Blood was still gushing from the face of the champion whose nose Ajax had so ruthlessly removed and while the attack had forced him to back off for long enough that Ajax could deal with the physical champion he left lying on the ground trying to survive the Void augmented hammer strike he was quick to return to his task of killing Aranor.
Luckily for Aranor the hybrid champion charging for him was a fellow chanter so he didn’t have the instant cast spells of runic casters to try and take him down. The melee focused hybrid fighter style was clearly inspired by Gryndor’s prince only much like Xavier he chose to forgo the speed of runic casting for the flexibility of chanted magic.
That choice was going to cost the champion today as the moment his spell even started to form it was already under attack from Ajax’s [Mana Syphon], the spellstructure he could previously hold in his sleep was now more brittle than thin steel against an ice elemental.
“You should have run away.” Ajax’s barb wasn’t a taunt but rather a simple analysis of the situation. “I’m a very bad match up for you.”
Without the use of his Pseudo-Mythic Skill Ajax was finding himself using [Telekinesis] more and more, the extra control he had found over the Skill in the past few months as well as its use being more integrated into his Style Skill made it a staple of his melee fighting style. The one down side was it was rather expensive in terms of Mana cost, nothing close to [Absolute Body Enhancement] but still on the high end.
Ajax could feel the enchanted necklace trying to resist his [Telekinesis], and it did lessen its effectiveness, but seeing as the champion was more focused on the caster Stats part of his hybrid build rather than the physical Ajax was still able to easily break his stance. If it had been a single push or pull it would have been something the champion would have been able to deal with but Ajax was using [Telekinesis] to push his left leg that was holding his weight out from under him. It was pulling to the right on his right arm all while also trying to lift him off the ground by his head.
Mana and Stamina was steadily draining out of Ajax but since he didn’t need to personally feed [Mana Syphon] anything to keep it active it wasn’t as bad as he had initially expected. With the number of large spells on the battlefield Ajax had plenty of choices of what to drain for a boost to his physical capabilities.
Realizing he wasn’t going to get to Aranor the champion changed his target, the flexibility of chanted magic coming through as he launched a large water bolt that hit Ajax’s hammer and swallowed his hand up to the elbow before freezing.
The ice wasn’t that cold that the temperature was anything more than an inconvenience to Ajax and it wasn’t all that solid either as with his physical strength alone it was starting to crack. The issue however came from all the added weight on one side of his body as it pulled his Magma infused axe swing off target enough that he only took off the champion’s arm and scraped the side of his torso instead cutting cleanly through him.
Multiple enchantments had been activated during the blow but while none of the defensive ones had managed to do anything but slightly lessen the burn damage on the champion’s ribs the escape enchantments were enough to get him away from Ajax who still had a block of ice on his arm to deal with.
Despite his second target getting away alive Ajax still felt a smile crawl on his face as he felt Aranor finish his spell. Thousands of Mana that had been meticulously channeled before were taking shape and Ajax was looking forward to seeing what shape that would be.
Seeing how both sides were already engaged in combat Aranor hadn’t been able to go with his preferred opening spell, an extremely overinfused ice nova that would even freeze solid an unprepared champion. Instead Aranor went with the other spell he was intimately familiar with, ice lance. Though calling the massive nine feet long and one foot wide glacial harpoons that took shape above his head mere ice lances would be an insult.
The flexibility of the simple chanted spells and Aranor’s Legendary Skill that allowed him to overload simple spells to such extreme heights was easy to see as each of the glacial harpoons didn’t yet have a locked target, Aranor could still change their aim.
Nine glacial harpoons launched at the exact same time. Two of them aimed at the champions Ajax had just injured and the other seven all towards targets Aranor thought he had the best chance to kill or leave open to a killing blow from whoever it was they were fighting.
Even Ajax had issues tracking the attack in real time and he was quite proud of his Perception. The attack was simply so fast that there was no time for most champions to react to it.
“Five kills.” Aranor, heaved out heavy breaths as a small smile formed on his face. That’s better than I expected.
Two of the targets were already heavily injured but that didn’t mean they were out by any means. All of the five champions Aranor’s attacks killed were from the younger and weaker generation but the attack still marked a big change in the momentum of the battle.
The other four glacial harpoons didn’t miss either, while they didn’t manage to kill their targets three of them still impaled their targets, it was only through teamwork and numbers that those three managed to be removed from their engagements before they got killed as they were being brought back to get healed.
The high general was the only target to fully block his glacial harpoon but the defending against the attack forced him from a position where he was dominating Gryndor’s oldest prince into one where he was barely hanging on, with a deep cut going down from his left shoulder to his left hip where the prince followed up on the harpoon. His situation wasn’t critical just yet but he knew it wouldn’t be long until it became so if he didn’t retreat to get healed soon.
Twenty minutes had passed from the moment champions got involved with the fighting. At the start it had been fifteen champions and a dragon against thirty five, the numbers on the field now stood at twelve and a dragon against twenty-six. Of the twelve only five beastkin champions had actually been killed while the rest had simply been too heavily injured to remain and had retreated to the main army where the healers were doing their best to get them back in fighting shape.
“RRRRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH!” Aurexion’s read echoed over the battlefield, a strong beat of his wings releasing a powerful wind blast forcing the beastkin king away from him. This gave Aurexion the space he needed to use his dragon’s breath.
“Dodge!” The beastkin king roared out a warning of his own but there was a reason Aurexion had decided to use his breath attack now. Most of the champions were still focused on Aranor and dealing with the situation in the wake of his massive attack, they weren’t paying attention to Aurexion.
Aurexion had aimed the attack at the king but the dragon knew that hitting him was a long shot. The real target were the two mages and the team of healers he had lined up in the path of the attack. This time Aurexion also went all in on upfront power using Magma to empower his [Dragon’s Breath].
As expected the king had managed to get out of the way in time, but the same could not be said about the two mages or the team of healers that had endangered themselves to approach the battlefield in an attempt to save the lives of some of their champions.
Despite the fury boiling through his veins the king knew that despite the loss of some of his people this was also an opening. He hadn’t managed to land a single decisive strike on the dragon but using his breath attack like this had left him open.
Aurexion noticed him coming in close and he knew his head was exposed, the down side of [Dragon’s Breath] was that he had to extend his neck and while in the air this left in a bad position. In a final move to lessen the damage Aurexion put his wing in the way to block the attack knowing that a broken wing would be much less debilitating.
Ajax could only watch from afar as the king swung his hammer, a moment before income however the hammer stopped dead in its tracks. It took Ajax a moment to recognize the Mana he felt but a sharp [Sense Mana] wasn’t required as Space itself shook under the might of the blow. In a move that reminded Ajax of his own Void augmented strikes Aurexion was sent plummeting to the ground.