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Alex grimaced as he regarded the Death Knight. Its level was only twelve, but based on what he’d seen from the Death Squires, he assumed that was a change of some sort from when it became a full knight.
Or squires don’t actually become knights, and that’s just a nomenclature to denote power level?
It really didn’t matter.
The heavy armor the knight wore was all but vantablack, the otherwise flattened profile made somewhat three dimensional once more by red light shining through the gaps. The creature’s eyes barely visible through the slits in the helmet matched that light, making them seem more like just two more openings into the power that was within.
Alex glanced back, his eyes finding John. “They know we’re here. Want to just blow off its head?”
John grinned, holstering his pistols and pulling a rifle from his Inventory. “With pleasure.”
The group moved out into the main street, acting as a bit of distraction as John took a knee, propping the rifle against the building and taking careful aim.
Several of their longer range magic users triggered spells to help obscure John’s build up of power, timing it so their attacks arrived just as he was ready to pull the trigger.
A fireball as large as a car slammed into the knight, bursting like a water balloon against a rock and having about as much effect. If anything, the red glow from within the armor only intensified.
A boulder got a bit more of a response, the Death Knight lifting his kite shield into place at an angle, deflecting the otherwise devastating attack.
The redirected rock hit the right side of the gate, blowing out a good chunk of the wall despite how much energy it lost upon deflection.
Then, the crack of a rifle caused many Initiates to flinch despite their ear protection.
Alex’s mana sense detected just how much power the man had put into the attack, and he had a moment of hope that they’d deal with this threat in one decisive action.
The Death Knight clearly sensed something too, because his sword came up in time with the gunshot, and two diverging lines of undead exploded to either side behind him.
It took Alex a moment to realize what had happened, and Pilar put it to words first. “Did he just… cut the bullet in half?”
John was staring, open mouthed. “That wasn’t even a physical bullet. It was just a packet of mana.”
His wife patted him on the shoulder. “Which he cut in half.”
“He’s five levels below me!”
“I know dear, come on. We’ve lesser undead to kill. Those will be better target practice.”
John growled, but obediently put away his rifle.
The Initiates were moving forward as a group. It had been decided that Alex would determine the end of the assault, and he hadn’t called it off yet, so they pressed forward.
Alex had the unmistakable understanding that he would be the one to handle the Death Knight, at least primarily.
He would have despaired and called off the attack at the creature’s display of speed, except he’d been watching closely, and the defense had almost definitely been a skill of some kind, one that caused the red light to dim just slightly as it was used.
Alex hopped up and down a few times as they advanced at a steady jog.
He could do this.
He could get them through this threat on his own.
He would take some wounds doing so, but they’d heal soon enough.
He could make a way for his—
Natasha and the other spear wielders pressed forward, and she quietly called out to him. “We’re with you. Keep its attention, and we’ll harass the creature. With us working together, it won’t stand a chance. Then, we can reap the others.”
Alex let out a relieved breath. “Oh, thank goodness.”
Ben snorted a laugh at that, clapping Alex on the shoulder. “Did you think we’d let you have all the fun?”
Alex shook his head. “I suppose not.”
With renewed confidence, Alex tucked his head and sprinted forward, gaining distance from the larger group behind.
As soon as he came within about fifty feet, his choice proved providential.
The Death Knight raised one hand, mana clearly gathering for a powerful strike.
Alex let out a roar of challenge—that might have sounded more like a scream, but that hardly mattered—and sped up.
The Death Knight’s spell finished and a lance of blackness entirely unlike the plague witches’ attack shot forth. This one seemed to almost crackle with black lightning, twisting and braiding together into a spear that tore toward him.
Alex lifted his left fist, tilting the shield out of the way as he activated Life’s Active Defense.
Since that didn’t take any mental effort, he also began spinning up Shaped Force Burst, choosing to create a rune for a lateral impact.
The symbol would hopefully allow him to knock the knight’s shield aside in their opening exchange, as it was reasonable to assume that the knight would use the shield for defense as it learned what he could do.
The attack that he’d mitigated with Life’s Active Defense still tore near to three hundred health and stamina from Alex. The full, undiminished attack wouldn’t have killed him at three thousand damage—assuming it hadn’t carried other effects, which was a poor assumption—but it would have hurt.
By his left pinky, this had hurt, the lightning causing more pain than the HP damage alone should have.
Alex yelled again, trying to focus through the pain, and barely succeeding in maintaining the symbol set as he closed the last few feet.
He replicated the symbols vertically and dumped power into the runic structure.
Alex grimaced through the pain, the expression almost a smile of triumph. He’d guessed correctly.
His Shaped Force Burst triggered just as the Death Knight lifted his shield, falling into a defensive posture at Alex’s arrival.
The force burst slammed into the shield’s inside edge, the unexpected hit throwing the defense, and the attached arm, wide.
Alex pulled his dadao from Inventory and executed a Multi-Strike enabled pair of chops, followed up by a straight punch with the tip of his shield.
All three hits connected, not doing serious damage to the armor, but further staggering the Death Knight all the same.
Still, the creature showed its prowess as it fell back through the open gates, gaining distance as it recentered itself.
That retreat, however, meant that it no longer stoppered the gates, and Alex’s companions flowed around the two combatants, slamming into the undead that had been beyond.
The spear wielders also spread out, weapons trained on the Death Knight with lethal focus, shields held ready in case it chose to attack them.
Even so, it was clear that each trusted the other Initiates to keep the mass of undead occupied while they handled the Death Knight.
That was a dangerous assumption, as Alex and the spearguard were a good chunk of their force, but they could be spared for a moment.
They just needed to finish this fight quickly.
Alex, himself, would be needed soon enough to purify those who were hurt, but they had a moment now in which they could finish this more powerful creature.
Regardless, they only had seconds before they would be needed.
In that moment, he moved.
He was to be the focal point of the attack and that of the Death Knight’s attention. Moreover, it wasn’t to be a matter of chance. He would demand its attention.
His shoes gripped the road as he lunged forward, his greatcoat flapping despite being buttoned tight around him. The wind also made him a bit uncomfortably aware that his legs were bare below the coat, but it was hardly time to consider that.
He took the expected counter with another Life’s Active Defense—the skill having barely come off of cooldown—but the Death Knight was ready for that, immediately attacking again.
Alex blocked the powerful chop with his shield—the wood cracking and chips flying free— even as he did the most complex Multi-Strike he’d ever attempted.
First, he slashed at the Death Knight’s wrist with his dadao, striking home with enough power that mundane armor should have crumpled. Unfortunately, the hit barely hampered the Death Knight’s continued attacks.
Second, he sent his dadao into his Inventory and slapped his hand against the creature’s shield, dumping HP into the item. He also sent a pulse of Life through the shield, commanding it to learn what it could, despite the foolishness of the risk.
The shield was magical both in material and construction, and as such it resisted both the intrusion and the HP once it was within, but Alex was implacable, choosing to commit as he put a full quarter of his health on the line.
The shield burst into rust and ash with the screaming wail of a tortured spirit.
The others hadn’t been idle. Spears thrust, shrouded with various spells, even as other magic crashed against a dark shield that blossomed into being around the Death Knight to negate all but the mundane portion of the assaults.
Still, six spears—skillfully wielded—found gaps despite the knight’s best efforts. They couldn’t drive very deep due to the secondary layers of protection and largely poor angles, but they did force the beast to slow.
Laura’s spear in particular—the one that had been Natasha’s and which carried some of Alex’s Life—seemed to cause more pain than the others, but not enough to truly turn the fight in their favor.
Alex pulled out his heavy sword once more even as he began to spin up a Shaped Force Burst strike, aimed directly at the thing’s faceplate.
Before he could attack, the Death Knight became a whirlwind of metal and magic, knocking everyone back a step before a particularly powerful blast—delivered by the thing’s foot—took Alex in the chest, throwing him more than a dozen yards away into a rolling tumble.
Alex hit and rolled back to his feet, letting his Advanced Kinesthetics fully take over to facilitate the recovery. Even so, he was coughing blood, ignoring the notification of broken ribs and internal bleeding. His HP regeneration would take care of the wounds, or he wouldn’t live long enough for it to matter.
He didn’t have time to feel pain.
Even as he cleared his mind enough to focus on the Death Knight once more, he saw it drive a sword into Ben’s leg through the man’s shield, the beast’s empty hand shrouded in magic and holding Natasha’s spear despite her own magic’s best efforts to allow her to pull it free.
Ben screamed, dropping his weapon to clutch at his leg with his free hand as foul mana poured into the wound.
Beyond the fight with the Death Knight, the other Initiates were hard pressed as they fought more conservatively, trying to avoid any sort of wound as long as possible.
If Alex didn’t do something quickly, Ben would die. Then, their assault would fail shortly after.
The only things he had were his dadao—throwing that would be more likely to end badly than actually help—and his Shaped Force Burst, ready to deal a powerful focused hit on a close target.
The thing was too far away for that despite the spell aiming directly at the monster’s helmet across the span. It just couldn’t affect anything that far away.
He could transform it again into the proper shape to speed his leap forward, but that would take too long. Using it as it was would most likely break his legs due to how powerful it was if he used it as it currently was for that purpose.
He was going to lose Ben, just like he’d lost James…
James.
The knife.
Could he…?
Alex didn’t hesitate. He called the anti-undead knife from his Inventory into place right at the focal point of his force burst—already aimed directly at the Death Knight—and triggered it.
Mana rushed out of him and force slammed into the pommel of the knife, driving it forward like a crossbow bolt.
Thankfully, the knife had been designed for throwing, and as such was well balanced and mostly aerodynamic.
It flew true, slamming into one of the sinister red lights in the Death Knight’s head, cutting a perpendicular line across one of the eye-slots to do so.
Another scream of rage radiated outward from the creature as its power fought that of the knife.
The little weapon was designed to drive the undeath from weak and middling undead. A Death Knight was neither, but the weapon was still clearly a terror… though that might have also been because it was lodged in the thing’s eye.
Let’s end this.
Alex charged forward once more, barely noting Brianne already attending to Ben.
The Death Knight fought through its writhing agony enough to scream straight at Alex, their gazes locked.
The scream hit him like a mallet, causing his vision to blur toward black, even though he could feel his magical resistance lowering the power of the effect.
The creature seemed entirely shocked that Alex’s charge continued, unslowed.
That shock was its undoing as five spears drove home, two into its neck, two under the arms, and one low on the side. The spear wielders had taken the moment to properly angle and set their stances, and every spear hit with full penetrative power.
Mana flowed down the shafts and into the wounds, each blossoming with a different power that each ravaged the beast.
The result was a kill-assist notification before Alex had finished closing the distance, causing him to stumble and fall to his knees in relief, sliding the last few feet, only coming to a stop at the feet of the defeated knight.
The armor slowly toppled as the spears that had momentarily held it up were pulled free.
Thankfully, it fell backward, leaving Alex panting on the ground, his task complete.
He groaned, looking toward the heavens and letting out a small prayer of thanks even as he touched the creature’s foot, calling his Life back into himself.
System Notice:Your Life is not advanced enough to glean attributes from this life form.
He grimaced and growled before dismissing the notification and moving on.
Brianne threw a golden healing spell onto him and his ribcage blessedly reinflated, giving him an entirely different kind of relief.
Unfortunately, he had more than the one task, and there was no rest for the needed.
“BITE!”
His eyes snapped open, and only his trusty shoes kept him from slipping and stumbling as he lunged toward where he was needed next.