“Thank you for saving my bacon, Aurelius I owe you one.” Jacob said as he looked Aurelius up and down, both of his arms were stained in kobold blood right up till his forearm. Blood splatters marring his handsome visage, Aurelius hands were still clad in red and black essence. Aurelius smiled as he responded sending both literal and metaphorical chills to Jacob with his response.
“I do not believe you had any bacon on you though?” Jacob’s jaw dropped not knowing how to respond to that.
“ Regardless, you are most welcome. I can handle the clean up, you can take a break and start crystalising your core.” Jacob slightly puzzled by the different parlance used by Aurelius asked as Aurelius began to move.
“ What do you mean by crystalising your core? The only thing I have been doing with my core was condensing the essence swirling around it.” Aurelius arrested his starting momentum and looked back at Jacob.
“ I cannot believe that the being you met did not explain anything about it. Alright, this will only take a moment but the forming might take awhile. Listen carefully, feel the core within you and the essence that forms it. After you are able to grasp onto the core, imagine the form that you want your core to transform into. Hold onto the core and fill up the imaginary form with the core, if done successfully. You can feel the core fitting itself into a mold and once you feel the core hitting a threshold. Immediately compress the mold as much as you can. The result will be a crystalised core, I will speak about the functions of the new core later.” Jacob absorbed the information he received from Aurelius and sat down to condense the essence swirling around his core. The crystalisation can only wait until the whole battle is finished, so he concentrated on the only thing he could do.
The core grew to the size of a fist after Jacob was finished with the process in record time. Instead of just forcing the essence in, Jacob took Aurelius information to heart. He instead utilised his core and willed the core to suck the essence in, the core started whirling faster as it imitated a whirlpool.
The excess essence was greedily gobbled up by the core, Jacob had a bright smile on his face. Life was gonna be a lot easier now, he was looking forward to more. Imagining what he could do once he crystalises the core leaves him shaking with glee. He opened his eyes and got up, screeches from the kobolds still continued. He looked towards Riley and Brian, they still had their eyes closed indicating they were still busy condensing their essence into the core. He picked up Flowing Water that fell beside the second kobold warrior and moved to join Aurelius in the clean up.
Aurelius was now on his last kobold mage, he was bored out of his mind. Even without the traps he set up with the rest of the group, he would only be a little bit pressured by the fully enhanced kobold warriors. He stabbed his hand forward easily piercing through the skull of the last kobold mage, he withdrew his hand and cut it downwards sloughing off as much of the blood as he could.
His nose crinkled a little from the smell of the blood, however the smells also carried something else. He followed where the smell was coming from, he looked towards the direction to see that the smell came in the same direction the kobold horde emerged from. Looks like there was more to the kobold horde.
The remaining kobolds still left around Aurelius got to their knees and bowed in the direction that Aurelius was looking towards. Aurelius looked around and saw what the kobolds were doing, he decided to cull the numbers before the rest of the horde came. There was no point in leaving loose ends after all.
Jacob saw Aurelius leisurely finishing off kneeling kobolds moving towards them as if he was on a walk. Jacob moved to join Aurelius and inquire about what was happening.
“Hey there Aurelius what's going on?”
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“The rest of the horde is coming up most likely with their king.”
“Ahhh a boss level monster like the Angel Asura from before?”
“It would at least be similar to the Angelus Gigantis we fought yes, we can start measuring it after we see it. We can finish up all the kobolds kneeling towards the hole while we wait for the boss monster to come.”
“Alright, meet back here?” Aurelius gave a simple nod to Jacob’s answer.
The two separated themselves as both of them sped off in different directions to finish cleaning up the field of kobolds. As they cleared, they started hearing chants coming from the direction of the hole. Jacob paid no heed to the chants for now and Aurelius did the same. With a short amount of time used, the duo finished off the helpless kobolds and met back at the same spot with a clear view of the hole.
Aurelius took a seat on the floor as the chanters and the boss monster seemed to be taking the longest time possible to reach the outpost, Jacob saw what Aurelius was doing and proceeded to do the same. Anytime that he could rest, would be taken with zeal. If the upcoming fight was gonna be as difficult as fighting the three headed marble statue, Jacob needed all the rest he could get before the fight starts. Jacob took the time to absorb the miniscule amount of essence he obtained from cleaning up the dredge in the field.
Aurelius was just trying to curb his impatience, there was no more wood for him to fashion more traps and if he stood still there. He might just rush ahead to meet the boss of the kobold sooner then later. He wanted a challenge and fighting in the relatively open cave is much harder than the tunnel where the horde came out from. This way the remaining kobold horde might be able to surround him and Jacob with their numbers.
As he finished, the chanting was still getting louder but this time it was joined by thudding sounds like weapons being banged onto the floor in a set pattern. The thuds were causing the ground beneath Jacob to vibrate. The duo did not have to wait long after the start of the thuds.
Screeches could be heard as the remaining kobold horde stepped into the light of the crystal-lit outpost. The current kobolds that came put the ones before to shame, both in discipline and dressing. There were 6 kobold warriors and they were dressed in full-body armour, their helmets were even fitted properly to their long snouts cutting an imposing sight. Each of the 6 warriors held a sword and shield, making them seem more comparable to kobold knights than warriors.
With the 6 kobold knights in the lead, the 4 kobold mages right behind them look as impressive as the kobold warriors. The mages donned proper robes this time, instead of the scrapped together patchwork robes that the initial horde mages wore.
The 4 mages wore robes of different colour, one had on a green robe while, another two had red robes followed by the last one wearing robes of black. If the colour of the robes were an indication to the elements they wield, it would be wind,fire and darkness, Jacob surmised. The staffs they were wielding also seemed colour coded, as they each wielded a staff in the exact colour of their robe.
However, he did not immediately lock in his observation as they had provided zero indication that they would be following the standard convention shown in games. Where the colours they wore showed their affinity for the related element.
Jacob had some painful reminders both physical and mental that this was most definitely not a game even if there was a System in place. He did not heal on level ups and he was not wearing an all blue armour to match with his enchanting and resplendent blue sword. The novels, games and other the media that Jacob browsed did not prepare him for the unrelenting 6 days that he went through.
There was no helpful rest stops, he did not automatically smell nice and he fervently wished for save states. Every second he went through in a battle could be the different between life and death, as his mind ran rampant comparing the difference between reality and the things he read through a screen. The thoughts were stopped as a massive creature stepped into the light after the mages.
The left foot came out first, the giant leg full of yellow shiny scales made contact with the floor. A thud sounded out as the floor vibrated again, the right foot came out this time also covered in yellow scales. Followed by another earth sharking step, the body came into view. The scales upon the torso of the kobold were brilliant and dazzling, each scale sparkled like the stars in the night sky.
Beneath the scales, Jacob could see taut muscles writhing and pulsing beneath ready to erupt in strength. He felt another set of vibration before he saw the face of the kobold, it did not have the long snout that signifies a kobold. Instead its face leaned more in the direction of a humanoid with scales, with the entire body to see. Jacob realised that it did not looked like any of the kobolds, instead it was more akin to a wingless dragonoid.
The dragonoid wore no armour and held no weapons, with each step it took. Jacob was getting more and more convinced that even without any of those, one punch from the dragonoid would spell Jacob’s demise. Jacob tried to look behind the dragonoid to see if it was actually the boss-level monster. But its frame covered a sizable chunk of the hole where the 6 knights and 4 mages also came from. It stood just shy of the ceiling coming out from the hole, Jacob estimated it to be about 6.5 metres in height. No more kobolds or their close relative appeared from the hole. Giving Jacob some relief, if the dragonoid was not the end. He might just be dashing out of the cave before Aurelius could even say french fries.
“Should we run back and get some help from Riley and Brian?” Jacob asked Aurelius as his previous confidence from finishing off the defenseless praying kobolds was shrinking by the second.
“Now where is the fun in that.” Aurelius proclaimed as he sprinted forward with blinding speed.