Spiteful Healer

Chapter 89: Clever Use of Game Mechanics

"Relax guys, there's no way some idiot level 30 is going to get those NPCs through the city." The guild leader of the Blacklion Bandits had sent this message to all of his hundred's of guildmates as they watched Aegis' broadcast. He was outside of his Simbox sitting in his living room on the couch watching the stream on his television while using his ear implant to talk with them in a linked call, of which he could see the names of hundred's of participants in his peripheral vision thanks to his eye implant.

"Yeah, chill out. Did you see how many abysslings there were? That guy's just talking out of his ass." One of his guildmates replied into the linked call.

"They're just a bunch of weak-ass Kalmoorians." Another said.

"I don't know, that guy seemed pretty pissed when he heard about the Prophet being dead. He's the same guy that got the world notification for reaching intermediate in every crafting class." An apprehensive guild member said to everyone.

"So? What's he going to do, craft the abyss to death?" The guild leader replied, and a few of them laughed into the call.

"No, man. I mean, my point is, a guy like that aint normal. Look, he just doused himself with lures." The apprehensive guild member warned as the Guild leader watched Aegis taunting them on his livestream.

"Don't worry, if he somehow manages to get close to saving them, all we have to do is log back in and kill the Princess. Bam, problem solved."

"You're gonna log back in to kill an 8 year old girl?" A second member sounded apprehensive now.

"Hah, chill, it's just a game." The guild leader waved it off.

“I’m leaving the rest to you.” Aegis said to Yuki with one final nod before he dashed out of the Palace gates and into the streets of Arallia. He looked east and saw them coming. He looked west and saw them coming. To the north, they were coming. The south gate hadn’t been breached yet, but that was the direction of the Skyport. He needed to stay close enough for the lure to work, but far enough that the citizens could escape. He fastened his shield on his left arm, cracked his neck, and pulled out a few direwolf steaks in his right hand.

“How are you going to handle all of those monsters?” Yuki asked as she watched Aegis wielding shield and steak with a confused expression.

“Hehe,” laughing uncomfortably as he winked at her, “No idea.” He said before preemptively biting into a steak to get his stamina regeneration buffs going. He couldn’t idle around any longer, a group of 15 reapers were swooping towards him eagerly from the east, so he ran west towards the city square. At full speed he was able to stay ahead of them, but in reality all he was doing was running towards different enemies, as the western side of the city was being swallowed by the dark mist.

“Healing wind!” He preemptively casted on himself as he arrived at the townsquare where the largest, main roads of Arallia all intersected around a fountain. Down the western and northern roads Aegis saw hoards of abysslings barreling towards him, and behind him from the east came the swarm of Reapers from above. He was far enough west away from the roads that the citizens would be taking to go south, so he took advantage of the south roads being clear and ran in that direction. After making it a few meters down the south road he glanced back to see the townsquare that he’d just been standing at swarming with abysslings. He felt it, the fear creeping up on him - the same fear he’d felt the first time he saw the darkness overtake Hrath’mir, but he was used to it now. He was able to shake it off and ignore it, and keep running forward. The very ground he stepped on began to tremble from the stampede of abysslings torrenting towards him, ramming into each other and grinding their skin against the buildings that lined the streets.

The screeching cries of the reapers were the bigger problem though, they were ignoring the layout of the city and simply flying over the abysslings to close in on him quickly, and there were just too many to try and block their attacks. The numbers of 15 from the east had merged with the reapers from the north and west, and some had swerved around ahead of him to cut him off. He’d seen this before, they were forming a death spiral around him just as they had done to the Avatar of Eirene’s light dome. He knew he absolutely could not let the reapers surround him, but he was losing control of the situation as ahead of him at an intersection he saw several had dove down to block his path.

The roads overrun in front of him, and behind him, buildings to his left and right, Aegis took a chance when he spotted an Arallian home with its door left open on his right. His feet skidded against the sand covered paved streets as he forced his sprint to a halt to switch directions, dashing into the building to avoid his head on collision with the swarm of reapers.

He couldn’t rely on hiding, the lure prevented that, he had to keep running. He desperately scanned the interior of the house and spotted no back door, but a back window large enough to jump through. He pushed the curtains aside and leapt out into a back alley and saw a backdoor of another house, closed, across from him. He elbow checked the door with all his might to break through the wood, then navigated to the front door of the small two room house quickly and swung it open, finding himself out onto the neighbouring street. He’d avoided the intersection but the reapers were readjusting their swarm towards where he’d moved, and Aegis could hear the abysslings barreling through the structures behind him.

Can’t stop, Aegis thought as he bit into another Direwolf steak to keep his stamina as close to maximum as possible. Despite the simple minds of the beast, the reapers were correctly blocking the south before he’d even attempted to keep running in that direction, as if some sort of hivemind was in control of their movements. He was now standing on a road that went north to south, but the north was being overrun by abysslings that’d followed him using the alleyways, and the south had dozens of angry screeching reapers swooping down and perching, preparing to attack him.He thought about the buildings on the west side of the road, but the risk of getting a dead end was too high.

“Fuck it.” Aegis said as he dashed at a cart sitting beside one of the houses, using it as footing to launch himself up onto an overhang on the building, then jumping off of that to get on the roof. From the rooftop he was more vulnerable to the reapers, but their swarming tactics seemed manageable as long as he didn’t let them encircle him completely. He was more worried at the abysslings that, from atop the building, he could see completely covered the streets of Arallia all around him. It looked horrifying, as if the roads of the city had come to life and were all wriggling towards him from how packed tight they were of screeching abysslings, resembling tiny hairless Ferrawolves.

To the south, over the southern wall, Aegis could see the Skyport now that he was up on the buildings, and magic spells were flashing from its defenders. The dark mist had reached the southern side of the Skyport, but the citizens hadn’t reached the Skyport yet. Aegis knew that if he kept running southward, even though safer, he wouldn’t buy them much time. As soon as he died, everything chasing him would go after the others - ideally he needed to get as far from them as possible before that happened. Looking northward Aegis saw that while the base of the mountain was covered in the black mist, the waterfall and upper levels of the mountain including the Monastery of the Stars were still above the mist.

He had only a few seconds to gather this information and make his decision, and he made it. He dashed northward towards the oncoming swarm of abysslings and reapers, and into the black mist. The buildings of Arallia were built close together, some conjoined, and Aegis was easily able to jump between the gaps when needed thanks to his agility and strength stats.

The reapers that had predominantly been focused on swerving to cut off his southern path went into disarray the moment he began running north, as if this was unpredicted behaviour, and their swirling swarm broke up and fanned out in all directions, blacking out the stars from the sky above him. The screeching and stampeding sounds were so loud he couldn’t hear his own feet hitting the rooftops of the buildings he jumped on, but he saw their disarray and knew he had to take advantage.

Whatever hive mind mentality was controlling the reapers, it was trying to outsmart him by predicting where he’d go and cut him off, so he just had to keep being unpredictable, he thought. He reached the end of this row of houses as he thought this. A large gap from the street below stood between him and more houses to the north. He had arrived at an intersection where roads from all directions met, and he had no easy way to keep moving anywhere but west or back south from where he’d come, and it was apparent the reapers were aware of this.

They began swarming circular patterns to his south and west to block any possible path he might have across those buildings. Aegis looked down and saw the flood of moving abysslings below him, screeching up at the side of the building as they stood on their hindlegs against the walls and bore their fangs up at him, snapping wildly as saliva flung from their jaws, climbing on top of each other and slowly reaching higher and higher up the buildings.

“Guard.” Aegis said as he created a projection of his shield in front of himself for 2 seconds, and when he did, he tried something he’d been curious about since he got the skill. He tried touching the front of the shield gently with his hands, to see if it would pass through it. It didn’t - the shield blocked his hand as if it was a solid object for the two seconds it was hovering there. Aegis took a deep breath as he bent his knees nervously. Even he thought that what he was about to try and do was a bit too much. He gave one last reluctant glance to the south, and to the west, and confirmed that he’d die immediately to reapers if he tried running across those rooftops, then leapt forward off the building with all his might towards the north.

At first, it seemed as though Aegis was jumping to his death into the swarm of the abysslings on the street below.

“GUARD!” Aegis shouted, creating a projection of the shield below his feet in the middle of the air, causing him to land on it and hover above the swarms of abysslings. The moment he did it, the reapers realized what he was doing and they broke up their western and southern formations. “One. Two.” Aegis counted the timer, then jumped again with all his might upwards and forwards, now standing above thousands of swarming abysslings roaring up at him.

“GUARD!” He shouted again, catching himself from falling down using the shield projection. “ONE. TWO.” His voice was shaking as he timed it, and jumped again forward, now halfway over the street and nearing the buildings on the northern side. “GUARD!” He casted it a third time. “ONE. “ He bit his Direwolf steak to refill his stamina. “TWO.” muffled by his chewing, he jumped with all his might again. “GUARD!” he casted it a fourth time. He was now close enough to jump the rest of the way to the buildings on the north side of the street and did exactly that, and used the momentum from the jump to keep running forward, now on the northern rooftops

“ARE YOU FUCKING SEEING THIS SHIT?! WHO THE FUCK IS THIS KID?!” Tommy shouted excitedly into his call with Shinji, while Shinji frantically angled the camera of Aegis’ livestream to keep not only his main player Aegis in focus, but he’d maneuvered one of the cameras towards the south to get a long-range angle on the Skyport and keep track of how close the citizens and Yuki were to reaching the Airship. Shinji’s fingers were moving a mile a minute, each finger performing an individual editing task, as if he was a musician plucking invisible strings in the air.

“Unbelievable use of the Shield Mastery Intermediate guard skill. Aegis manages to cross the open chasm of enemies and reach the buildings on the north side of the street!” Hae-won shouted into her broadcast as she was visibly tense watching the scene unfold. She’d overcome the anxiety of broadcasting to a viewership of now 1.4 million viewers, and replaced it with her anxiety of watching to see if Aegis would succeed.

Aegis was within the black mist now, making it much harder to see, but thanks to him being on top of the buildings it wasn’t quite as thick yet as it would’ve been if he were on the ground level. As he ran along the rooftops northward, he could no longer see the swarming abysslings down below him on the street, but he could certainly hear them. He hoped he could narrow his focus to just the reapers so long as he stayed on the rooftops, and he saw a tall five story building up ahead a few buildings away that he could use to protect himself from them and buy time. But just as he was about to reach it he heard a loud deafening roar coming from the west.

An [Abyssal Juggernaut(Elite) - ??] was towering above the western walls of the city, visible as it stood several meters higher than the top of the wave of black mist. It stomped towards him and Aegis watched it step on and crush the outer walls of Arallia like they were made of putty, open its large tendril-covered mouth and let out a second, threatening roar of anger in his direction, its red eyes locking onto him. Its entire left hand was a giant black blade, its right hand a huge set of claws, its legs like large bull hind legs with hooves, and the top and sides of its head looking like a giant octopus had died on top of it.

“Oh, come on.” Aegis whimpered as he saw it, but as he did, the Juggernaut turned southward. Its attention was drawn by the flashing of magic from the Night Hunters defending the Airship. “It’s elite, it’s going to ignore me.” Aegis said out loud as he realized it. “Guys, there’s a Juggernaut elite coming towards you!” Aegis shouted into his party interface.

“A juggernaut? That’s the thing that destroyed the Island Stone.” Sapphire replied as she threw some healing magic to Herilon from behind him. Herilon was on the ground of the Skyport on the south side swinging his greatsword wildly at endless waves of abysslings, Tullan beside him, while Ren had transformed into a giant bear and was fending them off from the port side of the ship. Leonard was standing nervously at the stern, one hand on the helm as he looked around in all directions at the encroaching darkness. Quinn was firing endless streams of arrows that were dancing around the skies above them, killing any and all reapers that flew anywhere near the Airship.

“Aegis if that thing gets to us, I doubt we’ll be able to fight it off.” Quinn warned him. “We should think about taking off.” She turned to Leonard.

“Hang on, they’re almost here!” Leonard shouted as he pointed towards the southern gates, seeing that the gates were being opened and the people of Aralia were flooding out of the city towards them.

“Holy shit, yeh actually did it. They’re almost here.” Tullan shouted in disbelief as he saw it

“That won’t mean anything if that Juggernaut comes and smashes the ship like it did to the Island Stone.” Sapphire warned them.

“I’ll do something about it.” Aegis shouted back to them through the party interface.

Quinn gave a nervous look at Leonard, only to see him smile and nod back at her.

“Trexon!” Quinn shouted to him as he stood on the front of the ship, shooting magic out at abysslings that were making it around the others. “Stop spending your mana, get potions ready. The moment they get on the ship, open the portal.” Quinn ordered him before turning to Gregory who was watching everything unfold behind her.

“Gregory, lower the step ladder and add as much wood as you can from below deck to widen it and reinforce it, so they can get aboard and go through the portal faster.” Quinn ordered him. Gregory looked to Leonard for confirmation, and he gave a nod, so Gregory did as he was told.

“Aegis, the Arallian’s are going to be here in about 30 seconds. After that, it’s five minutes of portal and we’re out of here. Can you hold off for 5 more minutes?” Quinn asked him.

“I’ll try my best.” Aegis replied to them through the interface. "Wait. Knowing those bandit players, they're probably going to make a play for the Princess." Aegis added.

"I'm on it." Herilon grinned as he turned away from the Airship and started dashing towards the southern gates where the NPCs were.

"Seriously? Don't just leave me here." Sapphire groaned in frustration as she watched Herilon leave, and was forced to start fighting off abysslings with her holy flames.

“Alright. Tullan, alert everyone who's still in the guildhall back in Kalmoore. Tell them to prepare the Kordas guards. Have them clear the streets in front of the guild hall so they can funnel the refugees out of the portal room and the building, we can’t have any congestion, we gotta send em through fast.” Quinn ordered him and Tullan gave a nod. He took a step back from the battle behind Sapphire and started pressing buttons in his interface to communicate with the rest of the Night Hunter’s guild members.

"Really?!" Sapphire yelled annoyed at Tullan, now that she was the only one killing abysslings on the south side.

Herilon arrived at the southern gates of Arallia to see the NPCs flooding out of it and around him towards the Skyport. He did his best to not impede them as he carefully looked over the crowds. He saw no one injured, only afraid - the reapers and abysslings were completely ignoring them thanks to Aegis, and due to that, it looked like hundreds, possibly thousands of NPCs were flooding out towards him down the road. Eventually he'd spotted a group of five players wearing the familiar Blacklion tabard, they were prowling through the crowds of fleeing NPCs towards something.

Herilon followed their eyes to see what they were walking towards, and that's when he'd spotted Princess Savika in the crowd being escorted by Yuki and Celestian. As he saw her, the five Blacklion players all drew out their weapons, all of them playing the intermediate battlemaster class with two weapons in hand, 5 floating above them, They hadn't noticed Herilon yet, they were focused on Savika and pushing through the other unsuspecting NPCs to get to her. They were too close, and it was difficult for Herilon to use any wide range attacks without risking hitting the other NPCs.

"YUKI! HEADS UP!" Herilon shouted to her to get her attention, but the Blacklion players heard this as well and glanced between Herilon and Savika, giving him looks of recognition as they remembered who he was from the day the Airship landed in Arallia.

"It's that berserker!" The Blacklion guildleader shouted. "Quick, take her out!" He ordered, and they rushed at Savika. Yuki saw it in the last moment and positioned herself infront of Savika to absorb a few crossbow bolts aimed at her, taking the damage instead while Herilon leaped with great height into the air and crashed his feet down onto the shoulders of one of the battlemasters, plunging his greatsword down into him while releasing the same blue wave strike downward, killing him in one hit.

"Stealing Airships, ok. Robbing kings, I can understand. Assassinating little girls? That's a bit too much, don't you think?" Herilon shouted at them, causing all four to turn on him.

"He's just a stupid Kalmoorian berserker. Kill his ass!" The guildleader shouted as NPCs cleared out around them, running wide to avoid getting in the way of the fight.

"Go, get her to the Airship, I'll handle these guys." Herilon ordered Yuki and Celestian, and they both nodded and continued southward with the rest of the NPCs while protecting Princess Savika.

"Handle us my ass. What the fuck do you Kalmoorians think you're doing here anyway? This is Arallian business, so keep your noses out of it." The guild leader charged at Herlion, his battlemaster guildmembers joining in, forcing Herilon to strike out at and parry all four of their 7 weapons at once. He did so by making a large blue glowing light surround his greatsword and bent his knees for a moment, before swinging his blade wildly in a circle around him.

"Whirlwind." Herilon shouted as he cast the skill and spun around several times rapidly, spinning his Greatsword out at all of them at once. "Raging slash." He said as he finished the whirlwind, causing the spiral to release a blue slashing wave outward at the last second, in the direction of two of the battlemasters. The slash passed through their weapons and their armor, killing them both instantly. Herilon then turned and charged at the Guildleader and his last member, making unrelenting wide heavy swings at both of them as they struggled to block his attacks, and after a few, they were taken out. "Tch. Meta-chasing battlemasters, so weak." Herilon sighed with disappointment as he turned to walk alongside the rest of the fleeing NPCs towards the Airship.

Aegis had already given up running north towards the large 5 story building, instead heading westward to cut off the Juggernaut who was stomping through the city as if it were made of sand, buildings crushing underneath his feet. The reapers had already begun swarming and overtaking the northern building, so going west once again worked in his favor as being unpredictable, but Aegis wasn’t sure if that was a good thing yet.

Due to the Juggernaut moving through the city south eastward at an angle, Aegis knew he’d get to it in time to intercept it without needing to cross any large building gaps, but as he got closer he became more concerned about how to get its attention. He saw the Juggernaut look down at him briefly with a glance as he closed in.

“Healing Wind! Bless!” Aegis shouted, casting his brightest holy spells to cause them to shine through the darkness. The Juggernaut saw him cast these as well, but only glanced - it didn’t care enough to stop and turn to attack him. The Elite mob was not going to stop and focus on him, it was tunneling its focus on the Airship.

“How can I…” Aegis thought out loud as he was running out of time, the Juggernaut would soon stomp past him and the row of buildings he stood on, making it impossible for Aegis to pursue it. He watched as the giant hooves of the Juggernaut crashed down on a building right in front of him, and as it did, a desperate idea popped into Aegis’ head. As the Juggernaut lifted its back leg and prepared to swing it forward to stomp on more buildings-

“Guard!” Aegis shouted, forming his shield in front of the Juggernauts moving back leg. The back leg kicked into the shield and shattered it, but it impeded the legs movement enough that it caused the Juggernaut to lose its balance, forcing it to stumble forward and crash downward onto the streets of Arallia as it landed on one knee and caught itself with its claw hand. It crushed countless abysslings in this process, killing them.

You take 3303 Bludgeoning damage.

“Seriously? Just from it walking into my guard?” Aegis shouted angrily as he quickly started to heal himself. As he got two heals off, the reapers had backed away as if they were afraid of flying too close to the Juggernaut, and the Juggernaut stood back up and turned to glare at Aegis.

“Still ignoring me?” Aegis asked nervously as he looked back up into its red eyes for an ominous moment of silence. The Juggernaut then pulled its bladed arm back and prepared to swing it down on him. “That’s a nope.” Aegis nodded as he turned and started sprinting for his life. The blade was so large that the simple motion of pulling it back before a strike caused the wind to shift with its momentum, pulling the mist up with it, and as it swung downward towards Aegis the mist around him was pushed away from the force. Unable to outrun it in a straight line due to its length, Aegis was forced to jump over a wide gap between buildings to move to the next row over just milliseconds before the blade crashed down onto the ground, sending up large chunks of debris, dust, and billowing out a shockwave of black mist from the impact point. The rooftops of the building Aegis landed on shook violently as he landed and struggled to keep his footing.

Seeing it had missed, the Juggernaut let out a ferocious roar of anger at Aegis as it pulled its arm back and stomped forward, preparing to lunge towards him and strike again. Aegis wasn’t about to wait around for him to do this, and darted over the rooftops northward, going back on his track to heading for the 5-story building. Luckily, walking through the buildings of Arallia slowed the Juggernaut down and prevented it from sprinting after Aegis, but its long gigantic legs allowed for it to take big steps over the buildings as it pursued.

The good thing about being chased by the Juggernaut is that his footsteps were clearing away the abysslings on the ground wherever it stomped, and its tall form was causing the reapers to stay far off, but their dome-shaped spiral of death had already finished forming in a wide area around Aegis that included him and the Juggernaut. Aegis could no longer look up and see the stars despite there being no clouds, and he could barely catch glimpses of the mountain to the north through the flurry of leathery reaper wings swooping around him repeatedly.

After a few more building hops though, his luck ran out. The Reapers had finally mustered enough courage to start their assault, but only one or two at a time as he jumped over a few more buildings. They swooped down at him and he focused on avoiding their attacks, timing his jumps between the buildings while making sure to not slow down too much lest the Juggernaut catch up.

“Healing Wind!” Aegis casted on himself to help speed up his recovery from the bludgeoning damage. Another building more and he would reach the 5-story structure. He wasn’t sure what its purpose was, it looked almost like a Craftsman guild hall as he glimpsed into the windows, but he couldn’t idle and think about it for too long.

The roof was too high up for him to jump to, he had to jump instead through one of the open, glassless second story windows covered in curtains. He bent his knees as he jumped to fit through the open window and landed inside on the ceramic tiled floor of the building, and as he did he heard the doors down one floor burst open, and the scurrying of Abysslings making their way inside.

The ever present stomping of the Juggernaut continued to get closer as Aegis dashed across the building to a window on the opposite side, but as he got to it he saw that this window opened to a wide street below, there were no more buildings to jump to. Planning on using his same tactic as before with Guard to cross the street, he quickly perched himself up on the windowsill and prepared to jump out, but just as he did a group of roughly 10 reapers swooped down from the sky in front of him towards the window, angrily screeching, forcing Aegis back off the windowsill. He turned across the wide open structure to see the staircase leading from the first to the second floor covered in black abysslings as they stampeded up it onto his floor. Across the way, just beyond them, he saw the stairs leading to the third floor.

Aegis sprinted as fast as he could to reach the bottom of the stairs to the third floor just in time as the abysslings swarmed at him from behind. He was forced to, for the first time, use his actual shield and block two lunging bite attacks from the frontmost abysslings in the swarm as they nipped at his feet, but he was luckily able to brace them.

You take 163 Piercing damage.

You take 181 Piercing damage.

They were only level 20 abysslings, the real threat was their numbers, but that worked to Aegis’ advantage as he rushed up the stairs to the third floor and the abyssling swarm fought each other for space on the staircase behind him to give chase, slowing them down. As soon as Aegis reached the third floor he looked around to try and find the stairs up to the fourth floor. He found himself looking down random stretches of hallways, with no clear idea of which way to go. He had to guess, there wern’t even any windows. He ran down the hall and started swinging doors open, only to find windowless rooms stocked with crates and barrels. He was in some sort of storehouse, and this floor had no windows on it in order to keep the resources secure. The more doors he opened and saw no way out, the more he panicked as he heard the swarming abysslings claws' tapping on the tiles of the third floor behind him.

He’d made nearly a full loop around the third floor before he finally spotted at the end of a hallway the staircase leading up to the fourth floor. He sprinted straight towards the staircase, but as he did, he felt a familiar shifting in gravity, and all of his instincts told him to stop. He listened, skidding another meter across the tile floor as he tried to stop his sprint and back up, and as he did, the large black blade of the Juggernaut came crashing down from the roof above, slicing clean through the building from the fifth floor above him all the way down to the first floor, leaving a giant gaping cut through the center of the structure.

The majority of the roof had been destroyed from the attack and the structural integrity of the building had seriously been compromised, the floor beneath Aegis’ feet began crumbling apart. He quickly recomposed his balance and made a wide leap over the cut in the building as soon as the Juggernaut had pulled his blade arm back.

“Guard!” Aegis shouted, using it as a stepping stone to clear the gap in the floor and reach the other side where the staircase to the fourth floor was. He made it across and rushed up the stairs just as three reapers swooped into the ruined building and tried to bite at him mid jump, barely missing. The Juggernaut followed Aegis running through the structure with his big red eyes and stuck its blade arm into the ground for balance before taking a wide clean swipe at the top half of the structure with its claw.

Its arm was huge, and thanks to that, gravity made its movements slower, giving Aegis time to see it coming. Aegis quickly slid back down the stairs from the fourth floor back to the third floor just in time as the claw crashed through the building and completely removed the fifth and fourth floors, sending them flying down off into the street to the north. Seeing that it’d missed, the Juggernaut let out a horrifying roar of anger at Aegis as he scrambled to get back to the fourth floor, which now had no walls or ceiling.

He’d lost any protection he had from the reapers now, they were swarming down at him from all directions, but looking northward he saw that the ruined top half of the structure provided Aegis with a bridge across the open street. It wouldn’t last long, the abysslings were already swarming up the rubble, he had to act fast.

Aegis jumped from the third floor down onto the rubble of the top half of the building, landing on it into a roll as from all directions abysslings began to swarm up the broken building parts from all sides. He ran as fast as he could northward to get back onto the rooftops, but the rubble had provided not only Aegis a way up to the buildings on the north side, but the abysslings as well, and as he got up and started jumping from building to building northward, the abysslings followed behind him.

The reapers swarmed down in front of him, now being more aggressive in predicting his path and trying to catch him mid air every time he jumped. Luckily this part of the city was dense with residential homes and he had plenty of rooftops to jump between, not going just north but straying left and right to avoid their attacks. The dark mist was thicker and higher up now and it was getting increasingly difficult to see anything below his waist the further north he ran, giving him a hard time in catching a proper footing as he jumped over the alleyways.

The only hope he had to hang onto is that he was in the home stretch, he could see that there were no more roads between him and the northern walls of Arallia, and he saw that the mountain and waterfall were still above the mist without any abysslings swarming on it yet. But he could sense it- just by looking at the position of the Monastery at the top of the mountain relative to the night sky, even though he only glanced for a second, it was obvious. Kriene was sinking into the abyss.

The Juggernaut continued stomping behind him but Aegis did his best to stay in the thick of the buildings, so that it’d have the most difficulty keeping up with him, but there was still one major obstacle between Aegis and the north walls of the city - the death spiral of reapers that was now thickly formed around him in the shape of a dome. There was only one way Aegis could think of that would allow him to get through that swarm, and he took a chance on it. He let the Juggernaut catch up to him just as he neared the walls of the reaper death spiral, and waited for the Juggernaut to take his wide swing.

The Juggernaut, once close enough, did exactly that. He lifted his blade arm up into the sky and struck it downward towards Aegis, and as he did, the reapers in front of the blade swarmed outward to avoid it, creating a small opening in their death spiral and momentarily causing disarray. Aegis took advantage of it and this time ran straight north underneath the downward striking blade, sprinting and dashing with every ounce of stamina he had to outrun the tip of it and jump over the last rooftops before the northern wall.

As the blade crashed down behind him, Aegis felt a violent force of wind blow at his back from the impact, he could’ve sworn it was so close to hitting him that it’d cut into the back of his leather armor, but he wasn’t about to check. He’d made it out of the reaper spiral and made one last big leap to land on the inside staircase of the Northern walls of Arallia, just to the left of the north gate. As he did, Abysslings swarmed up the stairs, but Aegis ran up ahead of them to get on top of the northern walls.

There were swarms of Abysslings on the outside of the wall too, and it was covered in black mist, but the walls themselves were above the mist. There was no way he was going to get over that swarm to reach the part of the mountain still above the mist - he knew that even if he used his Guard strategy to stay above the swarm, it’d be too slow and either the reapers or the juggernaut would pick him off.

His only chance was the river. He saw it as he looked to the east where the river from the waterfall flowed into the city through the canals and a hole in the northern walls of Arallia. But he was out of breath, and his stamina was getting low. He tried to recollect himself and eat a few Direwolf steaks in the time it took the abysslings to push their way up the narrow staircase onto the wall, and in that time the reapers had begun to reform their death spiral, creating a new dome of black wings around his new position. The juggernaut stomping behind him meant he had a very limited amount of time to get to the river.

“I really hope these things can’t swim.” Aegis said to himself as he began his sprint across the northern walls of Arallia. It was a lot easier to run at full speed along the wall, there were no obstacles on it, no jumping required, and no mist to obscure his vision. Aegis put his shield into his inventory to lessen his weight and sprinted with everything he had, trying his best to not let the reapers re-organize and cut him off. All his time that he’d spent exercising in the real world, running on a treadmill and lifting weights, he brought in every bit of knowledge he had to run as fast as he could, squeezing out every ounce of productivity from his strength, constitution, and agility stats.

Attribute Up!: You've gained +1 Agility

As if the game was mocking him, Aegis waved the notification away, and within a few more seconds he’d arrived at the section of the wall overlooking the canals. The water was flowing into the city through grates at the base of the wall, southward into the city. Aegis was happy to see that the abysslings were swarming around the edge of the river, but none of them were swimming in it. He didn’t have much time to think on his next course of actions though, as a few reapers swooping down at him made the decision for him. Aegis jumped forward off of the wall into the river, now out of the city on the northside.

As he jumped, the reapers swooping at him pulled up, none brave enough to dive into the water after him, and he desperately swam against the current. As he did, he poked his head over the surface of the water and watched the abysslings screeching at him from the shores, unwilling to dive in after him, while the Reapers swarmed overhead. They continued this for a bit, Aegis spotting the Juggernaut still closing in on him. Aegis was hardly making any headway in the river as he was swimming against the current. He’d barely gotten a few meters away from the wall since he’d jumped in the water when he saw the Juggernaut closing in, and he knew he was out of tricks.

“Guys, I don’t think I can hold them much longer.” Aegis said into the party interface.

“We got ‘em, Aegis.” Tullan said encouragingly.

“The last of the Arallian survivors are through the portal, Aegis.” Quinn added, as Aegis looked and saw another member had joined their party, Yuki.

“The Princess is safe, thank you!” Yuki cheered at him.

“Ah, phew.” Aegis let out a huge sigh of relief. He stopped struggling against the current. He didn’t need to do anything else anymore, he thought.

“It’s just you and Priestess Clara left.” Leonard said.

A jolt of anxiety shot through Aegis.

“W-wait, what? Where’s Priestess Clara? Sapphire?!” Aegis asked them worriedly through the interface.

“I dunno, the last time I saw her she was staying back at the Monastery with you.” Sapphire replied nervously.

Aegis looked up towards the Monastery of the Stars at the top of the mountain, lanterns lighting the walls to make it visible through the swarms of reapers around him.

“Fuck.” Aegis shouted in frustration.