Divine Glitch: I Regressed With Endgame Knowledge

The five elite scouts struck Ryan again and again, each blow carving away nearly a thousand points of his health. In just a few short seconds, almost two thousand of his life was gone.

Radiant Light was sealed, leaving him no way to heal himself except for the faint trickle from Radiant Glory, and even that spell carried a long cooldown that made it all but useless. Divine Storm and Hammer of Justice, which normally gave him a chance to recover, now had their cooldowns stretched to ten agonizing seconds. Depending on those two alone was a death sentence.

In ten seconds, he could heal himself for barely two thousand points at best. Yet the damage he suffered in that same time was over five thousand.

His own strikes felt pitiful in comparison. With the scouts boasting more than forty-five hundred health each, Ryan's weakened damage was little more than a scratch. His normal swings landed for barely three hundred damage. Only his skills could deal real harm, and even then, their doubled cooldowns kept them just out of reach when he needed them most.

When his health plummeted toward the warning line of five hundred, Ryan downed his last Limited Invulnerability Potion, earning himself a fleeting few seconds of immunity to physical attacks. In that fragile reprieve, he managed to cast Radiant Light and push his health back over half.

But his pool of health was enormous, and without the benefits of a specialized healing build, his recovery lagged behind. Even with talent points devoted to the Radiant path, the spell's effect was far weaker than what a full Holy Paladin could muster. Each Radiant Light restored only nine hundred to thirteen hundred health—barely enough to keep him afloat.

Still, those seven seconds of immunity bought him precious time. He managed to cast Radiant Light twice and allowed Divine Storm and Hammer of Justice to come off cooldown. As soon as the potion's effect faded, he unleashed both in quick succession, and his health surged back to full.

Then fortune tilted his way. A series of critical hits slammed into one of the scouts, tearing it down to a sliver of life and slowing its furious assault.

But Ryan dared not finish it off. He knew these creatures well enough: the moment one of their number fell, the others would explode with speed, striking even harder and faster than before. Against that kind of onslaught, he wouldn't last. So he held back, continuing to endure the five of them at once while chipping at the healthier scouts instead.

By the time he raised Divine Shield, two of the elites were already swaying on the edge of death. One more Divine Storm would wipe them out. And Ryan would need it—because once his shield faded and he needed healing again, their end would come at the same time as his reprieve.

That still left three scouts, their speed heightened, their attacks sharper. But their health was only a little more than half. If luck stayed with him, he might yet carve his way through them. And if not, there was always Desperate Healing.

That spell would consume all his mana, locking him out of every other ability. But his reserves were already so low that by the time he was forced to use it, he would only have the strength for one or two more casts anyway.

Golden light flared suddenly beneath his feet, swirling upward in a storm that tore into the nearest scouts. Two of them collapsed under the radiant force, and a surge of life rushed back into him, a thousand points of health restored in an instant.

Though only three scouts remained, their accelerated strikes tore into him just as fiercely as before. The damage hadn't dropped much at all—within ten seconds, Ryan still bled away thirty-five to forty hundred health.

At first he had felt confident, but that confidence was slipping fast. After burning his last lifesaving skill, Desperate Healing, he was down to two scouts, and their speed had climbed to an even more terrifying level.

"Damn it… am I really going to fail this mission?"

His eyes locked on the health bar plunging toward the bottom, every slash and stab of the scouts cutting deeper into his panic. A quick calculation told him the ugly truth: he wouldn't kill them in time. His health would bottom out first. This mission was all but lost.

"Tch… it's ridiculous. Fighting four of them was manageable, but five? The difficulty jumps way too high!" He clicked his tongue in frustration, scanning desperately for some kind of option.

Potions were out of the question. They shared a cooldown with his Limited Invulnerability Potion, and that was ten minutes long. He didn't have ten seconds, let alone ten minutes.

His gaze flicked over one of his trinkets. Heavy Stone Golem: Summons a stone golem that follows you, restoring twenty health per second for thirty seconds. Cooldown: three minutes.

Ryan snorted. "What's the use of this thing? Even if it heals me three hundred before I drop dead, I'd call that generous."

The golem was a Jewelcrafting item, more of a novelty than anything serious. Most players wrote it off as useless, and Ryan couldn't blame them.

Still, a few hundred health was better than nothing. He activated it without hesitation, already scrambling for another way out.

Grenades? Useless. Two seconds of stun wouldn't buy him the time he needed to cast Radiant Light, and besides, his mana pool was bone dry. Maybe they'd have helped at the start of the fight, but now? If the scouts clipped him even once, he'd never manage to cast.

His eyes lingered on the thought of a Swiftness Belt—one of the few Engineering items that could have saved him—but he didn't have the materials, and his skill level was far too low to craft it anyway. With a bitter sigh, he shut his inventory.

"Is failure really all that's left?" He glanced over his shoulder, half-considering whether to flee. Even if the mission failed, at least he wouldn't lose stamina. But the idea burned. All this effort, wasted.

Then, out of habit more than hope, his eyes flicked to his experience bar.

And froze.

Over seven hundred thousand experience points, sitting untouched. After hitting level 26 yesterday, he hadn't leveled up again.

A grin broke across his face. Leveling up meant full health. Full mana. A complete reset.

Ryan let out a laugh that shook the battlefield. He didn't even care about the scouts clawing at him anymore. As long as he reached level 27 in time, failure was off the table. Victory was in his grasp.