CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE: BAKED

Gabriel looked down at his khopesh and back towards the heavy armoured undead knight. There were very few gaps Gabriel could take advantage of, especially with his current weapon. The khopesh’s main damage was from its slashing attacks, because of its curved blade, letting it slice through flesh with relative ease. However, it’s great slashing power did cause a weak point when fighting heavily armoured opponents, especially if they are covered from head to toe.

‘This won’t do, I need something with better armour penetration. Luckily, I pimped this out before coming here.’ Gabriel said to himself, giving himself a pat on the back, while he sheathed his khopesh and once his hands were free, he withdrew a long spear, with a foot long bladed spear head. It was the [Spear of Sparta], the weapon Gabriel received after defeating the hobgoblin elite back in the Goblin Tunnels. The bronze-colored shaft of the spear had several new additions, as Gabriel had stacked multiple [Armour Penetration] and [Toughness] runes upon it. Gabriel had also unequipped his shield, it would lessen the amount of protection he had but would also decrease the amount of moves he could make with a long spear. This didn’t include the fact that it would only take a one or two hits at most from the [Death Knight]’s Greatsword to bottom out his HP, even if, he managed to take the full impact on his shield. Their differences in strength were just too great, Gabriel felt more confidence relying on his battle sense to dodge the strikes, then using the shield. Being primarily a heavy weapons user in his past, Gabriel knew many of the attack patterns and how to counter them.

As he slowly made his way to Gabriel, the [Death Knight]'s armoured boots made loud 'thunk' noises every time one landed on the ground. In its wake, the creature left numerous deep depressions, from the sheer weight of its steps. Gabriel prepared himself for what would be a tough fight. ‘Fighting people with blessings is always a major pain in the ass’ Gabriel moaned before getting into position. Taking his spear in a wide two-handed grip, with the blade pointed down and the blunt end pointing to the sky over his shoulder, Gabriel crouched slightly and waited until the [Death Knight] was only a few feet away. Then, using the advantage of reach, he flicked his spear up as quick as a rocket before the [Death Knight] could get within striking distance.

As if it was a viper, the sharp glint of the spear head shot out, as the attack came from below, it made the trajectory of the spear hard to fathom, the strike was aimed into one of the few gaps of the [Death Knight]’s armour. Right above the hip, between the bottom of his torso armor and the beginning of his armoured legs, once could make out some bare, molted and dried skin. The [Death Knight] may be heavily favoured strength towards strength but that didn’t mean it didn’t have finesse, especially if the undead was reborn from the soul of a veteran, as it quickly intercepted Gabriel’s spear thrust. By using the iron ball pommel at the bottom of the great sword, the knight brought it down on the tip of the spear, pushing its thrust to hit an armoured thigh before screeching off to the side. Gabriel executed a quick spin, following the momentum of his deflected attack to the side, before crouching low under the follow-up swing from the [Death Knight] and taking a step back, Gabriel reacquired his advantage in reach and attacked again.

Within a blink of the eye, the two warriors exchanged more than twenty strikes, for every swing or slash of the greatsword, Gabriel would reciprocate with two attacks of his own. Gabriel unleashed quick thrusts and stabs at the un-armoured parts of the knight, while simultaneously, the high-powered slashes of the [Death Knight] would come close to ending his life within a hair’s breadth. The attacks were so strong, that every time Gabriel just barely dodged one, the wind from the attack, left small lacerations when it came in contact with his skin. The two battled each other, as Gabriel dodged, ducked and weaved in a circle around the knight. The [Death Knight]’s overhead strikes smashed into the ground, kicking dirt up into the sky and leaving the ground riddled with pot holes. Every time Gabriel managed to land a strike on the knight, the knight maneuvered shifted its body so it hit the armoured parts, leading to very little damage.

[-43]

[-36]

After two quick strikes, Gabriel had to take a large jump back to avoid a full powered retaliatory swing from the knight. Taking large gulps of air, he took the short pause to gather some energy. Gabriel then repositioned himself in a defensive stance and checked his surroundings. After peering about, he found out that through the course of their short battle, they had crossed to the other side of the village. Gabriel peered behind the knight and could vaguely make out the signs of a battle through the man-sized hole he left in the second floor of the inn, on the other side of the street. ‘Looks like they haven’t finished up their battles yet, I won’t be getting any help to finish off this fucker.’ Gabriel thought as looked back to the [Death Knight] whose lumbering steps came closer; the knight’s black armour was filled with multiple crisscrossing scratches, from Gabriel’s multiple attempts to pierce through the armour. ‘At this rate, it looks like it will death by a thousand cuts. It would help if the undead didn’t have unlimited stamina.’ Gabriel inwardly groaned, before re-engaging into the struggle again.

On the other side, Draka had just finished off another Witch with his short sword. One of the kneeling Witches, that was part of the summoning circle for the [Hell Hounds], decided that she needed intervene, as Draka was making his way towards them. With a cat like hiss in reproach, she stood up and with one rotten gnarled hand, pointed her finger at the ground at Draka.

“Dirty Imperium Bastards. Mother Mengrel will kill you all, you think by killing us it will accomplish anything. You are too late, far too late!” The Witch snarled. out before she equipped herself with a serrated whip, that looked like it had rows upon rows of shark teeth running down the sides.

Draka didn’t say anything, he looked to his side where one of his squad member’s body laid, deathly still. It was filled with multiple lacerations and spell burns; a deep look of fear was left on his young face in the last moments of his death. The sight made Draka’s heart clench. He turned back and merely grimaced at the Witch, that was whipping her whip back and forth in a threatening gesture while cackling. Every couple of seconds the whip would make a ‘whip-crack!’ sound, that sent the ears slightly ringing. Draka spat on the ground in hatred, his spit was flecked with blood. He took a large breath and straightened his shoulders before charging towards the Witch, with a vicious glint in his eyes, Draka looked determined to end it as quick as possible. 'Hold on Captain, we will be there soon, please just hold on a little longer.' Draka pleaded in his head, as his eyes flicked to the side where hole Gabriel had been catapulted out of was.

The [Death Knight]’s latest attack, Gabriel only barely managed to dodge and it left a gash on his cheek. Gabriel had noticed that in the last handful of exchanges, the [Death Knight]’s sickly green aura had begun to deepen, the Knight’s speed and dexterity also seemed to have increased along with it. The last swing luckily, left the [Death Knight] a little over extended, which Gabriel took swift advantage of, by thrusting as quick as a viper. His spear tip penetrating under the arm pit of the [Death Knight], as black blood dripped down to the ground from the new wound, every drop that landed on the dying grass, made bubbling and hissing noises. Gabriel tried to dig his spear in deeper but was met with a powerful repulsion force from the Aura surrounding the [Death Knight]. Gabriel attempted to retract his spear the moment he felt his senses crying in danger. He tried to take a step back as quick as possible but was a moment to slow. The aura that surrounded the [Death Knight] had protected it like a rubber shield, forcing it back from the spear attack before rebounding with tremendous force, sending Gabriel flying through the air.

Gabriel was thrown off his feet and smashed through a half-rotted door of the building across from the Inn. Gabriel braced himself for a rough landing after he was sent into the air but luckily managed to land on a pile of sacks, that from the force of his weight, split open with a ‘poof’. The contents in the sacks released dusty particles of white that quickly filled the air and scattered across the room. The white haze made clouded his vision, as he tried to gather his bearings and move his sluggish body. Unfortunately, he was only given a few seconds to, as the [Death Knight] entered through the broken doorway and quickly continued with a powerful overhead swing. Gabriel rolled to the side, avoiding the attack, he picked up his spear that he dropped and leapt up before jumping over a countertop bench in one fluid motion. The great sword slammed into where he was previously laying and split open the remaining sacks that, Gabriel could now see, had Flour scrolled on them. The attack sent another cloud of flour into the air, making it even hard to breathe.

Gabriel gained himself a few seconds to look around, he first noticed all the sacks of flour and what looked to be rotten bread scattered around. ‘Must have been a bakery’. Gabriel quickly surmised. The [Death Knight] pulled the great sword out of the wooden floorboards he managed to chop straight through and began to head to Gabriel’s direction. The aura around the [Death Knight] had suddenly taken on an even darker green, with flecks of black in it. Spreading out through like a dark poison entering one's veins. The aura felt almost tangible now and the power it released warped the surroundings and twisted the floorboards after every step the undead knight took. ‘Arghhhh... This is why I hate blessings from Gods. There all so god damn different. I don’t know how long this increase in strength will last but I know it will only get worse before it gets better.’ Gabriel sighed to himself. ‘This spear isn’t doing shit either. My strength is just too limited right now. I need something, something...’ Gabriel furiously thought as he gazed around the room. At his current strength he knew he was barely a match for a normal [Death Knight], let alone one with a blessing. ‘If only I had some way to get through that heavy armour, it looks like normal plate as well, no enhancements that I can see. If only I had stronger fire attacks, I could possibly melt or warp some pieces off... hold on!’ Gabriel suddenly paused his frantic planning, and focused on the dusty flour particles that were still hanging in the air. Suddenly Gabriel felt like an actual light bulb lit up over his head, as a somewhat evil grin started to form on his face.

“Come on you bastard. I bet you were that helmet all the time because you’re embarrassed about your fucked up face!” Gabriel taunted while slapping his hand on the counter, he felt his insults were a little on the weak side, because he was in a rush, or so he told himself.

The [Death Knight] wasn’t affected by the very weak taunts and merely attacked like how it had planned from the start, with another overhead chop at Gabriel. With the bench between them, Gabriel used the longer reach to stab out with his spear and hit the middle of the oncoming blade, sending it chopping down to the side. The great sword split the bench down the middle, sending wood chips flying everywhere, then landed in another pile of flour sacks that were stacked under the bench. Sending more flour into the air. Gabriel reached down and grabbed one of the flour sacks, that was laying on the ground, which he wielded like a pillow in a pillow fight and swung it at the knight’s helmet covered face. The aura surrounding the [Death Knight] ripped open the sack before it made contact, in doing so, it sent the flour inside scattering all over the armour of the [Death Knight]. Making it have the appearance of a dalmatian for a moment, with black and white spots all over.

The great sword, in retaliation of its owner’s now dirty appearance, was torn violently out of the bench, flinging woodchips everywhere and swung it at Gabriel who ducked under the broken bench to dodge it. Gabriel crawled out the other side and sprinted to the other end of the room, where more sacks were stacked next to a window. Gabriel attached his spear to a clip on his back and now with two hands free, grabbed four sacks with two in one hand each and tossed them at the knight. They once again split open when nearing the aggressive green shroud, sending the flour into the air and making an almost waterfall of white to land on the [Death Knight]. Gabriel took one of the throwing axes out of his bandolier and looked at it.

“Goodby old buddy, I will make sure to take care of your brothers in the future.” Gabriel said a saddened farewell to the axe.

Before the [Death Knight] could make it across the room, with its heavy steps, Gabriel had dived through the glassless window and rolled on the ground before springing to his feet and turning around to face the bakery again. Gabriel cocked the arm back that held the throwing axe and activated [Heat of the Desert], making the blade of the axe be incased in flames. Gabriel tossed the flaming axe through the window, as he swiftly turned around and ran in the opposite direction before throwing himself onto the ground, with his hands covering his head.

The flaming axe spun in the air, whizzing through the window of the bakery and towards the flour cloud that encompassed the [Death Knight]. The moment the flames on the axe blade touched the flour, the fire appeared to come alive and swept through the air like a wave, leading to a loud and earth rumbling ‘Boom!’ The fire from the axe, caused the very flammable dusty flour to ignite and added with the rotten and dried wood, not including the countless other flour sacks inside, it led to a large dust explosion. The building blew to pieces after only a moment, with flames shooting into the sky and travelling across the ground for several feet. Bits of flaming wood from the bakery scattered about. The fire quickly subsided from lack of fuel, once the wood and flour in the air was burnt up.

Gabriel rose to his feet, unclipping the spear from his back, he peered into the rubble of the bakery before jogging towards it. A skeletal hand shot out of the rubble, its previous armour now melted slag, some bits were melted to the bone, others had dripped off into slurry and onto the ground. Following shortly after the hand was another, that pushed the bits of burnt wood to the side and grabbing both sides, the now half armoured zombified form of the [Death Knight] pulled itself from the rubble. Its once vigorous and threatening divine aura, was now nothing but light green whisps that held no threat at all. It had used majority of the aura’s power to block the flames but couldn’t hold it all off.

While the [Death Knight] was only in a half kneeling state, regathering its lost energy, a spear tip appeared right in front of its face. Gabriel activated the weapon skill in the spear and unleashed a double thrust at the same time, which cleanly pierced the now unarmoured face of the [Death Knight] almost splitting it’s head it two. The eerie glow coming from its empty eye sockets began to slowly peter out, like the dying embers of a flame before it finally extinguished. Sending the [Death Knight] toppling over, into true death. The half rotten corpse of the [Death Knight] turned into ashes after a short moment and the light in its empty socketed eyes finally went out, leaving behind its half-melted armour and great sword. A gust of hot wind blew through, making Gabriel’s braided hair sway in the wind, while the ashes of the [Death Knight] were carried away.

Gabriel let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, as he rested on his knee. ‘Shit, that was close. I really need to increase my level more, get some dungeon grinding in soon.’ Gabriel thought to himself. The sound of multiple notifications went off in Gabriel’s head as he leant down to loot the [Death Knight]’s body, but he stopped mid way, as he heard the sound of rushed footsteps behind him. Gabriel got to his feet and with the spear in a block position, diagonally across his chest, faced the new threats. Gabriel relaxed after a tense moment, when he saw it was just the bruised and battered members of his squad. They all looked around with awe and surprise on their faces at the remains of the [Death Knight] and the carnage that filled the area.

“What the hell happened Chief!? We were just rushing down the stairs of the Inn after regrouping to find you, when we noticed the explosion of fire across the street. How in Gaia’s name did you destroy a [Death Knight] by yourself? I didn’t know you were this strong. What level are you exactly Chief?” Rolo questioned, his tone was full of nothing but admiration, as one of the indigenous populations of Valhalla he had heard stories of the strength of [Death Knights].

Gabriel merely gave a smirk before placing his spear over his shoulders and replied “I just wanted to show the [Death Knight] how to bake bread. He wasn’t too good at it.”