Anton left the west gate of Bensen behind as he walked down a dirt road toward the tree line. When he was out of sight of the gate, he activated Stealth and began jogging at a modest 40 miles per hour. That allowed him to move almost as fast as his Echo Location updated. It had a range of 60 feet, and he was moving approximately 58.6 feet per second. He should be able to detect and dodge anything that might prove hazardous.
The trees looked a lot like pines, oaks, and maple trees, and were about a mile away. In just under two minutes, Anton was almost to the tree line when he heard a muffled scream echoing out of the woods. It was very faint and would probably have gone unnoticed by most, but his perception was well over the standard for Rare-ranked individuals, and Echo Location helped him pick up the scream.
Anton remained Stealthed as he began making his way toward the screams he heard. Suddenly, the scream turned to a shriek, and Anton heard a man's voice call out, “Daria, Noooo!”
As Anton came upon a clearing, a group of four large bipedal humanoids that looked like a cross between goblins, orcs, and other creatures was attacking a small shack where a human male was holding the door closed from the inside. It looked like someone had set up a farmstead just inside the tree line in a small clearing where they had a small farm plot and a well. The man holding the door to the small hut of a house looked to be the person who had screamed for Daria, who was lying on her back on the ground, with her hands trying to hold her chest together. She’d taken a grievous slash from her left shoulder to her right hip, which had opened her dress and her chest.
Anton guessed it was the giant double-bladed axe that the fifth humanoid was bringing back to swing up over and down on the woman’s head. She was so busy trying to hold herself together that she hadn’t seen the creature change his stance or begin to make the strike. As Anton moved closer, he noticed that her eyes had started to glaze and her grip on her chest loosened as shock flooded her body. But she wasn’t dead yet, which meant that he had perfect test subjects for two of his new spells.
Anton rushed up to the woman and placed a hand on her head as he cast Maintain Life. Doing so broke his Stealth, which caused the creature in front of him to change his target and begin to bring the swing of the two-bladed axe down on him. Unfortunately for the axe-wielder, Anton was too fast.
Anton cast Adjust Weight on the axe wielder and set its weight to zero. Anton minimized the notifications he received, but he saw that the spell had taken effect when the motion he was making to swing the axe up and over his head caused him to lift off the ground, and he lost his balance and momentum. Before he could recover, Anton stepped forward and pushed the creature up and away from him at about a 45-degree angle. Anton was no physicist, but if he pushed something that weighed practically nothing with his whole strength and it flew for a full 10 seconds, it should conceivably fly hundreds of feet into the air, which is precisely what happened.
The creature's look of surprise when he began floating above the ground turned to shock and then horror as he flew up and away from Anton at an incredible speed. The creature’s attack roar had turned into a scream and then a wail as it came crashing back to the earth over one thousand feet away with a loud “CRUNCH.”
The four creatures who had been trying to break into the small house turned their attention to Anton. Anton, not knowing if the creatures could speak Goblin, called out in Goblinese anyway, “Well then, come on. I don’t have all day!”
The large creature at the door yelled, “Kill Him!” in Goblinese as he turned back to the door and began trying to stab the man behind it with a dagger, or that’s what it looked like he was going to do. As soon as his head started to turn away from Anton, he moved. The first thing he did was step up to one of the creatures and activate Identify.
Creature Type: Common
Race: Hobgoblin
Class/Level: Warrior/15
Hobgoblins? They looked slightly different than their fantasy counterparts he’d read about in the Monster Manual back in High School, but this was a new Universe, so he’d just roll with it. With no idea how many hit points the hobgoblin had or its defenses from the armor it was wearing, Anton punched the first hobgoblin in the center chest with his full force.
He was slightly surprised when his fist tore through the creature's armor like it was paper, then its chest, and then through the armor across his back. The hobgoblin went from alive and trying to respond to his attack to vacant-eyed and dead in a second. It looked like a bonus to melee damage of plus 856 damage was a very high bonus indeed. Now that he knew he was severely overpowered to these creatures, which had yet to react, Anton moved to the second and third ones in turn, killing each before he was directly behind the one at the door who had not completed his action to turn back to the door.
Anton checked his internal clock and noted that only three seconds had passed. Yeah, he was a bit overpowered for these opponents. Even so, he reached out with his pointer finger and thumb, gripped the creature's spine at the back of its neck, and squeezed his fingers together.
CRACK!
Like a puppet with its strings cut, the creature fell to the ground limp. A moment later, he received a Notification.
You have killed a 15 Hobgoblin.
You have earned 1,250 XP
XP to Next Level: 226,400
You have been awarded 125 Copper
A quick check of his interface let him know that the other three hobgoblins had been levels 8, 10, and 12. Anton closed his interface and turned toward where the fifth hobgoblin had crashed into the ground. Unfortunately, it was outside of his immediate visual range. He touched the hobgoblin at his feet and dropped him into the Portable Exchange dimensional storage as the man behind the door finally slammed it shut. Anton ignored him and moved to each hobgoblin he killed and placed them and their weapons in his Portable Exchange before he moved over to the woman and cast Maintain Life one more time on her. The spell had done what it was designed to do: healed and then kept her alive. Sometime after he’d healed her, she’d passed out.
Anton quickly checked where she’d been slashed across her torso and then picked her up and moved her to the door, which was still closed. He gently placed her on the wood and called out, “Whoever is in the house, there’s one hobgoblin out in the woods I need to take care of. I’ve healed your friend, daughter, or wife; she’s right outside the door. Please open the door and check for yourself,” Anton said as he took a step back from the door.
Anton saw the door crack open and knew that the man was looking out with Echo Location.
“I healed her. I’ll come back if I can after I kill the last hobgoblin. Once she wakes up, though, I’d suggest you take whoever is here back to the city as quickly as you can, just in case this was just a band of scouts and more enemies are coming,” Anton said as he turned and ran off to the west.
As he left the clearing, he heard the man call, “Who are you?” but didn’t stop to answer as he continued toward where he’d seen the last hobgoblin disappear to. He had a good idea where the hobgoblin had landed and made it into the area in less than 20 seconds. When he arrived, he found where the hobgoblin had crashed into the ground and noticed broken branches and scuffling along the ground leading further west into the forest. He also noticed completely clean paths, almost like ruts running back and forth across the area.
Anton was wondering how the hobgoblin had gotten up and walked off when something approximately ten feet in diameter and spherical entered the perception sphere of his Echo Location. It was rolling along the ground and moving very quickly toward him.
Anton activated Stealth as he stepped behind a tree opposite the direction it was coming from. At the last moment, the object altered its course and slammed into the tree, splashing around it. Anton was so surprised that he hesitated, which was all the creature needed. As he realized his mistake, Anton tried to jump up and away from the crashing wave of slime, but was too slow as it enveloped him. Suddenly, he was spinning head over heels as the creature continued rolling through the forest with him inside it. Was it a creature? Anton activated Identify.
Creature Type: Unknown
Race: Unknown
Class/Level: Unknown/Unknown
Well, that was a bunch of bullshit. At that thought, he noticed something else. The creature was trying to force its way into every orifice of his body. That wasn’t good. At that thought, he felt the creature start to enter his nose and instinctively tried to expel it. Nothing that was part of his normal respiratory system helped with this, but suddenly, he felt his Void Core open as energy flooded his body and pushed all foreign material out of his skin. An additional side effect was that the creature lost all contact with Anton, and he was ejected from the creature as it lost its grip on him.
Anton felt his body fly through the air until he tumbled along the ground and came to a stop. The problem was that he couldn’t see, hear, smell, or feel anything else. The Void Energy surrounded him and prevented everything physical outside or inside the shell from traveling across the barrier. He felt like he was floating, though he could feel the pull of gravity that had to be holding him to the ground.
Anton concentrated on altering the shell of energy that surrounded him so that it didn’t cover his eyes and was rewarded with the ability to see the ground and trees around him. Echo Location still wasn’t working, probably because the energy barrier still covered his ears. The creature had returned and was trying to roll over him when he noticed that the fifth hobgoblin was floating inside the creature. He hadn’t noticed that when he was inside it.
Now that he was free of the creature, Anton had some options. Anton launched to his feet and withdrew the void energy back into his core as he moved and stayed away from the rolling, whatever it was. It resembled a slime, but he’d never heard of a slime taking on a spherical form and moving quickly before. It was fucked up when he thought about it. But it did allow the creature to get the drop on creatures out here in the wild, as both the hobgoblin and he had found out.
While Anton felt the energy recede into his Void Core, he continued to dodge the creature as it tried to roll around and capture him. This gave him a chance to analyze its turn radius and attack tactics. The creature couldn’t turn on a dime, which gave Anton plenty of movement options to keep it from capturing him again.
It would roll toward him, he’d step 30 feet perpendicular to its path, and it would turn to follow him. He had no idea how it detected and followed him, but it seemed to know exactly where he had moved. Anton was much faster and must have had higher dexterity and agility than it, which allowed him to move out of its path easily.
Once he was comfortable with his ability to dodge the creature’s attacks, Anton moved within 10 feet directly behind it, cast Magical Bolt, and moved away. Anton watched as the Magical Bolt hit the creature, and part of it was blown off and evaporated before it hit the ground. So, Magical Bolt would work. The only problem was that he could only cast that spell once per second, and each spell only did ten points of damage. That was 100 points of damage per combat turn, and hopefully, that would overcome whatever regeneration rate the creature had. Without the ability to Identify the creature accurately and see its total hit points, he’d just have to hope this worked.
Anton went to work. He’d move in behind the creature, cast Magical Bolt, and then move again. As the creature turned to come after him, he’d shift his position behind it and cast his spell again. He watched closely as he attacked the creature, and while it did have a regeneration rate that must be higher than the normal healing rate of humans, the damage he inflicted was affecting it.
After ten attacks, about 20% of the creature was destroyed, and it tried to flee.
“Oh no mother fucker, You don’t get to run!” Anton yelled after it.
Anton followed the creature as it zigged and zagged, continuously gaining speed. He moved close enough to attack and then fell back just in case the beast tried to suddenly stop and trick him into stepping inside it. Not that it would matter, Anton knew how to get out of it now.
After twenty attacks, approximately 40% of the monsters were destroyed. After thirty attacks, 60% of the creature was destroyed. Finally, after 51 attacks, the cohesion of the creature failed, and it splashed onto the ground and quickly evaporated into a foul-smelling concoction that smelled like a cross between an outhouse and a rendering plant.
Congratulations! You have killed an Uncommon Tumbling Slime
9,500 Experience Earned
You have been awarded 95 Silver by The SYSTEM.
In addition to the silver that the SYSTEM had awarded, Anton’s eyes were drawn to two gold coins sitting at the center of the point from which the creature had spread out when its body broke apart. He quickly moved over and picked up the gold. Then he moved to take cover by a tree before he activated Stealth and looked around to see if his combat had drawn any attention.
He was sure that nothing was within sixty feet because he hadn’t picked up anything with Echo Location, but the sounds of battle could carry much further than sixty feet. Anton began to feel uneasy when he realized that the natural sounds of the forest had remained silent. Except for the gentle rustling of the leaves in the wind, he could hear no insects or birds, which, if every horror film that took place in a forest was correct, meant that a predator was nearby.
The other thing that came to mind from those movies was that those who stayed motionless usually died, so Anton moved away from the homestead he’d found and headed deeper into the forest. As he moved, he didn’t see anything, but he was sure there was something in the area. Anton cast Adjust Weight on himself and reduced his weight to one-sixth of normal and jumped toward the west. While he wouldn’t soar through the air like he would on the moon, his reduced weight allowed him to jump over forty feet, which should reduce any chance that he was being tracked.
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Instead of rushing, Anton landed, turned in a direction approximately forty-five degrees to the left, and jumped again. He continued to jump, land, turn, and jump again while he maintained Adjusted Weight on himself. When he was at least a thousand feet away from where the creature had died, he dropped the spell and began moving normally through the forest. If something was trying to track him, it should take them a bit to find his trail. Maybe he was paranoid, but if they were really out to get you, then you weren’t paranoid enough.
For the next half hour, he continued west at a normal pace as he continued to check behind him. Suddenly, the scent of something cooking reached his nose. Something was roasting in the distance. If he was traveling about a mile every 10 minutes, he should be at least six miles from the homestead. Hopefully, they’d done as he’d directed and headed back to the city. But realistically, whatever this was should be far enough away that their little hut shouldn’t draw the attention of whatever this was.
Anton slowed and began to take his time as he moved through the forest to the northwest, toward the scent of roasting meat. Anton followed his nose until he came to a cave chimney that looked down on a grass-covered cavern floor, which was open to the sky through the chimney he now stood next to. The cave floor was approximately five hundred feet below ground level, so it was a bit of a way down. Anton realized that where he stood was probably a very thin layer of granite. He looked down into the opening and now understood where the hobgoblins had come from.
The valley held a small village filled with hobgoblins. The smell of cooking meat was coming from a row of rotating carcasses. Anton was disgusted to notice that in addition to a deer and a hog, there looked to be a human and maybe an elf spitted and roasting as well. Aside from their questionable food choices, the village looked like any village he might have come across in the past, with males and females of the race as well as their children running around and playing in the early evening light. Anton probably would have moved on and left them to their fate if they hadn’t been so close to Bensen
As he watched, a hobgoblin dressed in a black robe that carried the markings of a god or goddess he didn’t recognize walked toward the leader directly below the hole from which Anton watched. He was carrying a very well-made black staff with a black oval stone held in a fixture at one end as he walked up to the apparent leader. Luckily, Anton could speak Goblin and understand what was said.
“One of my scouts has died above?” The robbed hobgoblin said.
“Do you know what killed him, Shaman Aklen?” the leader asked in a raspy voice.
“No?”
“Then why bring this information to me? Shouldn’t you be summoning another pet and sending it out to find out?”
“I could do that, but it was my understanding that you sent out a scouting party in the general direction my first pet died in, Chief Mel’for.”
The chief sighed. “Very well,” the chief said as he pointed to one of the hobgoblins in leathers standing over by one of the tents. That hobgoblin raised his arm, and a black hawk-looking creature flew down from a perch somewhere directly below Anton that he couldn’t see from ground level before it flew down and landed on his arm. Anton watched as he stared into its eyes, and then the black hawk launched up into the sky and above the trees as it headed southeast back toward where he’d killed the tumbling slime. Anton noticed that the hobgoblin's eyes remained glazed over as he just stood there. As for the black hawk, he’d already lost track of it.
Anton looked for any obvious paths from the bottom of the lowered valley to the surface, but couldn’t see any. There were cave entrances along the sides, through which various hobgoblins were walking in and out of carrying buckets and jugs of water. There must be a stream down there somewhere. There had to be hundreds of hobgoblins down there.
Anton activated Malleable Body as he moved over to a nearby tree. He altered his body to resemble one of the hobgoblins he’d killed and then pulled it out of his Portable Exchange. He quickly removed his clothes and put them back on before he returned the body to his Portable Exchange. This hobgoblin's weapon of choice had been a battle axe, which was not something that Anton had used before, but with his new class, he should be able to wield it without difficulty at least.
Once he was done getting ready, he reactivated Stealth and began looking for the cave entrance that led down into the village. It didn’t take long. There was a gulley about half a mile to the north of the cave chimney. The way down to the cave was a gulley that led down at a pretty steep angle, which only allowed a single-file descent along it. As he looked down into the gully, he noticed two guards standing in alcoves that had been cut into the gully walls, watching the path up to ground level. Still, they were far enough down not to be picked up by anyone on the surface unless they were right above the gully or almost on top of them on the path. If not for his Echo Location and high perception, he probably wouldn’t have seen them because they’d tried to meld into the gully walls to reduce their profile to anyone looking in.
Additionally, the gully went entirely underground after 100 feet, making it less likely to follow it all the way to the cave chimney. Anton made his way to the opening to the gully, dropping his Stealth as he turned into the gully and began walking forward quickly.
One of the guards stepped out, “Sakret, where is the rest of your squad?” the first guard asked in Goblin.
Anton altered his voice to make it a bit more gruff and responded, “They’re all dead. Shaman Aklen’s pet ate them?” as he rubbed his throat as if he was in pain.
“What?”
“It. Ate. Them. I was barely able to get away.”
“Why would it eat them?” the guard asked.
“It was probably hungry. There’s not too much to eat above,” Anton said as he continued walking, as he owned the gully. They let him pass without an issue. As he made his way along the path, he heard a whimper ahead as he saw a hog-like creature that looked more like a dog with hoggish features. It was shaking its head as if something was bothering it when Anton realized that Echo Location probably used a high-frequency sound, which animals might be able to detect. It would suck, but for now he didn’t want to give away that he was different so he turned off Echo Location.
Immediately, the dog-like creature calmed as Anton made his way into the cave at the end of the gully. Inside, there were guards and three of the dog-like creatures that walked up to sniff Anton. Unfortunately for Anton, his ability did not change his smell, but he was wearing Sakret’s clothes, so he might be able to pass as the hobgoblin. As the beasts stepped closer, Anton activated Identify.
Creature Type: Common
Race: War boar
Class/Level: NA/25
So, it was a boar, not a dog. Good to know. Two of the War Boars sniffed him and went back to the bones they were chewing on. The third, however, offered a growl but was instantly corrected with a command by a hobgoblin sitting at a table behind it, sharpening his dagger, “Grit, stop it! That’s Sakret, now get back to your treat.
Grit shook his head but turned and made his way back to a bone that it had stepped away from to sniff Anton. As Anton made his way through the cave, he stepped into a larger cave that held cages filled with humanoids of all kinds—humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, and a few other races that he didn’t immediately recognize. Without stepping off the path through the center of the cave, he couldn’t Identify them. Maybe later he’d get the chance.
He exited the cave that held the captives into a third large cave that had been converted into a makeshift kitchen. It had a stream that came out from one wall and then went through a hole at the end of the wall where water could be drawn and refuse dumped. His attention was drawn to his left when he heard a young girl scream and watched as a very young human female child was being dragged toward a butcher’s block, crying and screaming.
Anton didn’t consider himself a cavalier or a paladin-like good person, but watching, or allowing a child to be killed, gutted, and prepared to be eaten, was not something he was willing to allow. If he was going to go big, though, he was going to go big. Anton activated the Sigil of Keres above his head and moved to the closest hobgoblin. One thing he noticed was that the axe in his hands felt comfortable as he moved so quickly that he appeared to teleport next to the hobgoblin cook.
He realized after he’d swung horizontally and decapitated the hobgoblin cook with the battle axe in his hand that his perk, Jack-of-all-Trades, not only allowed him to utilize weapons he wasn’t comfortable with, but it also allowed him to control his strength so he didn’t break the weapon he was wielding with his incredible strength. There had been four other hobgoblins in the room working at various tables in addition to the one dragging the young girl. Anton couldn’t do anything for the victims on their tables; they were already dead.
At a rate of two attacks per second, Anton moved behind each hobgoblin, swung his battle axe horizontally, and moved to the next. When he reached the fifth hobgoblin, who was holding the little girl, Anton gently grabbed her by the shoulder with his left hand as he swung the battle axe and decapitated the last hobgoblin with a very precise and controlled swing. Normally, using such a weapon one-handed made it unwieldy, but he didn’t have an issue with it.
As he turned the girl toward him, he activated Malleable Body and reverted to his standard human form while he used his Inventory skill to change his clothing. The girl looked around the room with wide eyes. Anton put his finger to his lips in a keep quiet motion. Once he was sure she’d remain quiet, he led her over to a corner and hid her behind some shelves. “You stay over here, and stay quiet. I have to free the other slaves. It might take a little while. I will come back for you.”
Once he was sure the girl would stay put, Anton moved over to each corpse and put their bodies and heads in his Portable Exchange before he activated Stealth and made his way to the exit he hadn’t passed through yet. It was a smaller corridor that led toward the cave he’d seen from ground level. He didn’t hear anyone, and no one was immediately visible, so he turned back toward the main cave with the slaves in it.
Over the next minute or so, Anton systematically moved to a hobgoblin and snapped their neck before he lowered them to the ground. Once he was sure they weren’t moving, he activated Stealth and moved to his next target. Instead of rushing, he picked and chose hobgoblins that were off by themselves so as not to alert the others.
Some of the slaves had noticed what was going on but had remained silent while he worked. Within three minutes, every hobgoblin in the slave holding cavern was dead. By the end of the fourth minute, they were all inside his Portable Exchange. Once the cave was clear, he activated Stealth, made his way to the entrance with the guards and the war hogs, and in an explosion of action and gore, ended the three guards' and three war hogs' lives within three seconds. Before the last two guards from the gully could react, he’d activated Stealth, moved directly between them, and shoved their heads into the gully wall. Their heads had exploded like watermelons dropped from an extremely high height. As he placed them in his Portable Exchange, he noted that he now had 32 hobgoblin corpses and everything they were carrying.
He quickly checked his notifications. The only two worth any experience were the two level 12 guards. The others were all under level five. He still needed over 215,000 experience to reach level 27. Treasure-wise, he’d only earned 121 copper from the SYSTEM, but he did now have armor and weapons to sell. He also had a few items to search through on the bodies. But first, he needed to save these slaves.
***
Zerrick watched from the cage he’d been placed in by these fucking hobgoblins as a man. It looked like a man who killed every hobgoblin in this godforsaken cave within a minute. It also looked like he did so at the behest of a god, if the Sigil floating above his head was any indication. He then moved around the cave and touched each of the dead bodies, which vanished. He’d then gone into the exit and within a minute returned. He’d looked around and then gone back to the cooking cave, as Zerrick and the other slaves called it. When he returned, the man was escorting the last small girl that had been dragged away back into the cave. When a woman cried out, the man led the small girl over to the cage and placed his hand over the lock for a moment. The lock and a bit of the surrounding bars vanished. The woman rushed out as the door swung open. She wrapped her arms around her daughter and cried her thanks to him.
He gently shushed her to quiet down and said, “All right, everyone, keep quiet, help each other, and be ready to move. I’ll be getting all of you to Bensen, but we need to move soon. If anyone is hurt, let me know, and I’ll heal them.”
Zerrick watched as the man moved from cage to cage and, true to his word, healed anyone who was injured. There was only one moment when something could have gone wrong. Hobgoblin voices crying out in anger from the cooking cave drew their attention. Before anyone could react, the man vanished and returned within 30 seconds, the voices silent.
When he returned, he opened the last two cages and then motioned for everyone to gather close, “Okay, everyone, my name’s Anton. Whoever considers themselves a fighter or able to fight, I want all of you to gather up, and then half of you are going to lead, and the other half is going to follow. Everyone else will stay between those two groups. Those in the back are to make sure no one falls behind. Those who are in the front are going to follow the directions I give as I range out and scout around the group. We are about ten miles from the edge of the forest and another mile to the gate of the city. We aren’t going to rush, but we will not be stopping to rest. I expect the hobgoblins to figure out something is wrong in the near future, and they will be trying to track us. Your job will be to continue to move toward the city while I deal with any monsters or the hobgoblins that give chase. Now let's move people”
Zerrick, a scout for the army who these monsters had recently captured, joined the group of fighters and offered to be in the front group, as he had skills that should help. Unfortunately, there were no weapons available except for the axes and battle axes that the man offered from the hobgoblins he’d killed. Still, there weren’t enough weapons to go around, as there were at least fifty people in the front and rear groups, and another one hundred to one hundred and fifty people between them.
The man, Anton, led them out of the cave and up a short gully into the forest. He then pointed toward the town before he ran off to check ahead, before Zerrick saw him run back to the gully entrance. For the next thirty minutes, everyone kept up a rapid pace that allowed them to put at least two miles between the entrance into the gully and their group. During that time, Zerrick watched Anton move at superhuman speed as he ran around the group and checked for monsters and pursuit from every direction.
Only once did a hobgoblin scout surprise them, and Anton must have noticed something because the arrow that the enemy archer launched was stopped cold when Anton held out his hand, and it shattered against his palm. A moment later, that hobgoblin joined all the other dead ones and vanished into whatever dimensional storage bag he had. Anton came back to the group, leading their band of survivors, and asked, “Can anyone use a bow?”
“I can,” Zerrick said.
“Okay, here you go,” Anton said as he handed over a bow and a quiver with 19 arrows in it. A moment later, he was gone and ranging out even farther around the group.
Forty-five minutes after they’d left the gully, Zerrick heard a horn blare into the early evening. It wasn’t dark yet, but it would be soon. If his estimates were correct, they still had about six miles to go to the edge of the forest. Suddenly, Anton appeared in front of them and called out, “Keep moving. I’m going to go take care of our pursuers.
Ten minutes later, as Zerrick was making his way around a tree, they only had five more miles to go to the edge of the forest, six to the city. Hopefully, Anton would be able to slow down the hobgoblins. Suddenly, something very bright illuminated the forest in front of him. A few moments later, a clap and then a roar washed over the survivors and him as a gust of wind almost powerful enough to knock him over flowed by. It looked like the trees had absorbed most of the blast wave.
He turned and looked over his shoulder to see a cloud of rolling fire rising into the air. He was left with only one thought, which was mirrored by many of the other survivors following him: What was this man Anton that had saved them, and which god did he serve, because that deity was definitely worthy of worship and praise.
***
It had been a bit of a risk to leave the survivors for so long, but Anton needed to put a little bit of distance between them and himself. He’d adjusted his vision without Malleable Body to give himself night vision and headed off. Once he was out of sight of the survivors, he activated Stealth and began moving back toward the gully entrance in a circuitous fashion. He didn’t want to run into the group of hobgoblins that would be following the trail the survivors had made.
Dealing with the tumbling slime had given him an idea on how to use his Master-Ranked Fireball spell and not die, which was going to be a serious game changer, if his idea worked. If his idea didn’t work, well, the survivors should still be able to make it to the city, and the hobgoblins and he wouldn’t really have to worry about anything, until he respawned, of course.
Once he found the hobgoblins, he realized that there had been a lot more in the complex below ground than he’d thought. He’d been fortunate not to run into more than he had. There had to be at least ten dogs and over a hundred hobgoblins. Additionally, he saw two of the tumbling slimes covering the flanks. Once he saw the leader and the mage and the additional 50 hobgoblins bringing up the rear, he was ready.
His idea was simple. If he were the fuse when casting a spell and utilizing too much mana would burn him out; he needed to make sure that the channels were the only thing that was burned out. To do that, he would open his Void Core and flood his body with the energy that would prevent that from happening as he cast the spell. He would do that everywhere except in his mana channels. That should keep him from blowing like a fuse hit by a lightning bolt…hopefully.
With hope in his heart, he began casting. Unknown to Anton, his effective Luck of 255,918 was the only reason his hare-brained idea worked. As he opened his Void Core and began flooding his body with the Void Energy that negated magic, he began casting his Master Ranked Fireball. To protect himself from the blast wave, he was going to center the explosion exactly 100 feet above himself, while he was only about 1,000 feet out from the center of the small army that was going after the survivors.
The energy flowed from the Astral into his Primary Core and then out into his mana channels. As the energy flowed, Anton surrounded those channels with Void Energy to keep it from damaging any other parts of his body until the spell flew from his hand. While the mana channels had been damaged, the majority of his body remained intact, and he didn’t automatically die. That didn’t mean he went unscathed, nor did it mean that he wasn’t in a tremendous amount of pain; he was. Still, he pushed through the pain, and in the moment that the fireball flew up, he allowed the void core to flood his entire body with its energy.
While the Void had protected him from the magic and bright flash of the blast, the physical force of the explosion knocked him to the ground. His Physical Damage Resistance absorbed 171 points of the 1,000 points of damage he’d take, leaving him with 829 points of damage. As he slowly rose to his feet, he directed his Void Core to recall its energy and seal up.
A quick check showed that his mana had been reduced to zero and that his Psychic Energy and his Psychic Reservoir of energy, which had fueled the Fireball, were empty.
Note to self: Flooding his entire body with Void Energy wiped out his Mana and Psychic Energy.
As the energy receded into his Void Core, he came to realize that it didn’t matter. His ploy had worked even better than he’d thought. Everything within 2,000 feet of him had been destroyed. Some trees still stood out to twice that distance, but for the most part, he now stood on a barren, burnt patch of Earth. The only evidence of the army that was left was a few motel puddles of metal here and there, as well as the staff that the caster had been holding.
Anton moved over to the staff, which seemed to be glowing with heat, and decided that it would probably be a good idea to wait a little longer before he tried to pick it up. He did try to Analyze the Staff but only received question marks for his effort. He’d wait a couple of minutes, pick up the staff, and store it before he headed back to the survivors. Hopefully, the explosion hadn’t affected them too badly.
