The pair of Brance and Benny quickly started linking up their movements as the battle progressed. When one would lash out, the other would move just enough out of the way to not get hit before following up with an attack of their own.
The constant influx of attacks bombarding him from all sides threw Osarseph for a loop, and panic set in rather quickly. Even in the wars, he had fought, he was never toyed with as he was currently being. Each move he made was either dodged, parried, or countered instantly, and that’s only talking about the two Warriors standing in front of him. However, there was still the hidden threat from the Archer and Mage that he couldn’t ignore.
The only positive thing was the amount of damage he was sustaining wasn’t intolerable. So far, the only strike that had actually hurt was the arrow to his calf. Thankfully, his scales were able to stop the bulk of injuries he would have incurred.
Having enough of the two flies buzzing around and chipping away at his body, Osarseph slammed his staff on the ground, creating a pulse wave in the stone. “[Sinking Stone]” his voice reached Brance’s ears a second too late. By the time he realized what was going on, Brance’s left foot was already knee-deep into the ground, and his right was submerged to his shin.
Benny was in worse shape; he had been landing from a previous assault when the ground underfoot melted, so he was currently struggling to keep his head and arms above the liquidized ground. He looked to Brance for help but was shocked to see even he had been trapped and was wearing an expression of anger.
Brance wasn’t only mad about being trapped, but for some reason, even though he had an Earth Affinity, he couldn’t free himself. It was as if this stone wasn’t actually stone; his Affinity seemed to have zero effect on it.
[Cyn, little help here?] Holding his arms and shields to the side in an attempt to stay still, Brance shot a message over to Cynrik.
[We have bigger problems…] Cynrik’s reply was followed by a massive explosion which Brance couldn’t see the source of as it was behind him.
After Osarseph finished activating [Sinking Stone], he began moving his arms in circles and chanting. Each syllable created paled Orange runic letters to appear in the air around him.
Leaving Gabby behind, Cynrik moved with [Mana Sight] active. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for him to get close enough to Osarseph to read these runic letters, and the results made Cynrik break into a cold sweat. Between the passive use of [Language Proficiency] and piecing together basic mythical themes, Cynrik was able to get a rough idea of what was about to happen, and it freaked him out.
‘This mother fucker is trying to summon a fucking Basilisk; what the hell.’ Speeding up, Cynrik unsheathed his Kodachis and went on the offensive, but as he drew closer to Osarseph, a glint shined in his eyes as he saw ten different totems placed in a triangle around his target.
‘WHEN THE FUCK DID HE PULL ALL THIS OFF? Did he set up some kind of trap that we fell into?’ Cynrik had kept an eye on Osarseph since the battle began, yet somehow, the Shaman had slipped not one but ten different Totems under his nose and placed them in a specific pattern. His mind spun on all cylinders as he split part of his attention to replay the fight so far. As he did so, Cynrik bit his lip, jumped back onto a hut, and went to grab Gabby.
Cynrik didn’t slow down as he approached the little girl and just casually reached out while he zipped by grabbing her by the hips and pulling her into his embrace. It took all of Gabby’s willpower not to scream in terror. If she hadn’t known the blur moving towards her was Cynrik, she, in fact, WOULD have screamed, but seeing how he didn’t slow down, Gabby realized Cynrik had come up with some kind of plan on the spot, and there was no time to explain.
Making his way back above the Totems, Cynrik deposited Gabby in place, and upon spotting the 10 Totems, her eyes went wide momentarily before narrowing. Cynrik nodded in approval as he watched her nock an arrow and take aim. Then, shifting his attention to Brance and Benny, who appeared quite comically stuck in the quicksand-like ground, he smirked before firing off a volley of [BlackFire] at the Totem. The instant the fireballs left Cynrik, they were trailed by just as many arrows; smirking to himself, he uttered Ragnar’s taunt for the fourth time, “Teehe haha!” A massive explosion occurred seconds later.
The shockwave generated by the simultaneous destruction of all 10 Totems was enough to shatter the spell formation Osarseph had been attempting to make, as well as cause him to spit up green blood. However, that wasn’t the end of his bad luck either. All his effort in passively leading his attackers to the preplanned location had failed, and the loss of concentration broke his [Sinking Ground] skill, which allowed Brance and Benny to pull themselves free from their restraints.
Feeling his Mana dip below the 45% range, Cynrik quickly leveled up to 19 and tossed the extra points into INT, increasing his Mana pool by 115 points. His eyes flicked to the HUD over top of Osarseph’s head. Although the battle had gone on for nearly 20 minutes, they had only chipped away around 25% of his health. The problem lay in the minimal amount of damage they could deal with him and his high regeneration. For every 10 points of damage they did, he would instantly heal back 3 to 4 points.
Cynrik knew he would have to play a more active role if they were going to win, so he kicked off the roof and darted towards Osarseph, who was struggling to get back to his feet and looking like he had been through hell. A quick observation revealed that most of the scales over his vital areas had some kind of damage or wear on them, and fine cracks were visible all over. In addition, his robes were in tatters, exposing a significant portion of his dulled Orange scales. His tail had several chips and chunks cut out of it, and Cynrik even spotted some teeth lying around the area.
He could tell that the opponent was slowing down as well. The backlash Osarseph had received from failing his summon was more significant than expected, and it could be seen in the lethargic movements the Shaman was making.
Putting all these thoughts to the back of his mind, Cynrik flitted forward at greater speed and got close enough to unleash a flurry of strikes on Osarsephs calves just like before, paying extra attention to the one that had been pierced by Gabby’s arrow earlier.
Each time his blade struck, Cynrik uttered the now haunting taunt.
“Teehe, Haha!”
SLASH
Cynrik slid on his left knee in the first strike while placing his left hand on the ground. Then, drifting around Osarseph, he came around behind the being and hacked at his right calf before following up with an elbow strike to Osarseph’s knee.
Time seemed to move in slow motion as the wide-eyed Osarseph felt the bite of Cynrik’s Kodachi and looked at the blood gushing from his calf followed by a crushing strike to his knee, which dropped him down.
“Teehe, HAHA!”
SLASH
The second strike was linked right after the first, still sliding around. Cynrik bounced up to his feet and moved like a gymnast, twisting his whole body tightly and delivering a sharp elbow strike to Osarsephs right kidney; this was subsequently followed up with another slash to his left calf.
The kidney attack forced a mouth full of blood to be spat by Osarseph as his body seemed to shut down from the chain of attacks targeting specific points of his body. He struggled to turn and catch the being who seemed to move like a ghost, silently and invisibly as he attacked.
By this point, Cynrik’s [Cloak of Shadows] had already dispursed, but he was unhindered, as this was his plan from the start. Reaching out and catching the taller being by the shoulder, Cynrik propelled himself forward and dug his Mana-infused hidden blade deep into Osarseph’s upper bicep.
“TEE HE HAHA!”
Dragging the blade through the scales kicked up sparks, and Cynrik knew it would do some damage to his blade, but he did stop until he felt the blade connect with bone; only then did he remove the steaming Fire infused hidden blade from Osarseph’s arm.
This move placed him directly in front of Osarseph, allowing their eyes to meet for the first time. Terror, anger, pain, these three things were visible within Osarseph’s eyes as he finally saw for the first time the being he was supposed to be dishing revenge upon. To his dismay, every scheme he concocted was thwarted by this being and his group. His eyes narrowed to slits as he watched the Black haired boy with violet highlights and icy, emotionless eyes float effortlessly from his left arm towards his right in slow motion.
“Teehe, haha!”
Those Icy eyes seemed to gloat when the words left the boy’s lips. Osarseph knew what was coming next, and no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, he soon felt the sharp sting of a blade digging into his flesh.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong Fam. PS Check out the Discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg