After defeating the two elites, Emery and the others decided to go and help the others who were still fighting. Like a snowball that once rolling kept getting bigger, the regular acolytes suddenly held the upper hand in this confrontation after winning two of their battles.
As a spellcaster, Klea went ahead and assisted Okoye's team, as they needed a long-range attacker amidst their close combat-focused team. The new addition of Klea into the fray made the fight against the three elites much easier for the regular acolytes' side.
On the other hand, Chumo would go and support Thrax and Julian, who were still fighting against the stone acolyte. Meanwhile, Emery approached the wounded sword-wielding acolyte and healed his wounds.
Emery observed the other fights that were still ongoing. There were three more small skirmishes, consisting of one elite against two or three regulars. Checking each and everyone's fights, Emery was confident that sooner or later these elites would eventually be defeated if the situation kept going the current flow.
However, there was one fight that truly made him concerned, the fight that involved Micah. It looked like Micah was the strongest person among these bunch of elite acolytes. Currently, Dope and four remaining acolytes were still fighting him, but from the looks of it, they were struggling against the lone Micah.
Recalling there should be more than five acolytes who fought against Micah before, Emery was surprised to see him manage to defeat several regular acolytes despite him being assaulted with numbers.
Micah was an ice element acolyte, but Emery noticed something peculiar in his spells. Different from the ice spells Emery usually saw, the ones Micah casted had more luster compared to the normal ice spells regular acolytes commonly showed.
Rather than calling it ice, crystal was a more appropriate word to portray what Emery currently saw. Apart from its distinct look, Micah's ice spells were also much stronger than the ones regular acolytes released.
From what Emery saw earlier, it seemed Micah was a long-range spellcaster just like most of the other elites he had seen. Since the beginning of the battle, Emery only saw him continuously casting multiple [Ice Shard] spells and hurling them towards his opponents.
Even though his method looked crude on the surface, the sheer power hidden in his ice shards were enough to obliterate everything in his path. The dozens of flying sharp objects materialized in the air reminded Emery of Lodos' black needle spell.
Emery could only hope Micah didn't have spells that were similar to Lodos' gravity spell. If he indeed had that kind of spell, Emery was sure the fight would be hard, extremely hard.
The brawny-looking Dopa was crushing all the ice shards coming towards him using his huge ax. When the ax swing got in contact with the ice shards, Emery could faintly see Dopa take a little step back from the brunt. Meanwhile, all the other four acolytes were taking some distance and began throwing long-range spells at Micah.
Out of the four, two of Dopa's teammates were fire element acolytes. However, even though they had bombarded Micah with continuous fire spells, the abnormal white-colored ice shield, which positioned in front of him, managed to hold on, without cracks or damages on it. It didn't even melt because of the fire spells!
This spell was the same spell he used to protect all the other elites when they were bombarded by the offensive spells before. Therefore, it was normal for it to stand strong when only faced against the combined spells of these four acolytes.
However, Emery guessed these acolytes probably just hoped there was a limitation to the spell, thus allowing them to breach it.
Seeing the acolytes' spells couldn't do anything to his shield as expected, Micah laughed, "Hahaha, I am telling you that my unique [Ice Crystal Barrier] will not be broken by your pitiful spells!"
Dopa was beginning to be impatient at his teammates' inability. He started to cast some sort of strengthening spell on himself. After the spell was applied, he stomped the ground and dashed towards Micah, unbothered by the flying ice shards coming at him.
Much to Emery's surprise, Dopa's charge crushed through all the spells thrown at him, as he continued to make his way towards Micah. The other four also followed behind him and took out their melee weapon. They thought it would be possible that these crystal-like ice spells were pretty strong when met with magic, but pretty weak against normal physical attacks.
Realizing their plan, Emery exclaimed inwardly, 'Good plan!'
Even for a rank 7 acolyte, it was impossible to have such a strong defensive spell without any weakness.
With Dopa's new strategy, Micah finally began to move a few steps back. This was probably the first time he ever moved during the battle. Dopa turned even more agitated seeing that, thinking he had already found his opponent's weakness. Emery thought the same too, until he saw a glimpse of a smile on Micah's face.
Emery immediately stopped his healing spells and quickly cast [Blink] to appear closer to warn Dopa and his team, "Watch out!!!"
Alas, Emery was too far and too late, thus disaster struck Dopa's team. While retreating, Micah cast another spell, he raised both his arms to the front, palms open. This time, instead of the appearance of another barrier, Micah created an explosion of ice spikes. Field of ice spikes was created in an area that shaped like a cone as far as 10 meters. The sight was dreadful yet beautiful.
While Dopa was fast enough to block the ice spikes with his large ax, his shoulder and knees were still pierced by them, as they received quite severe wounds. However, Dopa's condition could still be counted fortunate, all three other acolytes, who charged in with him, had been hit by the crystal-like shards and instantly dispersed into light particles.
Only one acolyte was able to flee unharmed thanks to his rather behind position, but Micah seemed unwilling to let him go, as he quickly casted another ice shard towards him. Before the shards could reach the acolyte and send him out of the game, Emery who kept blinking through the space finally arrived in the area and destroyed the shards with swings from his sword.
Looking at Emery who appeared suddenly, Micah flashed a smile, "Now, now, now... Look who we have here! You aren't half bad compared to that Julian."
Before Emery could answer the man's somewhat mocking statement, another voice came from Emery's back, "Compared to me? I'm surely more handsome, but sadly, you aren't my type at all."
Turning his head around, Emery was surprised to see Julian approaching him, "Julian... you..."
Julian gave Emery a thumbs up, "We managed to kill that stone guy."
Another figure approach with a disgruntled voice, "Huh! You took away my points!"
"Ahh, shut up Thrax. Sharing is caring. You can have this pretty one if you like." Julian said, pointing his sword towards Micah.
A few moments later, Klea, Chumo and even Okoye and her teammate came to the center.
Seeing the bunch of people in front of him, Micah understood that, although he won his fight, he had lost the battle. Realizing his disadvantage, he quickly made a loud whistle, and two other elite acolytes who were still fighting quickly broke away from their opponent and joined him.
Seeing the number on his side, Micah's face couldn't help but turn dark. Out of 12 elites he brought, only three of them were left. Meanwhile, there were still 20 of regular acolytes he still needed to face.
"Huh! Just consider your win this round." Micah said, as he and the other two elites quickly escaped into the woods.
"We shouldn't let them escape!" shouted Thrax, when he saw everyone was unmoving.
"No, no, no! We should stop and rest up." Julian hurriedly stopped Thrax. He seemed to be unwilling, but in the end, Thrax nodded and listened to the command.
After taking care of this reckless bull, Julian turned to others and said, "We should quickly heal up and check out the condition of the others at the northern entrance. I am worried they will need our help."
Okoye seemed to agree with the plan, while Dopa surely appreciated the time given to heal his severe wounds. While the wounded were being healed, the others stood guard, lest there was another group. All remaining 20 acolytes gathered up in the middle, fully alerted.
At this moment emery took the time checking out each of his friend's points
[Your total point: 15.000]
[Your current rank: 38]
As for his friends, Klea has a total point of 12.000 at rank 47, Chumo's total point of 10.000 at rank 58, Thrax with 9000 point rank 71, and Julian's total point 7000 rank 88.
Because they have successfully stopped and killed a few of the elites before, they have managed to raise quite significantly, but probably not enough unless they survive until the last 50.
Before Emery was about to go to the northern entrances, suddenly he heard footsteps, but not from the treeline. The sound came out from the pyramid building. To their surprise, a group of acolytes came out of the building with their own weapons. At first Emery thought it was Roran's team, but then from their attires, he realized who they were.
Another group of elite acolytes.
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