Cruel Bounty Hunter effect activated: Experience gained. 2400. 50% of experience lost by xXKillMongerXx due to ritual sacrifice

Golden aura washed over Leo and pure euphoria rushed through him. Leveling up felt so good. All accumulated dirt and grime washed off of him, leaving Leo clean and fresh.

It had taken twenty five hours for the effect to activate. Leo had to wait if the pattern repeated once or twice more. That would give him an estimate for how long they had to complete their rescue. If the man gained full twelve hours of respawn time, he would be off the game for a full day and then be sacrificed within an hour of coming back to the game.

This worked just fine for Leo, since they were planning a fast snatch and grab mission. Alternative option was to raid the settlement and camp out there and wait for KillMonger to respawn, but that opened them them up for counterattacks and a flow of other things to go wrong.

Mark had hired a party of rogues to map out the place and the party had gathered around a table, making their war strategy. The area seemed to house a small tribe of wolfmen. Scouting party had counted twenty seven people in arms, in addition to cooks and other workers. Leo added to the number extra ten armed scouts that were on patrols and twenty normal wolves just to be safe. That meant they were looking at a camp that housed over seventy people. It would take really high levels, incredible luck or massive raiding party to insure their success. Leo had no time to get his levels higher. KillMonger could potentially get tired of constant pain and dying and make a new character. He assumed the man had tried it already, but had gained a notification of potential rescue, but sooner or later he would get tired of waiting. That left him with either a raiding party or really good plan and abyss ton of luck.

The party had already decided to hire a distraction, but didn’t have the funds to hire a full fledged guild for the mission. So they honed the plan to the peak of perfection.

Couple days went fast with training, planning and trying to find a group. Leo had gained his seventh level due to KillMonger being killed. He had apparently dropped in level, since on the second day Leo gained two hundred exp less than previously.

On the third morning, as they were finishing their plans and talking over everything that could go wrong, a messenger tapped Leo on his shoulder.

Leo took the.. letter? It was more of a origami paper crane, and tipped the runner a full silver. He unfolded the neatly cut piece of paper and read

Hello friend.

I am writing this to you, since you aided us some time ago, by gifting a Blackmane tribe a player. As he is from the guild ‘Hardcores’ I was very pleased withthe gift. Now allow me to repay you with some information.

My friends at Upright Men, have heard of Mage’s college’s plan to do a thorough search in the city to find hiding Rogue Mages. They have heard of your magical abilities, and are keen to get you in their hands. DO NOT go with them, unless you want to become a slave for the rest of your days in game.

They have gained your location and are moving in. I’d suggest you flee, Now!

~ S

Leo showed the letter to his friends and they swiftly gathered their belongings and left the tavern. There was no point to question the validity of the letter. At best, they would dodge a huge bullet. At worst, they would lose a little time.

He had heard rumours of the mage’s college, and didn’t like the organisation at all.

If the stories were to be believed, they took a huge percentage of your income in addition of making you pay real life college fees to train your skills and gain new ones. Leo didn’t want to get sucked into that loop, so he had been avoiding mage types.

They headed for city’s outer gates and soon were once again at the rabbit plains. Leo opened his character sheet and found a notification. It was his sixth level free spell. He had postponed choosing it, since he didn’t know what he needed, but now was as good of a time as any.

This time, Leo selected ‘Abjuration’ and a list of three skills appeared.

Shield. Pass without Trace. Protection Aura.

Hmm.. Pass without Trace was no go. He didn’t plan to be sneaky character and he needed help to accomplish his short term goals. So it was either Shield or Protection aura. Aura would most likely lessen the damage taken around him and shield.. Would it work like Mage armor? Have certain amount of mana devoted to it that would drain as he took damage? Would it stack with mage armor? .. Mage armor.. What if.. Leo quickly selected Protection Aura and as the information of the new spell came to his mind, Leo opened his Soul Forge menu. Into it he dragged the icons of Protection aura, Mage armor and Medium armor mastery. He thought about it and pressed yes. One hundred and ninety six gold vanished from his bank account and a timer appeared next to the cauldron icon. Time until completion 35 hours, 36 minutes.

Skill increased: Skill planner (Novice II)

That being done, they set out for hunting. Although the group didn’t have hunting quests to complete, hides and meat could be sold for fair amount of money and in longer expeditions the small amount of exp monsters gave started to stack up.

Leo was still somewhat unfamiliar with his new chainswords. He had decided to call them spellblades, since it sounded cool and was easy to remember. However he had learned few useful tricks on how to use them. First off, he could still wield them like normal weapons by grabbing the hilt. This removed the mental strain on commanding two extra limbs. Then, after some practice, he had ‘assigned’ few easy actions, like thrust, sweep and retreat, by memorising the movement and ‘imprinting’ a keyword to those actions. So now when he wanted to attack, he could just think “Right thrust!” or “Left sweep” and try to aim the attacks at the targets. Useful stuff, even if it still drained his mental resources.

They went around the rabbit fields, dispatching any groups they saw, mostly letting Leo do the heavy lifting so he could train with his new skills in actual combat.

An hour had passed with merciless bunny slaughtering, when Mark pointed at the distance. Leo looked at the direction and saw a huge rabbit, sneakily following a solo player. “What in the abyss is he doing alone?” Leo whispered.

Shrugs were only response he got. “We should save him!” Mark offered joyfully. “I bet the meat on that thing is just.. superb!”

They got into battle formation and ran at the giant beast. Stonks bellowed a battle cry, and took the lead on their charge. The overgrown rabbit noticed him and rushed at him, tackling the big man to the ground with ease. Leo leaped over his prone friend and commanded his spellblades to attack. They clinked against the rabbit’s.. armor? Seriously! It had stone armor covering him! Leo ducked under a paw swipe and heard an angry shouting coming from the guy they were rescuing

“Hey dumbass! Did your mother sleep with an ork? Can’t you see that’s my familiar, you’re attacking! I’ll let that slide, but if you continue, I Will kill you all!”

Leo was taken aback, a bit offended by the man’s attitude towards him. “Hey now! Im sorry!” He exclaimed. “Seriously! No need to bring my mother into this. I thought i was saving you!”

Stonks stood up, getting pumped up and seemed to be ready to have another round with the giant hare. Mark and Jehmaan noticed his battlerage, and rushed to hold him at bay. “Sorry.. about.. him!” Jehmaan panted through his efforts. “Low wisdom.. Gah! Much alcohol!”

Leo looked at the man, then the rabbit and the man again. The strange man was holding two spiked shields which, while Leo was looking, grew smaller. Neat! The pale man stepped back and patted the bunny on it’s armored head.

“I’ll let this go. Just this once” He gnarled, and Leo noticed that his mouth movements didn’t match the words he spoke. That was an odd glitch. Maybe he had a broken motion capture on his VR helmet. “By the abyss, calm your friend down and i may let you pet Raile. He is a rare sight after all”

Why was he being so rude. Leo was kinda regretting his decision to not press the attack. Seriously. Didn’t anyone teach that guy manners as a kid?

Jehmaan offered Stonks a drink. It seemed to calm the Brawler down, at least for the moment, while Mark went around the animal, salivating over the tens of pounds of delicious meat the beast held within.

Leo took a step forward, little disturbed by the man’s vulgar language, but not wanting to pick a fight. “I’m Leo. That’s quite a pet you got there. Are you a tamer? Or summoner?”

He studied the pale man. He was awfully average looking in Leo’s eyes. Black shoulder length hair, average build and dark eyes. He looked like early 2000’s emo.

“Both” The man said “Name is Dan.. Or Danny. And by the abyss don’t go around calling me summoner. If the mages make me join their college, I will start throwing things.” He looked at Mark, who was mentally butchering the animal. “Is he okay? Feces! He’s better not be thinking about eating Raile. Chewing through rocks wouldn’t do good for him”

In Leo’s mind, he sounded a bit.. defensive? Right. He was alone, facing four unfamiliar faces who had already attacked him. Maybe that explained his attitude. An intimidation method. Leo could understand that. It wasn’t easy to turn off.

He glanced at the chef and chuckled. “Yeah. He is just.. passionate of his craft” Leo paused for a moment, before changing the subject “So you haven’t joined the college either?” Dan shook his head and Leo pressed on “Yeah. I got a note that warned me about the mages going around the city, rounding us ‘rogue mages’ up. They are probably at it as we speak” He pulled the letter from this S character and showed it to Dan. He read it through.

“Well then.. thanks for the warning i guess. Abyss! It’ll be a freaking long night outside the gates.. I can of course manage..” He paused, seemingly thinking about something. “I kinda feel like I owe you for the warning, and i don’t like it. I don’t have any money to offer, but..” Dan looked at Mark, still studying Raile’s body. “Seriously get away from my pet! Here! Go and kill this”

Dan raised his voice at the end of his tiny rant and began making arcane hand gestures. Soon a tiny portal appeared and a golden white rabbit soared through it. “This one could heal your wounds, but.. na. If you must eat something, eat that! You have a minute to catch it, before it despawns.”

“What.. IS that?!” Mark jolted up as he saw the tiny rabbit. “Can I..?” He asked, unsheathing is fillet knife, while Leo was having a very different reaction from what Dan had just said. “Right.. The city.. I guess it’s out of limit for a while, huh..” He thought about his situation and current plans. Judging by the time, It should be around two hours until KillMonger gets executed again.. So twenty six hours for his next respawn. And there, in front of him was a man with a potential army at his disposal.. It wasn’t a raid group per se.. but still.

“Listen.. Dan.. I have a suggestion for you.. and potentially a quest, if we can agree on terms. Wanna hear it out?”

Dan nodded, first at Mark, then at Leo. He seemed to be a bit more relaxed.

“Sure. Hit me.” Then he shouted at Mark. “If you get a player killer aura from killing that, I’m going to laugh!” He focused at Leo and continued. “I cannot agree on any abyssal quest. That’s my freaking party leader’s job.. They’ll be here soon enough. You can just sit down and wait for abyssal sake. My Raile makes and freaking excellent pillow if you find a good spot.”

He leaned down against now prone rabbit, while Mark made a quick work of the summon. Orange pvp aura surrounded him and after reading a notification, Mark shrugged and sat down, stuffing the corpse in his utility belt.

“At least it’s not red” Jehmaan commented on Mark’s new glow and followed him to the ground, dragging Stonks with him. Leo paced around for a moment, and squatted, facing Dan, and started to explain his current situation.

“So.. few days ago, we were tasked on tracking down some nobleman's lost sword.. It had been stolen you see. We found the thief battling against wolfmen and decided to take an advantage on the confusion. We attacked him, finally defeating him. After that, we got a choice to either bring him into the city, kill him or let the wolfmen have him. In our battlerage, we went with the final option and now.. now he is being killed daily." Leo sighed "I got a quest from a deity to rescue him, but he is kept in a wolfman camp. It holds over thirty wolfmen, plus their wolves. We are planning on storming the campsite, but we need a distraction. Can you summon more of these rabbits? You could potentially have an army at your command, making a good substitute for a raid group. interested?"

Dan stayed silent for a moment, going through the possibilities in his head, and finally slowly nodding. He seemed disturbed by the story Leo had explained. Now that he thought about it, it didn’t paint the group in a good light. Leo decided that he didn’t care that much about it. They were going to correct his mistake after all. A suspicious glint appeared in Dan’s eyes and he gave Leo an answer.

“This sounds like.. a trap. And i’m not going to do anything without an official quest, damn it. Only after that we can abyss discuss further, so i have some freaking proof that you aren’t luring us to our doom”

That seemed fair. How did people create quests? Leo scrolled through his system menus; character sheet, titles, skills, profession(!).. He found the quests tab, and went through it. Active quests, Completed quests, Failed quests, Pending quests and finally, Offer a quest. Leo waved his friends to come closer, going over general options. After they had agreed upon the terms of contract, Leo typed in the requirements, and offered reward for completion. He was kinda sour when the system autoselected a name for the mission:

Offer a quest to player(s): Danny The Miller

Cannon fodder.

Leo is offering you a quest to provide distraction on nearby wolfman outpost, giving them enough time to rescue a player they foolishly turned over to the wolfman faction.

Time gained for Leo’s party. 0/45 minutes.

Reward: 50% Loot gained by Leo and his party during the raid. All exp Leo and his party gains during the time. 100 gold.

Failure: No reward.

Minimum level requirement for this quest: 8.

Accept: Yes. No.

Leo waited as Dan read through the information.

“Hmmm.. This is fair enough. I think we can discuss it..” He was about to continue when three people showed up, weapons drawn and looking for a fight. Apparently they had spotted the PvP aura Mark had on. Dan got up to his feet and started to calm the players down, as Leo was starting to draw up his weapons.

“Hey guys! Chill! These guys are cool. They’re freaking offering us a quest and warned me about those abyssal feces covered mages hunting us rogue mages, so we can’t go back to the city anyways. What do you say about a freaking raid?”

He shared the quest info with his apparent team leader, a shorter girl, with leaf-green hair and a leaf covered robe. It seemed awfully impractical and uncomfortable to wear.

She went over it, her face lighting up with.. joy? No. Battle Hunger. “60% of all loot if we go for the full 45 minutes. 25% forgoing other rewards if we manage to get only fifteen minutes and fail at that point. A wolfman base has far too many troops to distract the entire base as well. There will likely be some left, since i doubt they would leave the camp unguarded.”

Her eyes were blazing with determination as she offered the revised terms. She knew that Leo needed a distraction group and from her tone, she planned to take advantage of the situation.

Leo studied her. She had demanding, no bullcrap attitude and was offering him a fair deal. It was after all only ten percent less loot for his group. Leo nodded, grinning and opened the quest offer to tweak the rewards and completion requirement. “We need thirty minutes at the minimum. Agh! For a full half an hour completion, the system forces me to offer fifty percent the rewards, full gain for forty five minutes. Is that agreeable?” He asked, offering the refined quest to the woman.

She read it through carefully, nodded and pressed the ‘Accept’ button. All of her teammates looked at the distance as they gained the same quest.

She was practically oozing with bloodlust. Leo looked at her. She was dressed up as a druid of some kind, but her bearing resembled a battle raging barbarian. Why on earth had she picked that class. At that moment, Dan spoke up

"Well as for a distraction, we are abyssal made for it. You don’t seem smart enough to have a healer, so I can send in a Glitterflit, the rabbit that your creepy friend butchered, to help out. Though it may get unsummoned if it goes to far away, I haven’t freaking checked that yet. I can also have up to four total along with my Raile since it doesn't freaking count towards my abyssal summon limit. And another two in the form of Zombits. We can lure them out with my rabbits and you go in with one of the healing ones, I have a once a freaking day skill to let my summon last thirty minutes if you're wondering how exactly this rabbit will last so long. Five minutes after we're chased. That will give you time to observe which ones stayed and make a plan of attack.Do you have anything else to tell us?"

Leo nodded, accepting the offer of a summon. He thought about what he had learned of the creatures they would soon face off against "So.. Wolfmen. Big, scary werewolf like creatures. We've only had one encounter with them so far, so we are unfamiliar with their fighting prowess. From my understanding they fit into three categories; Scouts, warriors and shamans. The one we saw fit the description of a scout. Lightly armored, use bows and short swords and coat their weapons in poison. Often travel with regular wolfpack. Then the warriors. Big and armored. I hear they deal ton of damage. I don't know much about shamans, just know they exist. You might encounter some, but i suspect, unless they are healers, that they will wait at the camp for our target to respawn"

He pulled up the hand drawn map, that the scouting group had provided and shared it with the allied party. Leo pointed different sections on the map, going over the plan he and his team had honed to its perfection. or.. best they could manage.

“This spot right here, where the forest is thicker, is out point of entrance. It has good covering, allowing us to sneak closer.” Leo explained, while others looked at the map. It covered the base and half a mile of the surrounding territory. The campsite was set in a forest clearing, next to a small pond that the wolfmen used as a water source. According to the intel they had gained, a group made of scouts and regular wolves left from the camp every two hours or so, making them potential easy targets to lessen the total number of foes they would have to face.

The druid didn’t seem to have patience for this, so while Dan was nodding to Leo’s plan of attack, she turned into a copy of that giant Raile type rabbit and went after a colony of rabbits nearby.

“Well then. We abyss should form a hugeass party and take out few freaking patrols. That should alert the dimwitted mutts enough to know something is going on. Then we can walk up to the encampment and lure those feces faces after us.

As long as we don't directly engage them, we should be able to kite the mutts for long enough to give you guys a chance to get in and out. I have no idea what freaking levels we are abyss looking at, but i abyss should be able to block most of the weak ranged damage and i doubt those dirty furries can affect Raile too much, if they can’t pierce its armor”

The druid joined them soon after this statement, seeming to be much calmer and smiling maniacally. She looked at the map and pointed at the pond.

“Perhaps you could try to sneak in by swimming through this pond, and smash into them from a side they weren’t expecting” Before she could say any more, Jehmaan stopped him “We considered that, but coming out of the water would put us in greater disadvantage.” He explained and Leo nodded. “Yeah. Stonks’ armor is made out of cloth and Mark has some decent layers on too. Wet clothes would only slow us down and increase our stamina consumption”

At this point, Mark was glaring at the druid, visible confusion painted on his face. “So if.. nevermind. Yeah. We should get going”

Dan held his hand up. “One last thing. We leave Greg here with you.” He said, pointing his thumb at the man holding slingshot. Greg and the rest of Dan’s team started protesting, but Dan hurried to explain himself. “He’s a freaking good sniper with his abyssal slingshot, but he would be useless in the chase. So if you’re acting like sissies and not going through the pond, we can have him on your side, providing ranged support as you hit the bulk of their remaining forces.”

Leo thought about this proposition. He was pretty sure that Dan was trying to get someone spying on him. He couldn’t argue without sounding too suspicious, so he agreed and added “In that case, Mark goes with you.” Mark was about to open his mouth, when Leo made a ‘trust me on this’ face and said “Look Mark. You have the highest perception of us. If they are giving up their Marksman, we should offer a Mark in return to cover for him. Also.. I’m afraid you wouldn’t be useful against the warrior they most certainly leave to guard the camp. Your knives won’t do much against plate armor. You saw it yourself when we fought KillMonger. You have much better advantage against the scouts and lighter opponents that would be giving a chase to Dan.” Mark looked at Leo, and thought about the bunnies Dan could summon for him. Sure, he was rude and liked to cuss, but.. “Fine.”

Leo turned to face Dan and the druid. “If you’re cool with that, we should split up and test out this new formation. Let’s meet up here at sundown. Okay?”

They all nodded and parted ways, Dan leading his half of the improvised platoon up north towards the wolfman territory, while Leo and his part of the team stood still.

“So. Greg, was it?” Leo asked the man. The Slingshooter nodded, watching wishfully after his friends.

“Sit down. I have some questions for you.” Greg obliged and Leo stared at him, weighing him in his mind. “So you are a ranged fighter. Why slingshots? Do you have any supportive or utility skills, like smokescreens?”

Greg seemed to be a bit nervous to be put on a spotlight like this, but when he started talking. Oh boy. He rapid fired his answers and added some questions of his own to the mix.

“Yes. I’m a ranger. I was going to get a bow and arrow, but it felt too mainstream. I shoot out these steel balls. No smokescreens yet, but i have some basic elemental infusions in few. Lightning, Cold and Fire mainly. Now that i think about it, some utility ammos could be perfect! Thank you for the idea! Are my friends going to be okay with that guy? Is he crazy? Are those swords attached to you or your gear? Can i touch them? Are they magical?” He blurted all of this out in a matter of couple seconds. Leo had to pause for a long moment as he deciphered the noise, separating words and sentences from each other. “Mark is cool. Just.. I don’t even know at this point. These swords are attached to me, no, you may not touch and yes, they are magical”

Greg looked like he wanted to say more, but Leo held up his hand, getting up on his feet. “I think it’s better if we test out your combat prowess against mobs. Stonks! You take the front as per usual, Jeh and me will cover your sides, and Greg, you stay back. Suppressive fire and try not to hit us.”

Battle plan done, they marched off to the wolfman forest, straying to the right not to follow Dan.

To his credit, Greg was a great shot with his sling. He was able to rapid fire his steel balls with pinpoint accuracy and the group managed to slay few packs of wolves with ease. Leo had some trouble in performing trickier techniques, and he felt like and idiot every now and then while swinging his four swords around.

He had purchased some basic trash tier beginner weapons from the swordsmith, and put up an order for masterwork grade falchions. He had really grown attached to single bladed western armaments.

His arms ached after their fourth pack slain. The swords he used were clumsy, not properly balanced and as dull as they came, but he wanted to grind up his unique ‘quadrawield’ skill.

He was resting on a tree stump, allowing his stamina to regen when Greg came up to him.

“What?” Leo asked bluntly, not meaning to be rude, but too tired to make a proper response.

“I was just wondering. You guys act so different than my own group. Did you know each other beforehand?”

“Yup.” Leo responded, gathering his thoughts. “We were coworkers and before that, we were in pro gaming scene. Stonks here had a massive following in Shiver.tv. He streamed mostly LoW raids and that kind of stuff under a ‘Massive Stonks’ screen name. Jehmaan on the other hand was a DoM 2, Defence of the Mythicals, team captain, competing in major leagues around the world.” He paused, when he noticed Greg recognising a name.

“Is that.. Is he THE Massive Stonks? One of the LoW’s best tanks?” he asked, dumbfounded by the news.

“Thashh me!” Stonks gave him a drunken smile.

“Oh my damn! I didn’t.. Woah! This is huge! I’ve been following your streams since two thousand and fourteen! And i’ve watched your compilations! You’re.. You’re a legend!” He exclaimed, not really knowing how to act. Stonks seemed pleased with the attention

“What about you and your cook friend? Are you famous pros too?” He turned to face Leo, hopeful glint in his eyes.

“Well Mark isn’t really a pro gamer. He was my childhood friend, but is a damn great chef. He has been working in Michelin restaurants and joined the game when i managed to get plus one pod invite. I, on the other hand.. I wasn’t really a famous player. I played LoW with Stonks in some of his streams as a DPS and a strategist, but mostly i focused on creating shortcuts and raidplans for my guilds in various games. One could say that I tried to be MMO speedrunner of sorts.”

Leo explained, a bit embarrassed. This was one of the reasons he never pursued recognition. He wasn’t good with attention. Greg stared at the group as if they were mythical creatures.

“Are you planning on reforming your old guild, Retraction?” He asked, hopefully, but Leo shot the hope down. “Not really our plan. We did look into guild options, but they seem to require a literal ton of paperwork, everything from tax registrations to salary updates. In my understanding the guild system works like creating a company back in the real world.” As he saw Greg’s stricken face, he added. “Maybe if we find someone to handle all those things, freeing us from the responsibility, then.. maybe.”

He stood up and called out “Allrighty! I think we have rested enough! Let’s show these wolves who is the real alpha!”

Few hours flew by in a flash. Wolfpack encounter followed by short round of combat, followed by couple minutes of rest. Rinse and repeat.

Small amounts of damage they had taken in started to add up tho, so to keep it safe, Leo decided to call it a day. They would get their fill of combat soon enough.

He led his group through the forest, looking for a trail back to the edge, when an arrow penetrated through his pauldron and into his right shoulder.

Leo swirled around, commanding his left spellblade to strike down just in time to slice another incoming arrow in half.

“AMBUSH!” he shouted and got into defensive position. His right arm felt like it was on fire. Stonks, even with his lack of wisdom was quick to react. He rushed in front of Leo, taking an arrow to his chest for his efforts. He bellowed, grabbed his nailbat and ran towards their attacker.

A tall wolfman scout loomed over them, readying another arrow. It barked, sending a pack of wolves charging at the unprepared group.

This was not good. Leo wasn’t ready for this fight. He liked to plan his attacks, ambush his foes and insure his victory. He wasn’t good at reacting to sudden threats.

Leo gnarled and went to face a charging wolf. “Greg! Wolfman!” He shouted and engaged with the enemy. Right, thrust. Left, block. Right, slash. He cycled his mental commands and watched how his spellblades acted.

Jehmaan focused on his spear, drove it to the ground and sent a yellow glowing ball of energy sliding at a wolf. It hit, and from the ball a copy of Jehmaan appeared, skewering the wolf from below.

“What was that?!” Leo shouted, amazed by his friend’s unseen skill.

“It’s called ‘Mirage spear’. Creates a copy of me that lasts for couple seconds. It has much weaker stats than i do, but by the sage ranks, it should be as strong as me.”

Jehmaan explained in a hurry, thrusting his spear at the wolf his illusion was battling. The attack left short, but Jehmaan twisted his spear and an extension shot out, connecting at the wolf's maw.

Stonks was holding two wolves at bay, letting them bite his gambeson covered arms. He bellowed, straightened his back and managed to lift both wolves up to their hind legs. With a shout, he grabbed the wolves by their manes and slammed them against the ground.

Greg shot a ball after ball at the wolfman, both spinning around, dodging incoming projectiles. They seemed to be at a stalemate, matching each other's skill perfectly.

Leo retreated for a moment, dropping his clumsy swords and bringing his spellblades up in front of him. He started doing hand gestures, twisting his fingers in odd patterns while passing mana to his palms. After ten seconds, his hands gained a red aura and he pressed them against his blades. The aura moved into them, and Leo grabbed them by the handle. He needed to focus on the battle, and even though four swords looked cooler, having better control of only two was way more practical at this point.

Leo jumped back to the front, bringing his weapons down in an overhand swing, slicing through and cutting a wolf’s leg. It yelped, and tried to bite Leo in its pain, but Leo was having none of it. He thrusted his swords forwards, piercing the beast in two places. It gave out a weak snarl, and collapsed. Leo felt how his swords worked to pull the blood from the animal, restoring him at the same time. He pulled his blades out and quickly decapitated Stonks’ prone foes.

Leo walked up to the wolfman scout, who tossed his shortbow and drew up a nasty arming sword, similar to the one Leo had seen on his previous encounter with those bipedal beasts.

As the wolfman was distracted by Leo, a steel ball managed to hit it in it’s forehead, exploding in small fiery inferno. Leo took a full advantage on the wolfman’s disorientation and rushed at it, delivering a fast set of attacks. Shoulder, chest, leg, arm, side. He barraged the beast with fast jabs and cuts, widdling down it’s health point by point. It tried to retaliate, but Leo didn’t give it time to attack. He pressed his barrage, driving the wolf on the defensive, before finally finding an opening to end the sorry beast.

Leo kicked his opponent between its legs and spun around, driving his blades into the wolman’s side, stopping when the edges hit the spine.

A flow of blood rushed out from the wounds and being sucked in to his spellblades, restoring Leo’s health completely.

He let go of his swords, and bent over to claim the arming sword that was still in the creature’s hand. It was better balanced than his beginner weapons and was glistening in poison, so Leo decided to use it. He removed the scabbard from the wolfman and went over its body, looting everything useful. Couple small vials, one filled with matching green liquid, other having a clear yellow filling. Some heavy duty rope, a pouch of cured ham and a small bag of caltrops all found their new owner.

Leo looked at the beast. This was only a scout? What trouble he was leading his team into.

With this thought, they continued their way away from the forest centre, planning to soon meet up with the other team.