Chapter 66 – Fight for your Life

Titus stared with wide eyes as the lifeless and crushed body of his former combat Instructor fell to the ground with a dull thud. But then something amazing happened; the Ironjaw Behemoth that had brought an end to the instructor’s life let out a pained final gasp, stumbled, and then fell backwards as its health pool finally blinked away to nothing following the damage caused by Theodore’s circular blade.

But in the end it hadn’t been quick enough; neither the two Defenders nor Ferran Torres could save their comrade’s life. They’d tried; they’d worked together as hard as they could to bring the beast down before it was too late, but in the end, perhaps if there hadn’t been three of the monsters then it would’ve worked.

But there were still two left, and that meant the odds had changed again with the downfall of the combat Instructor. This fight wasn’t about to get any easier.

Titus’ attention was taken away though because as soon as the first behemoth fell, the monsters of Chaos went berserk. Their chants, howls, and snarls began, grew and grew and eventually, they couldn’t contain themselves.

The monsters charged. All of them. And all at once.

With the two remaining behemoths taking the attention of the now group of four who were clearly the most powerful humans the City had to offer, it meant everything else was free reign.

Titus’ heart raced and he suddenly felt the weight of the sword in his hand.

He watched as their enemies ran through what little was left of the obtrusive fog, and he watched as they all began to separate to give at least a little semblance of intelligence; the weakest of the monsters were heading directly at him, his friends, and the rest of the Blue-Rankers. He didn’t quite know how they knew, but honestly he was glad for it.

There were so many of them. So many more than he knew they’d be able to deal with but there would be no rescue from this, from the others. This is what they had all been trained to do.

The City erupted in their own shouts of defiance once more, their victory against one of the Ironjaw Behemoths at least partially celebrated with restrained enthusiasm. But everyone knew that the battle was far from over. As well as everything else, two behemoths remained, and they were now completely enraged by the loss of their companion.

Ferran Torres continued his aerial assault on the second behemoth, dodging its every move with remarkable agility while delivering precise and explosive fireball strikes. But the third behemoth, locked in a fierce battle with Lucius the Bloodied, showed no signs of giving up.

Titus knew he didn’t have the time to stand and watch the fight happening any more because he and his friends had their own enemies to deal with.

The first of the creatures to reach them across the battlefield were the Goblins. The little creatures were smaller than the Orcs, Hobs, and Ogres, and the Imps seemed to always float half-heartedly whenever they moved. So that meant that the annoyingly fast creatures were the first to engage Titus, Jordan, and Petra in combat.

Even before their opponents reached them the sounds of battle began to ring out around Titus as the rest of the humans encountered their enemies. Some were even faster than the Goblins at the higher levels, though thankfully Titus couldn’t see anything coming at him and his friends above level five for the moment.

But that didn’t mean there wasn’t any danger. The goblins that charged erratically across the field had murder in their eyes, like they were being buffed by the presence of their higher-levelled friends around them. They seemed to move faster than he’d seen before, and their crooked, jagged knives looked as deadly as ever.

Jordan was the first to break the silence.

“Let’s have you all then!” He cried. “I’ve been waiting to get my revenge on these little bastards!”

Titus cringed, and he felt Petra’s hand perch on his shoulder. He turned to face her momentarily to see her shaking her head.

“He’s going to get us all killed, you know that, right?” she said.

Titus nodded, and turned his attention back to the goblins, raising his sword to a ready stance. But he knew there would be no finesse here, no tactics, just pure survival.

Jordan lowered his large frame to one knee and propped his round wooden shield against the ground with his shoulder to brace it, and then as the goblins came almost into range, he did what Titus knew he’d been planning: he cast his Taunt.

Jordan bellowed. It was louder than Titus had ever heard from the Defender before, but it was almost as if every goblin in a small radius around the group skidded on the ground and darted straight at his friend.

Titus counted at least eight of the little creatures before they started merging into one, and then they were upon Jordan.

It was only by some divine miracle that Jordan’s Taunt seemed to also reduce his enemy’s intelligence by a few points when they were Taunted, because just like it had happened before, they all pounded into Jordan’s shield like there was no other way to get to him.

“Are you ready?!” Jordan cried, turning his head to his friends who still stood motionless.

“Just do it,” Petra replied almost in a sigh. They both knew what was about to happen, and both Titus and Petra readied themselves to move.

And then Jordan did it. He exploded up from the ground pushing hard through his legs and raising his shield in a sharp uppercut sending goblins flying off their feet. He cast his latest ability: Shield Bash.

Smashing his axe against the shield as he was still raising it, Jordan reached his full height and the goblins who’d already left the ground were thrown up into the air or back and away from him, landing in dazed heaps scattered around a small area.

Petra disappeared immediately, casting her own Blink Step to cross the small distance between her and the goblins. Titus ran along behind, knowing that he was never going to keep up, but at least he’d do his best to make a contribution this time.

Petra didn’t waste any time with her hit-and-run approach on the dazed goblins. Jordan’s ability would stun the goblins for only half a second but in that time the Rogue had slit the throats of two of the little green menaces and when the third finally moved, she drove her dagger through its heart before it could make its escape.

Titus made it just in time for one of the goblins to return to its feet and begin moving from side to side faster than Titus would’ve been able to strike it with his sword.

With Jordan and Petra now dealing with two goblins each, Jordan fending them off with his shield and Petra matching their movements step for step, Titus knew he had to deal with this one alone.

Knowing that he had at least one advantage over the creature, Titus used it. He swung his sword in a wide arc before him causing the goblin to leap out of the way. But then it stood at the edge of Titus’ range, having just assessed it, and stopped.

“Come and get me!” Titus growled at the creature, but it simply stared at him, and Titus watched as its eyes grew wide and dark.

“That’s not going to work this time,” he said and he closed his eyes tightly, swinging his sword again.

And then a burning pain exploded in his side.

This time the goblin hadn’t leapt out of range of the swing; it’d taken advantage of Titus shutting his eyes and ducked under the blade to sink its dagger into Titus through a gap in his chain mail overshirt.

Titus cried out in pain and opened his eyes to see the goblin dance away from him and out of range. The dagger had ripped and torn his skin as it had sunk in and back out again, and he silently wished that the creature had something sharper.

The goblin, ever the annoying little bastard showman, tossed his now slick red knife from hand to hand and even looked to have a devious smile on his face. His pointed little teeth were protruding from his lips and just the sight of it made Titus’ blood boil. How Jordan had ever thought something like this was cute was beyond him.

Titus swung his sword again, though this time it was half-hearted because he already knew the goblin would jump out of the way. Of course it did so, but again it leapt into the same position it had the first time, then slowly walked back to the edge of Titus’ range just to taunt him one more time.

That was exactly what Titus was hoping for. The goblin was treating their fight like it was a game. A game with set rules, moves, and counters. But Titus had somewhat of a cheat code in this game, one that he was sure the goblin wasn’t expecting.

For the third time, Titus swiped out at the goblin and for the third time it jumped back onto its safe spot on the ground about another foot away.

This time though the goblin didn’t get the chance to amble back into taunting range, because the second his feet touched the ground, it was hit full in the face by a burning orange fireball that Titus had dumped ten Mana into.

The goblins were low-level, relatively speaking, and their health pools were all very low, which Titus already knew because of Jordan’s own fight with one in the pit. What that meant was that Titus’ fireball not only hit the creature, but it also killed it on the spot. He had almost forgotten that his new ring had reduced the Mana cost of his spell by ten percent, so that meant the fireball had also been slightly more powerful than before.

It was so much easier fighting things like this in a group and Titus turned around to see Petra faring well, jumping in and out of combat range of her own two opponents as her poison slowly sapped their health Pools, and Jordan beating his two goblins back whenever they came close, one with his axe and one with his shield.

Making a quick decision, Titus lurched towards Jordan and impaled the closest goblin through its side without a single word said. The goblins were quick, but they were also pretty stupid and clearly had trouble fighting against more than one opponent at a time. A fact that was made even clearer when Jordan’s second goblin turned to face Titus, and the large Defender lopped its head off in one swift swing of his axe. Jordan was no Warrior, but he was strong and he knew how to handle a weapon.

A moment later both of Petra’s goblins fell to the ground simultaneously, the poison she’d inflicted on them finally taking its toll and overwhelming their lacklustre health pools.

“So that’s five for me then,” Petra said. “And I guess the beetle.” She nodded at Titus. “You got a few, right?”

Titus nodded in response and then a devious smile crept across Petra’s face.

“And you just got the one, right?” She asked Jordan still smiling.

The Defender stood up to his full height and looked a little confused as he tried to remember what’d happened in the battle so far.

“Ah damnit!” He complained. “I did all the work!”

“Hiding behind a shield is not work,” Petra said in a mock-official tone. “It’s hiding and I will not tolerate cowards on my team.”

“I’ll show you a coward!” Jordan retorted. To which Petra snorted.

“I don’t doubt that my friend,” she said.

Three hobgoblins had now finally reached the fight, and these creatures did not look like they were sneaky agile or delicate things like the goblins.

At the same height as Titus with red skin, leather armour and holding swords that looked as long as Titus’ own, these creatures looked like they were ready for a fight.

Facially the hobgoblins were similar to goblins, though their features were a little more angular and their teeth didn’t seem to protrude, though when they opened their mouths to roar as they charged at Titus and his friends, their fangs were obviously no less pointed, but better fitting in their mouths.

What was worse was that the hobgoblins did not seem to want to split up like the goblins had, preferring to stand almost shoulder to shoulder ready to fight as a trained unit.

“I’ve got this one,” Jordan announced. “Same again, right?”

“Uh, sure,” Titus said, looking at the battlefield around them as more creatures of Chaos seemed to keep pouring towards the humans. “Just, don’t take too long OK?”

Jordan didn’t need to be told twice, again casting his Taunt to make all three jobs turn to him at once.

This time though, Jordan didn’t need to crouch down behind his shield as his opponents weren’t actually that much shorter than him. Instead he raised his shield to shoulder height and prepared his axe.

The hobs attacked. Not like the goblins had, and Titus had a feeling he knew what the problem was.

Hobgoblin Warrior

Level: 7

HP: 300/300

The hobs were much higher levelled than Titus would’ve liked, and they had a fair amount of health too. But more than that, if they were going to work together then this fight wasn’t going to be easy.

Taking it in turns to smash their swords into Jordan’s shield and even on a few occasions around it to crash their weapons into the Defender’s heavy plate armour, Titus watched as for the first time his friend’s ability displayed its weakness: if the opponent was stronger than you – or the opponents combined to be more accurate – by taunting them you were simply asking for trouble.

Jordan was holding his own though; his HP was dropping slowly, a single point here and there when attacks made it through, but everyone knew what was about to happen.

With another roar, Jordan smashed his axe against his shield and cast his Shield Bash ability.

And nothing happened.

The ability was cast that was for sure, but none of the hobs were thrown back or even stunned. They simply kept attacking as they had already been.

“They’re immune!” Jordan shouted across to his friends. “And I can’t hold them off for much longer!”

The group not being too used to fighting opponents who could think for themselves were then shocked as the three hobs seemed to smile and increase both the speed and severity of their attacks. Jordan had no choice but to begin stepping backwards to allow himself adequate distance to block effectively.

Petra then made her move. Pushing off her back foot with purposeful ferocity, she blinked away from Titus and appeared not a foot behind the three rampaging hobs. Stabbing out at the closest and then turning to attack the second hob, she found that her tactic wasn’t as foolproof as she’d expected. The hob who she’d pricked first didn’t stop attacking Jordan and his shield, but it did shoot an elbow back to crack into Petra’s nose. No one had noticed it before, but the hobs seemed to have a metal plate at their elbow joint, which was presumably set up for situations just like this.

Petra’s nose exploded in a mist of blood as it was undoubtedly broken or at least as near as dammit. She fell back down to the ground and thankfully none of the hobs turned to finish her off. She held her nose though, and Titus could see the tears filling her eyes and spilling over onto her cheeks.

That was the moment Titus felt the rage take over. He didn’t have a lot of Mana left to use, but he did have enough to spend ten points on a fireball, and stepping forward that was exactly what he did. He tried to funnel as much malice and hatred into the attack as he could, and as he took step after step closer and closer to the hobs, he fostered it, nurtured it.

And then he was so close that he knew he couldn’t miss.

The hob closest to Titus, and the one that was about to feel the force of his retribution was the one that Petra hadn’t managed to touch with her dagger. It turned to look at Titus just as he was about to release the fireball, apparently sensing something bad was about to happen, and Titus let loose. The hob took the full force of the fireball straight in his face, and Titus’ nostrils were filled with the stench of burning flesh and hair.

But it wasn’t enough. The creature did not fall to the ground, but it did howl. It howled in both pain and surprise, and the sound made Titus wince.

The strange thing was that it sounded like the creature didn’t really know how to scream in pain. The noise was guttural, strained, perhaps even surprised.

But Titus’ blood went cold as he realised that for all his effort, he’d only caused a hundred health points’ worth of damage. His attack had cost him everything, and it hadn’t been enough. Not even close.

And then things went from bad to worse, because the other two hobgoblins as one turned their attention away from Jordan and looked first at the screaming, burnt hob, and then at Titus.

Jordan swung his axe at his closest opponent to try to bring its attention back to him, and although it made contact it wasn’t clean, so he moved his shield out of the way and swung again and again.

The hobs kept staring at their burnt ally, who actually looked like it was crying from the pain, and even as Jordan kept hacking away as best he could, they did something that nobody had been expecting.

Both of the hobs who’d remained unburnt simultaneously thrust their jagged swords out and into the chest of their former friend. Over and over they stabbed until there were only two hobgoblins remaining, and by the way their health was dropping, Petra’s poison was doing its work.

“Ah damn, how could I forget!” Jordan cried out. If he’d had a free hand he might’ve slapped himself on the forehead. “Hobgoblins hate cowardice more than anything else in the world! They can’t stand it!”

“Then why did they stop attacking you?” Petra called back cockily.

“Does it matter?” Titus asked. “Just get those other two down before we’ve got too much to deal with!”

He’d been watching the creatures of Chaos as they’d made their way across the battlefield and picked their battles as they went. It was a good thing that the Contestants had all, to a man, hidden their attributes, because although generally the fights were evenly matched, in some cases it had resulted in many of the monsters heading in the wrong direction and getting themselves summarily wiped out by Contestants well beyond their means.

But as time went by, they were also slowly figuring it out, and combined with the fact that the higher-level Contestants had to waste chunks of their Mana, Stamina, and energy fending off swathes of cannon fodder, it meant that things were most likely going to get worse before they got better.

As soon as the two hobs had dealt with their pained friend, they decided to switch targets and went straight for Titus.

Titus had no real way to defend himself like Jordan had been doing, and he knew that if he didn’t think of something quickly, then this was going to be the end of him.

Raising his sword he tried his best to calm his nerves and remember the training that Jordan, Petra, and Theodore had given him. He knew he really had nothing in his arsenal compared to any one of them, but he also had no choice but to stand and fight, just like everyone else. There was no fight or flight here, there was only fight or die.

The first hob swung its sword at Titus and to his absolute amazement, he managed to block the attack. It was a good mixture of luck and the small amount of training he’d received, but the clang of steel upon steel and the twinge of pain running up his arm as the two weapons met reassured him that he had indeed been successful.

And then he blocked the second strike.

Titus was under no illusion that he wouldn’t have been able to hold off three of the creatures, but from what he was now experiencing, he could see exactly what the Hobgoblins’ flaw was: they needed to fight in groups. It was clearly where they got their strength and speed from, and as a pair their attacking prowess was very much impaired.

So impaired in fact that even though Titus was slowly walking backwards away from the two hobs who still attacked like they had the upper hand in this fight, Jordan, who was the slowest of the group, actually managed to round them from behind and drive his axe into the back of one of the pair.

And then Jordan struck again, again and again. The hobs did nothing but lurch forward at Titus, who eventually tripped over his own feet and fell back to the ground. It didn’t matter though, because Jordan’s ferocious attacks combined with the poison from Petra’s Stiletto were enough to end the beast’s life, causing it to fall to the ground in a heap.

One hob remained, and without its two counterparts it looked very much confused and unsure what to do. Spinning on the spot to look at Titus, Jordan, and Petra – who’d managed to regain her footing – it seemed unable to make a decision. Petra then took the opportunity and enacted her revenge.

Blink-Stepping directly behind the Hob, Petra drew her dagger across its throat from behind. Not quite killing the creature, but dropping its health pool to as close to nothing as one could get.

It was then Jordan who stepped forward and launching his axe in a huge overhead arc, he split the Hob’s head in two.

Beyond the sickening crack of its skull, the attack didn’t make a sound, but with that, the three Hobs had been defeated and by all accounts, it had been a very close call.