Chương 96: Chapter 94: A battle of stamina

I fight on, gritting my teeth against the pain until I can cast Shell again. I'm covered in little cuts and nicks, bleeding from what feels like a hundred different places, but I'm still fighting. My stamina is draining by five per second, even with my two per second regeneration. I can still keep this up for hours. But I notice that the orcs are getting tired, too. They're getting tired, and it's slowing down their attacks. They can bring in fresh reinforcements, though. And I'm sure they will. Behind me.

But between me and the girls there are maybe two hundred orcs who can't withdraw, can't really run anywhere because they're too busy fighting and dying against the three of us. It's ridiculous. Ludicrous. This wouldn't work in my old world. No one person could fight against this many opponents and win. No one could take damage the way I am and still fight on. I feel like I'm one of the ancient Greek heroes from the Iliad, all but impervious to harm and slaughtering my way through the Trojan army.

I feel like I could get into a fight with a lake spirit and kill it on my way. Like I could kill Hector and then drag him behind my chariot. I'm not Achilles, though. But I might kind of look like him, from a distance. If you squint your eyes and you have no idea what Achilles actually looked like, I mean. But I'm moving ever forward through the horde of orcs, killing my way to my friends, who are killing their way to me with much greater alacrity.

For every step I take towards the girls, they take three steps towards me. I may be doing a better job actually killing orcs, but they're doing a great job breaking through the line.

"Caleb!" El screams as she whirls her axes around, chopping orcs left and right.

"You good?" I glance at my health. The Shell is still good for about five thousand hit points. The Shell cooldown is marked in my vision. I still have three minutes and thirty seconds before I can cast it again.

"I don't know!" I shout back. I look at her health.

"Recast Shell!" I shout at her.

"Right," she says, pausing in her rampage for a second to cast the spell again. Ash reaches out and casts a healing spell on her, and El's health rockets back up above ten thousand. I shoulder check another orc. I feel like I'm in a mosh pit as much as I'm in a heated battle, pushing people out of the way as I try to get to my friends. I duck down, avoiding several blows to the head, and then I rocket forward, knocking down the orc in front of me and taking his place, stabbing him as he tries to stand.

I get double damage from a critical hit and double damage from a sneak attack when I hit a prone enemy. That's good to know. And 1, 924 damage is a lot, even to an orc at full health. When I link up with the two of them, my Shell goes down again. I fight back to back with Ash, and I start taking a lot less damage. With her at my back, there are fewer orcs who can hit me at once, and the spells are finally starting to die down. I'm guessing that they're running out of MP. They've definitely been using enough of it.

This battle is absolutely exhausting. Fights aren't supposed to go on this long. I can see that Ash is breathing heavily, and so is El, though she's still laughing as she fights, and still whirling around like a madwoman. Her Shell isn't down yet, but I make a mental note to keep an eye on her so I can tell her to cast it again when it finally does go down. She can probably keep fighting forever if she remembers to do that.

She didn't have to spend a whole lot of mana getting into the camp and casting Mab's Fury, so she should have several thousand to go through. I don't think she has much presence, but I know that her lowest score is around sixty, so she's got to have at least 1800. That's a lot of castings of Shell. And if she takes just three thousand damage per minute, she can keep recasting it every time it drops down. She is truly unstoppable. The stamina drain increases again, and I stop using Vital Slash and Bleeding Strike.

I need my stamina to keep me moving quickly. I can tell the orcs who are out of stamina. Their attacks slow down dramatically, to about one third of their normal pace, and their defenses become practically worthless. I can see the orcs who would run away if they could, but are stuck in the battle now because they decided to close the gap between us and the edge of the forest. We've got forty or so feet to the edge. Forty or so feet before the archers can start supporting us.

Forty or so feet before we can get somewhere that will let us actually survive this insane stunt. I cast Healing Touch on myself again, bringing me back up to about eleven thousand hit points, and I take a moment to check my MP. I might actually make it. I'm going to need a long time to recover everything, but I might just survive. I wonder how many levels I'll gain. Ash grunts behind me, and I look over my shoulder to see that she has become a bit of a pin cushion.

There are at least three spears stabbing into her right now, jammed between the plates of her armor. Her Shell is down, and it looks like she's down below half health. And I can't heal her, because my Healing Touch is on cooldown. Will she last another forty eight seconds before I can cast it again? I slice across the throat of an orc in front of me, making him draw back, only to be replaced by another orc. I'm fighting on the side facing their camp, so I have all fresh troops to fight.

Ash is fighting the exhausted ones. That's okay. That'll keep her alive longer. I'm still taking about two thousand damage a minute. I think I can handle that. I think I can survive. I can't believe I'm going to survive this. Don't celebrate yet. I still need another minute and a half before I can cast Shell again. And I only have 250 MP left. That's not so good. How long is it going to take us to get those last forty feet? Do I have the time, can I handle the damage, to make it that far?

I hear a cry, then a horn, and then the orc attack picks up the pace a bit. More fresh soldiers start coming in, replacing the exhausted ones. This is the real problem with trying to take on an entire army with just the three of us. The army can keep replenishing its numbers, pulling out the wounded and the tired and replacing them with fresh troops. The damage starts to pick up again. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

And then, even worse, the spells start again. And not just directed spells. A bolt of lightning shoots through me from above, making my teeth rattle and dealing 20 damage to me. That's not a lot, but it's more than has been dealt to me by a spell in a long time. We've been fighting this retreating action for what feels like weeks, and the casters have upped their game. The lightning strikes hit their own soldiers too, but they seem to have decided that it's worth it to be able to deal damage to us. Terrific.

I cast Healing Touch on Ash. Then I recast Shell on myself. Then I yell to El to recast her shell. She's completely surrounded, and seems to love it that way, whirling around and striking out in random directions at anyone and everyone. But she continues to fight like she doesn't need defense, and she is covered in blood. More red than black. I feel Ash take a step forward, and I take a step back to keep up with her. A little bit closer to the relative safety of the field.

A little bit closer to actually surviving this attack. We're going to be more than heroes if we survive this. We'll be legendary. No one will want to mess with us. Plus we'll probably gain a bunch of levels. Even sharing the experience with all the archers, we'll probably get hundreds of thousands of experience points for all these orcs. I don't know how many the spell took out, but I'm guessing it's more than last time. And I feel like I've killed a hundred orcs just myself trying to get out of there.

Another few steps, another few dozen times of getting stabbed. A mace cracks into my head, dazing me for a few seconds. During those few seconds, a spear jabs into my stomach. It deals 224 damage, the most I've taken in a while. I reach down and yank the spear out of my body. I start getting notifications, which I ignore, that I'm pretty sure are telling me that I'm bleeding. Great. So that 224 damage is more like 466 damage. And it got through my Shell. How did my Shell go back down so quickly?

How much longer do I have until I can cast it again? Three minutes and change. This is not good. I think I can survive this, probably. Three minutes of fighting to stay alive should be doable. A minute goes by, and we move a little bit closer to the edge of the trees. Stamina is draining even faster than before, and I'm starting to wonder if the orc army will ever run out of fresh troops. It seems like every time I hit someone, they back away and get replaced by a fresh fighter.

I'm not the one trying to clear the way back to the field, but it just seems like I'm never going to get another kill. But I keep at it, slashing and stabbing, ducking and dodging attacks. I can't dodge to the side too much, or they'll go past me and hit Ash in the back. She doesn't have to dodge with her shield and all that armor, so I don't have to worry about her doing that to me, but I have to pay attention so that it doesn't happen to her. My health keeps plummeting, and I'm not entirely sure why.

Then I see a debuff in the corner of my vision. Apparently, I've been poisoned. I'm only taking 25 points of poison damage a second, but it just keeps going. That accounts for 1500 points a minute. That explains the plummeting. The spear that jabbed into my body must have been poisoned. Another minute, and I have to use mana to cast Healing Touch again, adding six thousand hit points back up.

My MP is now down to 200, and is going to go down even lower if I survive another minute after this and can cast Shell again. I'm down to about eight thousand hit points, and I'm still taking about 2000 a minute from the soldiers, 1000 a minute from magic, and now 1500 a minute from poison. How much is that a minute? 4500. Okay. I should be able to survive another minute. That'll get me to Shell again. Two minutes later, and the poison is still going. How long is that going to last?

My Shell is back up, but it's not going to last more than another minute or two. And that won't be enough time for me to cast it again. I'll be able to heal myself one more time, but if we don't get out of this forest, I think I'm going to die. I look back at Ash. She's not looking too good. She's down under two thousand hit points. I cast Healing Touch on her, which means I now can't cast it on myself for another minute. El is bloody, but her health is still up pretty high.

I can't even tell how far we are from the safety of the open field. Not that it necessarily means safety; it just means backup for our attack. I think we're getting close, but I can't afford to look away from what I'm doing. I'm fighting an endless stream of orcs that just seem to be swapping out with one another on a near constant basis, attacking me with swords and spears. It's a good strategy. The ones with swords and axes stay up in melee with me, and the ones with spears attack around them.

I don't make any real progress killing anyone, because every time I do any serious damage, they pull back and get replaced by another orc. I doubt I've gotten anyone under ten thousand hit points in the past several minutes. My stamina is draining faster now too. I'm losing eight points of stamina per second, even with my regeneration. We've been fighting forever, it seems, and even my body is starting to give way. My stamina is down below two thousand.

I can keep fighting for another few minutes, but not much more than that. We need to break out of the trees, or else all three of us are going to die. I risk a quick glance over my shoulder, and am rewarded with an axe chop to my neck that Shell thankfully blocks. In the brief glance, I was able to see that we're close to the edge of the forest, and that the orcs on that side of us, the ones surrounding us, are starting to thin out.

I have about 140 MP left, my Shell is still good for another 4000 hit points, and I still have about 7000 of my own hit points. Even still, I can see my death coming. They're still casting spells on us, area of effect spells as well as the direct spells that do little bits of damage to me. The poison is still working its way through my body. If I survive this, the next talent I take is going to be something to deal with poison damage. That much damage should've killed just about anyone.

1500 a minute is a lot of damage. The real problem is that it keeps draining my actual hit points by that amount, not the Shell. With the damage I'm taking from other attacks, my Shell will last me a little more than another minute and a half, which is just two minutes shy of the next casting of Shell. But my hit points are draining from the poison. So in that minute and a half I'll lose another 2250 from my 7000. And then I'll have two minutes to survive with less than five thousand hit points to do it.

At least I'll be able to cast Healing Touch again. Ash grunts, and I feel her shudder behind me. I think she's getting injured, because she seems to have slowed down a bit. Is she out of stamina? Shit, I didn't think of that. They might run out of stamina a lot faster than I do. I don't think they regenerate stamina. El might. She might regen stamina and health. But I think Ash just regenerates health. So she's going to get much slower. Which means she's going to take a lot more damage. We have to get out of here.

I cast Healing Touch on Ash again, trying to keep her going. I can hear her gasping for breath, and I'm starting to think that hit points aren't what's going to be a problem in this battle. Stamina is going to decide it for us. Can we get out of the woods in time for that to make a difference? I hear El roar, and hear bodies clashing into each other. Is that just normal, or is it a last desperate attempt to break free? Is she running low on stamina too? I've still got about 1400. How much more do the others have?