"Give up, still unnad half-elf [Juggernaut]. If you know who I am you know you have no chance to win."
He lowered his stance in response. "A [Juggernaut] keeps moving forward toward his goal. You stand between and them. Since I cannot flee, I must defeat you."
I had to admire his dedication. He attacked, unleashing a flurry of slashes with his sword along with positioning his tower shield to block from moving too much. I studied his combat style.
"You are a protector, not a hunter or an attacker. Your weapon of choice is agile but has a short range. You have too much mobility for soone wearing this much tal. And your shield is ant to protect not only you but those around and behind you. Why do you insist on attacking?"
I kept luring him away from the smaller fleet. with more room to move and learning his attack patterns, defending beca easier.
"I'm flattered. However, my lord ordered to slay those in the ships ahead. That's what I'll do."
I grinned as I stopped deflecting and exclusively dodged his strikes now that I had room for that. That's when {Grandmaster Dodge} triggered, causing him to overextend just a bit, staggering him for 200 milliseconds after each blow each ti and tossing his accuracy in the gutter. I giggled as I got under his skin, a thing I thought no magical ntal influence could do.
Five minutes until my song's lingering influence ended. I had to get this tal-headed athead sowhere safe... sowhere without anything he could damage. And I realized I knew just the place.
"Sorry, rude [Juggernaut] that won't give a na. I need to put you in a tiout because you've been a naughty boy. I promise I'll co to get you later."
That said, I took his next blow intentionally accepting the several hundred thousand HP damage, and clenched my arms went around his waist. I needed to improve my lee damage output.
Pierce the Veil
We both fell down the ice into the bottom of the ocean as we transitioned into the Ethereal Realm. There, things devoid of magic had no substance. The water was as thin as air and Nenandil magically-summoned ice was like a fog. Only the bottom of the ocean, connected to the magic of the world was solid. There was no danger of drowning either, as creatures in this dinsion required no air to survive.
I split from him right away. Confused, he halted his relentless assault to examine his surroundings. I used this to put so distance between us.
"Do take your ti and look around, dear. But be a good boy and don't stray too far. I don't feel in the mood to look for lost lambs."
As he realized I was about to leave him stranded there, he reached with an open hand, the sword falling and clattering against the floor. It didn't disturb the sand for it had no substance or impact as far as the Material Realm was concerned.
"Cloy!" He shouted as I crossed and sealed the rip in the fabric of reality. He seed desperate. "My na is Cloy!"
I could've done that with the Barbaric Butt Bastard, couldn't I?
Dishonorable forfeit. You fled combat. All Exp awards are halved and you cannot challenge anyone again for 48 hours.
Oh, well. I could live with that. I found myself trapped in ice as I returned at the bottom of the ocean, now taken by the massive iceberg my fairy companion created. I channeled Energy into the [Undead Bard] Perk, becoming like a ghost and traveling back to the surface.
Two minutes before chaos descended on the impromptu glacier. It was the sa as the flipping of a coin, deciding which side should I hear first. Bringing them together so I could hear both was impossible as hostilities would surely break. I decided to go with the weaker side first.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
As I dashed over the ice to reach the flotilla of smaller ships, my enhanced danger senses flared. I felt the back of my neck ripple as a massive spell approached. Oh, that's how Peter[1] felt.
A ginormous ball of fire flew my way. Not aid at but at the ships. A quick examination told it was siege-level magic, enough to vaporize the ships, a chunk of the glacier, and whoever was aboard unless they had monstrous resistances or vitality.
Turning on a di, I pulled deep into my Energy pool. It was not the ti for a spell-song as I needed to be expeditious. As a reflex, I wove that mass of Energy in the barbaric - by Marlowe's reckoning - and fast ways of the sorcerer.
A slanted and convex barrier of Force magic sprung up. I was on the concave side. It was wide and tall enough to block the fireball and deflect the inevitable blast of heat away from the boats, most of it upward, I hoped. I kept channeling Energy into the barrier, reinforcing its strength and durability. Force magic could block anything but the caster had to pay an amount equivalent to the attack repelled.
The fireball slamd on the reversed dish and blossod into a miniature sun. The heat of a thousand furnaces sublimated the ice into vapor and spread tongues of fla a hundred yards long in every which direction. I still paid a couple million Energy to sustain my dish in its entirety, after the several halvings in cost I had because of my Perks.
But I had to make sure my barrier had not a single crack after the fireball vanished and the plu of vapor went away, blown by the wind. I could see Nenandil also channeling her magic to rebuild the artificial iceberg. This was important to awe and dissuade the enemy mages from launching another attack.
From the fleeing fleet of mostly civilians, only pained gasps and cries ca. They weren't physically hurt but their morale had reached the bottom low. That made my mind. Between two unknown factions, one strong, boastful, and belligerent and the other weak and agreeable, only cowards would solve the conflict the easy way. I had my target.
I shapeshifted into a peregrine falcon and took to the sky, rapidly gaining altitude. I could see the mages in the offending fleet throwing gouts of fla into the ice in a vain effort to free their vessels. Up there, I changed again. Taking the form of the Quetzalcoatlus pterodactyl, I used {Chiric Transformation} to cover myself with snake scales and used one Perk I never had the opportunity to play with.
Light Lamia
I shone as bright as I could, dispelling the cloak of the night and casting white reflections upon the waters from the cloudy sky, in no small amount caused by the monstrous siege fireball. The crystal-clear waters revealed the splendor of the seabed outside while the ice reflected and diffracted the light in all kinds of colors and beams of light. I could only imagine what the sailors down there were thinking. If King Cadrel Ackerton standing up close mistook the Quetzalcoatlus with a dragon, what about stressed and distressed n down there?
Shock and awe. The mages still dared throw magic projectiles of a myriad of elents my way. That's why I dropped a cathedral on their flagship from two hundred ters above. From the carved foundation to the tall bell tower, the cathedral unceremoniously embraced the call of the planet below and slid through the geodesic curve of its gravitational field.
The siege mages worked in tandem to erect a Force barrier, not unlike mine in an attempt to save their own lives. The kiloton-mass of pure stone building crashed at terminal velocity on the barrier, sending a shower of debris, dust, and gravel in a horizontal disk around the point of impact. Along with the rumble of scores of thunderbolts. The ships escorting the flagship had no such protections and were pelted by a veritable teor shower of projectiles going at comparable speeds to the real celestial phenona.
The Exp notifications told they didn't fare too well.
In a testant to its architects, engineers, and stonemasons that probably used magic to make it, the cathedral's fra remained mostly intact, with fractures and broken walls everywhere. But most important, it remained pressing its weight on the Force disk. The flagship was still at risk of being crushed underneath.
The Force wall collapsed but a second one was already in place underneath, this one slightly slanted to the side. The building fell less than a ter before it slid on the frictionless magical surface down to finish demolishing the ships on the starboard side.
I had demolished the Church of Bundeus on two continents. Regarding buildings, I had no lack of temples to dispose of. That's why I dropped a bigger cathedral when the mages dismissed their shield to save MP. This ti too they erected a barrier in ti to defend themselves, showing they could learn from experience by making it already tilted. But if they were already skimping on maintaining their spell to save MP, I doubted they had enough to withstand the impact of a third one that ca a minute after the third.
They didn't. Another slew of kill notifications flew up and they didn't make happy.
With a heavy sigh, that through my dinosaur throat beca a deep shriek, I dove and sent the debris to my storage. I also searched with {Detect Sentient Beings}. I had a few survivors. Against what could be common sense, I summoned Pandora to restore blood to everyone in range as I tossed healing jets of water their way to stabilize their wounds.
Half an hour later, I had a dozen prisoners. {Appraise} told they were knights of this or that, those with enough levels, equipnt, and Endurance scores to survive. Among them, one [King]. Subdued, with their fighting spirit crushed, bound in steel bands, and gagged, I cursed.
"Every single ti!"
And I added another crown to my collection. All that's left to know was if the head that held it would remain on the neck. To that, I had to go have a chat with the other group of invaders.
[1]: ... Parker. If still in doubt, google for the full na.
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