blade either. And also surprisingly, the blade didn’t seem to cut through its fingers that easily. If any other creature had tried what it had, it would’ve sliced through them. But Miltaen just kept swinging away without a care in the world.

I kept track of his movements and spotted an opening, I used [Enchanted Redirection] and deflected his next attack before activating two skills with my next attack. [Mana Strike] and [Mana Flurry] came rushing out at the same time, my blade glowing blue with the skills and mana flowing through it.

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A quick flurry of eight blows in a thrusting motion launched outwards at his chest. Miltaen moved to block the first blow, his hands moving even faster than mine. He took the first one on his hand and then fire burst forth from his fists as he moved to block the other seven strikes aimed at his heart. When the attack finished he jumped back, dismissing the flames from his hands. Miltaen looked down at his hand that had blocked the first attack, it was very slightly bleeding. Ah, I had totally forgotten that was a thing. Resistances, some creatures were just going to be more resistant to certain attacks than others, for example as a lightning mage I was going to be more resistant to lightning magics. He had a class that made him more resistant to physical types of damage, or something along those lines.

[Mana Strike] however, helped overcome that. If I planned to even hurt him, I’d have to spend mana to get through his tough skin. The only other problem that came up was that I had infused that attack with the maximum amount of mana, and it barely did any damage to his hand. I couldn’t keep doing that or else I’d run out of mana quickly.

It looked like he was about to say something, but I didn’t care to listen anymore. My mind was focused completely on two things. Either defeating him, or holding him off long enough for Garrus and the others to arrive. I leapt forward swinging my blade in the most complicated patterns that I could. Constantly mixing in feints with the real blows.

Never before had my skills felt more intuitive than they did now. Everything flowed together, one attack to the next. I was outclassed in speed and strength. More than likely I was outclassed in technique as well, but he was still assuming that I was just a tier one and not a tier one that had an epic grade class since level 1.

We exchanged dozens of blows, dancing back and forth across the ritual table. He swung at my head, I ducked under it and slammed my sword down towards his feet. He danced backwards and I swung around the hilt of my sword aiming to kick him in the chin. He jumped back even further to dodge the blow. I landed on my feet -and thrust my hand out and cast [Paralyzing Blow].

Miltaen wreathed his hands in flame and attempted to knock it out of the air. As soon as his fist connected with it, the spell exploded covering his body in lightning. I didn’t even stop to think, I instantly ripped my sword out of the floor and dashed forward using nearly all my remaining mana in two skills. [Mana Strike] infused to the maximum once again caused a blue glow to come from my blade. [Enchanted Accuracy] sucked up the remaining mana I had and guided my strike.

Miltaen managed to regain control of his body in the last second and threw up his left arm to block at the last second, my skill instantly redirected my blow to the right. And my blade sliced straight through his arm, cutting it off cleanly.

Miltaen roared and leapt backwards. Breathing heavily and clutching at his arm. I just started laughing, I laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Ahhh, this is very amusing.” I said as I set my blade into the stone and wiped away the tears from my eyes. “Here you were acting all high and mighty and now look at you!” I said with the same malicious smile he had shown me.

I stuck my stump left arm out at him. “Look! We match now.” I started laughing again.

Miltaen roared and took a step forward. I instantly grabbed my sword and slashed through his arm multiple times cutting it into ribbons.

“And now you’ll be the same as me in the fact that you won’t be able to reattach it you fucking bastard.” I said with as much vitriol as I could muster.

I could see the anger mounting on his face. “You will regret that little elf. I will tear your remaining limbs from your body and water the ground with your blood. But before I grant you the most painful death your kind has ever known I will make you watch as I defile your friends and kill them before your eyes. When I’m finished they will blame you for the pain they feel and wish only for death. And only when my anger finally abates will I grant you the death you desire. I will make you regret every action you’ve taken today.”

I scoffed. “No, I don’t think you will.” I said and readied my blade in front me. “After all you said it yourself. I’m the last elf of Nalthien. What could I regret more than watching an entire city of innocent people burn and die to defend someone they never knew? You know something I’ve learned over my short time of life? You never brag about how strong you are before you win a fight. Because when you lose? The defeat only burns that much more!” I roared and launched myself at him once again.

Miltaen’s entire body erupted into flames as he used his first skill this fight.

“[Furious Sun]”

The world around me turned white, and everything exploded as heat burst outwards from his form. I was thrown backwards into the wall behind me, I barely managed to hold onto my sword. The roaring flames dimmed after a few seconds, I sat with my back against the wall coughing.

Everything hurt, despite that I could barely feel the pain. I could barely see in front of me, but I recognized the hulking form of Miltaen walking forward.

“Well, it looks like you weren’t as tough as you made yourself out to be.” He said with a slight chuckle.

He thrust his hand out and grabbed me by the throat lifting me off the ground. I didn’t even have the strength to move my other arm to try and support myself, I just had to sit there and slowly choke as he held me there.

“I did say I was going to make you watch me kill your friends, but it seems they are nowhere to be found. Even that little whore you saved is nowhere to be found. And I must say, I need to take your words on arrogance to heart. So I’m going to kill you now so you don’t have a chance to come back and try to bite me in the ass. Farewell, Elf. May you burn eternally.” He said, I felt his hand start to heat up as he prepared another skill.

I honestly hadn’t expected to die here, but I couldn’t keep having such close brushes with death and getting off scot free every single time. I was bound to lose out eventually. It just so happened that this was that time. I closed my eyes, the least I could do was meet my end with the little bit of dignity that I had left.

“[Close the Gap!] “

I heard Garrus roar out his skill and rush forward to attack Miltaen.

“Get away from him, you filthy demon!” He yelled.

Penny came rushing over to my side while Karif and George rushed to assist Garrus in fighting Miltaen.

“Alex! Alex, are you alright?” She pulled me up supporting my back, gingerly holding me.

I coughed, everything hurt. I was starting to be able to feel the burns on my skin, my lips were dried and cracked. My throat felt like it was on fire. It hurt to even breathe. So I didn’t even try to speak. I just rested and focused on the fight happening before me. I managed to vaguely gesture to the rest of the group trying to refocus her attention back on the fight.

Miltaen was strong. He was high up in the third tier in the seventies. But even with his level advantage he couldn’t handle fighting two frontline warriors who were being supported by a mage, all in the third tier as well. Along with the fact that he was missing an arm he just didn’t really stand a chance. Garrus and George coordinated their attacks perfectly. Each understanding every little move of the other and knowing when and how to time their blows to match.

Karif was just as skilled, perfectly placing his attacks in between theirs, filling the gaps and making sure Miltaen didn’t have a single moment to even cast a skill. Slash after slash, spell after spell, the group whittled him down until he was kneeling on the ground bleeding from dozens of cuts along his body.

Garrus took several steps up to him, “Shouldn’t have fucked with my party.” He said in a serious voice. No insults, no witty remarks. Just cold anger.

He swung his blade cleaving straight through his neck, killing him.

I received several notifications. And finally let out a sigh of relief knowing the demon had been slain.

‘Ping’ [Gratsenes Validity Level 723 / Flaming Claw of Oribon Level 553 / Rancor Level 203] Has been slain - experience divided amongst group.