Immediately as I approached the mages, the swordsman charged at me to slow me down. Using telekinesis, I managed to throw one of the swordsmen to the side, causing him to fall and roll along the rocky ground. He was no longer a problem for the time being, and with no support, the other wouldn't last very long.
The remaining swordsman made a diagonal slash at me as I came near, but the attack was not fast enough to overtake my agility. Without multiple strikes from different directions assailing me, blocking such a slow swing was trivial. I parried it and then made a horizontal slash at the player's neck using concentrated advanced-tier sword energy.
The swordsman's head slid off in a way that reminded me of how I died. Thankfully, it was next to impossible for any other player to get lucky like I did. I looked over to the other swordsman and was about to make strikes in their direction when the three spearmen engaged me with mid-range, adept-tier spear strikes. Because there were three of them attacking me at the same time, it wasn't very easy for me to deflect all the blows. I deflected what I could and dodged the rest as I continued my approach. More notifications popped up on my screen as I continued to fight. The mages were desperately trying to slow me down.
Notification
You have resisted…
Notification
You have resisted…
…
The spearman and the mages gave the remaining swordsman time to recover, but even so, that wouldn't stop me. I decided to rely on one of the new skills that I picked up for my class, one that would be perfect for this fight. I trusted in my natural armor that I acquired from the Thornheart Stalker to reduce the damage from the spear energy so I could get rid of the swordsman. The attacks all hit me, and they felt as though they were dealing low damage instead of the expected medium or high damage. The natural armor skill really is helpful when dealing with a mob of players who are weaker than me.
The swordsman raised his sword in a defensive stance, probably understanding that there was little he could do to hurt me after witnessing how little the spear strikes injured me. I concentrated advanced-tier sword energy into my blade and did something unexpected. The spearmen were focused on attacking me, so they wouldn't expect me to strike them from such a distance while I'm rushing towards the remaining swordsman. I exploded sword energy into Versaga through it in the direction of the spearman, propelling it through the air with telekinesis.
The sword energy split off into multiple separate shards, making it look like a cloud of red thorns was approaching the spearmen. The swordsman, seeing that I was unarmed, switched to an offensive stance and thrust his sword at me, coating his weapon with adapt-tier sword energy as he did so. It looked as though he had activated a skill because there was a circulating wind that was covering his arms. It had to have been a speed buff.
He skillfully matched my speed, aiming for vital spots as I parried his strikes with my forearms. I was receiving a lot of low-damage blows, but I knew that I could take him down before it became anything serious. During his barrage of swings, I decided to catch his blade with my bare hand coated in sword energy. It was an inefficient use of energy, but at least it protected my fingers from being sliced off.
I bent his blade down until I heard a snap, then I coated the piece of his weapon in my hand with sword energy and jumped backwards as I threw the chunk of metal at his head. I heard a satisfying crack as it shot through the swordsman's skull. More notifications popped up, all of which I resisted except one. It was about time they got something through to me.
Notification
You have resisted…
Notification
You have resisted…
Notification
You have failed to resist Martial Fatigue. For the next 30 seconds, all weapon energy use is reduced by one tier.
…
It wasn't good, but it wasn't bad. I was locked into only using adept-tier sword energy for the next half a minute, but that would be more than enough for me considering my stats. I just needed to place my strikes well. I turned to look for the spearmen who were attacking me earlier, but they were already dead. An area of the geysers was coated in red spikes from my attack earlier, all of which were slowly fading.
I had taken care of five of the soldiers, which meant there were fifteen more to go. By this time, the rest of the enemy soldiers had recovered enough to fight, but there were only ten of them around. This meant that Gillion was with the tanks somewhere and that they were suppressing their aura, so I couldn't sense them.
The ten soldiers consisted of four spearmen and six swordsmen, all of whom were probably capable of adept-tier weapon energy. It was time for some…
"Maximum effort."
My Bluetooth speaker, although damaged from the explosion, continued to play…
"Take my hand… Off to never, never land."
The swordsmen all charged at me together as the spearmen charged up adept-tier spear energy, thrusting it towards me to zone me out. The mages also switched to casting buffs on the soldiers, probably due to the fact that I was resisting almost everything they tried to debuff me with. I assumed that they must be close to running out of magic, as they had been attempting debuffs and casting sporadic damaging spells since the scuffle began.
On my approach, I slid between two swordsmen, slashing at one's left ankle and the other's right ankle. They both simultaneously fell behind me as I brought my sword up to parry an adept-tier spear energy projectile to the side. I angled the reflection of the energy towards an approaching swordsman and knocked him back into another one. They both tumbled as I leapt into the air and made three slashes at them with adept-tier sword energy. I didn't have time to see if I killed them or not, as I had to dodge more spear energy mid-air.
I pushed myself down rapidly with telekinesis to dodge the beams, landing on top of another swordsman, who caught my landing with the flat of his blade. I smiled and impaled his head with a thrust straight down. As he collapsed, the two swordsmen who had their ankles cut were approaching me from the rear as I stared down at the remaining swordsman.
"Fuck, this is exhilarating."