Luca DR
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28 – Past Strikes (2/2)
🕑 Added 2023-05-18 19:30:34 +0000 UTCThe forest! One of the gems Eurus had given him as a gift when Albert was summoned here was a healing incantation called Prayer of the Forest. It was there, in his pocket! He just needed to reach it.
The forest lurched. The pain followed. Albert was suddenly clutching his chest in pain and at the apex of a parabola that brought him above the tree line. Then the pain spread. At least two broken ribs, and it was hard to breathe properly. He felt light in his head, but had the presence of mind to realize that he had been sent flying in the air by the golem and readjusted his trajectory to land more or less on his feet. He was lucky he was still burning mana to empower himself.
He landed, on his good leg first then on the ruined one a moment later. He felt something else give out, sending a wave of panic through his system. His vision grew blurry, the tears obscuring the forest and making it appear as one patch of blue sky surrounded by green and dark shadows. The shadows moved, and the ground shook once again in rhythmic and increasingly strong tremors.
He rummaged through his pocket, hands grasping for everything they could find. A numbness was spreading from his chest, making it hard to move. It felt cold and burning hot at the same time.
He grasped at the first of the gems, the red one. It was not the right one: this was a wind shield enchantment. He let it fall to the ground, rummaging again until he pulled out the right one. He clutched the green gem and let mana flow into it as quick as he could, not caring about how disordered and turbulent the stream of magic was in his rising panic. The pain began to subside as a new sensation made its way through his body from the gem. It felt like the pleasant heat of the spring sun on his skin, making its way through his bones and to the parts of his body that hurt the most.
He didn’t have time to savor the numbness however, for after having rubbed the tears from his eyes he saw that the golem was limping its way to him. It was limping, yes, but it was quick and deadly. It charged an attack with its right arm and Albert willed his body to move, to avoid the attack and get out of the way. His legs almost refused to obey him, the numbness he still felt coming from his chest making the movement feel sluggish and his body far away, but he used every ounce of his will and his desire to live to push himself and moved just the right amount. He felt the pressure differential in the air just before he saw the ground explode right where he was a fraction of a real second ago.
The third elven gem, the blue one, was a cleanse poison. Wasting no time Albert used it and felt the numbness recede almost instantly, getting back to his feet lighter than ever. He looked at the golem for the first time since he teleported, and right when the mechanical construct was about to strike him, he disappeared.
The fall of the great stone had caused a good deal of damage to the golem. Firstly, it was already weakened by the hole in its body the size of a fist caused by the spear of stone, and now after the improvised kinetic bombardment, one of its arms hung quite loosely from its shoulder. The two faults exposed each a vulnerable spot in the making of the golem: the first a way to its central core and the second a much bigger opening to the inner circuits that would disable one of its arms for good.
Albert decided to play it safe, still having two full mana pools to spend in the form of crystals. He refilled his mana and prepared the strongest fireball he could: bigger and ready to be split into two right before colliding with the golem (an ability the skill gained when it reached level six). Albert took aim, the whole process taking less than a second of Bullet Time thanks to the extensive training he underwent, and threw. The fireball struck true, doubling its destructiveness just before hitting the insides of the golem.
Albert teleported out again, making use of the window of time while the golem reeled in what looked like pain – although he doubted the golem could feel pain – and reappeared fifty meters away. Then, he filled his mana pool again and began to cast Fireballs as quickly as his body allowed him to, aiming at the hole in the golem’s chest. The golem was not idle through the process either, having tracked Albert’s new location and was now running to him with the speed of a train. Albert threw and threw, watching the fireballs lose speed until they were almost slow-motion outside the time dilation field, hitting the golem everywhere but missing the narrow target.
He pulled on the mana crystals again, depleting all of his remaining reserve. Fear once again threatened to take over. If he missed all his shots again, this time he was going to be out of magic for good.
On the ground, right in the path the golem was taking in its quest to kill him, Albert spotted the glint of the last of the three elven stones, the one he threw away when he was trying to heal himself. An idea came to mind as his eyes focused on the red hue of the gem. He charged another fireball, aimed right at the elven stone. There was powerful magic sealed within it, ready to be destabilized with sheer brute force. The projectile flew true, drawing a perfect arc through the air, coming closer and closer to its target right as the golem was about to step on it.
Then the collision. And an explosion.
Albert was once again flung through the air by a force he could not control. He activated [Strengthening] right before colliding with a tree and snapping the trunk in half with his body, then hit the ground with a groan. He checked that everything was alright. Okay. Good. He was sore, but with nothing broken. Finally he took stock of the state of the fight. It seemed that the golem was in much worse shape than he was, trying to move with its remaining one good arm and one leg, dragging its heavy body on the ground and stomping uselessly at nothing.
A fireball to its core put an end to its misery.
[Daily challenge complete. Return to Elvenhome to be given an extra reward, then prepare for transport.]
