The Siege Pt3

From the wreckage in view I felt that I could safely estimate half of the outpost's forces had been dealt with and the remaining half were currently falling back to the small rubble castle in the center where this outpost's green flames originated from.

Most of this neutral green lighting was being overwhelmed by intense white holy flames spreading out from the ranged attacks of my party. It was this fire and its radiant AOE damage that was repelling the demons and causing the few hundred scattered undead to smoke and writhe about the ground.

I did not even know they had such an attack, but after considering the amount of time they had spent refining divine mana I was not surprised that they could produce Soulfire or a similar substance. The reason I thought of it as Soulfire was because the more it spread and illuminated the harder the other clans started fighting as if recovering from their fatigue. If the holy flames could damage enemies and heal allies at the same time, it might as well have been Soulfire.

Even if they did not have my Assimilate skill to simplify and increase the benefits of the refining process, they had spent so much time at a divine source it would be impossible for them not to have picked up at least one such skill.

Under the heavy support of my team, the clans spread out and encroached slowly on the central structure. All the smaller scrap sheds and buildings in the way had been decimated or burned away from the constant exchange of attacks. Although they were withdrawing, they were giving as much damage as ground in close quarters and even splashing out demonic skills further afield.

Their magical abilities were not as strong as their physical assets but this was probably because I did not see any of the phantom race demons. They had probably been members of the reinforcements and this outpost had used all of theirs. Which, obviously, had been a foolish choice.

I had originally thought the outpost would have reserved its overwhelming magical firepower for defense, but it seemed like that phantom race was the only one with dangerous abilities. Even then, they had been smeared into a plasmic paste over the rocky ruins. If they were present now, we might still be in the process of getting inside.

Monitoring my golem's progress while conserving my energy, only spending mana to connect with the golem and use it as an extension of myself to cast simple spells. Picking up this trick took a thousand mana in overcharge as if casting an amped version of a normal spell or skill but only produced the standard version at my levels. However, some well timed lightning while cheaply maintaining the conduit connection made all the difference for some otherwise unlucky players.

Aside from my own magic, the golem itself had a Strength stat just over three hundred thanks to its stat crystals, allowing it to rival most of the demons in terms of physical power. Its Agility, though, was equal to Zekrom's and thus it naturally blurred about the area. The only time it stopped and came into visual focus was when it would unleash a lightning quick combination of sword skills and pummel four or five demons at a time.

The creature had some intelligence from Cleansing, giving it an actual Intelligence of fifty but its Willpower and Endurance were matching stats at five hundred. However, the golem had exactly zero Luck. This only worried me a little because not only did my Luck assist my familiars and comrades but the golem was pretty much an inanimate object.

If it died, I could replace it. While here in the dungeon I aimed to make a small series of these golems while the graveyard pool was still accessible. As well, I had another experiment that I needed to see to.

Here and now, Cweeper and Hermes were disembarking from their towers simply by leaping down to the ground below not far behind the spread of players. The combat was moving out of sight within the 'headquarters' and they needed to keep up with the company to apply their few support skills when needed.

Even if they rarely had to use it, both of them had a maxed Healing Arts mastery skill and could drag players back from death just by proximity.

Their Healing Arts came with some buffing skills as well, things I had never even bothered with since I often kept them out of range from me in combat. However, to the rest of my team and the other clans they lived up to their demigod names. One buff boosted just the physical and magical parameters- including movement speed- while the other two buffs simply increased physical stats or magic stats by ten percent.

Unlike usual blessings from holy classes, though, these buffs lasted for three minutes and had ten-minutes cools. My familiars had cast their buffs from either end of the ridge after the wall was actually breached, ensuring the spread of affected players. We had also been in action for about two minutes.

After watching my comrades circling the headquarters with their bodies and familiars I spread my wings out to full size from around the coffin on my back and take to the air. Following lazily after the others, I watch as certain sections of walls around the command structure start falling away to reveal the retreated troops who were now switching to archery and thrown weapons.

With a home field and mild height advantage, they soon turned the tides on the players with their sudden switch in tactics.

The players were immediately put on the defensive while using defensive items to cast different forms of wards or using attacks of their own to cancel out those in the air. At first, the players actually lost a few lives but then no damage was traded between sides for several seconds. This held on for several long moments in which the players were forced back about ten yards while crowding together for support.

Even though crowding made AOE damage affect more people it allowed these players to spend less energy on defense. If these were all overwhelming magical enemies, then we would probably have to fight it out with ranged attrition after retreating ourselves. However, both sides were relatively equal thanks to the gecko demons and their defensive magic.

Growing tired of watching this exchange persist as the players start to lose steam with the cycling of skills with no ground gained, I channel mana into both my hand and the forearm blade of my right arm before sweeping out both a Spirit Slash and Spirit Wave.

The Spirit Slash flowed faster than the wave, streaking out with a blurred comet tail before cutting into the broad side of the headquarters across numerous bodies. The Slash not only damaged and pushed away many of the attackers on the first floor walls but also tore into the structure itself. When the following Spirit Wave caught up, most of the damage was hidden under fallen rubble from the side wall of the headquarters crumbling with the immense blunt spiritual impact.

Pressing the advantage I provided to them, Stonewall and his half of my party stormed up to the fort, ignoring the angled shots coming from the front and back sides of the building. Behind him ran Mr. Thirteen, Ms. Donna, and Mistress leading their elites first into the headquarters. Behind them ran the hundred-plus remaining players.

The rubble of the wall was easily cleared with a combination of shield-bash explosions and a few small spells from Lil and Agnes, opening the way into the fort. The demons on the inside were there and ready despite the showers of debris that splashed into the rubble and scrap structure. Instead of entering the building, though, Stonewall suddenly takes up a shield stance in the middle of the opening and shouts, "Pull Back!"

The others following him did not hesitate, starting with Lil and Agnes who ran away off to either side of the headquarters while Papi and Go simply started backing away with their weapons up and ready. This was not something that I was used to seeing and could only mean one thing as the other clan leaders and elites advanced forward as a wide defensive line to meet up with Papi and Go.

Even the rest of Tragedy's Travelers made their way forward and joined this front line group.

Cweeper and Hermes joined the small groups at the side where Lil, Agnes, Oleander, Merch, and some of the other healers had gathered in a better supporting position. I myself simply lowered my slow hovering by ten feet so that I could better see into the building.

The inside of the building itself was mostly empty except for some stairs and platforms about the inner walls. This was probably how the smaller demons got into position in the walls. Behind the gathering of Taurian and gecko monsters around the headquarters breach were about a dozen remaining bone demons, two dozen larger Taurians with goat heads instead of rat faces, and one large bipedal reptile demon with scales made of some black ivory and a 'V' snout like a crocodile.

This demon had a soft amber light glowing between its scales and in its eyes, stood ten feet tall on two kangaroo-like legs, and wielded a fifteen-foot halberd with five feet of that length being its ax face and spearhead alone. Around its legs on the floor were fifteen feet of loosely coiled tail covered in spiraling narrow ivory blades.

This guy looked straight nasty and ready to mess somebody up from the middle of all these other demons. He was just standing there, poised and at the ready to greet anyone of us that stepped inside. That giant ax face looked like it could chop into my hulk form as easily as one of Zekrom's swords.

"Is it finally my turn?" I ask with an oddly bright and cheerful voice while slowly gliding down to the ground near Stonewall while carefully maintaining a standing position. Then, tilting my head to the side in confusion, I ask, "Wait, where's the boss?"

"He's right-" Stonewall starts to say, only for me to cut him off while stepping inside and growing my hands out into blades that split into three more blades apiece.

"Spirit Slash. Arc Geist," I cast casually, whipping my bladed hand to and fro in one smooth motion. Two thousand mana was stripped from my pool as fifteen blades of overwhelming Spirit Slash scythed through the entire building to the left side while electrified wraith blades swept out to the right.

Everything but the giant lizard demon in the center was carved through like a juicy Thanksgiving turkey, including the building. The headquarters shook and leaned as clouds of dust and gore filled the air. Demons about the stairs, platforms, and the openings in the wall leaped either out or in as the building started to collapse.

Many of the demons who jumped outside foolishly hopped into graves dug by the players' incoming attacks.

Casting Spirit Eruption straight up, I blow away the crumbling walls and floors of the headquarters straight up into the air and probably right out of the outpost. Seconds later, the entire area was just one thin settling dust cloud containing dozens of demons, about one-fifty players, and one very angry looking boss who had yet to move from their previous positions.

"Nope!" I announce at last as the players begin encircling the outpost commander while the last of its underlings soon die off. "No matter where or how hard I look, there's no boss monster. Stonewall, wear him out and then capture the guy. Blood Binding a demon like that would probably be a huge help to your Strength and Agility."

"You want ME to capture a boss mob?!" Stonewall asks Incredulously, his voice rising with surprise so that everybody in the area could hear him. "Do I look like you and play video games by smashing balance systems with a hammer?!"

"If you could, you would," I counter flatly with a deadpan expression. "Go punch that lizard until it stops fighting back. Kick it in the cloaca if you have to! Trust me, the rewards for success are far greater than simply succeeding."

Giving me a confused look that suddenly appears enlightened, Stonewall turns back toward the ruined headquarters before rushing forward. The enemy whose tag read 'Stronghold Commander Reptor LVL150' no longer simply stood there and waited. Once Stonewall was within a certain range, it blurred forward like a Quick Step with a ruthless thrust.

Two feet of spearhead met the solid wall of Stonewall's shield and both parties were stopped in place for a split second. Stonewall, though, broke the clash with his Bash skill that sent the lizard staggering several steps back. Sadly, Stonewall was not all that fast and the demon boss' stagger speed was actually faster than him.

By the time he came within range of another shield attack, the boss had already recovered its balance and was swinging in with its weapon.

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