After fifteen minutes of intense fighting, Astaroth and his party had whittled the Manticore’s health down by a quarter. Although this was already an accomplishment, it was far from enough.
The party’s resources were running thin. Even with the mana breathing technique Astaroth had taught the casters, they were burning through their mana pool right now.
They were taking mana potions here and there, trying to keep steadily over half, but their stocks were thinning out. As for Athena’s arrow supply, it was also beginning to run low from all the shooting.
They could not reasonably keep this pace until they brought it down, so Phoenix switched tactics.
“Astaroth! Can you keep it busy on your next melding?!” She shouted.
Astaroth, who’s cooldown for Spirit Melding was almost over, looked over at Phoenix, and then the manticore. He grit his teeth and replied.
“I should be able to, yes!”
“But it won’t be an easy feat!” He added.
The next reply came from within his mind, from the party chat function. Astaroth was still not used to it, as Athena and I’die had just barely explained the function, minutes after their combat start.
It much facilitated the communications during combat, reducing cross talk and yelling to a minimum, and it worked much like any normal voice chat program.
‘You are quicker than Gulnur, so you can dodge more attacks. You also have that healing passive from your transformation, that can help keep you topped off.’ Astaroth heard Phoenix’s voice, in his head.
‘Doing this, and swapping between you and Gulnur tanking, will permit us to save on mana resources on healing and potions, stretching our effective combat time by double at least.’ She added, via party chat.
‘Ok. I get the gist of your plan. But how am I supposed to grab aggro back from Gulnur?’
‘He has been holding it for fifteen minutes without fail. It’ll make it that much harder for me to leech it.’ Astaroth replied, frowning a bit.
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Astaroth instantly understood where she was going with her train of thought. A wide grin appeared on his face.
As soon as the cooldown was over on his melding skill, he used it again. White, who had been next to him all this time, biting at the manticore every chance it got, turned into a ball of white energy, and dived into Astaroth’s chest.
As soon as the ball entered him, Astaroth started transforming, his hair turning white, fur growing on his arms and face, and he immediately used one of his melded skills.
“AWOOOO!!!!” He howled, loudly, his head raising towards the ceiling.
The Alpha’s Howl skill reverberated in every inch of the cave, causing an eerie echo. The Manticore froze, for about half a second, before shaking its head, unaffected by the fear effect of the skill.
But that was not the reason he used that skill. The Manticore turned to face him, fury in its eyes.
Astaroth grinned again, satisfied with the results. The howl had effectively told the Manticore that another presence was trying to rest the authority from it, inside its own lair.
The Manticore roared back astoundingly loudly. The roar caused the air itself to vibrate visibly, and Astaroth had to bend forward to not get blown away.
“GGRRAAAWWWRRRR!!!”
“That’s right, you oversized, mutated, ugly cat! I’m the real alpha here!” Astaroth yelled, trying to add insult to injury.
And the effect was immediately noticeable to everyone present, as the Manticore swiped both its claws at him.
Astaroth jumped back with his upgraded agility, which was just enough for him to keep track of the beast’s movements. Sadly, it also put him into range for the monster’s stinger, which was now barreling towards him.
Just before the stinger could pierce Astaroth, though, something came flying in at incredible speed from the direction Gulnur was in. His shield impacted the bulb of the stinger, sending it ever so slightly off course.
This redirection gave just enough wiggle room for Astaroth to twist his torso, dodging the tip of the stinger by a hair’s breadth.
He thanked Gulnur in the party chat, as the shield bounced back towards him.
‘Thanks Cap!’
Gulnur only nodded his head, chuckling at the reference. He had tried to copy that one superhero’s shield throw, and was quite proud that it had worked out.
With this attack out of the way, Astaroth landed back on the ground, launching forward, between the Manticore’s legs, and striking its exposed belly with his longsword, wielding it two handed.
The strike left a thin, long, cut along the stomach, but barely did any damage. But that was just an attack of opportunity.
His real aim was the rear left paw, which he had struck with his longsword earlier. He swapped out his longsword, for his war axe, and swung in a wide arc, aiming for the rear of the paw.
The greataxe swung true, as it hit the tendons in the rear leg, with a nasty ‘Schlurp’ sound. Astaroth felt the slight resistance of the nerves, flesh, and tendons, before the sliced and gave way.
The next thing that stopped the blade of his axe was the bone of the Manticore, which was accompanied by a loud painful cry.
Astaroth Then swapped out his weapons for his shield and shortsword, as the other hind leg kicked at him. He barely had enough time to put his shield before him, before being swatted away.
Since he was expecting the impact, he braced himself enough to control his flight and fall. He managed to backflip in the air, before landing on his two feet.
The Manticore, already angry at him for defying its supremacy, was now seething and snarling, in utter rage. It had only one person in its vision as of now, and that was Astaroth.