Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration
Page 31
The fighters attacked the fallen minotaur and a reserve tank took Bear's position in the formation.
Bear was now by himself. It was a nearly suicidal attack, but it was necessary. By doing this he could open the path more quickly, even if it was riskier.
The third row didn't hold for even a second and we advanced further. The tanks behind us were doing their best to resist the wave of minotaurs and the only reason they hadn't been trampled yet was because the fighters were doing their job, supporting the tanks.
Meanwhile, my crossbowmen were firing at the mages. Only a few bolts hit but it was enough to make them unable to amass morbs. The big problem was the thirty mages at our backs now.
Bear kept going, we kept following, and the enemies kept attacking. We were on the fifth row when Daggers spoke to me.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
Bear's HP was below half, a fifth zombie died, we were surrounded by hundreds of minotaurs, and Daggers was trapped with a strong enemy.
It was time for a desperate tactic.
25. The Box
The Box Formation was the worst of all in terms of mobility and versatility. It had a single objective: absorb damage.
Except for Bear, we all packed into a tight square with the tanks outside. A smaller perimeter meant fewer vulnerabilities to the enemies attacks, but a packed group like that also meant AoE skills or spells would be devastating.
I kept ordering the same thing over and over again. Each time I said it, we were supposed to, well, push. Not just step ahead, but use all the strength of our legs to push upwards, the people in the back throwing their weight at those on the front, and those in the front doing the same against the enemy while trying not to fall.
My position was one of the worst possible. There was so many people squeezing me that I could barely touch the floor sometimes, and I was still supposed to help.
Still, I kept repeating 'push.' We had to break through or we would all die.
Spells exploded above us: fire, water, life, death, everything damaged us. Two more zombies died and we kept going.
It was hell. We could do nothing but press on.
Our pace was much faster than before though. By now, we were already at the seventh row and we kept going. The minotaurs simply couldn't withstand our concentrated power.
One more zombie died, but we finally reached the mess hall.
I couldn't see anything, so I asked the zombies what the hell was in there.
The pressure in front of me gave as the zombies there began to run and I did the same.
There were no tactics involved, we just had to get to the other room. Our only advantage was that we ran beside the lightsteel wall and so just had to worry about attacks from the left. Because of that, those of us with shields had a much easier time defending ourselves.
The mess hall was a huge room full of long tables and long benches, all made of metal. There was no food on the tables though, only minotaurs. A quick estimate told me there were over a hundred in the place, and at least twenty were mages.
So, although we could defend ourselves with the shields, spells to lock us in place or slow us down were still a sad reality.
The zombies in front of me hit the minotaurs by the door like cannon balls. None of them were raging but they were still fast enough to knock the minotaurs off balance. Then, when more zombies hit the backs of the first ones, most of them fell on the ground.
By the time I got there, the passage was clear. The fallen zombies were trying to get up while the ones who came after them just stepped over them into the other room.
As I stepped over them, a minotaur tried to grab my foot. I dodged, but still tripped, rolling into the new room.
This room wasn't as large as the mess hall, but still sizeable. It was a training room with lots of dummies, arrow targets, a fighting ring at the center and no enemies.
The lack of enemies was both good and bad. Good because we needed the rest. Bad because Bear was in the other room and his Rage was still on, fighting some random minotaur.
I got to my feet and looked at the doors out of the room. It had three: the one we had entered through, one on the far side, and one nearby that led to the lever room.
Bear couldn't perfectly control who he attacked but he could change targets if they were close enough. From minotaur to minotaur, he eventually attacked a zombie and then jumped zombies to get to me. He bit a fighter on the way and the guy almost died.
When he arrived in front of me, I kept my shield raised as he attacked, so I didn't lose HP and we both were only wasting some stamina.
Ever so slowly, I moved the direction of the lever room while Bear kept attacking me. The doorway was blocked by a nearly transparent white barrier. By the color, it should've been air magic.
For all purposes, Bear was just like a dumb monster now, having to attack whoever was closer or easier to attack, with only a bit of freedom to change targets.
A tank appeared and Bear started attacking him instead. I started amassing fire morbs.
The zombies were fighting by the doorway and the one Bear had bitten died. That marked the tenth death. Twenty-seven zombies, plus Daggers, Bear and I to go.
As soon as all my ten morbs were ready, I began to throw fireballs at the magic barrier.
A fireball was only better than a firebomb in three situations: when I had a mana issue; when I didn't have the time to summon a firebomb, since it took twice as long; and when I was attacking a single, unarmored, static target, which was the case for the barrier.
The last one sounded weird but was simple: damage reduction canceled out a fixed amount of incoming damage from each attack, so one strong attack would do more damage than multiple attacks which had equal strength, since less was canceled out.
121 fir
e + 30 burn damage dealt to Air Barrier (151 total)
If this had been a part of the castle's defenses I wouldn't be sure I could destroy it. However, it had just been summoned and I knew there was only a single mage maintaining it.
Sadly, I didn't deal double damage against this spell; unlike Robert's tornado, it wasn't immune to physical attacks, it seemed.
After the seventh fireball hit it, a little over a thousand damage in total, the barrier fell apart. I could see Daggers fighting an impressive golden armored minotaur — who was about three meters tall — and two lightsteel armored enemies in close quarters, with the mage standing in the corner and throwing spells at her.
I took two seconds to amass a new fire morb, this one intended for a firebomb instead of a fireball.
I didn't even check how much damage I did, I turned back to the doorway where the zombies were still fighting a mess of a battle.
The remaining doorway of the training room was still empty and I liked it very much, thanks. That meant that we could use the room we were in as our base, instead of the smaller lever room.
It was time to organize the mess.
They did as ordered and I finally managed to get a clear picture of what we had: twenty-one armored zombies and six without armor. If it wasn't for the fifteen sets of lightsteel armor from the minotaurs in the underground corridor, I don't think we would have made it this far; an extra armored zombie not only meant extra defense for himself but also better survivability for the entire group.
However, only three of them had over half HP remaining. Four had forty-percent, and of the twenty-one of them, fifteen had twenty percent HP or less. That was seventy percent of our remaining number! It was scary as hell; I hadn't realized we were that close to defeat.
A zombie with ten percent HP was shooting his crossbow and when I looked at the others to ask why they weren't doing the same, I saw them panting. It made me realize that HP wasn't the only issue and I gave new orders.
They obeyed and, thankfully, a few started shooting, two of which were in the forty-percent HP threshold. I sighed in relief and began to heal them first.
You healed Random Zombie for 123 HP
Just like that, from the mastermind of a reverse siege and the highest damage dealer in the party, I became the healer.
It took eight deathballs and twenty-four seconds to heal about a thousand HP. In the kind of war of attrition we were waging, this much time could be the difference between victory and defeat, depending on how the zombies fought.
We could last for a long time. Three zombies at a time could hold the doorway, it was only that many because the doorway was way larger than normal. Not only was I healing the zombies, they would also naturally heal when resting.
Three fighting defensively, twenty-four resting. It was almost like training.
Obviously, only three couldn't stop the sheer mass of the minotaurs on the other side, so I ended up having some of the resting zombies act as buttresses to make sure the front line held. Thankfully, the dumb minotaurs didn't try to push us using the sheer force of their numbers.
I had completely ignored the fight on Daggers' front; Bear had been successfully drawn into the lever room and with the Blackguard, they should be able to deal with everything in there. If not, they would have already said so.
Plus, as much as I wanted to join them in battling the elite, I was needed more here, healing everyone.
Now that the castle gate had been closed, I could finally use Bear and Daggers to do other things again. Daggers would be especially useful; I was confident she could find a way to get to the enemy mages and have some fun with them.
And just like that, we settled into a routine. I healed zombies, the ones fighting swapped positions when one of them was worn down, and minotaurs died.
Valia was like that. One moment, I was too engrossed in the game to remember it was a game. Then other times, the fact that it was a game couldn't be clearer.
I mean, what were the odds of twenty-seven people holding back hundreds of enemies at a doorway in real life? Practically nonexistent. But with shields that absorbed eighty percent of the damage and good armor? We were supposed to be able to resist.
After all, this was an MMORPG. Wasn't hours of grinding down a superior force supposed to be one of its attractions?
Even using only six MP per heal, eventually I found myself with less than a thousand MP.
She took a few seconds to check.
And now the game was back to being somewhat realistic, with armor size and whatnot. I sighed.
Daggers appeared a few seconds later with it. It was made of lightsteel and was about half my height. It had lots of arcane symbols etched into it and looked cool.
Medium-Quality Lightsteel Magic Staff
» +10% effectiveness to spells of positive elements
» -20% effectiveness to spells of negative elements
Positive elements encompassed light, life, fire, air, nature, gravity, and maybe others that I didn't know of.
Negative elements were darkness, death, water, earth, acid, mind, and others.
Divine magic was neither innately positive nor negative but could also be all of them, depending on what element it was mixed with, like the spells the Ruined Mage Kings had used on the Slums.
I didn't know exactly how the mixed magic worked. Daggers was immune to divine magic and had resisted them all in the Slums. I, on the other hand, was immune to dark magic. Would that make me immune to dark divine magic too?
For my plans, I certainly hoped so.
The staff was useless for healing the undead, since death magic was negative, but other than that in was a nice addition to my equipment. Extra ten percent to my life magic would be handy, but the boost to my fire damage would be especially neat.
After putting away the staff on the ground to my side, I checked Daggers' status.
Daggers (level 24)
HP: 312 / 1145
MP: 170 / 170
Stamina: 43 / 415
"That was close, huh?" I asked using my mouth. The mind chat was for battle-related talk, not for chitchatting.
"Affirmative," she replied.
I kept healing the zombies. "I have about eight minutes' worth of mana to heal, then it's time to take the fight to the minotaurs. Can you attack the mages on the backlines somehow?"
"Yes, sir."
A smile crept across my lips. "Thanks. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't know where to go."
Bear came out of the room and I checked his status too.
Bear (level 22)
HP: 720 / 4825
MP: 125 / 125
Stamina: 107 / 705
"Not bad," I told him. I amassed a new death morb and realized I simply had no zombie other than Bear to heal. With things like that we could last for a long time. I retrieved the staff as I healed Daggers, Bear could wait.
"Dude, I lost over three thousand HP even with a hundred points of defense," he sat on the floor and Daggers and I followed. "The amount of damage that was directed at me was absurd."
When he put it like that, it did sound a bit worrisome. Most impressive though, was the fact that his armor was pristine except for the dried blood. No enemy had managed to put even a scratch on it, in contrast with the armor the rest of us were wearing, which was dented and dirty, proof of the war we were fighting.
"And boy, I loved every smash I took!" He opened his helmet and smiled. "Ugly-face, I'm glad I didn't logout with Ted."
"Sorry about that, by the way," I said. "Valia is just too important to me."
"Don't worry about it," he said. "She was being annoying. You were right: this is just a Valia. There's no reason to be so emotional over the Valians' lives."
"Yeah, I don't care about any of them, except the enslaved ones," I said. "I hate slavery."
"Sir," Daggers said. "You said before that we are not the good guys. You ordered me to kill a pregnant minotaur."
"I did, but was she a slave?" I smiled wider. "Remember, I'm not a good guy, but slavery is my bottom line, on Earth or in Valia."
"You're weird, Ugly-face," Bear said, then turned to Daggers. "Killing that pregnant woman was disgusting. And ballsy. I think I might be in love with you."
I laughed. "I doubt it. You're just in love with the part of her that acts like you would."