CWD: OE ~ Forty-One

Nacho didn't need any tricks; he bull-rushed Arriod, hoping that he would be able to beat the man down with his strength combined with the sheer force of numbers that he was able to bring to bear. Even as the human leader attacked, other guild members were flooding into the area, some firing arrows or magical abilities ahead of themselves if they were fairly confident that they would not hit their Guild Leader. However, the CruxTerran wasn't about to take all of that damage quietly. In one of the most well-funded moves that Nacho had ever seen, Arriod produced a flat piece of metal and bent it in his hand.

In an instant, a curved metallic wall surrounded him on all sides, except for a small opening that faced the cook. It appeared to have been designed specifically for the leader of the CruxTerrans, as there was exactly as much room as he needed to swing his katana around within its confines while having an extremely effective defensive capability. Still, the metal was fairly thin and was already beginning to warp and buckle under the barrage of guild member attacks.

It didn’t need to hold for long; it merely needed to buy enough time for the UltraSoldier Commander to pull out yet another item that he pointed at Nacho. This one appeared to be an oversized wasp’s stinger, and when the man activated it, it shot toward Nacho faster than even he could dodge, following him as he tried. “You’re dead.”

“Seriously? Does everyone have more magical items than I do? I'm kind of feeling like things were stacked against me from the start-”

11 damage taken!

His words cut off as the flying implement slammed into his left butt cheek, injecting some form of corrosive poison that seemed to be generating  pain more than dealing damage. It was an effective distraction, but that didn’t stop the experienced corner Assassin from keeping on the move. In a high-level fight, staying still was a death sentence.

He took a moment to marvel at the fact that his aura allowed him to scale his Health higher and would create a more effective barrier even based on the buffs that he had added. He wondered if the effect would still work if he equipped other items that boosted his total Health, like Arriod clearly did, or whether it was limited to personal increases in base stat scores. Nacho shook off the strange, intrusive thoughts, knowing they were nothing more than his mind trying to find an escape from the pain that he was currently feeling.

A glance around showed that they had once again been moved, landing in a place that the cook recognized. They were facing off in a burned out husk of a forest, with the portal between worlds hovering in the distance. Thanks to the smoke in the air, it could easily have been the earth side of the portal, but the sheer amount of pollen that remained after a forest fire of this scale was a clear indicator that they were on CruxTerra.

“Wait… how did this place burn down?” was all he could get out before his senses screamed to him that death was trying to lick his ear. Nacho tumbled to the side, turning it into a roll, into a cartwheel, and ending with a backflip before he felt he was safe enough to reposition for combat. Turning toward the threat, he had fully expected to see a katana buried where he had been standing. Instead, arms holding various weaponry had shot out of the ground and were within inches of grasping on to him. “Zombies? Why would there be zombies here? Unless-”

Then the phantom katana from at him, and he parried it with his knives. Arriod’s sunglasses had slipped off of his face in the last few moments, and Nacho took the opportunity to study as much of the man's visage as he could. A piece of fabric remained pulled up over his mouth and nose. Instead of a hat, the CruxTerran's head was adorned with a simple metal circlet that was not quite a crown, and not quite a helmet. His hair had turned white, likely from stress, as it was not white all the way down to the roots. More than anything, at that moment, the Paladin looked like an overworked—albeit fit—office worker that was trying to roleplay as a ninja.

“Arriod!” Nacho didn't take the opportunity to slay his opponent, who was wide open after having his blade knocked to the side. “Look around! Something went terribly wrong here. You practically had an entire army stationed here, but where are they? There are zombies popping out of the ground-”

“So you humans launched a sneak attack.” Arriod didn’t seem even slightly concerned over the environment that they were fighting in, focusing instead on swinging his sword as fast and hard as he could at the cook, who repelled the attacks unconsciously and practically casually, thanks to his wildly enhanced stats. With over forty points in his Fitness stat, even if his opponent was at his same Tier—and his same level—unless he had taken the same stat distribution style, it was highly likely that Arriod was currently sitting nearly twenty points over his maximum possible Fitness.

Thanks to the years of practice and training that Nacho had in fighting humans, especially humans that were stronger than him, this battle felt like child's play to him. Yet, if there was one thing that Nacho did not want to see happen, it was turning such a powerful opponent into a corpse that could be gathered by Guild Master Nibbles and his Necromancer allies. He had seen what that would look like, and the idea of having to fight Arriod again when he was even better equipped, able to be healed at a distance, devoid of the ability to feel fear or pain, with endless stamina and endurance to fight… even if Nacho won immediately, he would just be empowering another enemy that would eventually come for his head.

“Stop. Listen to me. Right now we are surrounded on all sides by zombies, which means they most likely have alerted their necromancer to our location.” Nacho shoved the CruxTerran away from him, deliberately not using his knives to prove his point. “If they get one of our bodies, that is going to cause a big issue for all of our people down the line, win or lose. I can tell you right now, they don't care if their spells are used on humans or CrossHumans-”

“CruxTerrans,” Arriod growled at him seemingly without heeding the deep concern that Nacho felt for the situation.

“Yes, yes. A special name for your special people. Feel better now?” Nacho winced as he realized that he was being abrasive, and that was no way to get this man to listen to him. “My apologies; there is no reason to be rude. Frankly, I don't particularly want to have to kill you. I'm just going to do it.”

“Agreed.”

The cook would have it no other way, especially not with their literal entire world and race on the line. “Among the people that I am certain are watching is their leader; he goes by Guild Master Nibbles. I have information on him, practically legendary rumors, that say he will stop at nothing to kill or control everything in his path. The more he kills, the more fodder he has for his army. Something about him attracts other dark magic users, and by this point, he has collected at minimum several hundreds of necromancers and other people that want to use their abilities for… let's just say not the good of Humanity. Or whatever you call it.”

“CruxPhylumology.”

“You sure do love your one word answers, don't you?” Nacho rolled his eyes, realizing his mistake in taking his eyes off his opponent only because the man tried to use that opportunity to skewer him through the heart. “You aren't taking this seriously. I get it. Maybe those will convince you.”

He jumped back a few feet, waving into the distance, where undead CruxTerrans were sprinting toward them in perfect formation. Dozens, then hundreds, hurtled toward them across the burnt forest, knocking over trees that were little more than charcoal and kicking up enough dust to hide their true numbers, even more effectively than the acrid smoke hanging in the air already had. In fact, the ash on the ground had done such an effective job of muffling their approach, the combatants' focus on each other and the swirling smoke in the air had obscured the zombies until their plentiful ranks were practically right on top of the combatants.

Both of them turned to defend themselves immediately, destroying the incoming wave of Tier zero and Tier one opponents that were leading the charge. Neither of them stepped forward to help the other; in fact, they often grabbed and flung one of the zombies at the other instead of striking it down in an attempt to knock the other off guard and lower their overall health.

“You humans really suck at all this,” Arriod called over at Nacho as the cook spun in a circle, felling eight of the Fell corpses at once.

“Yeah, I don't really think so. I've seen some of your history,” Nacho fired back as if they were having a casual conversation while sipping coffee instead of fighting for their lives against an unending horde of the living dead. “Your people are just much more warlike. We had advanced to the point of practically lounging around every single day. It was more common to have a job where we sat for most of the day and stared at a screen—the vast majority of our movement coming from wiggling our fingers—instead of going out and fighting each other or joining the military.”

“How foolish. Was service to your people not mandatory?” Arriod already knew the answer, and continued before Nacho could reply. “Of course it wasn't. I was the first to cross over to your world months ago, and it was clear there were no repercussions from your government for failing to maintain your bodies and minds at the standard required for survival in any situation. How did that work out for your world?”

“Yeah, not going to lie, I'm pretty sure we are down something like six billion people?” Nacho went silent with the acknowledgement, not having wanted to admit it to himself. Somehow, it had just slipped out. “Maybe there is something we can learn from each other, after all.”

“No thank you.” Arriod was at least polite about it. “We have learned everything we wanted from your world. It was a simple matter of interrogating prisoners of war. What we found was not worth pursuing.”

At that moment, Nacho got an unpleasant surprise in the form of a peak Tier one zombie sneaking in among the cannon fodder and tackling him. Arriod sprinted over, and the cook was fairly certain it was not to help him out of his dire situation. The katana came down, positioned perfectly to remove his head with a single strike. “Die like a dog!”

Nacho slashed upward with his blades, pushing the zombie to the side just enough that both knives slammed into the CruxTerran's armpits, cutting through flesh until they were stopped by the armor three-quarters of the way through.

Damage dealt: 80! This is one tough cookie, Cookie!

The zombies were gone, and the scent of freshly crushed greenery filled Nacho’s nostrils as the CruxTerran Commander collapsed to the ground, agony the only expression in his eyes. “Whew, close one. Let’s end this. I have an undead infection to excise… or maybe the Patrons will let me close the Portal and trap them over there. I guess I can only hope!”