Spiteful Healer

Chapter 188: Engage

Artaphernes stood on the frontlines alongside Herilon and several other melee class players. In his right hand he held his spear, twirling the sturdy shaft around in his fingers before solidly gripping it in his fist, the spearhead pointed forward towards the Blacklion guild members. The moment he gripped it, the head of the spear began to emit a deep orange glow that hardly contrasted with the glow of the nearby magma river.

“Let’s get this started, shall we? My guys, focus the back line and take out their healers.” Artaphernes called out to the group behind him, without turning to face them. He then bent his knees and pulled his spear arm back before thrusting the spear forward as if he was throwing it. He didn’t throw the spear, but once the throwing motion had completed, the orange glow on the tip of it shot out off of the spearhead like a missile, making a loud swishing sound as it connected with the frontline players of the Black Lion guild members, and exploded outwards in a circular shockwave as it pierced through the enemy frontlines all the way to the back, crashing into the obsidian walls on the farside of the cavern behind them and dealing massive damage to all of the players that the orange blast shot through.

It acted not unlike Darkshot’s piercing shot, but the path that the orange shot had traveled left behind a thick, not-so-transparent line of orange energy that pulsed a second time a moment after, exploding for a second round of damage which the Blacklion guild members were clearly aware of, as they’d all jumped to the side to avoid the second blast.

This initiated the brawl between the two large groups of players. Artaphernes didn’t stop there though. With his knees still bent, Artaphernes suddenly leapt into the air with incredible strength, so much so that a shockwave of air shot out from where his feet had been. He reached the ceiling of the heated magma cavern and pressed against it with his free left hand to re-angle himself, pointing his spear downwards to the first Blacklion cleric player he was able to spot out. Once he had his target, he launched himself off of the ceiling of the cavern, holding his spear out in front of himself in a diving, thrusting motion as his entire body began to glow orange.

“METEOR STRIKE!” Artaphernes shouted as his spear crashed into the shield of the cleric, who desperately attempted to brace his attack. The moment Artaphernes impacted the cleric on the back line, the orange glow around his body erupted outward in an explosion of wind and orange energy, knocking back nearby players and dealing minor damage to them, while doing massive damage to the cleric whose shield his spear had plunged into.

It wasn’t enough to kill the cleric, but it certainly shook him. From there, Artaphernes flipped backwards off of the shield and landed on his feet in the midsts of the Blacklion members who were quickly recovering from the pushback of his shockwave. Several of them immediately attempted to charge at Artaphernes, but he did a wide circular swing of his spear to discourage any incoming attacks, while several shadow dancer and assassin players from this guild appeared around him to help him out.

Many of the frontline fighters from the Blacklions attempted to turn around and engage in the players that had gotten to their backline, but they were unable to do so as they were engaged on by the Night Hunters' front line. Herilon led the charge, singling out Garrick with his glowing blue greatsword as Garrick desperately drew out his battlemaster weapons and attempted to block a huge downward slash from Herilon.

Garrick was able to parry it, redirecting the momentum of Herilon’s slash to the side so that it slashed into the obsidian floor beside him, but he still took a decent chunk of damage. Herilon was relentless and didn’t give Garrick time to breathe. Despite having drawn out all 5 of his floating battlemaster weapons, and wielding two in his hands, he stumbled backwards as he desperately attempted to position the blades of his weapons to intercept the next strike.

Luckily for Garrick, though, another longsword blade appeared in front of Herilon’s sword just in time to block it on his behalf. Standing to his right, with his blade arm extended towards Garrick, was Joltblade.

“I’ve got a feeling that if I don’t get you under control, you’re going to make this fight difficult.” Joltblade glared at Herilon.

“Get me under control?” Herilon grinned back at him mischievously. “I’d like to see that.” Herilon pulled his sword back and swung it down again, this time aiming at Joltblade rather than Garrick, who jumped backwards to avoid the swing, causing it to crash into the obsidian ground once more.

“Focus on their healers, or the guild leader.” Joltblade instructed Garrick, ignoring Herilon’s taunt. Garrick nodded back and began sprinting around Herilon while motioning to other nearby battlemaster players from the Blacklion guild to follow him. Being ignored didn’t sit well with Herilon, he sucked his teeth and ran to cut them off, but was forced to stop running when a large iron battle axe swung down in front of him out of the sky, blocking his path and forcing him to jump back to dodge it. He turned back around to see that the battle axe was owned, and being controlled by Joltblade, another battlemaster player.

“Don’t go ignoring me.” Joltblade smiled playfully at Herilon.

“I could say the same to you.” Herilon sighed as he turned back to face Joltblade, then suddenly lunged at him and did a several strike combo against Joltblade with his greatsword, his body glowing blue as he empowered it with his berserking skill.

Joltblade manipulated his battleaxe to bring it back to himself to help defend, while using the longsword in his right hand. Together, with these two weapons, he was able to parry, sidestep, and dodge all of Herilon’s strikes. After several attempts, Herilon stopped and pulled back as the battle between the players erupted all around them.

“You’re not going to take out the rest of your weapons?” Herilon asked him curiously.

“Nah, you’re just a berserker. Two’s enough.” Joltblade shrugged.

“Tell that to all the other battlemaster players I’ve crushed.” Herilon retorted while giving a nodding motion in Garrick’s direction as he engaged with other Night Hunter members.

“Them? They’re not battlemasters. They’re just meta chasers.” Joltblade replied as he twirled the hilt of his longsword around in his hand playfully. “It’s a shame you went with such a weak class though. Someone with skills like yours shouldn’t be just swinging around a big sword.”

“Skills like mine?” Herilon raised his eyebrows.

“Yup. I know who you are. We did some research after you took out all of those battlemasters alone back in Arallia. Rank 2 in Legends of Malriyan. Rank 1 Duelist in Holzfall…” Joltblade began pacing in a half circle around Herilon. “You used the same username for each game, so... wasn’t that hard to look it up.”

“I figured I’d take it easy this time around. Play something more simple.” Herilon sighed as he stretched his neck and twirled the hilt of his greatsword around as well, to mock Joltblade’s twirling.

“Yeah. That’s lucky for me. Still though, I’ve got to make sure I keep you under control so you don’t end this battle before it has a chance to even begin.” Joltblade bent his knees as he grabbed the hilt of his longsword properly, and motioned his battleaxe to float by his side.

“Heh…” Herilon tightened the grip on his hilt as well. “You’re going to need more than two weapons to do that.”

“We’ll see.” Joltblade replied, before Herilon began the fight by charging at him with his greatsword. The other players nearby were sure to steer clear of their battle as the sounds of their swords clashing echoed loudly around them, with blue waves of energy and sparks flying from every impact of iron.

“Kayliera, go heal Aegis’ party with Baffo, everyone else focus on our front line and backline. I’ll cover our backline divers.” Sapphire instructed the healers standing around her, including Cheryl. They all immediately obeyed, as Kayliera, a druid player wearing green leaf robes and a wooden crown turned from the group to run towards Baffo, Lina, Pyri, Darkshot and Rakkan.

Cheryl, however, stood around and looked back worriedly in Aegis’ direction as he charged towards the dark mist approaching them from behind.

“What about Aegis? I should go heal him.” Cheryl said, then broke off into a sprint towards him.

“No, Cheryl, we need you here. He’ll be fine…” Sapphire called out after her, but she was ignored completely and Cheryl just kept running.

“VOLLEY INCOMING! They’re aiming for Aegis!” Quinn’s voice called out across the battlefield, drawing Sapphire’s eyes upwards at a barrage of black arrows flying through the air over them. The arrows were quickly beginning to converge as they narrowed in on Aegis’ location, whose back was facing them in favor of looking towards the incoming mist.

“I’ll keep them focused on us. GRAND SHELL!” Trexon shouted, creating a giant transparent dome around the battle of players that captured the arrows within it. The arrows slammed into the curved dome wall, preventing them from continuing forward towards Aegis as they fell harmlessly to the ground at the base of the dome.

The dome, however, separated Kayliera, Cheryl, Baffo, Lina, Aegis, Pyri, Darkshot and Rakkan from the rest of the battle, and Sapphire could now only watch as Cheryl continued to run towards them despite her instructions. She let out a reluctant, frustrated sigh before turning her attention towards the PvP, and rushing towards the front lines to help heal Artaphernes’ group.

“Keep shooting the giant, bring it close. I’ll block all of its attacks against you, don’t worry.” Baffo instructed Darkshot and the others, who nodded back at him. Darkshot continuously released volley after volley of obsidian tipped arrows at the Giant, and it wasn’t long before it stopped staring at the mist and turned its attention back onto them as they stood on the shore. Pyri was firing ice shards at the giant, Lina throwing shadow daggers, and Rakkan was using his crossbow to fire bolts. Kayliera, with long straight blue hair and pointed elven ears protruding out of it just beneath her wooden crown, held a green spell on her fingertips, prepared to cast it at any moment as she watched the giant approach Baffo.

It let out a horrendous, angry roar in their direction before gliding its right fist along the surface of the magma river and pulling it back up out of the river with the palm open and full of magma, which it flung forward at the group.

“Grand Protection!” Baffo shouted as Darkshot winced from the bright glowing magma flying towards them. Baffo’s shield suddenly grew to 10 times its normal size and completely shielded them from the attack, causing all of the magma to slam into it and slide down onto the obsidian shore and eventually back into the river. “Man, I hate magma durability lost.” Baffo sighed as Kayliera released her green magic to heal him from the damage. “Just keep attacking. I promise, no matter what happens, it won’t hit you guys.” Baffo turned and smiled firmly at Aegis’ party who nodded back at him.

They continued their assault on the giant, but before Lina fired any more shadow daggers, she heard the footsteps of Cheryl running behind her and turned to see Cheryl rushing towards Aegis.

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you helping him?” Cheryl said to Lina after stopping beside her. The sounds of battle all around them, mixed with the stampeding of the abysslings and the roars of the giant, made it so that only Lina could hear Cheryl.

“What do you mean?” Lina replied confused.

“Look!” Cheryl motioned to Aegis. He had released his aura of light and encapsulated himself in the giant dome of glowing energy. The darkness of the abyss was pushing up against it, but was unable to penetrate it, and as a result, the swarms of abysslings on the front lines of their charging stampede were hesitating. They backed up from Aegis’ aura, fearful of it and stumbling over each other.

As Aegis had predicted, the abysslings were low level, in the 30’s range, but their numbers were terrifyingly high. He was glad to see the aura of light was working in halting their advance, but it didn’t work on all of them. Several ferrawolves - hairy four legged abysslings that gave off their own black mist, pushed past the frontlines of abysslings and confidently began to charge forward at Aegis, despite the aura. These wolves are what Cheryl began frantically pointing out to Lina.

“Aegis told us to kill the giant first.” Lina replied as she glanced between the wolves, Aegis, and Cheryl.

“And you always just do everything he tells you? He clearly needs help. You’re his girlfriend, aren’t you?” Cheryl rolled her eyes at Lina.

“We need to get the flame giant heart, though.” Lina hesitated, causing Cheryl to sigh.

“You’re one of those useless obedient types, huh? If you don’t start thinking for yourself, he’s going to get bored of you.” Cheryl groaned in frustration. “Fine, I’ll help him.” She finished with, before rushing away from Lina towards Aegis. Lina couldn’t help but follow her with her eyes though, worriedly watching Cheryl instead of throwing shadow daggers at the giant.

“Lina, come on! We need to kill this thing fast!” Darkshot shouted at her when he spotted her just staring. “Don’t worry, Aegis’ is fine.” He tried to reassure her when he saw where she was looking, and turned to look as well. “Look, see? One of those night hunters are already helping him. C’mon, Focus!” Darkshot insisted. With this, Lina sighed and turned to begin throwing shadow daggers at the approaching giant, but she found herself continuously looking in Cheryl and Aegis’ direction.

As the first two Ferrawolves, level 50, arrived at Aegis, he had more than enough time to see them coming and prepare for them. They lunged at him while snapping their white fangs, but he easily slammed his shield into their snouts to brace the attacks and deal blessed, shield slam damage to them. Neither died in one hit and stumbled back, quickly recovering and preparing to strike again.

After three more strikes from the pair of ferrawolves, several more joined in attacking Aegis. He used his free right hand to cast healing wind on himself, while simultaneously he felt a hand touch his back.

“Loki’s Grace!” Cheryl called out, casting the buff on Aegis and causing him to turn and look back at her.

“What’re you doing here? I said I could handle this by myself." Aegis said.

“Sapphire told me to make sure you don’t die.” Cheryl shrugged with a smile as she took a few steps back to give room for Aegis to block and dodge another set of attacks. “I’ll heal you, so you can focus on fighting, okay?”

“Right… okay…” Aegis replied hesitantly, taking a second to inspect the new buff that had appeared on his interface thanks to Cheryl.

[Loki’s Grace]

Effect: Agility increased by 5%, physical attacks against you have a 5% chance of passing through you and dealing no damage.

Duration: 4min, 55s

“That’s a nice buff.” Aegis commented after he read it.

“Thanks, just learned it.” She smiled back. “Watch out!” She shouted as a few more attacks came at Aegis, and he carefully blocked and dodged them. “Heal!” She called out, casting from a few meters away to restore his lost health. “The little ones might be getting brave soon.” Cheryl then motioned to the line of abysslings cowering at the edge of Aegis’ aura.

He looked to them and saw that she was right, the stampede hadn’t stopped and they were now towering on top of each other, tumbling forward, and some that had been pushed forward by the swarm were beginning to cautiously, slowly approach Aegis from behind the now 7 angry Ferrawolves attacking him.

He managed to kill two ferrawolves using shield bash, but more were joining in their ranks. Suddenly, though, a ball of smoke erupted in front of Aegis, and Lina shadowstepped into the smoke to quickly kill all of the wolves within it, clearing out all of the immediate threats for Aegis.

“Lina, what are you doing?” Aegis called out to her with a look of confusion, briefly glancing back to see that the giant was still standing, closing in on the shore where Baffo was standing.

“I came to help, since there’s so many enemies…” Lina replied with a nervous smile.

“Look, the smoke!” Cheryl pointed at Lina’s fading smoke bomb frantically, where the abysslings suddenly got incredibly courageous and began charging forward at Aegis. “They’re not scared to charge at you anymore, because of the smoke. Aegis looked around the smokebomb and Lina, and saw that Cheryl was right. A large number of Abysslings had lost their fear and were rushing forward at them through his aura of light, causing Aegis to sigh in frustration.

“Lina, we can handle this. Go kill that giant, fast, so we can get out of here.” Aegis instructed Lina in a stern tone. “Please.” He added as he saw her worried look, glancing between Cheryl and Aegis.

“O-okay… sorry…” Lina replied before quickly shadow stepping away from the pair, back towards where the giant was being fought. Aegis watched her with his eyes for a moment before turning his attention back to the abysslings.

“Now I’m definitely gonna need some heals.” Aegis took a deep breath as the swarm of abysslings approached.

“No worries, I won’t let you die.” Cheryl replied jovially.

“What’re you looking at? It’s rude to look elsewhere in the middle of a duel.” Herilon roared angrily at Joltblade as he continued to swing his greatsword furiously down on him. He’d caught Joltblade glancing over Herilon’s shoulder towards the far end of the cavern, where Cheryl and Aegis were standing, and a slight smirk grew on his face that didn’t go unnoticed by Herilon. This caused Herilon to briefly turn around to see what Joltblade was looking at, but Joltblade quickly took advantage of this opening to slash out at Herilon and deal a large amount of damage to him.

“Who’s being rude now?” Joltblade smirked.

Hae-won took a deep breath as she leaned forward with a look of intensity.

“Garrick is attempting to close in on Trexon to break down the grand shell. Their goal is obviously to cause chaos, and the easiest way for them to do that is to stop Aegis from holding back the abysslings. But the Night Hunter’s see through this strategy and are doing their best to keep the Blacklion battlemasters off of their sage and healers.” Hae-won spoke rapidly over Aegis’ broadcast, being shown to a viewership of 400,000. The screen behind her swapped between multiple viewpoints - Shinji had angled one of Aegis’ cameras on himself, one on the battle with the giant, and another focused on the large PvP brawl.

“Several well placed pinning shots from Quinn will trip up the backline divers of the Blacklion guild, giving Trexon room to breathe. Meanwhile Artaphernes’ group is putting a great deal of pressure on the Blacklion guild’s healers. They’re struggling to give them space. The battle appears to be in a stalemate right now, but all it takes for one healer to go down on either side, and from there the fight will most likely snowball.

If the Night Hunters can hold out until that flame giant goes down, undoubtedly Aegis’ party will be able to turn the tides of the battle quickly. But Herilon, the top PvP player is being caught up in a duel with a skilled battlemaster that goes by the name of Joltblade.” Hae-won continued…

“Joltblade’s the bastard that killed the prophet.” Erikson scowled as he sat behind the bar, watching Aegis’ live stream alongside many other patrons within his Rene Tavern. The tavern floor, which was normally noisy and jovial, was dead silent. Not for a lack of patrons, but for the simple fact that every single player inside the tavern was watching Aegis’ live stream intently.

“Should we go help them?” Josephine asked Erikson as she stood on the other side of the bar, looking around at other old White Flames members with grimaces on their faces.

“No, we’d never make it in time.” Erikson sighed in frustration. “It’s all up to them, now.”

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