A loosing fight

While Korelor had pretty easily defeated the bandit he was fighting and beheaded him in the process, Weaver took a little longer. In the end, both Soldiers came out unscathed but could barely see Jay's second encounter.

None of them understood how it could happen as they saw it though.

As the dust of the Harvesters smash attack settled down, Jay sat on the defeated construct and was waving them over.

Jay had simply dodged the powerful attack by hairs breadth, stepped in and brandished his sword. His Wingblade wielding fire magic had no problem piercing the Harvesters shell.

The real reason Jay waited this long was to find the location of the core unit.

Last time, he had simply been lucky to have hit it, but this time he wanted to produce a critical hit.

As the mana circulating in the construct was thicker inside and around the core, he could somehow feel it as he concentrated on the magic energy, and with this locate the core.

With the opponent's weak point being outer mana entering its circuits, Jay had destroyed it in one single move as he overloaded what the Harvester could sustain.

But they had not much time to get an explanation done as the next Harvester had already been sent to their location.

Even though Galiaan was watching out, the battled they fought could be seen from quite some distance. That way, another patrol had noticed them and came rushing in, this time directly supported by two Harvesters.

Korelor and Galiaan readied themselves and went to intercept the two bandits that came running and Jay pulled his sword out of the defeated monstrosity. He was going to receive the next Harvester that came running parallel to the bandits while the second one had fallen slightly back.

But at that moment he saw Weaver rush in on the closest construct, his hammer at the ready and holding up his shield.

Even though Jay shouted to stop, the Protector didn't listen and clashed with the giant construct.

Their battle took place slightly behind the two other soldiers so the last Harvester changed directions and was rushing towards Weaver.

Without thinking too much in this situation, Jay stepped in and engaged combat with the second construct even a bit further back to not disturb the other fights.

It took again only one hit loaded with mana, a sidestep and a single stab to incapacitate the Harvester.

With the general location clear to him, Jay only needed to mentally follow his mana inside the construct while dodging its attack and stab where it gathered.

Not stopping with this, Jay looked out for his next target.

Just at that moment he saw Weaver flying through the air, over to where Korelor and Galiaan kept fighting. The moment they defeated one bandit in cooperation, Weaver crashed to the ground.

A second later his shield landed next to him, together with his lower left arm.

Boosting his legs with mana as much as possible, Jay bee-lined between the Harvester and the group of soldiers that kept the fight with the last bandit up. Without any chance to throw a heal to Weaver as to not endanger himself or the rest of the group, Jay intercepted the construct.

This time he directly attacked the core and with only one stab from the back as he circled it and a heavy straight punch from the front directly afterwards, the mechanical opponent ceased to function.

With the two on one situation for the soldiers, the bandit died at about the same time.

Closing in on Weaver who had already bound his wound but was about to pass out, Jay saw Korelor giving him a small flask with a reddish clear liquid inside.

His guess proved right as he analyzed it as a Health Potion. After dripping some of it on the wound and then emptying the flask, weavers complexion got slightly better.

He still was in no condition to fight on, so Weaver planned to wait near the road not to hinder the rest of the unit.

Just as he was going to pull back and wait until they had finished the job, an arrow came flying for him.

Then a second.

The third arrow sealed the Protectors fate, entering his throat as the man was already falling forward.

The next patrol had spotted them and initiated their attack. Though they had no Harvester with them, this group was even more troublesome than the last.

While two of the bandits opened the fire with their bows and even killed the wounded Weaver, a third one ran away while shouting and alarming others of the soldiers.

She only stopped as Jay had taken out his bow and silenced her with two simultaneous arrows.

It was a close call as she would have gone out of sight behind the hill she was running up in the next seconds.

Not waiting any longer, Korelor ran over towards the two attackers while Jay and Galiaan covered for him with their bows. They took out the left bandit and wounded the other one while their last Protector crossed the distance.

One swing of his trusted sword was enough for the inexperienced seeming bandit to meet his end.

After the two soldiers picked up Weavers belongings and Jay looted the two dead bandits, they climbed up the hill to look for the last one.

Upon reaching the top and getting a glance on the dead woman, they readied their weapons again.

A short break would have been nice, but the result of the female bandit shouting out about their attack presented itself before them at the feet of the hill.

Roughly a dozen bandits and five more Harvesters came walking towards them, combat ready. Further in the back, the trio could already see the farm behind a field and the grassy plain the hill ended in.

Cracking his neck, Jay turned to Korelor.

"Hey, could you lend me Weavers weapon? That hammer looked sturdy and I bet it would have been to his liking if it's used to kill some of those bastards…" J.

"If you state it that way, sure…" K.

Receiving the heavy weapon with his left hand, Jay tested its weight.

For one handed weapons, it was the most heavy one Jay ever wielded. Though it was neither enchanted nor made of precious materials, it was a massive hammer made of steel.

While charging fire magic on his sword and lightning on the hammer, Jay started to run down the hill. The other two followed him but Galiaan kept himself a bit in the back.

Though he was astonishingly fast in close combat, his forte was still scouting and his bow.

With the support from behind him and two fully loaded weapons, Jay clashed with the first bandit.

He had only intended to block the mans sword with his hammer and attack later, but the sheer force hurled the poor blade away. A fraction of a second later, the magic unloaded on contact, roasting the bandits arms and blasting him over two yards back.

That was one man down.

This was no longer a covered operation, so Jay boosted his attacks with magic what resulted in a way more flashy type of fight but faster killing as well.

From then on, Jay showed a side not many had witnessed. Or not many that witnessed had survived.

He did no longer dodge the Harvesters attacks but simply countered them with Weavers hammer and went in for an attack.

Repeating this two to three times per construct disabled them one after another.

The bandits tried to keep their distance from the raging youth after they witnessed how the first in their rows died.

But the two remaining Soldiers were out seeking revenge for Weaver.

Bashing them with his shield, Korelor slashed at the remaining bandits while Galiaan kept his distance and shot them with his bow. This way the two killed off the humans while Jay took care of the machines.

A second kill of a bandit got accounted to Jay though, as the second last Harvester fell backwards and squished the female bandit underneath it.

With the last bandit dying by Korelor's blade, the three looted the corpses and proceeded towards the farm. On their way there they encountered another attack team only a bit smaller than the first, but took care of them without any issue.

After crossing the last field and arriving next to the Saldemas farm, they found it fortified and defended by over twenty bandits. Glad they at least had no Harvesters left as it seemed, the three men were looking for the safest way in.

The main building was sealed off and in front of the barn next to it, the occupiers had thrown over a wagon and a carriage to cover themselves. While most of the bandits hid exactly there, some other soldiers took cover behind crates and haystacks placed all over the yard.

If it hadn't been for the farm itself, Jay would have used magic and destroyed everything within sight.

Glad the corn had grown pretty high, the three men sneaked closer towards the yard. From there on they decided to take a careful approach and try to attack from the other side.

Just as they had passed the barn by a bit along the side, still hidden withing the corn field, they got attacked.

It was Galiaan their scout that got shot by an arrow out of nowhere.

Then came another arrow that hit him in his flank. With the first arrow sticking deep withing his left shoulder, the soldier went to his knees. But Jay had been able to locate the bowman as he shot the second arrow.

Two men had positioned themselves on the high silo on the back of the barn. After the second shot they ducked down in hopes to not get spotted.

So without wait, Jay crouched down and told Korelor where the attacks were coming from and they made a plan.

Some seconds later, Korelor held up his shield and supported Galiaan at the same time. The two men still tried to circle around the farm and get into a better position.

At least they wanted it to look like that.

Jay had split up with them and was crawling out of the corn field while using hide. In swift strides he crossed the about six yards to the barn and leaned on the wall.

Sliding along it, trying to make no noise, Jay reached the base of the silo.

The bandits still kept hidden behind their covers between the barn and the main house and were watching out to roughly the northern and southern direction. Glad the silo's ladder was facing north, Jay could climb it without getting seen.

Said climb was fast.

Faster than he himself would have imagined.

With each step jumping over two stages, Jay raced towards the top.

He had already gotten used to normal movement and combat maneuvers with his pretty high stats, but every new kind of movement was pretty hard for Jay to get used to.

Grabbing the last stage, he hurled himself up and onto the top of the silo.

The two bandits jumped up in shock, but it was to late for one of them. Equipping his Wing-blade from his quick slot while still airborne, Jay had slashed at him and beheaded the defenseless man.

Without wait, the second bandit jumped towards Jay to get him off balance.

Had they been on the ground, this might have been a good idea, but as they were on a silo and over thirty yards high up, there was only one result possible.

Falling over the ledge after they collided, Jay and the bandit raced towards the ground. The bandit was still grabbing Jay's armor and was clinging to him. This way slashing or any action was impossible for him as he fell back first while the bandit was looking mockingly into his eyes.

That changed in the next moment as Jay, only thanks to his strength, managed to peel the bandit off and started to turn them around while they were still falling.

Still holding the bandits head away with one hand, he saw the earth rushing in.

And then they collided with the hard ground.

Cracking sounds echoed over the farm and Korelor who had seen Jay fall was about to rush over.

The same applied to the three bandits that were hiding close to where the two men had crashed down onto the earth.

But none of them moved.

As Jay went up to his feet again, he had learned two things:

The first was, falling damage was something he really could neglect in the future. Even though his knee hurt a bit thanks to his miserable landing, all it amassed to was a measly ten damage he received.

And his landing had really been bad as he caught himself with only a knee and his free left hand.

That led to the second thin he learned.

He had already speculated about what would happen once his stats reached a certain count. With his experience of growing stronger until then, he had a hunch his strength would become lethal for normal people in the not too far future.

The proof of that lay beneath him at that moment.

The bandits head that Jay had grabbed, was nowhere to be seen. Only a red paste and bony debris lay on the ground, splattered over a few feet.

It had gotten smashed to the ground so hard, it looked like it exploded.

Shaking his left hand to get at least a bit of the bandits brain matter off his hand, Jay walked over to where the bandits still stood like petrified behind their covers. They looked totally dumbfounded and only reacted as Jay sliced through the first one.

With his next slash, Jay got rid of the second who came rushing in with his daggers, while the third died to two daggers in his back.

Jay had fetched them up from the bandit he just defeated and hurled them towards the fleeing third man.

Back next to Korelor who still looked irritated after Jay came back seemingly unhurt, they talked through how they would proceed from then on.

Korelor wanted to get help for Galiaan but also insisted on their duty to free or at least scout the farm.

Jay replied he could stay close to the farm and watch out while Korelor would take Galiaan back to Sentinel. If they took the horses the soldiers left near the road, they would arrive at the city by at least nightfall. They then would come back with reinforcements as soon as possible.

Not a minute later, Jay helped them up and saw the two men off.

Rubbing his hands he turned back around and faced the farm. There was no way he'd let such a feast of Experience Points go to waste...

Looking down on the worn out sword in his right hand, Jay had to admit it looked pretty bad. Though it had been of great use to him, the time in his service seemed to end pretty soon.

Deciding to not take any risks of it breaking mid fight, Jay took out the hammer he got from Korelor. Latter hadn't asked Jay to give back Weavers weapon, so he kept it.

Now it was time to munch some bandits!