He decided to run straight into the cavern at that point, it was going to be a twelve against one fight, thirteen if you countered the boss that would either join in the fight from the beginning or would just watch until the end and then decide to fight.
He was going to have to find a balance in the battle, he couldn’t use all of his mana on the lioness, otherwise he would have nothing left for the lion, but he also needed to protect himself using a lot of his mana skills if he was going to win. He had one mana potion still left in his pouch but that would no longer do much for him as it only recovered 100 mana, nowhere near enough to bring him close to full.
Half of the lioness jumped down off their ledges and started coming towards him, they were as quick as he expected them to be, even faster than the jaguar by some degree, but he had also levelled up and gotten stronger in that time. Before any of the lioness could get close enough to attack he started sending out his arrow heads at them, hoping to get a few hits in which would slow them down.
With how quickly they were moving he wasn’t able to get a hit on all of them but he did manage to slow down four of the six that were now around him. Using this to his advantage he went straight at one of the ones he hadn’t managed to hit, it leapt at him at the same time he was sending out an elemental strike imbued with his earth affinity, hitting it while it was mid air and blasting it with enough power to send it crashing into the wall of the cavern.
Before he had a chance to do another attack the other lioness that he hadn’t hit with his arrow heads leapt at him from behind, he knew it was coming from using his echo skill, so at the last moment switched on his Stone Skin. As the lioness landed on him he felt the flaws sink into his back, not doing as much damage as it would have if he hadn’t used the skill, but the lionesses claws still managed to sink in a bit.
Using his strength he rolled over using the elbow of his left arm to hit it in the side and then followed up with stabbing with the sword in his right hand. He managed to get in a shallow wound but the lioness had retreated too quickly to do further damage. Looking around he could see that the other four lioness were recovering from the poison, at a rate that was much quicker than he would have liked, rather than follow up with another attack on the lioness that had just attacked him he switched tactics and sent out elemental strikes at two of the other lioness and sent his daggers at the other two.
Although the poison was wearing off, they were still sluggish enough that they could dodge the attacks quick enough, the two that were hit with the elemental strikes were sent flying and the two that were hit with the daggers were now weakened further. While he had been attacking the others, the last lioness had prepared its own strike and started to run towards him, its claws glowing red. He turned intime to meet it head on and as it leapt the final distance onto him he had positioned his sword so that it would sink right into the monster as it landed on top of him.
For the second time in this fight he had ended up on the ground with a lioness on top of him, he was stronger than them one on one but as a group they were overpowering him. The lioness managed to sink its claws into his chest, even with a blade buried within its chest, causing more wounds on his body. This time the claws sank in a lot further than the last, the fire didn’t do any additional damage but he hadn’t had time to use Stone Skin as he was focusing on so many different skills at once already.
The lioness had stopped moving so he pushed it off of his body and came back to a standing position. The three lionesses that he had hit with his elemental attacks were still where they had landed, dead, but the two he had hit with the daggers were still alive though. Before he had a chance to finish them off a roar came from the Pride Lion, and was soon joined by the remaining lioness in the cavern, all of whom had now jumped down to join in the battle, including the lion.
This was less than ideal, Shaun was confident he could finish off the lioness alone but with the lion in the mix he was going to really struggle winning the fight. Before the battle started again he took out and drank the mana potion and then directly after the stamina one too. He needed every edge he could get in what was to come and saving the potions wouldn’t mean anything if he was dead.
Just as the battle was about to start again, as all of the remaining monsters had started closing in on him, he sent the last of his poisoned arrow heads out at the lionesses while powering up another elemental strike. If he stood a chance of winning he would need to take out the lion first, it was the strongest and led the rest of them, so in the hope of taking out the leader to weaken the rest, he sent his elemental strike directly at the lion.
He didn’t think that it would kill it like it had the lionesses but he hoped that it would give him some breathing room for a minute to be able to deal with some of the lioness that were poisoned or to charge another attack. When the strike landed it had only managed to hit it on the lion's side, more of a graze than anything, but the resulting explosion on impact did manage to fling it to the side. Before he had a chance to do anything more the lion landed on its paws and then ran straight at him, both gaining speed as it moved and also starting to glow red all over. Its mane had turned into flames and travelled down its body, it looked like a comet racing right towards him.
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He had no hope in dodging the attack, so instead prepared everything he could, he used his Stone Skin skill pushing a lot of his mana into it, as well as preparing another elemental strike, this time not to send at the lion though, but to use when it was closer and make direct contact. The moment the lion hit the wind was knocked out of him and he couldn’t even concentrate on using his attack. The fire didn’t hurt him but the claws did more damage than he expected. It was as if his skill did nothing to protect him as they had easily penetrated his skin, one sinking deep into his shoulder and the other landing in his stomach.
It didn’t delay to roar in victory, instead it lifted up the paw from his stomach and swiped it down across his face. Shaun couldn’t hold back the scream he had been trying not to let loose from his mouth, but the pain he felt from the attack had broken whatever control he had. Before Shaun could regain his senses the lion took the paw now coated in his blood and ran it down his chest, leaving long gashes in their wake. He was getting torn to shreds, he had never felt so powerless as he did in that moment, he had been so easily overpowered by the monster on top of him.
Even if he managed to somehow kill the lion, he would still need to fight the 8 lioness, with the condition he was in he didn’t have much hope of successfully winning that fight, but he could try. If I die like this, having given up on everything I have fought to accomplish, everything I still want to do, then what was the point in trying in the first place? I am better than this!
Shaun screamed, this time not in pain but anger, he refused to go down without fighting right until the very end. Taking the sword back in hand he powered it back up until he had nearly no mana left and stabbed it right through the lion, caught unaware by the change in him, it didn’t even have time to retreat or finish him off, instead he was able to stab his sword straight into the side of the lion, all of the mana he had put into the attack exploding out sending its body across the cavern.
Trying to stand as quickly as he could, his body throbbing in pain in time with his heart beat, he looked around and saw all of the lionesses around him in a circle, before he had a chance to even prepare, the first one made its move. He was pretty much out of mana so had to rely on his sword and dagger to fight, he would slice at the lionesses as soon as they got close and then when he got the opportunity he would throw a dagger out to inflict further damage, this continued on, neither able to get the upper hand until his movements started to slow considerably. He didn’t have long before he would be out of health and stamina as well, deciding it had to finish now, for better or worse, he went on the attack.
Changing up his tactic took the monsters by surprise, he had no daggers left so went in as hard as he could with his sword. He took the first lioness out easily but got clawed by another in his haste to kill. Turning around as fast as he could he drove his sword into the one that had just attacked him, plunging the sword down to the hilt into its body.
Two down six more to go. While he was taking his sword out of the lioness another leapt at him to attack, not letting go of his sword he leapt out of the way and rolled to a stand. Turning to the closest lioness he lunged for it and managed to cut it across its face, he then whirled around to face the approaching lioness that tried to sneak up on his back and met it head on. It took a step back then, probably in the hope that a different lioness who was coming up from behind him would get in the attack, but he knew it was there.
Just as it was trying to attack him, he dropped to the ground and rolled under its leap, driving his sword up into its belly, before coming back up to standing. Five left. He was getting close to passing out but he didn’t give up, when the next lioness came at him he couldn’t dodge in time and ended up getting swiped along his side, it did give him an opening to stab it back though. Now four. Using the last of his mana he shot off the last of his arrow heads and then went and attacked the closest lioness with his sword, it had been distracted by the projectiles and paid the price. Three.
He had managed to hit two of the remaining lionesses with the poison but he was now officially out of mana. He moved as quickly as he could to the monster he had failed to hit and with a few blows with his sword managed to put it down for good. Two. The last lioness were both sluggish, the poison working through them, Shaun took advantage of this and with a single blow to each of them managed to finish the fight. One and none.
He didn’t know how he had done it but he had won, not without significant cost to his body, but there was no lioness left. He dropped to his knees, unable to keep standing any longer and waited for the notification to come in now that the fight was over, but they didn’t come. Confused, he looked around, all of the lioness were dead, the lion was dead, wasn’t it?
Looking over at the lion he watched, waiting to see if it moved. One second passed and then another and when he thought that it was truly dead, he saw its leg twitch. How? It has half of its body missing! How can it still be alive? Before his eyes he saw the lion continue to switch, which turned into it rolling onto its belly and then attempting to stand.
Shaun tried to get up, he really did, but he couldn’t move his body, no matter how hard he tried. As he watched the lion come to a stand it turned and looked at him. And with the slowest steps possible started moving towards him, it fumbled along the way, as if it was barely holding on to its life, but it didn’t give up, it kept coming.
When it was only a few metres from him it tried to leap at where he was on the ground, but as soon as it tried it collapsed, unable to muster the strength for its final attack. It was now a game of who could survive the longest before passing out and dying, neither was going to make it out of this alive, not in their conditions but it was now a battle of will as to who would go first.
Shaun watched his health continue to drop, getting closer and closer to zero, just when he got to 10 health left he looked over at the lion, it had its head on the ground eyes wide staring at him, but it wasn’t blinking, it was not moving at all. I won.