How do things get so fucked as i wonder as i look at shamon who has already begun to retreat. I wonder if i should have activated the formation fully by now. Well, it would have been the safer option i guess. I need to fight them on my own once though. Not for any fancy reason, i just need to have a strong grasp of their strength and that is only acquired in the process of fighting.
Well, my first goal is to try and slow down the man. That would mean targetting his legs. I begin by shooting him with water bolts. The man doesn't even bother to block the few bolts that hit as the bolt just disappears as it hits the man. The man should have something of an advantage against the water bolt, due to the nature of mana he uses but not enough to simply shrug it of like that.
That means that i am going to be something that i certainly don't prefer to do. Drawing five bolts from the quiver, i began to will the five bolts closer and closer to each other. Five bolts combine into one greatly increasing its strength at the cost of stability. I would not dare to leave it in my crossbow for long though.
I take aim and shoot the powered bolt at the enemies feet (henceforth called combined bolt). The strike is true to its aim but the enemy seems to have figured it out as he jumps to the side as the bolt hits the ground harmlessly. Atleast the bolt is effective as it essentially explodes on collision carrying it with the raw power of five bolts. It is enough to leave a decently sized hole in the ground. (in hindsight this might have been better option than shoveling.)
Well, I could try another shot but i certainly do not want to risk the man getting closer to me. The man is absurdly fast, almost reaching the walls of the fort in a time which i barely got to shoot at him. Well, i begin to run. From my present position to somewhere to the right. I run for a bit until the man reaches the wall. I certainly do want to see how exactly is he going to climb the thing.
His initial attempts are quite unsuccessful as he attempts to use his hands to dig into the wall. His arms begin to glow as he passes mana into it as he gets more succesful. I can see the way that the creature is crushing the iron skin, which is quite worriesome. Sadly i have a more immediate worry as the man is making his way into the fort with not much effort from his side.
Well, thankfully i had not placed much hope on the effectiveness of the wall for these enemies. Still it would have been nice if he had struggled with it a bit. I jump backwards, making my way into the fort. I can see his head poking out of the wall as i enter into the fortress. perfect positioning for a headshot, but too risky. Combined bolts are not something that i can make while moving and staying still for long enough for one will be quite deadly, especially if i were to miss.
By the time the snowlord is on the ground, i have disappeared into the fort. This is one of the most effective parts of a snowwinder fort. They build their forts with close range melees in mind. They build their forts in a manner in which any man not of the fort will find it impossible to take their forts. One of the ways they do this is by making the fort into a labyrinth. Tunnels that end in deadends or fork into a thousands paths. There is always more than one path between two places in a snowwinder fort.
While this is not exactly as complicated as the frozen peak, it still took me quite the bit to get used to this place. The snowlords certainly should not be able to catch me in that place. Then again it is also true that the snowlords have been destroying structures like this for a very long time. I have to assume that he will figure out something.
The one good thing about the fort is that it has nothing too important in it at the very least. The only place that i need to care about defending is the formation core, which is where all the soldiers should be hiding at the moment. They will act as the final layer of defence to the formation core, trying to drown out any enemy that strikes with their numbers. I can't predict their effectiveness but in those cramped quarters there is a decent chance that they will be taken down atleast one of the enemies, i hope. It is also the place in the fort with the least concentration of ice mana due to the presence of the formation base. They are going to be the weakest down there, especially with their over reliance on external mana.
Regardless, my work is to ensure that i don't let things reach that level. Right now, the goal is to try and run a guerrilla fight in these mazes. I have already setup places in the fort from which i can try and snipe the man. These are locations where i would dare to actually try and combine my bolts confident that the enemy suddenly won't appear behind because he took another route (what, i like to have options when dealing with enemies. Even if it means that i have to spend a couple of days measuring every inch of the place.). The chances of that happening are low, but why take it.
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I only got to attempt this three times though. The first time went the best. The man is not exactly the quietest as he essentially announced his presence so early that the combined bolt i created came dangerously close to explosion. Still, that shot nearly took the head of the man though as bad luck would have it he blocked it with his hand. I assume quite the bit of damage was done to his hand at the very least though I had to disappear from his sight.
The second shot was still fine, this shot taken from a particular L shaped tunnel roughly about enough length for the man to cover in a few moments. I released the shot the moment that the man was taking the turn i would have assumed it to catch him off guard. This time it hit his chest, though his tattoos seem to have done something to block that strike. it grew bright enough for spots to appear in my eyes. Very wasteful if you ask me, though i don't think it is a problem with them.
The third was the most disastrous, with the shot ready and primed to strike the enemy as he breaks the wall to my left. he literally punched through the fucking wall. I literally dropped my crossbow as I jump back in fright. That was a good thing as the crossbow was at the moment loaded with particularly volatile combined bolt that certainly did not take particularly well to falling down. It literally blew up as the man had literally shattered his way into the tunnel.
That brief distraction as the man grunted in pain as the explosion cut into his body (excess water mana projections often result in the water mana in question moving at such speeds they can cut through anything.) was enough to buy me the time to run away though. That is how i have ended up in my present situation of running through the fort, playing hide and seek with the bastard. He has taken to running around in the fort through the walls like some kind of a bull breaking through the wall with the kind of noise that he is making. Well, if he continues this my main worry is going to be whether the fort is going to fall on my head or not.
I can literally hear the sound of the walls of this place give way, as the man seems to be running through these walls one after another. The sound is coming from everywhere in the fort so i can't really pinpoint his location.
I will have to find the man soon enough though. After all, i should not forget that he is not the only snowlord here. The other two still seem to be outside the walls, though they could have easily entered in the din. I can barely survive against one, i certainly do not want to imagine fighting three of them. I will have to activate the eighth class formation certainly. I do not know why i am not doing that at the moment. It would certainly more safer that way. It won't even take long just the time it will take for my mana strings to reach the formation core.
I guess i should start making my way to the formation core already. It is not like roaming about randomly in the fort is going to be getting me anything useful. Without the crossbow i have only one option left in case i meet with any of the snowlords.
With that i begin to make my way into the fort which is not a prospect that I am enjoying. I can see why the snowwinders have struggled to build any new forts. the snowlords are experts at demolishing stuff. I can seen the holes in the wall, extending till behind where my eye can see as if the man was simply running through these walls.
If they are given free rein, they will be able to bring down the entire place quite easily in half a day. Well, i and my formation are here to prevent that exactly happening, which i beginning to think I should activate already.
While thinking all of this, i do not notice the sound of breaking walls stop. As i had just begun to realise it The world around me turns black. i temporarily stop feeling the pull of gravity as i fly in the air. it takes me a while, but i finally notice the cause of my flight. The bulky bastard has finally found me and in a single hit broken atleast a couple of bones i think. I can feel a throbbing in my chest that is nothing good, i asure you. I begin to push mana into to relieve the pain.
Fuck, i did not really want to meet the bastard but i finally manage to get a look at the man and the damage that I have done to him. He is moving his arm gingerly, though his other arm is still big enough to single handedly wrap around my throat. His skin looks to have been cut in places where the explosion of water mana from my third arrow seems to have struck.
Somehow the damage that i have done to the man seems almost neglible compared to the size of the man and already healing based on what i can tell. I could not really see it until now, but this man is massive, almost double my height and triple my width. I think that a single man is eating enough to rival ten of me. Heck, i think ten of me will fit in the space that this one man is taking.
While, i am looking at him, the man is also looking at me. I don't know how, but the man has managed to somehow express surprise without moving an inch of his face. How he did, I don't know but i suddenly felt a twinge annoyance. What is he doing going about surprised like that.
Thinking that i extend the strings of my mana into the ground, towards the formation core. Time to properly start this fight.