BXBX NOVEL Chapter 71: Opportunity
Chapter 71: Opportunity
I ducked under a massive swinging fist.
The other obstacles would be the enemies themselves. The Infernal that had run up to me after seeing my fight with the others stomped and roared as I scrambled away from it. I was getting low on Health, at a threatening 127, and my Mana was also incredibly drained, at 63. Winning a fight against an Infernal in my current state was pretty much impossible. But I didn’t have to win, I just had to escape.
I glanced beside me. Erani wasn’t too far away, and was currently running away from a couple of Swordsman-Classed soldiers. She vaulted over some rubble and turned around, shooting off a Firebolt and blasting them back and to the ground.
“Mana?” I shouted across the battlefield at her.
She looked back at me. “Not much!”
She glanced at the ground and adjusted her footing, seeming to make sure she wasn’t stepping on one of the Enchanted metal plates. I needed to get her one of those rings so we could get out of here. The Dryad was pretty far off at this point, and it’d be difficult to communicate to her to put one on, but she seemed to be doing just fine without a ring, honestly. When we took off, she could just notice and follow.
There were no dead soldiers in our immediate vicinity that we could take one from, so we’d just have to make one. I looked over at the duo of soldiers she’d just hit back with her Firebolt. They were already getting back to their feet, but seemed damaged enough.
The sound of stomping behind me grew louder as the chasing Infernal caught up. I leapt to the side just in time to dodge a mad swipe, and then ran straight for the two Swordsmen. I wasn’t so insane as to think I could take both of them on in my state, but someone else could. They got to their feet and raised their blades preparing to fight me as the Infernal stomped in pursuit, ready to catch me between the two fronts of attack.
The Infernal was hot on my heels, rearing back for a strike, and ahead were the two Swordsmen readying attacks of their own. But just before I ran into the soldiers’ blades, I put as much strength into my legs as I could, and leapt up. The Enchanted ring lowering my weight allowed me to jump much higher than normal, and I soared straight over the heads of the two wide-eyed men, landing on the ground behind them. The Infernal couldn’t stop its arm mid-swing, and it crashed into its allies, flinging them away. Thanks to the same property of their rings, they tumbled across the ground, flying into what looked like a supply tent.
But the Infernal was still right behind me, and it hadn’t been slowed much. But as I ran, I realized something. If these mines were triggered by my natural weight, and the rings only decreased weight by 70%, that meant the Infernals, which were much bigger than me, must’ve been just barely toeing the weight limit, even with the rings on. So, if that was the case…
I activated Gravity Well, targeting the pursuing Infernal. Normally, given the abysmal state of my current Mana, wasting the limited supply on a costly Spell like that would’ve been a terrible idea. But with our unique circumstances, it was uniquely effective.
The moment I toggled the Spell on, I heard the Infernal’s footsteps come to a screeching halt as it no doubt struggled to avoid stepping on the explosives littering the area. Once the Infernal stopped, I toggled the Spell off to save Mana, and it instantly charged at me again, and so I switched the Spell back on. I kept toggling it off and on in half-second intervals to make sure the Infernal could never move freely.
But still, my Mana couldn’t last for long.
“Erani!” I called over, and pointed at the two soldiers. “Grab a ring from one of them!”
She seemed to understand, and sprinted to the tent they crashed into while I backed away from the Infernal. I’d need to buy myself more time with Gravity Well, so I had to let it off for now, and only use it when absolutely necessary. The Infernal immediately charged and swung, but I managed to sidestep and back away safely. Normally, it’d be much harder to avoid its strikes, but the ring gave me a much freer range of movement and I didn’t struggle too much with the Infernal’s attacks.
Of course, that’d only last until another of our scattered enemies decided to join the foray, so I needed Erani to hurry. I glanced over, and saw that she seemed to be having trouble approaching the soldiers. They were lying in the wreckage of the tent they crashed into, but Erani seemed unable to climb into that wreckage for some reason. She kept trying to step into the mess of canvas and wood, but withdrawing after failing to find a place to stand. Was there something there preventing her from placing her feet down?
I looked more closely, still taking care to dodge the Infernal’s wide swings, and saw the problem. Apparently, that tent was a storage depot. A storage depot for more explosives. Mines absolutely covered the ground and wreckage – I could see more steel plates than grass in that entire area. There was no way Erani could get through without triggering at least one of them. And even if she did trigger one and manage to get out of its blast radius in time, the chain reaction made by the hundreds of explosives in that area would probably decimate this entire section of the blockade. Everyone would die, us included.
I grit my teeth. Seemed like I’d have to retrieve it.
“Cover me from the Infernal!” I yelled and ran to the tent where Erani was.
She turned and faced the Demon as I arrived at the crashed tent with the unconscious men lying on the canvas. The explosive plates really were everywhere. A blast came from behind from one of Erani’s Firebolts impacting against the Infernal.
“Only a couple shots left,” she said back to me.
I hurriedly climbed into the wreckage and waded toward the soldiers lying inside. Even with the reduced gravity, it was difficult to get through. I tripped over loose canvas and broken tent poles, and, even if I wasn’t triggering them, the hundreds of mines got in the way, too.
Eventually, though, I got to the two unconscious soldiers, bending over and grabbing the hand of the closest one – a woman with messy hair spilling from her helmet. I lifted her up and began tugging the ring off her finger. It was slightly too small, it seemed, and I had a bit of trouble getting it off. But as I pulled, her eyes fluttered open. She looked around, confused, before locking her eyes onto me. She sputtered in shock and hurriedly reached for a knife on her side.
But before she could swing it at me, I grabbed the ring on her finger and let go of her hand, so I was only holding onto her by the bronze. Then, I lifted my foot up and stomped down on her chest. She coughed in pain and was shoved down as I held tightly onto the ring. With that force, she fell and the ring popped off. She tumbled to the ground, narrowly missing a nearby mine. Now that she no longer had the ring, she’d trigger them if she put too much of her weight on any.
I kicked the piles of nearby explosive plates around her as she got to her feet, creating a thick circle of deadly traps that she couldn’t get through.
“Step on any, and you die,” I said. “Wait for someone else to come by and let you out. Don’t kill yourself trying to stop me.”
I heard another explosion as Erani shot at the Infernal another time. I turned and went over to her, where she was standing guard and protecting me.
She looked over. “You get it? What do the rings do, anyway?”
“Lower your weight,” I said as I grabbed her hand and slipped the ring over her finger. “You shouldn’t trigger the mines anymore.”
“Oh, thank the gods. Those things almost killed me half a dozen times by now.”
I glanced around at our surroundings. The battle that’d proceeded thus far had cleared out most of our enemies. The Dryad had done the majority of that work, I suspected. She was off in the distance, still running through the camp and bringing the hells to earth for her poor enemies.
Must’ve been nostalgic for the Demons, I thought.
But there were still plenty of Infernals and Humans near us, recovering from the various scuffles we’d had with them. And the Dryad was only covering us from one side. From the other, reinforcements were still arriving. I could see a few such reinforcements approaching now – a squad of yet more Infernals. Seemed like at least ten of them.
“C’mon. Now that we can move around, we need to get out,” I said.
Erani nodded. The camp itself was only about twenty paces across, with the minefield extending about fifty paces further in either direction. So, now that the mines weren’t a problem anymore, we didn’t actually have much in between us and freedom. Just a short distance, and we were out.
I grabbed Erani’s hand and pulled her along with me, heading for the forest.
“What about the Dryad?” she asked.
“She’ll figure out that we’re leaving. No real way to tell her.”
Erani looked over at the distant Dryad, off fighting against the Humans and Demons that technically had nothing against her. Her only crime was allying with me. If she knew that the reason they were fighting her was because of me, would she be angry? Try to kill me?
I supposed I couldn’t worry about that, for now. The squad of Infernals continued in their approach toward us, and there were even more that were approaching even closer.
We ran, bounding freely across the field and toward the forest’s edge. With the help of the rings we wore, we could move much faster, and outpaced the chasing Infernals. And Erani used her last few Firebolts to blast back anything that got too close, using their own rings against them.
I eyed the depot of explosives as we ran. There were even more of those tents scattered throughout the camp. If I could get one to explode from a distance, I could take out this entire camp. We wouldn’t have to worry about pursuers, or anything. And the XP gain would be massive. But I couldn’t figure out a way to do that.
Erani’s explosions wouldn’t trigger them – I’d already seen that. It seemed like they were specially enchanted to only trigger by weight, or by the explosions of other mines. So the only way to start a chain reaction like that would be to get something heavy to drop on them. And if we were close enough to drop something heavy, we were close enough to die in the following explosion.
Of course, there was the possibility of Gravity Well. But now that our enemies were alert to our presence, there’d be no way they’d stray so close to those depots that I could use it to force them to set it off. And even if I could, everyone was so spread out now that it’d barely even do anything.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of XP that would come from this. And the devastation of the enemy forces. Dozens of Infernals would die in the explosion, maybe more. We could push away the enemy from immediately pursuing us, we’d dissuade the Humans from working with the Demons because of the catastrophic failure, we’d get rid of a decent chunk of enemy forces.
And, of course, l’d probably get enough XP to get to my next Level if I could somehow pull it off. At Level 12, I’d get a new Spell Choice, increase my Soft Cap… Hells, maybe the XP would even be enough to push me all the way to 13, too.
The only way to do this right would be to go back using Time Loop – my last usage of the day. If I fucked it up, I’d be dead for good. But then, where was the guarantee that we’d survive if we ran now?
I looked back as we retreated from our enemies. They knew how to find us – obviously they did, if they could pull this shit off. And even if we escaped now, what was the guarantee they wouldn’t just do it again? I couldn’t fight off a force like this every day – hells, my Health was so low, I’d barely be able to survive a fight with anything. Our enemies were upping their game, and we needed to as well.
We were close to freedom from this damned blockade and the fire behind us. In fact, we’d pretty much gotten it already. But with the information I’d gotten here, maybe I could get something a bit better than a successful retreat. It’d cost my last use of Time Loop for the day, but if I didn’t do this now, I’d most likely end up using it up on escaping our pursuing forces a couple hours in the future. And when that happened, even if I ended up escaping, I’d find myself just as weak and powerless compared to our enemies as I always had been.
But here, I was looking at a massive opportunity. Use my safety net now, and I’ll end up not having to even need it in the future.
If I played my cards right, I could demolish the enemy forces and get myself a couple Levels along the way. I’d have to do this once more, but this time I had a plan. This time I knew exactly how I could win. There were no more variables. The extra Levels, the demolition of our enemies – this would be a huge blow to them.
Winning a war starts with winning a single battle. And I was about to get myself on that victory streak.
I activated Time Loop.