To say that the current state of events was unexpected was an understatement; this situation never should've been possible. Gorum was in a dire situation, steadily losing more ground against three screwballs that were half his level. He wasn't even able to properly utilize the Star Slayer spear due to Julian and Lily pressuring him too much for him to enter a proper stance with it.
The pattern he was locked in with the three Omen Canidates was nearly inescapable. Dealing with Julian left him open to Lily and dealing with Lily left him vulnerable to Julian. If he somehow took them both down to go after Hoig, Idalia would simply heal them and repeat the whole process. On top of it all He wasn't regenerating health properly either due to his old age, his regeneration and resistance passive skills all weakened due to his human lifespan reaching its near end.
To make things worse, Julian had been grabbing at Gorum and peeling off bits of his armor, Lily was trying to sever the belts of certain pieces by slash at them, L
leaving Gorum with barely any armor left on his torso. Only one of his vambraces and his helmet remained at this point.
Even the dragon leather gambeson that Gorum wore under his armor was torn to shreds by Lily's blades, exposing his pale and slightly wrinkled skin. Thick yet sinewy muscles that were covered in literally countless scars of all kinds, most notably there were large burn scars that glew with a greenish light, the wounds looking to be constantly festering with fire beneath their tissue.
'There must be a way out of this but...' Gorum couldn't think of a way out. If he went back to using skills, he'd end up killing himself in the process, and because of his advanced age his skills weren't doing the amount of damage that they should. As Gorum worked his brain to figure out a solution, Julian tackled him all of a sudden, pinning him to one spot against a rock.
"What the-" Just as Gorum was about to push Julian off of him, a bright beam of mystical purple and blue blasted him in the face, indenting his whole body into the giant boulder Julian had pinned him to. The strength left his legs and he slumped backward against the rock, dropping onto his ass.
"Woo! Good going Julian!" Lily said, coming over to congratulate Julian.
"Indeed, a splendid tactical decision, making an opening for Madame Idalia to fire off a spell." Hoig clapped, spoiling the muscley man-child further.
'So that was one of Idalia's attacks? Since when did she have a spell like that? Half my face is gone!' Gorum could barely move, the strength depleted from his body as he was stuck reeling from that attack. His helmet was smoldering scrap and the entire right half of his face was blasted off, exposing bone. It didn't help either that his body was still aching from Lily slashing at his flesh and Julian battering him with strikes.
"Now if you don't mind, I'll go ahead and finish him off." Hoig said, readying his scepter by swinging it a few times.
"Oi, slow down, me and Julian are the ones who did most of the work here! It should be one of us!" Lily said, stopping Hoig from going any further.
"What are you on about Woman? 'One of us' as if anyone other than me should get to kill him!" Julian said, angrily flexing his muscles at the both of them, a bickering match soon taking place, All the while Gorum was stuck listening to their foolish behavior as he tried to recover.
'Well, that confirms my suspicions about Idalia not being willing to hold up the deal. Is this what it's all come to for me? Old and broken, about to be exp for clowns like these three?' Gorum trembled a bit with anger, his long tossed away ego beginning to crop up as he slowly dragged himself into and upright position by clawing the rock wall behind him.
"I'm support, so my exp has fallen behind due to not getting any kills like you two do! I'm getting the kill and that's fina- What? What are you looking at?" Hoig noticed Lily and Julian staring at something behind him, so he turned. Only to see Gorum towering over him, drenched in his own blood and staring down at him with the one remaining eye he had.
"W-What?" Hoig said. A wave of terror washed over the three of them as Gorum's expressionless half face stared silently upon them, a strange pressure they couldn't feel before running across them. Their knees trembled as they felt a mountains weight on their shoulders, the feeling of needles pushing into their pores assaulting their skin.
Lifting up his arms above his head while they were paralyzed by [Destroying Prescence] Gorum swung his clasped fists down onto Hoig's cranium, activating the [Destroying Blow] skill to explode the pig-orcs head and upper body into a mess of gore. Seeing Hoig get annihilated, the other two snapped out of it, Lily dashing backwards and Julian charging forward to unleash a fury of blows on Gorum. Unfortunately, before he could get the first punch out, Gorum plunged his fist into Julians chest cavity, smashing past muscle and bone to quite literally punch him in the heart.
"Nghgrk-" Julian let out a gurgle as he dropped to his knees, convulsing and shivering as he clasped his chest. Letting out a whimper, he woefully glanced back at Idalia, as if begging for a heal, only for it not to come.
'As I thought, Idalia can't keep healing injuries on the catastrophic level, especially not if she's conserving mana like I guessed.' Gorum thought as he stared down Lily next, coughing up blood from all the internal damage using skills brought him.
"F-Fuck this!" Lily said as she dropped her blades and turned heel, dashing away from the battlefield at her top speed.
'That was unexpectedly cowardly...' Gorum thought as he lifted the Star Slayer spear above his head, tensing up his muscles before launching it using the [Homing Ending Toss] skill. A thunderous boom ringing out as the spear soared thought the air at nearly light speed, eventually impaling the woman through the back and nailing her to the ground.
"Now then Idalia, who's ne-" BOOM! Gorum was interrupted for the thousandth time today, another one of those mystical purple and blue beams blasting him in the chest, then another then another...
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
"You...mongrel! How dare you! Do you have any clue how long I've worked for this? What I've sacrificed!?" Idalia was screeching at the top of her lungs, continuously blasting Gorum with more of those mysterious beams as she ranted and raved at him.
He was still standing but staggering backwards as the beams practically blew away chunks of his body with every hit. However...despite the damage, Gorum started pushing forward against the attacks, marching towards Idalia wordlessly as she bombarded him.
"Urgh..." Idalia groaned a bit, blood running from her nose, her eyes starting to go bloodshot as she kept pouring out mana into her attacks, firing off her most powerful spell over and over was taking its toll, to no one's surprise. Huffing and puffing, she looked up at Gorum, who was now standing right in front of her and Damia. Broken and battered with his entire visage unrecognizable due to the damage, he stared down at her.
"Well...what now? Is this the part where you pop my head like a rotten fruit? Or are you going to say some nonsense about how even though I'm evil you'll forgive me? Or are you just going to fall on me? By the by, don't do the last one since I don't enjoy having dirty old men on top of me." Idalia said. Her voice was filled with annoyance, even taunting him as she realized Gorum was out of energy, unable to actually attack anymore.
"Er Idalia..." Damia tried to interrupt.
"Quiet, I'm not done." Idalia said, hushing Damia.
"Honestly what's with you huh, you bastard? Did old age turn you mad or were you always a damned idiot!? You've ruined literal thousands of years of work in literally one night! Do you have any clue what kind of hit my reputation has taken tonight? It's going to be 1,000 times harder to stage the coup now because of you, you ignorant human filth! You pathetic fucking street urchin!" Idalia screeched, unloading her frustrations on the immobile Gorum.
"Idalia!" Damia shouted.
'What!?" Idalia snapped.
"He already died." Damia said, gesturing to Gorum, who was now a lifeless corpse, stood upright.
"Eh? But-" Idalia said, full of shock.
"He died while you were talking, I think." Damia said, looking his corpse up and down.
"That's Impossible, if I killed him, I would've heard a notification and gotten a soul item, not to mention a fucking mountain of exp!" Idalia frantically said, hoping off Damia's back and looking up at Gorum's corpse.
"Do you suppose, maybe, he died on his own? This is good though right, we wanted this didn't we?" Damia mused, poking Gorum's upright corpse with her mandibles.
"No way..." Idalia stared at up him in disbelief.
Despite Idalia's strange disbelief, Gorum indeed had passed on. Just as Idalia started talking, he tried lifting his arm and using [Destroying blow] to hopefully kill her, but the health cost was too much. He died simply trying to activate his own skill. A sad and unfitting end for a warrior such as himself, old and unable to fight to the fullest anymore. Killing himself with his own strength.
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"Such a tragic end for a tragic Hero, surely the history books would disrespect his name even further once the public learned how he died. A great hero subject to the ridicule of fools and scholars who would never be able to approach his power, a great shame. Well, it's a shame for him, but this is good news for me!" A womans voice said.
"Go ahead and summon him, fix up his appearance too. I dislike that nasty old form he held when he died." The voice said, speaking to another, giving them an order.
"Of course, my Lady Crimson." responded a second voice.
"Good, he should make a fitting champion..." The woman said, chuckling a bit as she awaited the arrival of her new pawn.