As he was running down and close to reaching the fallen, burning tree, El suddenly stopped and called up his balance.
[Energy Supply: 210 / 2200
Mana Supply: 12 /110]
Not good numbers at all. The boost he got from the Leveling up was all spent a long time ago. And those numbers were maybe enough for another hour of fighting at most. And then, he would not only have no edge, but he would have to fight in conditions he was not used to.
He looked at the tired silhouettes of the soldiers and villagers, standing brave and defiant, but El knew there was only so much more they could take. Another pounding by the goblins, and they would probably all be gone.
“It’s just crazy, we can’t win like that. Was it all in vain just like last time? Would this time I be dead for good?” the thought chilled him inside.
“No! Not yet. Have to be smarter. What is it that Alice said, the most important thing is my head. But what can I do here?”
So, falling back to the defensive line did not seem like an acceptable option. He sensed he needed to do more, and if he couldn’t it could all end right there once and for all.
“No! I need to do more!!”
Then he heard the horned beast barking orders from still far up the hill, and he knew what that 'more' implied.
He disconnected his Energy automatically sipping into the sword and the next two goblins he cut down had dimmed the brightness of the blade considerably, but not enough for what he had in mind.
To draw the rest of the energy out and to make it go completely dark again, he spotted his next target. To the right, a bunch of goblins were marching down, carrying long wooden pikes with both hands. It was a tight formation, a double line, their heads covered with some crude metallic helmets.
Must be their premium units, El thought and realized that the defenders might have troubles with them.
Long pikes like that will create havoc on the shield wall down there, El worried.
So, he picked a large tree nearby, and hid behind its large trunk, moving around it as they passed him by. And then, he attacked him from behind.
The first one to go was a torch bearer who was only armed with a short dagger. He cut the throat out of him and as it dropped the big torch from its hand, he hit it with his boot, sending it down to fall in front of the goblin pikemen.
Then he went low, sliding down and cutting the first pikeman from behind his knees, making him tumble down and knocking the one walking in front of him. Then, El got up and swung his blade to slice the one next to him over his face as he ran to the one who got his eyes so open wide that El just looked into them and put his blade right between them.
The following got to turn his head and open his mouth to taste of El's sword as he drove it straight through its rotting teeth.
The other ones stopped and tried to turn their clumsy long pikes to attack El. But it took them a long time to do that, too long considering El's speed, and he easily killed them before they even pointed the pikes at him.
He used one hand to block their pikes while the other one, he cut throats, chopped heads, and in the end, when the last one was left standing, he realized his sword did not work so well anymore as it went completely dark. So he just thrust it with all his might through the goblin's chest, impaling him completely through his heart.
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Out of breath, he turned around and ran back to the middle of the hill, hid behind the tree, and waited a few moments till the horned monster showed in his sight.
Again, he squeezed his eyes and called on the system options to allow him to reproduce the alarming sound that he knew would signal a retreat order inside the beast's head.
It took three tries and he almost thought it would not work this time around when he heard the yelling of the frustrated beast.
“I'm going crazy here! Master had gone mad! Now he wants us back again!” Its powerful voice broke through the night and was so loud now that El realized why they did not need anybody else to issue any commands. “Retreat!! Yes! Fall back!! Let's go, maggots! Let's go back to the caves!”
The horned beast cracked its long whip in a loud bang, but its voice carried over it. “Retreat! We attack tomorrow! And I was just so ready to taste some human blood today. Well, I'll feast on your flesh tomorrow, butt-wipers!!”
There were a few possibilities that ran through El's head of what was the best thing to do next as he was listening to the beast's words.
The first one was to inject the rest of his Energy and Mana inside his sword, lurch himself toward the header-taller horned beast, try to cut his way through, try his luck against a half dozen of his still-taller praetorians and dozens of the goblins that would probably be around to fight him. It would be heroic. The chances of him even getting to the horned beasts were slim. But it would be heroic for sure.
To die in such a manner would not be a shame to anybody’s name, not even mine. But did I come here to die?
The other option was to try something from a distance. A few units of Mana he still had would not be sufficient to dust its ass, so that did not come into consideration.
But he could charge his sword to the max and throw it at the horned beast’s neck, hoping he would kill it just like he did the huge goblin earlier. He got lucky once, could he count on that luck again? He did not like that odd either.
No good option, still… he could not let the beast leave to just turn around and drive its goblin army down again.
He knew he had so little time to make such an important decision that would determine the future of not just fighting but also of the village and the whole area.
The destiny of tens of thousands in my hand and I have time for a few breaths to find an answer, El thought calculated that the Dungeon this time around would become aware a lot faster that its orders were reversed. Maybe El had a minute. Maybe less.
And as suddenly the horned beast stopped climbing the hill, El knew he did not even have that one minute.
He looked tired at the camp down the hill and saw even the muted ones holding spears and trying to protect the defensive lines against the goblins that were still caught in the fight.
So, then, all his options came to that one possibility, and he shot 6 Units of Mana in his sword and then fired it into the neck of the beast, then made it freeze its vocal cords and contract them then he fired another set of Mana into its neck, making it burn like fire and expanded them so fast they cracked.
The horned beast dropped the huge whip, and grabbed his neck, squeezing it, rubbing it. But no matter what he did and no matter how wide his mouth opened and how far his eyes popped out of his socket, no recognizable sound came from his mouth, only a dull noise.
“What’s up boss?” one of his praetorians who was already dozens of yards away from him asked.
But the horned monster could not explain and kept on waving his arms.
In desperation, it turned around and ran down the hill, leaving his praetorian guard behind. And when it noticed they were not following, it turned around and called them by its hands, the whip lost on the ground somewhere up the hill.
That was enough for El who clearly saw now a clear path to it and without hesitation, he ran, came at it from its blind side, and pumped just a few units of Energy in his blade before he drove it through his enormous back to where his heart should have been.
The beast fell to its knees, and El pulled the sword out, and to make sure it was dead, he spun around it and brought the sword in high velocity against its neck, beheading it with a single stroke, making his head fly up the hill but then started to roll down in a bloody ball.
The horned monster's demise did not go unnoticed as most of his praetorians now watched it all from some thirty-plus yards away.
“Well, what ya' all staring at? Come and get it! I've got plenty for all of you, shitheads!” El yelled at them and lifted his sword high up, feeling its full weight, his arms already tired. But the fire was still in his eyes and splashing more goblin blood on his already drenched robe and face would not bother him, not even one bit.