Ajax didn’t want to give up the chase despite his dwindling resources this was a great chance for him to take out a good part of the enemy leadership as well as some of their strongest fighters. From the way the plant spell managed to trap him Ajax had a sneaking suspicion that the veterans would be much better prepared to face him next time now that they had experienced his full power in person.
On the other hand there the rest of Gryndor’s champions could also use some healing, Ajax was sure that while none of the wounds were too bad they had surely been dosed with large amounts of venom and it was only a question of time until they couldn’t delay the consequences.
Ajax’s decision was made when another volley of spells were launched by the two beastkin that were leading the rest of the champions away. The spells both felt dangerous, [Danger Sense] acting up to let him know about the danger, a blue surging fireball flew towards him while a blast of lightning headed towards Aurexion.
Evelyn had been tracking both new additions to the fight and had been prepared to intercept one of the spells, unfortunately there was nothing she could do about the flames, at least not from this range and with so little time. Those blue flames were well known for their extreme heat and explosive impact. The spell focused on feeding Wind Mana to empower the Fire Mana of the spell while at the same time slowly gathering any scraps of ambient Mana to explode on impact.
With the plant roots still trapping him Ajax couldn’t get out of the way and while he could release [Absolute Body Enhancement] to regain access to [Mana Syphon] to maybe weaken the spell slightly before it hit he had the feeling keeping it active for the extra durability and healing was the correct choice.
Instead Ajax used the little time he had to raise a small wall of earth in front of himself after he launched as strong a shockwave as he could towards the flames in hopes of destabilizing them a little. Much to Ajax’s surprise the flames were a lot more stable than he would have thought, the shockwave did nothing to them before they hit the wall of earth in front of him swallowing both him and the plant spell tying him down in an explosion.
The explosion did a lot for the beastkin champion morale but the tiger beastkin had wisely insisted on their retreat despite the lion beastkin’s renewed request to engage. Ajax’s [Pain Resistance] got a good workout as the flames charred his flesh only for the Life Mana from [Absolute Body Enhancement] to fix it back up. The one upside of the flames was that they also torched the vines holding him down so he could finally break free, take out a javelin from his spacial ring and give the retreating beastkin a parting shot.
Ajax drained his remaining Stamina and Mana both down to five hundred as threw the small spear, already feeling it start to break down due to how much Mana he put into the weapon. Despite the high ambient Mana from the battle the force of Ajax’s throw still caused a sonic boom as the projectile broke the sound barrier.
Less than half the champions present could even track the spear, let alone react to it. Unfortunately for Ajax his aim at killing the lion meant that the spear was also thrown towards the tiger beastkin whose runes once again glowed. A masterful swing of his sword was enough to intercept the attack.
The resulting shockwave from the detonation of that much Vibration Mana was enough to shower the beastkin champions in shards of the broken javelin while also marking the ground with another large crater and signaling the end of the battle.
“They need help.” Aurexion informed Ajax, the dragon was still a little surprised to see so many competent humanoids. He had initially underestimated most of the humanoid champions, seeing only a handful like Aranor , Shadow and the prince as truly something for himself to worry about. Now he knew there were more than a few if the three champions that joined the beastkin offensive were anything to compare to.
“I wasn’t expecting all three of them to be in one place.”Ajax bit back a curse as he got back to the rest of Gryndor’s champions. The two beatkins accompanying the high general as well as the high general himself were well known to be three of the strongest champions amongst the beastkins with the exception of their king. “That’s the first time I actually got hurt whilst using [Absolute Body Enhancement].”
“It’s their way of dealing with Shadow and Aranor.” The prince explained. “They haven’t been able to properly track Shadow and the risk of him protecting Aranor while he decimates champions needs a squad like that to respond to it.”
All of Gryndor’s champions were busy pulling antidotes out of their spacial rings to help counteract the poison before Ajax could heal them. “You came right on time.” Evelyn gave Ajax and affectionate one handed hug after she finished taking a dose of the antidote for herself as well. The antidote was a little strong for someone with her lower physical stats so she was feeling some mild after effects but that was better than dealing with the poison.
“The Republic will have to make up for this.” The prince growled. “Sending the two champions away before you and Aurexion arrived was stupid and it put us at risk.”
The beastkin army also managed to retreat during the battle between champions and the Republic army and Gryndor’s elites were moving to rejoin the champions.
“This turned out well.” The general who had heard the end of the conversation mentioned as he approached.”Despite the losses to our people your fighting retreat worked out well enough that you killed two of their champions. That is also not taking into account how injured their sadistic prince is and drawing the attention of their response squad. Aranor managed to kill another of their champions in response to them not being in position to respond to him.”
There was a lot of truth in that stament, everything had turned out in almost the best scenario but it was ignoring a lot of the risk Gryndor didn’t sign up for. “And what would have happened if Ajax and Aurexion would have taken even five minutes longer to arrive?”
The conversation was cut off there as the Gryndor champions needed to rest and recover following the fight.Ajax still had a few burn marks that had yet to heal and his final javelin throw had also torn some muscles in his bicep.The highest priority for the prince now however was reporting to his father and brother and making a decision on what to do next.
At the same time the beastkin champions were having a much rougher time after they disengaged from fighting Ajax.
“He’s a lot stronger than any of the reports even guessed at.” The high general growled. “That boosting Skill was new and he just spent months inside the dungeon learning how to use it.”
Besides the beastkin crown prince there were plenty of other inured champions most of them still having Curse Mana in their bodies that they needed to get rid of sooner rather than later if their recovery process was to really get underway.
“The dragon is also more durable than I thought.” one another champion comented. “The last lightning spell might have done some damage but it was neutralized.”
“His ability to heal is as crazy as reported.” there was a bitterness to the words. “I’ve never seen someone just heal through my flames.”
“If he takes the field I’m not sure numbers can make a difference to him.” That was a big reason they were all holding a meeting now instead of heading to the healing tent. “With how fast,strong and durable he is most won’t be able to even keep up.”
“But we can run him dry.” The crown prince coughed up a mouthfull of blood as his ribs were being healed. “He was burning through Mana at an unsustainable rate. He can’t keep that up for more than twenty seconds.”
“It would be a devastating twenty seconds.” That had already been obvious considering what Ajax had done.
“Not if we can trap him first.” A plan was slowly starting to take shape. “He couldn’t get free of the roots that quickly, we can slow him down.”
“His majesty, needs to be informed.” The high general concluded. “The next battle might be the defining one in this war, he needs to make the decision and we need his strength.