I had no more time to waste. Sure, I was pretty certain that I had reinforcements on the way but I couldn't wait for them to arrive. I had moments at best with the headhunters holding me down fumbling with the straps and buckles of my armor. Thus when another crazy idea came to me in the guise of a fuzzy memory, I didn't waste any time debating with myself if it would work. I lowered my head and closed my eyes, I closed them as tight as I possibly could, as if to not see what was about to happen next and in a way it was true.

I let go of my Bull's Strength and the Chameleon Skin spells, channeling all the Mana I had used on them and then some into a simple Light spell I placed a few feet above my head. One moment I was struggling in almost near complete darkness. The next I was almost blinded although I had my eyes closed and was looking exactly the other way. Although the sudden flash of light didn't last long, it winked out almost as fast as it came into existence, I could feel heat was over the my back and the back of my head.

Magic lights like these were supposed to be cold but obviously that was a relative term. If you just fed them enough Mana things were obviously different. Well, it was worse for everyone else though. The headhunters had had no warning. Many of them had been looking in my general direction and thus at the burst of light as well. Even most of those who had been holding me down fell off me, screeching and clawing at their eyes or skin that had reddened quite a bit, not taking well to light of such intensity at all.

I was not done yet though. Even as I shook of the last of my captors who were still weakly clinging to me I channeled Mana into Lion's Roar to enhance my voice. “HA!” The shout was short but it was on a similar level as the flash of light before. It left my own ears ringing as well although the majority of its force had been directed well away from me. Again the spell affected all the headhunters surrounding me worse though. After already being blinded it was as if I had punched them all in the face.

The combination of spells left the vast majority of them writhing on the ground while I struggled to get back on my feet. Even the pale king had been sent to his knees. Yet, I had no time to waste. I drew the knives still sheathed on my belt and went to work. Although it looked bad I had no idea how long I had until at least some of them would recover. I went to work quickly. My hunting knives wouldn't kill an opponent with just a scratch, like my glaive, thus I had to make every cut and every stab count.

For a little while I was a murderous whirlwind. I slit throats, stabbed axillar and femoral arteries. I went for an easy kill whenever I could, trying not to mind the blood that started to cover everything as I kept opening one major blood vessel after the other. At the same time I was making my way to my glaive, which was still nailing a dead headhunter to a now quickly rotting tree. As I reached it I jammed my knives in between the ribs of two more still mostly insensate headhunters.

As I grabbed the shaft of my main weapon it slid free of the tree with surprising ease. The corpse it had been holding in place slipped off the blade easily as well. I took this chance to look around and get a better grasp of the situation. Most of the pale cannibal elves around were either dead or dying. A few were starting to shake off the worst of my spells' effects. My top priority were those still coming in from further away though. Thankfully I had a quick solution for that problem at hand.

I swung my glaive in a mighty chop, cleaving through much of the trunk of the already weakened tree in one go. I had angled the blow and it started leaning sideways immediately. I gave it a mighty kick for good measure to send it crashing down on the arriving enemy reinforcements. They were caught pretty much off guard. As they burst into the open space they were immediately buried under a whole lot of splintering wood. I had no way of knowing if they were dead, not for sure anyway, but they were out of the fight for now, of that much I was certain.

I couldn't rest yet though. I was a bit out of breath though and my neck hurt like nothing else where that one headhunter had bit me. The ground was getting muddy from all the blood spilled here as well. At least my armor was not giving me as much trouble as I had expected. The ones holding me down had undone some of the straps holding everything firmly in place but so far it hadn't slipped and wasn't messing up my balance. It had to be the enchantment, which Tero had placed on it, at work.

I stabbed the blade of my weapon in a few more enemies still stumbling about blind and deaf before beheading another charging at me from the edge of the new clearing. That one didn't even have any trophies on his belt and he pretty much stumbled into my swing as he slipped on the spilled blood. I might have been tempted to say that I had made it through the worst but that probably wasn't true. The pale king was still on his feet after all and he was regaining his senses fast.

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The mighty swing of his cleaver which I had to dodge the next moment left no doubt about that. Dirt, blood and worse splattered everywhere as the weapon dug another deep furrow into the ground. The pale king was beyond furious. He was actually frothing at the mouth. He looked like he had seen better days as well, which was to say that he looked worse than at the beginning of this encounter. Something black, which might or might not have been blood, was oozing from his eyes and his ears and his skin looked burned in some places. Yet he didn't let up on his offensive.

He already had freed his weapon from the ground again, swinging at me once more. He growled curses at me as he swung the cleaver time and again. Some of them might even have been backed by magic as I felt as if something disgusting was trying to wrap itself around me only to slip off again at the last moment.

I had trouble keeping one step ahead of the monster, almost slipping several times, despite the Cat's Grace spell I still maintained. I attempted to go on the offensive myself several times but my quick jabs didn't seem to phase him much. He wasn't immune to the glaive's effect but the poison apparently didn't spread as quickly as it had with the other headhunters.

This wasn't looking good. I hadn't exactly been in the best condition to begin with but now I was getting really tired. Every muscle was aching, my neck was stiff and I was developing the headache typical for channeling too much Mana. Worse though was, that the damn pale bastard seemed keenly aware of it. His grin, which was showing entirely too many of his disgusting teeth, suggested that much.

Eventually, it really had only been a question of time after all, I slipped as I tried to dodge another powerful swing of the heavy weapon. In the last moment I managed to get my shield in between me and my fast approaching doom. The shield held but, although it absorbed some of the attacks momentum, I was sent tumbling to the ground anyway. I was back on the ground while he stood gloating above me. And although there was no one holding me down this time, my chances to get back up were worse now than before.

Before he could capitalize on his advantage a big stone smacked into his chest just as he was about to raise his cleaver for the final blow. That was only the first hit sending him staggering as well. Only moments later an ornate thrown war hammer caved in the pale king's chest for good. Broken ribs jutted out of the ruin of his torso but her was not done for yet.

I struggled to get back on my feet even as the warriors of my banner and some of the Wall Breakers burst out of the woods all around us. It took every ounce of strength I could still muster but I managed to bring my glaive around once more, swinging for the ghoul kings neck. And as his head went flying his grotesque body finally sagged to the ground.

That was the moment when my feet finally gave out. It was only thanks to Gash'zur's reflexes that I didn't end up in the bloody mud again. She caught and steadied me while someone else took my glaive from my numb fingers. That thing was dangerous after all.

Things were getting a little woozy when Kaele's face appeared in front of me. “And just what were you thinking going out on your own again?” She sounded exasperated but tears were staining her cheeks.

“Well, something reckless of course.” My comeback didn't sound half as cheeky as I had intended as I barely managed a whisper before my voice gave out.

“Obviously.” She shook her head and hugged me close, while the giantess kept us both upright. “Lets get you back to camp.”

She kept talking but her words didn't quite register with me anymore as I slipped into blessed unconsciousness.