Samofthepen
patreon
Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 160
🕑 Added 2024-11-07 14:22:49 +0000 UTCI readied myself as I observed the clawed hand rake the sand in front of the box before it retreated into the darkness of the metal box.
After that, it was silent for seconds, but I could almost feel some form of feral and menacing killing intent coming from those metal boxes, elevating the suspense of when the Ghouls would attack.
Suddenly, I felt a spike of that feral and wild menacing killing intent, and the rightmost Ghoul leaped out of its box and started running at me in bounding leaps on all fours, followed immediately by the other two Ghouls.
They were gaunt creatures with a terrifyingly skeletal, emaciated appearance. Their skin was pale and sickly gray, stretched tightly over protruding bones, with a rough, almost decayed texture. They have elongated limbs, sharp claws, and sunken, hollow eyes that glint with a predatory hunger. Their mouths are filled with sharp, discolored teeth, perfect for tearing flesh.
When the first Ghoul reached me, I performed the same move I used to kill the first Verminar, but despite being undead, it seemed to have excellent reaction as I brought its left arm up to block my sweeping strike from taking its head.
What I did hit instead, was in between its ring and middle finger, cutting down its arm until I reached the elbow. But as the announcer warned, it did not react at all as its other clawed hand was wound up and ready to claw me.
Seeing that my spear was caught in the Ghoul’s arm and it was about to hit me, one of my options was to abandon my spear and draw my sword, but I chose differently and twisted my body to follow through with the sweeping strike while using my whole body for some extra torque.
This sent the first Ghoul flying, leaving me wide open for the other two Ghouls. But I was prepared for this and unleashed a wave of Earth Spikes in their general direction.
This caught the other two Ghouls off guard and ate a few blows to their bodies, but to my dismay, it was then that I discovered that the Ghouls’ skeletal and emaciated appearance was not as fragile as it looked, because the furthest my Earth Spikes managed to penetrate into them was at most an inch or two, in other words, I did fuck all in terms of damage and bought myself a few seconds before they came at me again.
I used that few seconds to dash to the first Ghoul I injured and stabbed my spear at its head, but despite being undead, it seemed to have some sense of self-preservation and dodged its head out of the way.
But instead of counter-attacking me, it turned its attention away from me and went after the carcass of one of the Verminar that I killed in the first round. When I gave chase, it carried the carcass along while trying to open up more space between us. This gave the other two Ghouls time to recover and interrupted my pursuit of the first Ghoul.
I blocked, parried, and counter-attacked the two Ghouls who were attacking me wildly with fangs and claws, but as I was doing so, I occasionally glanced at the Ghoul that grabbed the carcass. I had an idea of what was going to happen to the dead Verminar, but this was something I had to see for myself.
Sure enough, when the Ghoul thought that the other two Ghouls currently attacking me would more than keep me busy, its jaw opened unnaturally wide and bit off half of the dead Verminar’s head, skull and all.
By the second bone-crunching bite that took off the rest of the Verminar’s head, I noticed that the arm that I split down to the elbow started knitting itself back together. I had to stop that Ghoul from regenerating any further!
I defended against a few more blows while waiting for an opening, and that opening came very fast as the two Ghouls swung their claws at my upper body at the same time, this gave me the opportunity to duck under their strikes, sweep the leg of one with my spear, to balance my sweeping strike from an awkward position, I kicked out my leg to balance my sweeping strike, and that kick landed center mass of the other Ghoul, sending him flying.
I used my few seconds of freedom to flood my arm with as much aura as I could and hurled my spear at the regenerating Ghoul with all I had. The momentum of my throw made me do a forward somersault, but I managed to get back on my feet and drew my sword as my legs carried me forward.
When my eyes rested on the Ghoul I threw my spear at, I saw it thrashing against my spear that pierced through the middle of its thigh and solidly embedded itself into the ground.
With its mobility taken away, I made short work of the pinned Ghoul and killed it in three strikes, the first two took off its arms it sacrificed to protect the head, and my last strike split the head down the middle, making its body fall limp.
But the few seconds I bought myself was up before I knew it. As I was about to decapitate the head of the first Ghoul, just to make sure it did not put its head back together after a while, I heard footsteps fast approach me again, and whipped around with my sword, cleaving through an arm and embedding itself into one of the remaining two Ghouls.
To avoid having the Ghoul my sword was stuck in, crash into me, I followed through with my strike, directing the Ghoul to the side. But when I pushed the Ghoul to the side, it revealed the other Ghoul charging at me, and it was too late for me to do anything.
The charging Ghoul tackled me to the ground, pinned my arms with its own, opened its fanged-filled mouth wide, and lunged down toward my face.
