Jack slammed onto a hut and bounced off it. He barely managed to keep his footing when he touched the ground.
Suddenly a barrage of arrows came raining from the sky. Jack was taken by surprise, but he still reflexively lifted up his staff which still had the Magic Shield on. The shield however couldn’t protect all his body parts, its coverage area was not large enough. There were ten arrows coming down on him, he blocked three, while suffered the hit from two arrows, the remaining five punctured around the ground closed to him.
He did not need to take a look to know this was the Lizardman Archer’s doing.
The Lizardman Chief used the time that Jack was dealing with the arrows to get closed to him. It swinged its heavy axe towards Jack once it came into melee range.
Jack didn’t intend to tussle with the Lizardman Chief at the moment. He jumped back to avoid the blow. When he landed, he was just about to turn around and ran again when he heard cracking sound from behind him. He looked back and saw the ground was opening up as green vines came out from it.
The damn Shaman again! Jack uttered in his mind.
He immediately did a backflip and swinged his sword at the same time. It cut the vines that were lashing at him. Jack glanced at his radar to find out the position of the Shaman, it must had gotten closed in order to cast the vine spell. He made his way to the Shaman’s position while utilizing his speed to evade Lizardman’s Chief frenzy attacks.
Good thing was that red glow in its eyes had gone out, its speed seemed to be decreasing slightly. Jack intended to exploit this window before it used that enhancing roar again.
When the Lizardman Shaman came into view, Jack immediately ran towards it. It chanted a spell and the ground between it and Jack cracked and numerous vines came out again. It was like a long green carpet extending from Jack to the Shaman, but this green carpet was obviously not the welcoming sort.
The Lizardman Archer used another skill at this time. Its hand became a blur and shot three swift arrows from its bow consecutively.
Jack sneered, “you think that going to save you?”
He used Charge. The sudden speed burst of the Charge made the three arrows coming towards him missed completely. He cut through the vines like knife through butter. All the vines that got in his way were sliced to pieces from the Charge damaging effect. They did not even manage to slow down Jack’s speed by a bit.
The Charge this time hit the Shaman as it was positioned much closer than last time. It took out another 100 HP from the Shaman’s health bar. The life bar above it showed it to be around 30% left.
Jack made a fast Inspect with his monocle and found out the HP of the Lizardman’s Shaman had only 866 HP left. He sent his past games’ signature move of triple swift slashes and took out another chunk of health.
The Lizardman Chief had only used his Leap Strike a few moment ago, and with its buff gone, its running speed was also decreased. It was trying to come to the Lizardman Shaman’s rescue but it was helpless to watch Jack continued his slashes while it still making its way over.
The Shaman tried to break away futilely while defending itself as best as possible using its staff, but Jack’s speed of attacks obviously outclassed its own. The Lizardman Archer tried to disrupt Jack, but Jack either adjust his position to use the Shaman’s body to block the arrow or simply ignoring the arrow attacks. The damage from normal arrow attack was after all, not significant due to his rare armor’s ability that decreased 30% of range attack.
When the Lizardman Chief got close, Jack let the Lizardman Shaman go. He fired a Mana Bullet at the Chief. The Lizardman Chief use its tomahawk axe and chopped at the Bullet, destroying it, but the impact also halted its advance.
Jack looked at the fleeing Lizardman Shaman, it was running panicky for its life. Its back was towards Jack.
“I guess its time for your debut,” Jack said and swinged his black sword forward.
Sword of Light!
A trace of light appeared as it followed the swing trajectory of the tip of the sword. It formed a crescent shaped light that shot forward in a dazzling speed. It struck at the Lizardman Shaman’s back and created an animation where the head split open and gush of blood burst out. The number appeared showed critical damage of 442 damage!
“Holy shit!” Jack exclaimed. Not only was the damage insanely high, it also created an animation where the target’s head was split open!
The Shaman dropped to its knee after receiving the damage, then fell on his split face and not getting up anymore. Jack was wondering if the animation was due to the monster lost its life from that last strike or was from the skill itself. Could be both. Anyway, he was just glad that his opponent was down by one, it would make the rest of the fight easier.
The Lizardman Chief and Archer were stunned seeing their comrade fell. The Chief was trembling with rage, it then let out a much deafening roar compared to the first time. Its eyes were glowing with red again, but there was another added effect this time where its scale was also seemed to have a tint of red glow.
“Don’t tell me, it will get stronger if one of its guards died?” Jack said.
“It seemed to be the case, it could have gone berserk.” Peniel answered. She continued to float above Jack, following him.
The berserk Lizardman Chief lunged at Jack. Its speed was obviously faster than before, even when compared to when it was under the first buff. It arrived before Jack in an instant and make a slashing motion.
Jack was caught off guard, he did not have the time to use Magic Shield, so he used his sword to Parry instead. He could also feel the difference of the Lizardman Chief’s strength from the impact. The force was much heavier. He was sent crashing to another hut. This time, instead of bouncing from the impact, the hut was destroyed instead. He just punctured through its wall and came out the other side. He fell to the ground, rolling to a stop and felt pain all over his body.
He did not just received damage from the Lizardman Chief’s attack, but he also suffered damage when crashing through the hut.
Before Jack could get up, he saw a figure burst through the same hut he punctured through. The already wrecked hut was now completely destroyed by the collision. The Lizardman Chief was flying out in mid air with its tomahawk axe raised high.
‘What the…! Wasn’t he just used its leap attack not long ago?!’ Jack exclaimed in his mind while hurriedly summoning his Magic Shield and put it in front of him.
The axe came down and crashed with the shield. Jack stored his sword and used both hands to hold his staff, but he still felt as if the force of the impact had flattened him. The ground behind his back cracked in a spiderweb pattern because it couldn’t stand the force of impact.
He suffered 126 damage even after blocking with his Magic Shield. If this enhanced Leap attack hit a common level 15 Ranger or Magician, it would most likely kill them with just one hit!
During this time, Peniel could still find the time to answer what he had shouted previously in his consternation, “the berserk effect must have rebooted the cooldown of its skills.”
Jack was speechless with the Fairy, but he did not have the time to converse with her, as he saw the Lizardman Chief lifted his axe again. It then brought it down again and again with fervor. Jack was struggling to keep on blocking using his shield. When it brought down its axe for the fourth time, Jack rolled sideway out of the way. The axe struck deep into the ground, and stuck inside.
Seeing the stuck axe, Jack made a split decision whether to use this opportunity to attack or to flee. He chose fleeing. The berserk effect on the Lizardman Chief was pretty enormous, he was not going to take a risk just for a short moment for free attacks.
He ran as fast as he could while the arrow from the Lizardman Archer kept on shooting his way. Some missed, some lodged on his back. When the Lizardman Chief pulled out his tomahawk axe, peeling off some chunk of soil in the process, Jack was already some distance away.
