Flint walked with Mary back into town, back to the duke’s office. When they were asked what happened, Flint let Mary explain what she saw.

  “Another undead attack? So soon?”

  “Yes, there were dozens of them And mages, and fire all over!” She continued.

  “Can I get a new shirt?”

  After this, they sent a group to scout out the area and see if more were coming. Flint and Mary went off to the armorer and got a new gambeson and a new pair of pants.

  After walking around with Mary for a few more minutes, and thinking about how the village could be attacked, he realized where he was.

  In the game, you start by reclaiming the village from the monsters. People set up in the ruined village. There were burned trees, destroyed houses. But this village hadn’t been overrun. But it looked so similar, because it was the same village. He must have come here before the village was overrun, before the game even started.

  How much later did the game take place? Days, weeks, months, years, decades later? The tree he slept under would be burned down, and the bench Mary sat on would be crumbled and barely resembling a bench. More importantly, he didn’t remember seeing any of these people. The faces, their names, none of them.

  Either it was so much later that it would have been another generation of course, or none of these people survived. The town you reclaim in Aeons of Eternity was one of the last bastions for humanity. And here, the people are fleeing the village and trying to find a safe haven somewhere else. It was the opposite later. He just didn’t know how much later.

  After they’d sat down and just finished eating, the town bell was ringing, and the town crier was riding through town making the announcement that a group of centaur were attacking. Their group had been spotted by a telescope at a watchtower. They’d be arriving soon, possibly within the hour.

  Mary insisted on being allowed up onto the wall after she retrieved her bow from her house. She was placed on the far end, hopefully far from enemy fire.

  The town had beaten up and repeatedly damaged and repaired walls, but the large front gate had been destroyed. Now the gateway was large, but it could be protected. In front of town was a large stream, or a river. Flint didn’t really know what the difference was. There were sharp wooden spikes coming out of the ground on both sides of the bridge facing the river.

  There were men with large wooden tower shields crudely constructed from wooden planks standing guard on the town’s side of the bridge. They each had spears duge in and ready for the centaurs. The best archers were on the middle of the wall ready to fire.

  Flint suggested he stand on the middle of the bridge, but the others, including the captain, convinced him that standing in front of the wall of shields during what is essentially a cavalry charge would be a bad idea. He would wait until any got through, or their ranks were broken, and then he would join the fight.

  Soon the first wave of centaurs charge forward, crashing against the shields of the men near the bridge. Some were impaled, others forced through as more flooded in.

  More men were lined up in front of the gateway, with shields, and swords or spears in hand, ready to protect it. Others were on the side ready to flank them. In the large arena, its walls made of soldiers in the militia, stood Flint. He was ready to fight the first few centaurs that broke into his arena.

  With the first centaur, he dashed forward and swung low, cutting its front legs off and setting its fur on fire. Then he spun and cut its head off. The momentum of the centaur aided in both of these blows against it. Then he struck the side of a centaur trying to charge past him, first with fire, then with frost.

  He brought his blades forward to deflect the spear of a centaur in front of him, then dealt a flurry of blows. His movements were speeding up as he built up stacks of Momentum. The one on the right had turned and struck his back with its sword. Flint turned after finishing off the centaur in front of him and struck it down with a few more hits, cutting off its arm, then cutting through its torso.

  Most of the men at the bridge stayed standing, they had started building a sort of wall out of centaur bodies. One of the men had fallen, and two from the flank came to bring him into the village for medical treatment, then hurried to return to their position. Some centaur had fallen into the river, some injured, or nearly dead. A few others tried wading through the river, but were met with either arrows, or the blades of the men guarding the flank.

  Arrows also sailed overhead toward the centaur stuck on the bridge, or in front of it. Well placed shots piling up more bodies. But some of the centaurs were also archers. They stood on the other side of the river and fired at the archers mostly.

  As Flint killed more centaur, he took another couple of cuts, and even a stab from the centaur. His new gambeson lessened the damage, so the cuts and the stab weren’t so deep, but he was taking more damage than his life regeneration was able to heal.

  As he was killing the centaur, soldiers on the flank took their bodies and dragged them to the gateway. They piled them up and began making a wall out of their bodies, leaving only a small gap for the men themselves to go through when bringing in injured militia, or bringing out reinforcements.

  After killing a few more centaur, Flint leveled up. Upon entering the dark room, he looked at his options. The warcry in the soldier’s tree would have been good, but that required fifteen points invested into the soldier tree. It forced all enemies in range of the shout to attack him, but it provided a twenty five percent reduction in damage dealt to him, at max level. At the first level, it was only two percent.

  Flint wasn’t in a hurry to unlock it with cloth armor, and the only option that seemed interesting aside from a passive at ten points was Blitz. But he didn’t need to charge into enemies right now either. He just needed to hold the point, and maybe get some healing, or at least more life regeneration.

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  The barbarian tree didn’t seem that interesting right now, and he didn’t feel like investing into dual wielding or poison either in the rogue tree. But some later abilities were very useful. The most useful skill he could start investing in was Dark Aura. It also had a very good upgrade later.

  Dark Aura reduces the enemy’s total speed by four percent at the first level. That means their movement, their attack speed, and their casting speed. It also reduced their offensive ability by twenty, whatever that means. It had a four meter radius, and reserved forty energy.

  If he could remember correctly, a meter was about three and a quarter feet, so that’s over twelve feet around him. Skills that reserve energy just take up that much energy constantly after they’re activated. They don’t drain any energy from the bar, you just can’t use that energy, which effectively reduces your maximum energy.

  Thankfully this game doesn’t have any skills that use a percentage of your energy, so you just needed to get more energy and/or regeneration to make up for it.

  Flint put three points into Dark Aura, going from four, to eight percent, to ten percent total speed reduction, sixty offensive ability reduction, and a five meter radius at level three. It also reserved sixty energy, so he put two points into energy, and one point into constitution.

  When he returned to the real world, he took a drink from his potion. He doubted it would heal him to full, but if it could, he’d be just a little bit more durable with that extra point of constitution.

  He would consider putting points into spirit soon. If he remembered correctly, he’d need ten points of spirit to equip a second spirit skill, the passive skills that reserve energy. Thankfully the upgrade later wouldn’t count as a second spirit skill, but it would increase the energy reserved by the skill. Now he just had to test his new skill out.

  Two more centaurs came forward, but their movements were noticeably slower. It was easier to strike them, and to dodge their attacks. Their strikes seemed a bit less solid and accurate too, but he hadn’t gotten much stronger, they’d just gotten slower and weaker.

  In combat, moving just a bit slower, and having your attacks be just a bit weaker, and just a bit less accurate was a pretty massive disadvantage. He’d also become more used to fighting the centaur, adapting to their fighting style and movements. It was sort of strange fighting people whose lower body was a large horse. Not to mention worrying about hooves or the sheer weight of the centaurs.

  Soon there was a lull in combat, then a much larger centaur came charging forward, at least twice as large as the other centaur. It trampled over bodies and crashed through the shield wall, with others following behind it.

  Flint charged forward and cut its front legs, then spun and cut its back legs. The fur didn’t burn much, and there was hardly even any ice on the back legs either. The centaur stood, but he had hope to at least stop it from charging into the village.

  Flint cut the back of its hind legs a few times before it turned and slammed its hind legs into him. He dodged the brunt of it, but he still took some damage. The large centaur then turned and swung its large axe at him. He went very low to avoid the axe. Flint let go of his frost sword and wielded Burning Remorse with two hands.

  He stabbed the sword into its underbelly and cut through, pulling the sword from the front to back, disemboweling it. The creature fell down finally and frantically swung its axe, cutting Flint’s torso on the left. It cut deeply, nearly reaching his spine, at least that’s what it felt like.

  Flint spun and cut its arm off in anger, then fell himself, one knee. He landed on its guts and started stabbing its lower torso until it finally stopped moving, and he felt the large amount of experience.

  It wasn’t enough to level up, and the fighting was still going on, the soldiers were barely holding the bridge. Flint took out his potion and took one more drink of it.

  He had barely felt any healing this time, and instead felt nauseous, and he began sweating profusely. His body was struggling to process the potion. This was too much toxicity, now he knew why warned him not to drink too much in such a short time.

  Still, he stood and prepared to fight any centaur that broke through the shield wall. He didn’t consider trying to reach over and get his other sword, and he doubted he had enough agility to use two swords effectively.

  He took out his singed shield, blackened on the outside, but still holding together, and he strapped it onto his left arm to protect his injured left side until it healed. Which could be minutes, or several hours.

  Flint walked forward and stood in the dwindling shield wall. He figured his aura might be able to slow down the centaur around him and help everyone out, even if only a bit.

  A centaur kicked at his shield and swung an axe at him, which he blocked with his shield. Then he swung and cut it from chest to stomach. He quickly stabbed the sword into its lower body, and twisted the burning sword, then tore it out through its body. Then the centaur fell and he finished it off with another stab.

  After killing two more centaurs with the other men in the shield wall, he leveled. He had no interest in being able to deal slightly more damage, or moving around quickly in this fight. Not right now.

  He put three skill points into Dark Aura, upgrading its slow ability to twelve percent, its offensive debuff was increased to reducing it by eighty, and its range was five and a half meters. It also took up fifty five energy. But he’d deal with having slightly less energy.

  He put three attribute points into constitution. It would only increase his health regeneration slightly, but it was better than nothing. Generally you need skills to get bigger increases to life regeneration, and increases to your total percent of health regeneration.

  Flint stood and helped the others fight the centaur, though there were only a few more, and they seemed easier to kill with their new reduction in fighting ability and speed. There were a few dozen more in front of the bridge, but they decided they’d retreat apparently, and left. No one was able to chase them.

  Flint went to his sword and forced himself down on a single knee to grab his sword, and then returned his shield to his inventory for storage. He sheathed his swords and returned to rest in town, without saying a word to anyone. He felt terrible.

  The others grabbed the centaurs, and their weapons, and brought them inside the town gateway. The centaurs wouldn’t be eaten by humans, they were too close to humans themselves, but they would make for decent food for the livestock. Their weapons were brought to either be used by the soldiers, or smelted for their own weapons and armor by the town blacksmith.

  Flint went to a medical tent and was patched up. He spoke with Mary for a bit, who seemed somewhat worried, too worried really. He told her that his life regeneration should let him heal enough now that he stopped bleeding. He drank a glass of water to help flush out the toxicity of the potion, and then he went to sleep.

  Mary stayed in the tent while he slept for a few hours as the sun started setting over the village. He thought his first day in the village had gone alright overall, considering he barely had any armor, and certainly no enchanted armor.

  When he woke up, his wound had mostly healed, despite only sleeping for three or four hours, but he took one drink from his potion bottle that Mary had refilled for him while he slept.