Stormblade [Skill Merge Portal Break] (B1 Complete)

I hated spiders.

They weren't as bad as the centipede monsters that had killed Dad, but they had way too many legs. That hadn't been a problem one-on-one. Eight was acceptable. But there were a half-dozen of them in front of me—a small swarm, befitting the E-Rank inhabitants of a D-Rank portal.

That was forty-eight legs and at least thirty-six eyes.

I retreated back to the knot—it bulged out and cut the path's width down to almost nothing. The branch narrowed until it was barely three feet wide at the narrowest, and stayed close to that for nearly thirty. As I stepped back, I kicked away the woven branch barrier, exposing the open air to my left.

I consumed Mana to summon the Stormsteel breastplate, then took my best defensive stance. There'd be no dodging, no avoiding hits—not with such a large drop.

The first and second spiders moved shockingly smoothly. I expected jerking, awkward movements, but even as their legs jumped up and down, their eyes stayed level with my waist. As they approached, their legs tangled; both were too eager to kill me, their murderous instincts working against them. A third pressed in behind them, and I smiled ferally.

Then I pushed Stamina into Dash and exploded forward.

As I ran, I pressed myself against the knot's thick, cracked bark. My sword cut across the first and second monsters' tangled legs. They reeled back and up, and I slammed my shoulder into the closest one's body. Then I pushed outward. Jaws scrabbled on my armor and sliced into my arm, then stopped as both of the lead spiders tumbled into the air, streaming silk behind them.

My sword flicked out and sliced through the strands a moment later.

Then I backpedaled. There were still four of them, but four against one felt way more winnable than fighting six spiders at once.

The third followed me. I lunged. It hissed, jerking back as electricity rippled through its thorax. Then it surged forward as its fellows piled up behind it. I stabbed and cut into the mass of legs, stomach churning as much as the sea of limbs.

Spiders were the worst.

It took a few minutes of standing my ground, and things got hairy when two of the spiders decided to try wall-walking to get over the killing ground, but from the moment I stepped onto the choke point, it was a foregone conclusion that I'd win. I unsummoned the armor and sword to let my Mana regenerate, and continued onward.

There'd be plenty of fighting ahead before I caught up to the team.

The second and third spider riders were much worse than the first, and by the time it was over, Jeff would have traded the rest of the team for five minutes with Sophia, his former healer.

The rest of the team would have, too. Everyone was hurt after that fight.

It had been a desperate fight against the two riders—one a knight in the first armor Jeff had seen this portal, the other an archer who maneuvered his spider away from Jeff whenever he tried to get close enough for a taunt or Retaliation activation. Ellen had ended up having to all but solo it, since no one else could get a hit in until the spider died.

She'd taken three arrows for her trouble. Two were flesh wounds to the arm and thigh, but the third was stuck off-center in her chest. Jeff had panicked at that, but she'd only frozen for a handful of seconds, then fought through the pain. It was still bleeding even after they'd cut her robes away and bandaged it up, but the wound was healing shockingly quickly.

"Are we ready to go?" the support—Yasmin, Jeff remembered—asked. "We can spend a few minutes here, waiting to recover, but every minute's one less for my buffs and more time for—"

"For our Stamina to run down," Jeff finished. "I know, but Kade was still alive. He responded to Ellen's signal. If he can catch up, that'll increase our odds of winning."

"Then should we start looking for him?" she asked.

"No. If he's alive and in one piece, he'll find a way to us. And if he's hurt too badly to fight his way back up, our best bet to save him is to kill the boss." Jeff thought for a minute. "Ellen, you good?"

"Of course I'm not good," she said from the laminated-looking wooden floor. She coughed and pushed herself to a knee, then to her feet. "I'm at fifteen percent Stamina and twenty-five percent Mana. Do you have anything for that?"

"No," he said. "I'm all out of potions."

"Then until the Scripts kick in, I'm as good as I'm gonna get. Let's get back to it," she said.

Jeff nodded, but even as he plowed through the next door, blowing it off its hinges with his charge and slamming into the shocked-looking elf inside, he couldn't help but note how pale she looked.

By the time I cleared Spider Lane and found a window I could squeeze through, I was completely covered in viscera and yellow ichor, and if I never fought a spider again, it'd be far too soon. I'd burned my Stamina and Mana down far more than I wanted to, but I'd also killed almost a dozen of the damned things, as well as a single D-Ranked spider identical to the one the spider rider had been mounted on.

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Now, I was back inside the tree, learning two valuable lessons. First, that any enemy that could attack from a distance was a nightmare to a duelist, and second, that I could counter them, but it was costly.

I kicked an E-Ranked elf archer's knee, crumpling him and stabbing into his eye before he could react.

Four down. One to go.

I'd been fighting up the tree ramp for a while, and killing the archers had been rough on my Stamina. With only one enemy remaining, I didn't need to worry as much about pushing hard. I could take my time. Sort of.

This time, I didn't Dash. Instead, I sprinted as fast as I could, counting on Lightning Reflexes to warn me when a leaf-shaped arrow sliced through the air. I didn't have the Stamina reserve to keep up the pace, and I had no idea how much longer I'd be fighting before I caught up to the team.

It took almost twenty seconds of all-out sprinting to run the last archer down. This time, he got his daggers out quickly enough to counter my opening thrust, and my momentum carried me past him. We locked eyes, his deep green ones narrowed and burning with hate and anger.

Wood Tower Sniper: D-Rank

The battle trance hit almost immediately.

I grinned, stepping to block my opponent's path up the spiraling ramp, and launched into my next series of attacks. The air stank of ozone as my blade sliced through it and a dagger knocked it off-course. Then a second danced toward my neck, and I stepped back, letting my footwork protect me. The vicious slash caught nothing but pollen. I countered, stepping back and lunging at the same time. A miss. This guy was tougher than the last four—they'd all been E-Rank.

The smile grew. I danced past him, circling between him and the dropped bow just like I'd done with the delver archer. My food smashed it. Wood shards catapulted both ways as the string's tension gave out. Then the elf leaped toward me, both daggers slashing down.

I caught one with my blade and grabbed the monster's wrist. He pushed down, his strength every bit as much as the archer in the ice portal's. But this time, I didn't try to fight it. I rolled to the side and yanked down.

Between his strength and mine, the dagger sank into the wooden ramp almost to its hilt. I let go, rolled, and cut. The elf tried to raise his dagger, only to realize it was stuck. There wasn't time for him to react. He started yelling, then cut off as my blow landed.

It caught the back of the sniper's neck, and he hit the wood like a puppet with its strings cut. I kicked his body into the hollow center of the tree, and he fell. He hit the spiraling ramp next to the third archer with a sickening crunch that was an instant or two delayed.

I took a deep breath and let myself collapse on the ramp next to the trapped dagger, chest heaving. This wasn't working.

"I need to change tactics," I said to no one in particular.

Stamina: 43/200, Mana: 141/250

In the long term, I would have an answer. My next merge skill would give me the power to strike back without burning Stamina, and would let me use my Mana for more than just buffs. It was the last piece in my spellblade build, but until I could start building it, I didn't have many options for handling archers. The arrow wounds and sub-twenty-five percent Stamina attested to that.

And even worse, only the final archer had been a D-ranker. I couldn't afford to fight so hard—another engagement like that could see my Stamina hit single digits, or worse. Fatigue was already setting in. So, if I couldn't fight every enemy, I'd need to focus on…

Not fighting?

It felt more roguelike than I was prepared for, but if I could find a way up without pissing off every monster in the place, that'd work better. I looked to the nearest window; the tree's cracked bark beckoned—and so did a narrow ramp that circled out to a branch before following it to the trunk again.

I grimaced. Then I forced myself out of the window and started to slowly climb the outside pathway.

Stamina: 27/200

Despite my best efforts, my Stamina was dwindling.

The rolling log trap I'd encountered had burned a ton of it; it had been on a downward section of the ramp. One moment, I'd been walking along calmly. The next, Lightning Reflexes flared, and I'd looked behind me to see dozens of logs as thick as I was tall thundering down the path after me. I'd had to Dash for far too long, and it had bled my Stamina to uncomfortably low levels. Without the skill, I didn't know if I would have survived at all.

My attempt at a shortcut had paid off, though; aside from a pair of the E-Rank spiders and the trap, I hadn't run into anything on my long, painful route through the tree's bough. Even better, I could hear fighting up ahead.

If there was fighting, that meant the rest of the team was still up and running—and it meant I wasn't too late to help them win. But I'd need to be careful. Smart. I'd need to behave like a striker, not a fighter. I didn't have the Stamina for anything else. So, as I reached the top of the ramp and looked down at the fight below through a trellis of vines, I didn't dive in right away.

The battle trance practically screamed at me to join in, but I held off.

Elven Mage-Knight Errant: D-Rank

The boss looked a little like the spider-riding elf I'd tackled, except for her armor. It glowed in the bright sunlight near the tree's summit, reflecting light across the battlefield, a blueish platform of planks with ivy growing from every side. No. It wasn't just that the armor was reflecting light; the Mage-Knight was a light magic user, and its spells were scouring the platform with concentrated, white-hot sunlight.

It was nothing compared to the Light of Dawn's magic, and Ellen's shadow magic should have countered it, but…something was wrong.

Both fighters had glued themselves to the massive pillbug the Mage-Knight rode. The beast was taking their hits without too much trouble, though it couldn't counterattack effectively; clearly, the boss's strategy was to provide all the offense and rely on its mount and mirror-polished armor for defense. And it was working.

Jeff, meanwhile, had positioned himself in front of Ellen, and was currently fighting three elves with daggers. They wielded them much more skillfully than the sniper I'd killed; only Jeff's armor and Stamina had kept him from being overwhelmed and letting one slip by to Ellen.

As for her…she wasn't casting. That meant low Mana, and that meant the Mage-Knight could free-cast without any interference.

They were in serious trouble.

And I had enough Stamina for one all-in attack. The question was where it'd do the most good. Ellen was low on Mana; freeing her up wouldn't help, but if Jeff could get to the boss, he might be able to slow or even stop the pillbug. I had a feeling that if it stopped, the two fighters would be able to climb it and attack the boss—either that, or she'd leave the boss and engage on the ground. Either would be better than trying to crack the monster's carapace.

But dismounting the boss might be simpler. I could try a stunt like I had with the spider rider. If she hit the ground and couldn't react quickly enough, it might give the team the chance to take the initiative. And, if she panicked, she might call her backup to her side. That'd free Jeff, too, and take the pressure off of Ellen.

Either option could work, but I'd only have the Stamina for one of them. So, as the fight continued, I watched, and waited to make my move.

I'd only get one shot, after all.