Chapter 254: Iouen the Strategist Pt.3

“How about a game of chicken.” Aegis shouted eagerly as he turned his fists towards the dragoon. He removed the shield projection that separated them, instead casting it in front of Iouen throw off his next shots. The spears began to hit Aegis directly, while simultaneously Aegis began firing smites at the dragoon. The first five smites hit the dragoon head-on, dealing massive damage.

“Should I guard those?” The cleric asked with wide eyes.

“Tch.” Iouen didn’t have an answer, as several spear jabs hit Aegis and Aegis fired another volley of smites at the dragoon. Both stood their ground - Aegis because he had no choice, and the Dragoon because he was determined to burn through Aegis’ health bar. The next five smites smashed into the Dragoon and erupted in flashes of holy light upon impact. Iouen attempted to sidestep Aegis’ guards in order to fire arrows that could intercept the smites, but Aegis re-cast a new projection repeatedly, blocking him from getting a clear shot while wildly swinging his left foot out at the monk to deflect a kick - causing the monk foot and Aegis’ foot to slam into one another with nothing but Aegis’ shield in between.

Aegis then took his wings and struck them down at the pinned cleric beside him, but the wizard saw that Aegis was no longer striking with his claws and instead moved his cinderbolts onto Aegis’ wings, using the cinders to redirect the wings and prevent them from hitting the cleric.

“Yes, guard them. Don’t let our dragoon die.” Iouen shouted in frustration after failing to fire any meaningful arrows towards the engagement. The cleric complied, creating a guard between Aegis’ smites and the dragoon, blocking them. This in turn allowed Aegis to output damage on the cleric, but was forced into healing himself again to prevent a death as his health dipped below 10,000 due to the dragoon’s strikes.

“Just a bit longer. The healing is almost disabled.” The wizard shouted encouragingly across the arena.

“Hang on a bit more!” Iouen joined in the encouragement. The timer ticked down as Aegis was locked in the stalemate. The pinning shots began to wear off and forced Aegis into stomping his right foot back down on the clerics - he saw it coming this time and attempted to avoid having his foot pinned, but Aegis was too quick for him. Upon impact, he shouted out in pain.

“It doesn’t matter, he can’t maintain his damage on you. Hold out a bit longer!” Iouen shouted, watching as Aegis was forced to heal through the dragoon’s jabs. The projections continued to appear in front of Iouen, preventing him from any clean shots. The cinderbolts continued to redirect Aegis’ wings and claws, and his left foot did its best to block the monk attacks, but some were getting through.

“You’re seriously no joke. I’ll commend you for that, but your time is about up.”

“I SAID,” Aegis roared, abandoning all defenses. “I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!” He turned his claws, shield, wings, and smites all onto the cleric, while using his shield projections to lock the cleric in place.

“He’s suicidal!” The cleric shouted frantically as he caught a glimpse of Aegis’ infuriated expression bearing down on him from overtop his shield.

“Just finish him off, he’s not protecting himself anymore, his health is already low from the jabs!” The dragoon shouted. The monk landed several flat strikes on Aegis’ left side, while the dragoon stabbed into his right side. With the projections gone, Iouen was able to fire a multishot folly at Aegis’ back. The only one still playing defensively was the wizard, but he couldn’t redirect enough of Aegis’ attacks.

“Even if he takes out the cleric like this, he’ll go down.” The monk called out with a smirk as he felt the satisfying impact of his fists on Aegis’ body for the first time. All of Aegis’ smites hit the cleric, he got several claw strikes in, and bashed his shield in using his left foot.

“Guys, I can’t-” The cleric stumbled backward from the pressure of Aegis’ attacks, attempting to brace and guard them while healing himself repeatedly, but his mana was low - in fact hitting 0. Unlike Aegis, he hadn’t dumped his stats into mana recovery, and Aegis knew this from studying his mercenary page.

“It’s fine, he’s not healing himself. He’s only got a few seconds left, and it’s over.” Iouen replied, desperation faintly audible in his own voice as he watched several of his arrows pierce into Aegis’ back. “MARK!” Iouen added, imprinting a ranger mark onto Aegis’ back. “It’s over. The moment healing is gone, I’ll rain of arrows him.” Iouen called out to the others. Aegis let out a desperate roar of final frustration, still ignoring the damage he was taking, and eying the timer of the match at the top of his peripheral vision. With three seconds left, he landed a final volley of smites on the cleric’s shield which finally did what he was aiming to do.

“Combatant Cecil has been eliminated.”

The cleric’s body began to dissipate from the gameworld, whilst Aegis health dipped below 3000 from the damage he’d taken, and only 3 seconds remained before the 10 minute mark hit. Not enough time to heal himself.

“RAIN OF ARROWS!” Iouen shouted triumphantly, turning all of his mana into hundreds of arrows that were fired upward into the sky of the arena above, and all quickly began to converge on the mark that he’d imprinted on Aegis’ back. Seeing this, both the monk and dragoon jumped backwards to get out of the fray.

“PURIFYING LIGHT!” Aegis shouted out desperately, beginning the cast of the spell he’d yet to show to anyone in the world yet. A moment before the arrows hit him, the spell went off. Aegis’ health returned to full and removed all debuffs on his persons.

"10 Minutes have passed since combat has begun. All sources of healing received by players will now be reduced by 100%.”

He raised his shield up and braced as many arrows as he could, while simultaneously dodging to cause as many as possible to crash into one another. He had no time left to make any misplays or mistakes, though. He used the rain of arrows coming down on him as a visual shield to prevent the others from seeing what he was doing - all but the wizard at least. Aegis rapidly dashed towards the wizard who saw him coming and attempted to avoid him by jumping backwards.

The damage he took from the rain of arrows was massive, even using his mithral armor and shield, having fully healed himself, he was immediately taken back down to below 4000 health and had no way to recover. The cinderbolts from the wizard pressed up against him and began dealing burning damage, while Aegis created guard projections around the wizard to prevent him from getting away.

“You’ve gotta be almost dead from all that!” The wizard shouted out desperately as Aegis closed in on him. The debris cleared from the impact of the rain of arrows, and the other three combatants could now see Aegis as he got in range of the wizard. The three of them jumped into action to help, but there wasn’t enough time for them to do anything meaningful.

You take 432 fire damage.

You take 428 fire damage.

You take 414 fire damage.

All four cinderbolts burned down Aegis’ health, but he knew there was a 3 second delay between cinderbolt damage ticks. Aegis eyed his health now sitting at 3290 remaining as he swung his claws of jealousy out at the wizard, slashing into his cloth armor multiple times to deal massive damage.

“Combatant Topin has been eliminated.”

The wizard’s body faded from the arena, and his staff fell to the ground. This prompted Aegis to spin around and face the dragoon and monk, who were both rushing towards him, and Iouen who had an arrow pulled back in his drawstring.

“Rain of arrows uses all of your mana, you’ve got nothing left but normal shots.” Aegis called out to Iouen.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I hit you with so many arrows - even if that spell fully healed you, you’re only a hit away from dying.” Iouen replied as he fired an arrow and watched as, even though Iouen couldn’t redirect it due to having no mana, it was enough to show Aegis dodging the arrow rather than trying to deflect it or block it. “Not even his shield can save him now.” Iouen smirked.

“Just hit him and he’s dead.” The monk announced. The monk and the Dragoon closed in on Aegis quickly, and Aegis eyed his mana, seeing it completely empty due to the purifying light spell using it all. The only resource he had left was his wings, and his stamina, and he was counting down the seconds until his mana recovery would re-activate - 30 seconds after the purifying light spell had been used. But they didn’t know that, Aegis thought.

Just as the monk and dragoon closed in and got in range to strike at him, Aegis kicked his shield up off of his foot and into his left hand, fastened the straps, then held it out in front of himself.

“VIRABHADRA!” Aegis shouted at the top of his lungs,

Unable to cast [Virabhadra] - not enough mana.

The error message popped up in front of his interface. Instead, he activated the aura of light with a wiggle of his fingers, as his other auras had been disabled due to lack of mana. Aura of light worked for an instant, creating a large dome of light around himself that slightly resembled his Virabhadra spell, but the aura of light dome dissipated quickly due to the same error message.

Unable to maintain [Aura of Light] - not enough mana.

It was enough of a bluff, though, and both the dragoon and the monk leaped backwards to avoid the erupting dome. The only one who looked curiously at the attack attempt was Iouen - something felt off, but he was sure Aegis had said the spell clearly, which is something that cannot be feigned.

“That’s it. That’s his 5 minute offensive cooldown gone. He’s got nothing left, right?” The dragoon commented.

“Yeah. Let’s finish this.” The monk joined in with enthusiasm, and they both rushed at Aegis once more. Iouen stood back, aiming at Aegis and calmly walking towards the fight that was now taking place across the arena, waiting for an opportunity to land an attack with his plain arrow shots.

Aegis was frantic in his next few movements, he desperately jumped backwards and flapped his wings to increase the speed of his jumps. The monk and dragoon both had much higher dexterity than he, and were quickly catching up to him.

He was running out of space to run as well, as he arrived at the far wall of the arena, and instead began creating shield projections in the air and using them as stepping stones to get off the ground. This made it harder for the pair to reach him, but both had high jumping abilities and were able to launch themselves up towards him. The dragoon jumped up with glowing orange feet to cut off Aegis midair, while the monk eyed one of the shield projections Aegis was using as stepping stones.

Aegis saw him eying it at the last second, knowing full well that they no longer needed to hit Aegis directly - hitting the shield projections would be enough to redirect the damage to him and kill him. Aegis quickly launched himself downwards out of the air with a flap of his wings to avoid a spear strike from the dragoon, while simultaneously he canceled his guard projections just as the monk was about to hit one with a flying tiger kick.

Aegis struggled with the landing due to the desperate maneuver he’d just pulled off, stumbling backwards and recovering slowly while the monk and dragoon landed softly on the ground. All three were visibly exhausted, breathing heavily with their resources drained nearly to 0, including Aegis’ stamina now that he couldn’t have an aura of beauty active. This gave them all a reason to pause shortly and glare at each other while they caught their breath. Iouen, on the other hand, tried to use this time to fire a silent shot at Aegis from behind, piercing into his shoulder from an unsuspecting angle.

You take 1065 piercing damage.

“Tch.” Aegis winced from the impact point, his shoulder pushing forward. The other saw this moment of weakness and rushed at him once more - but 30 seconds had gone by. His mana was recovering again, and quickly. He eyed it carefully and saw he’d have enough mana just in time, and held his ground.

“He’s not running.” The monk commented excitedly as Aegis lifted up his shield.

“Good, let’s finish this like men.” The dragoon cheered as they both moved to come at Aegis from opposite sides with a pincering strike. Iouen, on the other hand, looked at this behavior curiously.

“Wait…” Iouen mumbled as he thought out loud. “That virabhadra, it didn’t have red arms.” He realized it too late as the monk and dragoon closed into melee with Aegis. “IT WAS A FAKE CAST!” Iouen warned them.

“VIRABHADRA!” Aegis shouted just as they’d gotten into melee range. The dragoon and monk were caught off guard and attempted to jump backwards to avoid it, but Aegis projected a shield carefully behind each of their backs to prevent them from jumping away. The red arms of shiva grew out of Aegis’ shoulders as the holy dome of light enveloped them, dealing damage equal to 80% of damage he’d taken in the last 5 minutes, divided between them. It was well more than enough to immediately kill both of them, causing their bodies to dissipate.

“Combatant Lafto has been eliminated.”

“Combatant Shergal has been eliminated.”

Items from their equipped inventory dropped to the ground where they’d been standing, but Aegis paid no mind to it. The red arms of shiva faded, as did the dome of light that had erupted from Aegis’ shield, leaving just him standing there, shield up and turning to face Iouen who stood a great distance away from him across the arena. Iouen said no words, leaving the only sound to be heard to be that of Aegis’ heavy breathing, as he hunched over. It was a long, uncomfortable few moments of silence.

“The avatar spell lasts 15 minutes. Your wings will be gone in about four minutes. I can easily kite you out for that duration, while applying enough pressure that you have no opportunity to go on the offensive.” Iouen spoke calmly, though his words seemed more for himself than for Aegis. “Your health has to be incredibly low, you wouldn’t let that monk hit your shield projection, and that was before I ticked you in the shoulder. I’m willing to bet you’re one or two hits from going down. Meanwhile, I’m still at full health.”

“Yeah…” Aegis sighed as he stood upright, his stamina slowly recovering to a respectable amount. “I’ve seen you kiting. I know that if I try to rush at you, you can drag this out for as long as you need to.”

“Exactly. And I only need to hit you once, while you need to dodge everything I shoot. I've got some mana, now, too." Iouen sighed. "So why is it that I still feel like I'm the one on the back foot?" He groaned in frustration. "You're really something else. Easily the most terrifying opponent I've come up against. Your desperation to win bleeds through your every action."

"Sorry about that... but, you're right to feel on the back foot." Aegis said calmly before launching himself into a sprint, propelled by his wings digging into the dirt. Only, Aegis wasn't charging at Iouen - instead he was running off towards the edge of the arena. Iouen carefully followed his movements with his arrow, squinting to try and see what he was doing but realized it too late.

"You wouldn't..." Iouen gasped as he fired several shots at Aegis. Aegis dodged and jumped over them, and Iouen desperately used his recovered mana to redirect them but failed to land the arrows with the redirects. "Daisy, to me!" He shouted, calling out to his familiar - a tiny green bird that'd been posturing around the edge of the arena for the entire match. Daisy fluttered her wings and began flying towards Iouen desperately, but Aegis projected a shield to block her flight. She fluttered over the shield projections, but Aegis kept casting more, while Iouen began taking shots at the projections in a desperate attempt to finish Aegis off.

Aegis quickly removed the projections just in time to stop the arrows from hitting them, then managed to close the gap between himself and the bird and swat it down to the ground with one of his wings of light, knocking the wind out of it. He then rolled to the ground to dodge under another arrow from Iouen, and in that same movement, reached out and grabbed the small green bird in his fists and stood back up, breathing heavily again.

Iouen stopped shooting arrows, while Aegis held the bird up in his direction using his right fist to clutch it tightly, and pointing the bladed claws of his left hand at the birds head. The bird desperately pecked at Aegis' hand to break free, but each peck was doing a negligable 1 point of damage.

"All the rangers I've encountered, even the evil ones, have had a deep attachment to their familiar. I've done my research, and you in particular have named your familiar after someone interesting." Aegis called out to Iouen.

"That's not very Eirene-like of you." Iouen grimaced at him. "I've looked into you as well. All of your encounters, you come off as very unapologetic. But everything you've done has been rooted in good. You're not an evil kid, you're a good kid. And you're a follower of Eirene."

"Forfeit the match, or I'll kill your familiar." Aegis threatened him. This threat brought silence to the arena once more, as Iouen hesitated - thinking on his next actions and words carefully.

"You went through so much trouble to save so many NPCs. I don't believe you've got the heart to do something so cruel, especially if you know how much that familiar means to m-" Iouen stopped himself as he locked eyes with Aegis. He saw nothing but fury and rage behind his eyes as he glared back, moving the tip of his bladed claws closer to the desperately chirping green bird's head. In that brief instant, Iouen saw that Aegis was not bluffing.

"Jeez..." Iouen shook his head to himself and let out an exasperated sigh, finally lowering his bow and un-knocking the arrow in it. "Seems like when a certain individual is involved, your kindness is limited. You really are a spiteful healer." Iouen shook his head to himself. He then let out one final, long and frustrated sigh before dissappearing from the arena along with the green bird that Aegis had clutched in his fist.

“Combatant Iouen has forfeited the match.”

“Combatant Aegis has won the Brawl.”