It doesn't take very long for the snowlords to reach the wall. Thankfully, my stunt with the spear at least managed to get one of them. If my plan of ambushing them had worked it might have actually taken care of the three of them. Well, at the very least it has taken out one. We could be in an infinitely worse situation if I am to be frank. The giant could still be in the fort.
The moment that I feel their presence in my mana sense, I activate the formation. Now, this formation will take about five minutes to warm up. Now the only problem is that I have to survive for that long.
That is going to be a very hard task. Already the two snowlords have made it to the vicinity of the wall so quickly that I can already see them. It does not take them longer than a few seconds to make their way to the wall.
Fuck, maybe I should have activated the formation much earlier. The giant has all of his tattoos activated. I can sense the amount of mana that is flowing into his tattoos. It is like a whirpool, dragging in every bit of mana surrounding him.
“We won't be able to stop him outside shamon.“, I tell the man. “Now would be the time to run away I guess.“
he is running towards the wall, his each step matching a hundred of my own. (I don't even want to imagine the that he could do to the wall colliding at that speed with it.) Well, I take aim and shoot the spear. The spear flies true to its aim hitting the giant right in his ankle. The force of the spear is enough to cause a small cut on his leg and also trip him to the ground. The force of his fall is enough to cause a small pit to be formed on the ground.
The other snowlord is not visible anywhere. I guess that I should also keep an eye out for him, but the giant is already so terrifying. There is no way that I will be able to focus on the both of them. I will have to leave that snowlord to the soldiers that should be huddled in the formation room. That should be his target at the moment. The place would be pretty independent of ice mana. (Since the formation is becoming ready to activate.).
In there the soldiers should be able to make use of their numbers to overwhelm the man. These creatures might be at the second circle, but cut of from their mana, they should have the strength of a first circle mage. Thirty soldiers all ganging up on him will be enough to get rid of at least that one snowlord. Especially if I am there to help after dealing with this giant.
Already the giant is getting up. I take out another of the spears and shoot at his throat. This time he is more ready for my presence. His hand flashes out like a hawk as he grasps it in his hand. All he needs to do is flex his hand for the spear to break into two.
Fuck, even the combined spears are this ineffective. Well, this pushes things to dangerous levels. As the giant has reached the wall, I begin to send my mana into the ballista as I can feel the ballista break apart.
I have to do it carefully to ensure that the damage does not spread to the top of the ballista. If that happens, the ballista will become useless. I cannot even recreate the ballista. That would consume mana that I simply cannot spare and attract the attention of the giant.
What I am going to be doing is going to do is damaging the formation a bit, but I will be dead within the minute if the damn giant manages to catch me. I will repair any damage that has occured to the formation after the battle. If I cannot, well it is the problem of whichever person that comes after me.
Right now what I am doing is breaking the support to the ballista so that I can hold it in my hand. It takes about a quarter of my mana reserves but I manage to finally remove the ballista. It is pretty light in my hands. After that is done, I quickly grasp as many of the spears that I can. The instant that they are out of the quiver I can feel the mana in it dissipate.
Well, these spears are not going to be lasting the hour in my hand though that is not a worry. After all, I will either have won this match or will be dead by the end of this hour. As I am lost in this train of thought, the giant punching the wall forces me to return to focus.
Leaving shamon in the tower I disappear into the fort below. You see, the fort is a confusing mess of tunnels and pathways, just like any fort in the continent. It is a simple strategy to deter any invaders. (It took me a month to get used to the routes in this place.)
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
My hope is to make use of these confusing paths to try and ambush the giant. Maybe I won't be able to injure him but I will be able to buy time. as I think this, the giant has managed to break into the fort. I can literally feel the wall crumble and vibrate as he breaks into the wall.
I am approximately able to tell his position due to the mana that he is emitting. Let's hope that this is enough for this fight. Enhancing my mana sense would be too dangerous right now.
(After about three to four minutes.)
Well, I wish that I could have recorded the fight with the damn bastard. He has almost managed to get me more than a couple times. Even now he has managed to shatter my left arm, though I did manage to escape him.
Right now I am huddling to try and catch my breath. I don't even know from which tunnel the man will be making his move. After all, even though I am vaguely able to tell his position it is in no way enough to tell his precise position.
He has also made my knowledge of the area nearly useless as well. After all, he is literally charging through the walls like a blind bull. Thankfully, his mana sense is not as sensitive as mine or I would already be dead.
I have completely exhausted my spears as well. So I have no way of striking the giant at this moment. Most of my strikes were misses with only three getting anywhere near to him.
The first time went the best. The man is not exactly the quietest as he essentially announces his presence. I did not even need to aim for this shot. Still, that shot nearly took the head of the giant 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 when the spear hit him from so close.
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 he was taking the turn. I had assumed it would catch him off guard and it did. 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. Making things that bright is being wasteful with your mana if you ask me, though I don't think it is a problem with them in this land.
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 and grasped me by the hand. I literally dropped my ballista as I jump back trying to dodge. The pang of pain that I feel is enough to cause my head to blank out. Still, the shot does get fired striking the wall behind him. The suddeness of the shot is the only thing that saved me as he drops me. I disappear into the fort. That ballista has been completely broken though in this process. That leaves me with no way to strike him. Trying to get back the ballista is not possible as firstly I don't have the time and secondly the act of breaking the ballista must have damaged the formation conjuring it as well. Forcefully conjuring the ballista will increase this damage.
I guess I should start making my way to the formation core already. The flow of the elemental mana might just reduce the ice mana in the region. If not anything else, it will make the snowlords a bit weaker at the very least.
It is not like roaming about randomly in the fort is going to be getting me anything useful. Without the ballista I have only one option left in case I meet with any of the snowlords and that would be my nasty surprise. The only problem with that is I need to activate the formation for it.
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 beyond where my eye can see as if the man was simply running through these walls. Knowing him that could literally be the case too.
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 should have been ready to activate already.
While thinking all of this, I do not notice the sound of the breaking walls. As I begin 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 at least a couple of bones I think. I can feel a throbbing in my chest that is nothing good, I assure you. I begin to push mana into it 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 negligible 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. His tattoos seems to also have the ability to cause his body to grow in size. How in the hells am I supposed to fight the man.
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 it, I don't know but I suddenly feel a twinge of 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. The damn formation is finally ready to be activated.