Chapter 23 : Battle Training
"I can't let them overwhelm me if I want to live!" Young thought to himself as he charged forth. The best defense is to slay those attacking you! With just a couple of swipes of his blade he easily dispatched the smaller grubs. They were simply no match for the power of his weapon and it's lightning blade technique. As he took down six of the creatures, six more sprung up in their place, thus his hopes for a quick remedy to his large problem were dashed.
"Stay mobile. Strike first and strike hard!" He repeated to himself as he did battle. Realizing that he would end up staying on the defensive at this rate, Young called forth his spear and hurled it towards the massive grub several dozen meters away. To his chagrin the blade bounced off of it's tough hide, so his plan to trigger a long range strike failed miserably. What's more the creature's body began to shiver and shake even harder as it spawned several more of the lesser grubs for Young to contend with.
In the short few seconds that he dared to attempt his ranged attack he now found himself outnumbered 19 to 1. What's more the creatures were gearing up enmasse to fire at him! Young quickly summoned forth his long-sword and reared back to swing his blade as the first few balls of acid traveled his way. He couldn't think of anything to do, save for use the power of lighting to destroy the blasts heading his way, but would it work?
He forced as much energy into his Lightning Blade technique as possible and swung forth with all of his might -- the lightning created a cleaving rush of energy that traveled forth a full three meters in front of him. This attack consumed almost all of the doze or so projectiles heading his way, vaporizing the acid in mid air -- but the remainder…
"Crap!" He shouted as three of the attacks made it through. He braced himself to attempt a technique that he had barely grown comfortable enough to use. His body began to tingle as surges of electricity welled forth from within and covered his body in a cloak of lightning energy. Young held his breath as he braced for the impact of the acid balls, he opted for cleaving one of them with another Lightning blade and managed to dampen the impact to just two of the acid balls.
The impact was significant, but due to his lightning energy the acid was quickly consumed.
"Yes! I'm glad that worked!" He shouted to himself, only to realize he was on a battlefield and any time spent ignoring the enemy might be fatal. Already the creatures were preparing a second volley of shots, and the 100 Years Cave Grub had begun making even more enemies for Young to contend with. This time two Greater Cave Grubs appeared at the back of the enemy's formation.
With no time to think, Young did the only thing he could think of -- he dashed forward. He ran at an angle so that the creature he was approaching would be in the line of fire should any of the other grubs fire at him and the strategy worked. He effortlessly cut down three of the creatures in a single slice before moving further into enemy territory. He'd managed to completely crush the right flank and began to carve his way towards the large creature in the back.
"I've got to stop it from spawning enemies or I'll be overrun!"
As Young drew closer, cleaving through several more lesser grubs and killing a Greater one in the process he felt a strange sense of foreboding overcome him.
"Stop! Back Away!" Spark's voice shouted, it was so unexpected that Young stumbled for a brief second. At that exact moment the 100 Years Grub opened it's mouth and expelled a large cloud of putrid mist. It slowly began to fill the nearby area and once again Spark shouted to Young.
"Get back if you want to live!"
Young hopped backwards, but he was a little too late as the first particles of the thick, green gas flowed towards him and began to eat away at the flesh on his left forearm which he'd been using to cover his nostrils.
Young desperately hopped backwards, creating almost 4 meters of distance as the fierce sting of burning acid overcame him.
"Quick, flow as much of your lightning energy into the wound as possible, we have to cancel out the acidic effect!" Spark instructed.
The pain searing into Young's mind at this point was beginning to make him feel weak, but he did as instructed, realizing that his life might truly be on the line. There was no relief, only the sense that the acid had stopped eating away at him but the wound was grievous. As young gazed down at his forearm he realized that several layers of both skin and flesh had been eaten away by the creature's foul mist.