Yoshi had taken a grievous wound to the chest while under the influence of the Druid’s spell. His sprite armor had a diagonal gash where the barbarian’s axe had finally struck him. The adept’s health had been restored with Hisako’s spell, but his bent armor still stuck into his skin. He rolled clear of another attack by Heqht-jo and stood. With a control born of decades of sword practice, the adept sliced through the straps of his own armor in two precise sword strikes. The breastplate fell to the ground. Without the metal from his own ruined armor piercing his skin, the excess health given by the portal to Narina healed the last bleeding wounds on his chest.
Yoshi stared at the Barbarian. The adept drove one sword into the ground, ripped off the remains of his ruined shirt and reclaimed his blade. Bare-chested, he faced at Heqht-jo holding two rapiers the color of a pale blue glacier.
“Come!” the enemy commander said in goblin-speak, beckoning his racial foe closer. He knew that the end had come for one of them and was eager for it to be done. This one time, Yoshi found himself in complete agreement with a goblin. The adept set one foot back into a staggered stance, one blade extended and the other arched over his head like a scorpion’s stinger.
Heqht-jo exhaled in frustration, “Come on you forest r-”
The goblin never finished his thought.
The sword adept moved forward, his form a blur. Both blades struck against the goblin’s battle axe. Not against the head, but the haft. His ice rapiers cut through two of the Barbarian’s fingers. Heqht-jo roared and triggered his last remaining Rage. Red energy began to flow off of his body again while his speed, health, endurance and damage increased by a factor of four. He wasn’t the only one to use a Talent, however. Yoshi activated his most powerful attack, Flurry of Blades.
There was a reason that the sword adept seldom used Talents in battle. He used his precious Talent points to increase his overall fighting abilities rather than simply rely on what he called “tricks.” Lunge, Bash, Thrust and other Talents could be useful, but to Yoshi, a true Warrior relied on his skill and the strength of his arm. Still, he was not a fool, and twenty-seven Talent points had gone to purchasing this one attack.
Time slowed for Yoshi, and for the next three seconds, he moved faster than a diving hawk. His blades moved so quickly that it appeared that Heqht-jo was facing not two swords, but twenty. Rage made the Barbarian deadly, but Yoshi’s Talent was not just an attack. It drastically increased the innate skill of the Warrior. When that Warrior was Yoshi, a man who had spent decades honing his technique, Flurry of Blades was nearly unstoppable.
The Talent was not without cost. The three-second attack drained 45% of Yoshi’s stamina. After having already battled countless enemies, less than 5% of his green bar remained when the attack ended. In melee battle, stamina was the same as fuel in a car race. If your stamina ran out… you died. Yoshi had taken a serious chance using his Talent, but it paid off. Again and again, the adept’s weapons struck the barbarian… in only two places. Seconds later, the world sped back up, and the Barbarian was left to looking dumbfounded at his partially severed arms. Both forearms flopped, half cut away from his body.
The Barbarian looked up at the Warrior who had bested him in confusion. It had never actually entered the goblin’s mind that he would lose to a sprite. “But,” he began.
His face calm, Yoshi just shook his head and softly whispered “shhh,” as a father would to console a crying babe. Then his blade flashed and took the goblin’s head. The muscular body fell to the ground and black blood fountained into the air. So ended the story of Heqht-jo.
CHAPTER 41 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
Know This! As a War Leader under the command of War Leader Yoshi, you may benefit from his knowledge of the enemy. The sudden turn of events has greatly decreased the Fighting Spirit of the enemy forces!
The enemy War Leader has been slain! There is no other War Leader to replace him. -4000 to the Fighting Spirit of goblin forces. -1000 to the Fighting Spirit of troll forces.
FS Rank of goblins decreased from Violent (+20% Damage) to Unnerved (-20% Damage).
FS Rank of trolls decreased from Ruthless (+30% Damage) to Violent (+20% Damage).
The goblins broke. Barely over a hundred of them remained, and the creatures were cowards at heart, just as the sprites had said. The field was littered with their dead. They scrabbled over each other in an effort to run. Some even pushed their fellows into the spider traps in their haste. The allied forces pursued. The villagers, some of whom had never known battle before, were changed. They bellowed in greedy bloodlust, cutting their foes down from behind.
The troll mercenaries were much less affected by Heqht-jo’s death, but still understood that they had lost. More than half their number lay dead. A dozen more were badly wounded. Even with their regenerative ability, they would not be back in fighting form for hours or days. The mountain troll had taken a terrible toll on them, though now it lay dead. All four of its arms and legs had been hacked off, and an axe was still embedded in its skull, the haft sticking up into the air.
One of the remaining troll sergeants blew into a horn, two staccato notes and one long. Absolutely professional, they disengaged from the allied forces and took several steps back. Their shields and weapons were still in front of them, but they made no aggressive moves. One called out “Peace!” Terrod ordered the allied forces to stand down, and an uneasy stalemate was born.
Richter looked around, and for just a second, he thought that things might work out. They had crushed the goblins, forced their troll allies to surrender, and the biomancers were already downing more mana potions to heal the allied forces. He allowed himself a moment of hope. After what happened next, he realized he should probably learn the lesson of not tempting fate.
The battle might have ended at that moment. Even the Druid, Radg-or, was ready to quit the field. He reasoned that if he returned home with the Bloodstone, it would still allow him to save at least some face in goblin society. Heqht-jo had been the one in charge after all. He could blame the entire loss on the Barbarian’s temper. Amidst all of the blood, death, and pain of the battlefield, though, one more fight was still raging.