Jjhutto_Son of Flame
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B2 Ch. 29 The Lost Boys
🕑 Added 2024-01-02 02:30:50 +0000 UTCTilly crashed into the side of the hill, taking a few percentage points of damage right as his allies crashed into the confused and injured Strigoi. The blast had also been the final straw for the barrier and as soon as it collapsed, the Knight on the other end crashed through the mob toward the uninjured Consumer. This left the colorfully clothed magic user to collapse.
Tilly climbed back to his feet taking in the scene before him. The mob of Juveniles had been scattered, with roughly a third of them badly burned, and the rest moderately to lightly wounded. Amelia and Franklin had stepped up to the top of the hill to start picking up targets on the edges of the fight, mostly focusing on crowd control and damage over time.
Meanwhile, Gorock and Ichiro had made full use of Tilly’s distraction, engaging the one-armed Consumer who had just tried to remove Tilly’s throat. The outdoor edge of Flame Expulsion had barely left it singed and it seemed to have no trouble facing both the new combatants at once, even with one arm. Gorock’s shield was taking a beating as he soaked up a few lightning strikes from the creature’s clawed hand. Ichiro was successfully landing strikes from behind Gorock’s guard. Unfortunately, even with his blade glowing silver, none of the strikes were causing any significant damage to the far superior foe.
The Knight was the only one on the field who seemed to hold any advantage, having instantly charged the undamaged Consumer. His monstrous mace blurred through the air, raining down blows on the creature who wielded a serrated sword with far less grace. The knight was only slightly slower, and that allowed the Consumer to barely evade or parry the vast majority of the blows.
The center mass of Strigoi not being hemmed in by Franklin and Amelia’s efforts had almost completely regained their composure, and were turning in all directions to attack. Tilly’s mind went into overdrive taking all of this in. He measured the field of battle, getting a sense of where he was most needed, his intensive battlefield training allowing him to decide in half a second. He ignored the elites completely in favor of drawing the attention of the much weaker Juveniles and keeping them out of the other fights for as long as possible.
The immortal words of Bonnie Raitt started to play through his mind as he charged forward with an animalistic scream, only slightly tinged with panic.
‘Let’s give them something to talk about-’
The center group of Juveniles turned to his challenge as he sprinted back into the fight, and he activated Wrath’s Shroud, covering himself in blue flames. This immediately drew the attention of the rest of the Juveniles, who howled and shrieked recognizing the attacker as the one who had just exploded in their midst. They charged to meet him, undaunted by the blaze of blue fire surrounding his charging form.
Right before they would have crashed into each other, Tilly lept over the front line of the mob, landing in their midst and rolling to his feet, hamstringing Juveniles to either side of him, with enflamed strikes. The group he had passed over whirled, while the back of the group pulled up, confused at his antics. He was behaving like no prey they had ever faced, and he kept them on their toes tackling the nearest Strigoi, even as they tried to dogpile him.
Needle-like teeth clamped onto his shoulder in retaliation for his tackle, even as the blue flames roaring all over the surface of his body melted the creature. He pulled the charred teeth with him as he rolled over the now waxy mass of grey flesh, taking several claw swipes on his back and legs as he continued to evade being locked down.
Every time his body contacted the Strigoi, and each swing of his weapons acted as Flame Strikes, punishing the Corruption-riddled opponents with the huge 200% attack damage bonus. His movement through the unorganized mob was marked by severe lingering burns and smoldering axe wounds. His strategy would have never worked against a more organized force, but the Juveniles were obviously new to their existence, and they continued to dive in gleefully over the ruined bodies of their allies unmindful of the flames wreathing Tilly’s body.
This was not to say that Tilly moved untouched through the sea of snapping maws and swiping claws. For the duration of his wild and frenetic rampage, Tilly was constantly turning what should have been deadly blows on his extremities and back. He risked everything, leveraging his ridiculous Endurance and the constant damage output from his flames to mow through these higher-level opponents. What should have been a near-instant suicide became a war of attrition, as he felt his life blood drain from a thousand cuts.
He ducked a suicidal tackle from an already burned Juvenile, catching a ripping swipe of the creature’s clawed hand on his forehead. His blood dried instantly in the heat of the shroud, and he barrelled forward into the next target. To stop moving was to die and he was doing everything he could to match the mob’s ferocity with his own. But he was flagging, and more of his opponent's attacks were connecting. A blur of blue and white feathers crashed into the head of a creature to his left, causing it to burst into flames as a furious screeching cheep resounded in his mind.
A tangle of vines impacted several Juveniles behind him, bursting in supernatural growth to snare the Strigoi. They had been about to pounce on Tilly from behind, and he stumbled forward, free from their attack to swing a duel diagonal chop into two more Juveniles in front of him even as his Mana dipped below five percent.
The Juvenile on his left stepped into his swing, taking the head of his hatchet to the shoulder in exchange for biting a chunk out of Tilly’s bicep. The Juvenile on his right took the hatchet in the side of its ribcage, grabbing onto Tilly’s arm as it burned alive, and pulled forward to bite at his neck. Tilly slammed his bleeding forehead into the mouth of the one on his right while yanking his arm free of the other and kicking it away.
Tilly’s Health dropped dangerously as he noticed several Bleeding Debuffs stacked below his falling Health. He jumped away from the two dead foes in front of him and whirled to face his remaining attackers as his ability flickered out, leaving him with thirteen percent Health and zero Mana.
Utterly spent, he lifted his two weapons weakly, facing the handful of injured foes that still encircled him. Ice speared a Strigoi directly in front of him and a profusely bleeding Gorock battered aside another two on his left, just as another jumped on him to his right. Before Tilly could react to the enemy about to bite his face off, its neck burst outward in a spray of black ichor, and Tilly exhaustedly pushed the body off of him, to find a bloody Ichiro turning to face their temporary allies.
The Knight moved from standing over the body of the Consumer that Gorock and Ichiro had been facing to assist the colorful magic user. Now that he wasn’t looking through a magical barrier, Tilly’s Identify pinged for both the figures.
Level 72 Knight of the Sanguine Order
Level 43 Bloodline Wizard’s Apprentice
Tilly reflexively swept his gaze around the rest of the area to find Franklin and Amelia had made it through with only a few superficial wounds. They jogged down the hill to join the others. Tilly collapsed to his knees, numbness setting into his leaden extremities. He looked over to find Gorock had already collapsed onto the ground nearby, bleeding profusely onto the reddish tan grass.
It was then that Tilly saw Blood Weed earn its name. As soon as any of the plants were splashed with blood, their reddish undertones burst forth in vibrant color, and the skinny blade-like stalks began to grow, straining towards the source of the liquid.
“None of that now!” Amelia growled down at the plants as she jogged up and knelt by Gorock's side, sending a shock wave of her Mana throughout the nearby ground to force the plants back to their dormant state. Tilly's head felt fuzzy and saw a new Blood Loss Debuff appear below his still-dropping Health.
“ugh...bag…” He muttered, as Amelia pulled out large purplish leaves from her pockets and started wrapping them around Gorock's most severe wounds, which were already festering with Corruption. The others didn't seem to have heard his request and Tilly dry swallowed to try and speak again.
‘I Come!’ Shouted a mental voice, clearing some of the fog from Tilly’s mind. He looked back over the hill and caught sight of Kindle, labourously carrying his First-Aid bag in her talons, barely able to keep aloft.
She dropped it next to him a few seconds later, and Tilly collapsed over it, fumbling into the side pocket where he kept all the bandages in three-four foot rolls. He grabbed one, and immediately began wrapping it around his worst injury on the inside of his thigh, pumping arterial blood down his pant leg. The bleeding had been harder to notice when it had been consumed by the flames, but now he was leaking everywhere.
Kindle hovered over him in concern, while Amelia fought to stem the decline of Gorock’s Health. Ichiro and Franklin moved to stand between their injured party members and the Knight, who had helped up the Wizard’s Apprentice and had turned to approach.
“Well… Met. Strangers. We do not recognize your like from these lands… and would know if you arrived with the… recent shift in the land.” The colorfully dressed Apprentice said groggily, still leaning heavily on the Knight’s support.
“A moment please, we must see to our wounded,” Ichiro said, sword drawn in a protective stance before the group. Tilly wrapped several roles of bandages around his chest and back while trying to keep an eye on the exchange. As soon as he tied off the bandage, he felt his First Aid Skill kick in again and sighed in relief as the Bleeding and Bloodloss Debuff disappeared from his HUD.
His health stopped dropping at 7.5 percent and slowly began up ticking as he crawled over to Amelia and Gorock. She had finished tying off the large purple leaves with little strands of elongated grass and reached into her pockets. She was muttering plant names to herself as she found and shoved some kind of root into Gorcock’s mouth.
Tilly scanned the edges of Gorock's wounds and found them red and puffy. The spidery black growth of a Corruption infection starting to reach beyond the coverage of the purple leaves. Tilly winced up at his pitiful Mana bar, It had barely reached four percent since the fight.
Amelia shoved a hand into another pocket and handed him a Shaman’s Casting Aid. She shoved the bundle of herbs his way without looking, mostly focused on working Gorock's jaw to chew on the root she had placed between his teeth.
“Yes, of course!” The Apprentice said, peering over Ichiro’s and Franklin's forms to watch as Amelia and I worked.
“Would that I could offer assistance, but I am afraid my skills in the healing arts are poor at best and certainly not up to the task of whatever new foul blackness had tainted this cursed race.” He continued droning as Tilly took a deep inhale of the bundle, and felt its effects flush through his respiratory system, as he fell into his breathing technique.
Tilly didn’t have any way to see Gorock’s Health, but his giant chest was still rising and falling and the bleeding had slowed to a trickle after the application of the large purple leaves. The Corruption was still spreading, but, Tilly’s Mana was almost back up to ten percent with the assistance of Shaman’s Aid.
“Look, I am loathe to interfere, but if you are new here, you may not have encountered this substance before… It is not like any poison status effect I have ever seen, and we have yet to find a cure for it.” The Apprentice continued in concern. The Knight stood silently to his side, facepiece down.
None of Tilly’s party bothered answering as Tilly watched his Mana tick above ten percent, and as soon as it did, he activated a full-powered Flame’s Renewal.
Comments
Wyatt Hilbert
Thanks for the chapter
