A second explosion… I think this time the blast was nearer than the first one.
I was starting to get worried about the situation on the left and right flanks, G on the left flank already was in danger once before, and he was always too careless, on the other hand, the Nightmare clearly came from the right side, and it looks dangerous, I hope my thinking is wrong and he just passed by.
On the center of the formation, the duties were split in defense and offense. People like Mark or endurance type goons fend off the beast, while the others like Blake dealt the damage… Blake is not a really good example tho, most of the time he finishes the creature before the need of someone else fending them off.
The Nightmare was ready to attack me and bringing it near our side was not an option, so I got deeper into the beast formation without losing sight of my side, the Nightmare ran to me without caring about running over his own teammates, this was the reason I moved here.
The fireballs kept flying to me from his mouth, he couldn't change the trajectory as the duck with his feathers so besides feeling the heat from them, I never was directly impacted.
As the Nightmare got nearer to me and all the place around me started to become hotter.
I could handle it fine for now, but I noticed that none of the beasts around dare to get near. My resistances allowed me to stay closer than the others, but it also had a limit… what is going on with all these beasts that I can't fight on melee range? I hope I get a ranged D-Rank ability if I survive all this…
I was hit by the sudden rise in the temperature when the Nightmare ran to me, I had to dodge with a roll, but the heat wasn't something that you can evade as easily. I could feel the temperature rise on my skin, I noticed some people trying to fight their way here, but they couldn't get closer after they felt the heat.
In the next charge I tried to slash one of his legs with the scimitar, but on impact, I noticed that the damage was not as much as expected and the scimitar was shining in a bright red. I was forced to drop the red-hot scimitar, and the grass was ignited when it was touched by it. I jumped and moved fast to keep my distance from the horse.
It was a significant problem, the flames that came from the Nightmare were hotter than the ones I had to face in the forest, I wasn't sure how to deal with it and as if handling that beast wasn't enough my sixth sense once again alerted me of the feathers. Unlike before I ran towards fire horse the fireballs hit some of the feathers, but besides heating them, there was no other effect.
I dodged and was hit by just one of them. The cut coupled with the fact that they were red-hot make it painful enough for me to groan. I healed it right away and looked at the red-hot feathers that went back to the duck similarly to how they did before.
An idea came to my mind to take care of the duck, some other shots fell on the duck pushing it a little but again without doing damage.
I wonder if the spear can handle the heat… if I lost this weapon, I'm done, from the color I knew that just like the duck's feathers the bones of that my spear was made of also had metallic components, and the main problem was that the metals inside the weapon will help the heat spread faster. It might happen the same that happened with the scimitar.
I quickly checked the shop for weapons that might be resistant to fire and thought of some materials for the weapons.
A marble quarter stuff? Would it be able to handle it? It's probably going to break after a couple strikes, but it might help…
As I was considering my possibilities, I had to keep running from the Nightmare… I could feel the air burning my lungs when he got too close to me. I also kept dodging most the of feathers, but there were already two of them that were wholly fused to the duck's body and weren't leaving him anymore.
The duck also became redder as the fight went on.
Around me the fight wasn't going well as the numbers of rats in our side were higher than before and this was a clear sign that we had lost people or at least they were unable to continue fighting. Despite it, a lot of the enemy's beasts were laying around most of them because of them being incapables of escaping from the heat when I made the horse follow me. So both side were losing their troops at an accelerated rate.
I ended moving to the left flank and saw a duck near me… I really hate ducks now.
As I passed by it my sixth sense again warned me about something but this time, I had no idea what it was warning me about.
"Don't get near the duck!!!"
It was G's voice, I jumped to the side getting away from the duck using accelerate just in time to hear the third explosion, it took the horse entirely by surprise too.
The shockwave pushed me and made me roll a couple of meters just in time to see Gerhard pissed face smashing the already dead half-frozen body of a sheep.
He had burnt mark with lightings like patrons along his body and other open wounds in his body and arms. The horse took most part of the explosion and was damaged by it. Meanwhile, the telekinetic duck was finally hit by a good shot from an MRGR, making a hole in one of his wings. Unfortunately, it didn't use his wings to fly, so it stayed in the same place but got annoyed and instead of the usual feathers more left the body.
Since there were no people around, using the smoke as cover, I bought the marble quarterstaff, and as I put the spear in my back, the quarterstaff appeared in my hands ready to strike.
"What is it with that duck???"
"Don't get near that sh*t, every time he is hit by something he explodes."
That seems annoying…
"Ok… Don't get too close to the fire-horse either or you will be burnt alive."
I could notice that G was already sweating buckets, without giving it a chance I got closer to it and focused on the same leg that I have hit before. Even if the horse was great for killing his own partners, I don't get points from using it like that and is too dangerous to leave him run rampant in the battlefield. I need to at least hinder his mobility and end this fight soon.
The strike hit and I was finally able to break one of his legs. As I predicted the quarterstaff broke after that strike. I couldn't be near long enough to hit it again as it was becoming difficult to breathe, I left the side of the Nightmare as it threw fireballs randomly all around missing me and G, but not everyone was as lucky.
A lot of people had to take cover behind big beasts that have died, and I was surprised to see the bomb duck act again… the duck was leisurely walking around when a fireball fell on him, and a couple of seconds later it exploded again, this time the explosion seemed to heavily wound the already injured horse.
Without thinking too much, I threw my spear with my full strength towards the dying Nightmare I have to be sure that it dies because of me and not the duck….
[Congratulations for Killing a D-Rank Beast, 30 system points rewarded]
I healed myself and G to a certain extent, I had to get gloves to recover the spear quickly, despite being dead the Nightmare was still on fire, so I retrieved the spear and left it in another place for a while for it to cool down.
In the meantime I used the broken quarterstaff to fight some beast with G, being careful of not getting near the duck-bomb and continuously dodging the attacks of the duck in the sky that was starting to pile up his battle numbers.
As for the duck-bomb. I regularly watched him, but he just walked around randomly without engaging in the fights.