“Huh. No one’s here.” I said, scratching my head.
Almost an hour later, the four of us stood in front of the abandoned enemy camp.
“This isn’t surprising. The commoner team doesn’t stand a chance at holding a fort against us, so they’re probably still hiding in the forest. They only need to be here when the time’s up, so they’ll likely attack when the last window for revival passes.” Nico said.
She walked up to the enemy flag, which stood rooted on the spot.
“Two can play the ‘hide the flag’ game. Kiara, take the flag and hide it somewhere. Make sure you aren’t being followed. Durreg, Astekhu, we’re building another fort. The enemy has to reach their own pedestal if they want to win, so we’re going to make this near impossible to do, even if they somehow got their hands on both flags.”
Durreg cracked his neck and gave a bitter grin.
“I’ve learned my lesson – I am going to make our defenses more of a labyrinth than a fort this time around. I’ll be holding down the pedestal instead of fighting.”
“And I’ll take your place instead.” Asty said, her hands instinctively over her pouch.
“Being next to the rest of you is going to make sneak attacks much harder, and I am itching to get a few hits in myself over what happened last time.”
“Sounds like we have a plan.” I said, picking up the red flag from its pedestal, “I’ll go and hide this then come back and watch for the enemy team from within the forest.”
***
Nuhem Serapis
“…This doesn’t look good.” Netos winced with chagrin from atop a nearby tree before dropping down next to us.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“They’re already adapting from what happened in the last fight. They’re still going with defensive constructions and forest clearings, but instead of a massive castle like last time, they built a large maze, and they’re already covering it with a massive roof.” The archer reported.
“I can also feel the magic signal I left on our pedestal being removed from it and copied all over the structure. I can’t tell where it is anymore.” Nishem said.
Aui heaved a sigh.
“Well, going with the same plan twice against an opponent like them is just asking for trouble. And since we absolutely have to get to the flag pedestal, there’s no avoiding another fight, and they know it. Maybe we should have struck their fort on the last hour.”
“Fighting a fortified enemy, taking the enemy flag, and going back to our own pedestal was always a long shot. Trickery was only going to get us so far; it was inevitable we had to deal with this.” Nekthu said, then his grip on his staff tightened.
“We have a numbers advantage, and if I didn’t die right at the start, then we would’ve been able to make use of it.”
I put a hand to Nekthu’s shoulder, and I saw his grip relax a little.
“Don’t worry about it. We underestimated Kiara and ended up being the ambushed rather than the other way around. We won’t repeat that mistake again. More importantly, although there were five of them at the start, we only fought three – four if you include the person Tor took out in the fort. They probably have the same idea we do, so we’ve got to watch out for that last enemy lurking somewhere.”
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***
“It’s time. Let’s go.” I said.
We had entered the last hour of the match, and no one who died is coming back before it’s over. We trekked carefully through the forest and approached the treeline before the clearing. We all shared a look, then immediately immerged from the forest with our weapons at the ready.
Standing atop the structure was Lady Sept, and next to her was Lady Amenrut. They were waiting for us, judging by the arrow that was dipped into the bucket next to them pointing our way.
“Take them down one by one and watch out for sneak attacks!” I said, raising my shield in front of me.
Aui began using her flute to strengthen us, and our three ranged attackers didn’t waste time firing a barrage of attacks on the enemy. Lady Sept responded in kind, firing magic arrow after magic arrow our way. Lady Amenrut moved her hand and activated a spell, summoning a strange, metallic blob of liquid in front of her. Then, with her other hand, she started firing waves of arcane mana at Nishem’s and Nekthu’s water and acid spells respectively, dispersing their projectiles mid-air. The metallic blob near her moved like it had a mind of its own and intercepted all of Netos’s arrows, seemingly swallowing them whole. Lady Sept continued attacking, unfazed by our attempts to take her out from a distance.
“Follow me!” I said, using my class skills to redirect Lady Sept’s arrows straight into my shield as I began advancing towards the wall nearly fifty meters away.
We didn’t have the luxury of time to wait out the enemy’s mana reserves, so we had to move right away. The enemy knew so too, which was probably why Lady Amenrut began casting arcane attack spells of her own.
My shield was getting hammered with attacks, but my mana was easily going to last long enough until we reached the wall our enemies stood on. More importantly, when were the other three going to strike at us?
“Incoming, brace!” Nishem said, activating her sanctuary spell to cover us once again.
In a sense of déjà vu, a breath of flames enveloped Nishem’s shield. The water sizzled and boiled, but just barely held against the flames before the battlefield finally reemerged in our vision. And just like last time, Kiara was flying overhead with her fist cocked back.
“Not so fast!” Nekthu yelled, launching a massive stream of acid towards the dragon.
“[Fist of Justice]!”
If the sound of Nishem’s shield sizzling against the flames was like listening to a hundred kettles, then this clash sounded like a thousand. The acid stream rapidly ate away at the fist at a rate so fast that it almost seemed like it was flying unopposed through thin air.
Right as the stream was about to reach Kiara, she activated another skill.
“[Almighty Push]!”
In an instant, the acid that was about to reach her splashed against an invisible sphere that was rapidly pushing against it, splattering it all over us in a deadly rain. Nekthu quickly moved his hands, and the acid reformed into a sphere over his head. Kiara was still hurtling towards us when Netos moved to stop her.
“[Piercer of Heaven]!”
An arrow with the force of a hurricane behind it screamed as it tore its way to Kiara, who tried to dodge but lost an arm anyway. The arrow continued flying overhead before exploding into mana that formed a thundercloud overhead, already forming the sounds of crackling lightning. As expected of an elemental, Kiara’s arm was already back, though Netos’s goal of fending off her assault was achieved. While that was happening, Lady Sept and Lady Amenrut continued bombarding my shield as we made it halfway to the fort.
“This is going to be a rough fight.” I sighed under my breath.
Seemingly eager to prove my words, massive rocks hurtled from beyond the walls towards us, as if the enemy had an array of trebuchets to bombard us with. Nekthu moved his acid sphere to intercept, burning the rocks into smaller chunks that Nishem could block with her own shield spells.
Our defenses against the enemy ranged attacks just barely held, and the two dozen meters we’d had left to march seemed to stretch many times its own size. As if that wasn’t enough, Kiara flew behind us and began firing spells from a wide range of attributes. Ice spears, fireballs, sonic waves – Nishem grit her teeth as her shield spells broke one after the other, not being designed for such diverse kinds of punishment. With bombardment from both sides, our advance grinded to a halt, and we became sitting ducks for their seemingly endless mana reserves to decimate.
Which is why no one had attention to spare for whatever Kiara was doing out of our line of sight. From within the enemy fortress, a ball of magma emerged and then launched our way, just like the rocks did. From a distance, it didn’t look like anything too unusual, so we didn’t notice it until it was too late.
The magma ball vaporized Nekthu’s acid that intercepted it like it did every other rock as it came crashing down on me.
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!” I screamed, lava seeping into my armor and spontaneously combusting my body beneath it.
Nishem’s eyes widened in shock then looked to our enemies, who were already firing the barrage that would finish us off. Gritting her teeth, Nishem raised her hand and did the only thing she could to prevent us from being wiped out.
“[Bail out]!”