Spiteful Healer

Earlier…

Skar and his party were gathered inside their arena waiting room, huddled together in a misshapen circle with one other individual. The individual, [Camei - Level 9], was wearing the same tabard as Daehyun and his guildmates wore, and the symbol woven into the front of it matched the symbols that were on the banners and tapestries hanging all around the city of Stormtop.

Camei was holding out several parchments with etchings on them, facing them towards Skar’s party as they listened to his words closely and analyzed the parchments.

“Pyri’s going to remain your top priority, so regardless of anything else you do, make sure you take her out,” Camei explained.

“Why’re we going for Lina first, then?” Hunger asked curiously.

“Her mobility allows her to reach the shell in the time it’d take to eliminate Pyri, so taking her out first is smarter. Once she’s gone, Pyri. Then, Rakkan, if possible. His echoes give him a lot of combat potential, which we haven’t been able to fully understand yet, given the limited number of players that use his class in PvP.” Camei replied earnestly. He motioned to the parchment once more. “If you have those three gone, Aegis and Darkshot shouldn’t be a threat. Execute the standard isolation tactic you guys have been practicing.”

Skar raised his eyebrows to Camei. “Are you sure? I’ve seen Aegis do some crazy stuff.”

“We’re sure. Aegis is a threat, definitely, but unlike the rest of his companions, there’s nothing particularly impressive about Darkshot. He’s simply Aegis’s best friend from high school. If the other three are gone, you might as well consider it a 1v5.” Camei shrugged.

“And what happens if he pulls some crazy stuff before that, and manages to keep one of his party members alive?” Darkless asked.

“He most likely will,” Camei replied with a nod. “The only predictable thing about how he’s played so far, from how he fought Finley and how he saved the Arallians, is that he’s completely unpredictable. But that, in itself, makes him predictable. You should anticipate that he’ll do something crazy and disrupt your strategy, most likely to save Rakkan.” Camei rolled up his parchments and looked each of Skar’s party members in the eyes briefly. “But as long as you take out Lina and Pyri, you guys should be fine. Don’t forget to make use of those high-level weapon enchantments on your gear.” Aspen nodded. “Got it.”

“And what happens if we don’t kill Pyri and Lina at the start?” Alicia asked, with an innocent curiosity in her voice.

“Hah,” Camei shook his head as he turned, preparing to leave the waiting room. “You guys won't stand a chance in hell.”

Out of breath, Aegis mended his wounds with several healing spells as Rakkan and his three echoes paced around Aegis. Each copy of Rakkan was facing off with a different member of Skar’s group. They now all stood on the side of the arena that Skar’s party had started on.

Aegis took stock of the situation, noting that Darkshot was drained entirely of mana after having cast Rain of Arrows. Rakkan was healthy with high stamina and only a bit of mana missing, and Aegis was good on stamina and still well above half of his available mana pool.

He also knew that all four opponents were perfectly healthy as well, though, as none of them had taken damage, and the only resources they’d expended so far were used towards the unique shield that Darkless had equipped.

“That shield is going to add an interesting dynamic to this fight,” Aegis said into his party communications, so that only Darkshot and Rakkan could hear it. “Even if we win this fight, if we don’t take this opportunity to learn its limits, we’ll be back at square one next round.”

“Looks like she can put our face on the shield, and any damage inflicted on the shield is sent to the person who owns the face,” Rakkan replied.

“Seems pretty simple to me,” Darkshot added.

“Maybe, but she’s not using it outside of the start of the fight. So it’s got to have a cooldown, or a duration - somehow deciding who and when she can imprint on the shield. We don’t know how long the cooldown is, though.” Aegis added. As he was speaking, he could see the mouths of Skar and his party members moving as well - just as Aegis was talking to his party, Skar was talking to them and coming up with a strategy on how to move forward.

Hae-won filled the silence as she observed from above. “Both parties are considering their next move. Skar’s group seemed unprepared for those reckless tactics that Aegis’s party employed, allowing them one more party member than they’ve had this far into a match, up until now. At the same time, they’re down their Sage. But Aegis has to be very careful about moving forward - they’re currently sitting at 0-2 score. If they mess this match up, they will be eliminated from the tournament. 4v3 is a much better situation to be in than 5v2, but Skar’s group seemed very well prepared for this match and may have anticipated such a scenario.” The tension inside the arena rose as members of the audience leaned forward in anticipation of the fight reigniting.

Aegis and his group, as well as Skar’s party, ignored her words.

“Got a plan?” Darkshot asked Aegis.

Aegis took a deep breath. “Barely.” He lifted his shield once more and flicked his wings briefly before extending them. “As much as I’d like to keep Darkless alive to learn more about the shield, we’ve got to take her out. Both of you, output as much damage as you can - prioritize outputting on Darkless, but any target will spend her mana. Focus on taking as little damage as possible, and I’ll heal through it and protect you. I’ll try to avoid hardcasting, but if he locks me out of divine magic, play defensively.”

“The cooldown for a guardian’s skill to lock you out of casting a type of magic is 30 seconds, but the duration of the lockout is only 10 seconds,” Rakkan explained.

“I know, meaning if he does lock me out, you’ll need to play defensively and protect each other for those 10 seconds. I can use my grand purification spell to recover from one lockout cleanly, but any after that will be sketchy, so let’s try to keep them defensive for as long as possible.” Aegis said. Darkshot and Rakkan nodded back.

“Blessing of Kuraokami!” Darkless cast, emitting a blast of blue magical energy that wrapped around the weapons of her companions.

“Bless. Aura of Healing. Aura of Beauty,” Aegis responded in kind, exploding out with two unique auras and refreshing the holy light that surrounded his, Rakkan, and Darkshot’s weapons.

“Looks like they’re starting by activating standard divine buffs,” Hae-won called it out.

Alicia made the opening move by launching a smoke bomb at Darkshot, which enveloped him in darkness. She used her shadowstep skill from the elongated shade of a pillar where she stood, reappearing inside the smoke around him. He quickly jumped backwards to disengage from the smoke, though.

Rakkan charged out of his defensive formation around Aegis, sending himself and all of his echoes in the direction of Darkless. Skar reacted by dashing towards Darkless, and together, both he and she began projecting shields in front of Rakkan’s echoes, breaking up their formation and forcing Rakkan to actively control them to maneuver them around the shield projections with his two forward charging echoes. At the same time, his third hung back with the crossbow and fired several bolts out towards Darkless. By the time the bolts had reached her, though, Skar was already in front with his shield and sword, parrying and bracing the bolts so that they inflicted minimal damage.

Hunger, on the other hand, rushed towards Aegis with his spear glowing blue from Darkless’s blessing.

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“Empowered strikes.” Hunger cast, causing the tip of his spear to glow both orange and blue, then lunging forward to strike at Aegis with the spear. Having fought him twice now, Aegis knew how this dance routine went - no matter how hard Aegis tried to get close enough to Hunger to retaliate with his wings and claws, Hunger expertly utilized the range granted to him by his spear to stay out of Aegis’ reach. He had to accept the limits of his class against players skilled in PvP, and didn’t even bother trying to retaliate.

Instead, he focused on using his wings defensively alongside his shield, taking as little damage as possible as he eyed his party interface. In the top right of his peripheral vision, he could see Pyri and Lina’s health bars sitting at 0, but Rakkan’s and Darkshots were still nearly full, with only their stamina fluctuating.

The battle played out in this way for a minute, allowing everyone to get a sense of the opponent's movements and playstyles, and Darkshot was the first to break up the sound of clashing metal within the arena.

“I can’t get any damn shots off with this Shadow dancer on me,” Darkshot yelled in frustration, forced to continuously jump in and out of smoke bombs and do his best to avoid the daggers of Alicia that were repeatedly swinging at him. Often, given her speed and angles of attack, he didn’t even see them but could hear the sound of her blades cutting through the air all around him.

He’d fought and practiced against Lina numerous times, only to learn that trying to kite a Shadow Dancer as a ranger was damn near impossible, and he was quickly realizing that, though not as good, Alicia wasn’t far behind Lina in skill. Despite his best efforts, he was still taking several hits - even when he could predict where she’d strike from, she was still too fast.

“It’s nothing but shields. Two shield users that are spamming projections - I’m barely dealing damage.” Rakkan joined in on the frustration. Aegis eyed Rakkan and his echoes being managed by Darkless and Skar, while Darkless occasionally threw out heals to offset any damage taken. At the same time, Aegis saw that he couldn’t do much to counteract the range being exhibited by Hunger.

“They’re gonna keep this formation until we make a mistake," Aegis had the realization and shared it with his party. “We’re still dancing to their tune.”

“What else are we supposed to do against this?” Darkshot sighed back at him in anger.

“Change the music.” Aegis dug his heels into the ground. “Darkshot, pinning shot this dragoon so I can hit him.”

“If I stop to shoot, the shadow dancer will be all over me.”

“I’ll heal through it.”

“Got it.” Darkshot took a deep breath and jumped up into the sky above the most recently fired smoke bomb. He released an arrow from his bow while, simultaneously, several shadow daggers shot out of the smoke at him from below, hitting him.

Aegis waved his right hand in Darkshot’s direction to project a shield beneath him, absorbing the strikes. Alicia jumped out of the smoke as well and landed softly on the topside of Aegis’ projection, using it as a foothold to get at Darkshot and slash out at him several times with her daggers, dealing large amounts of damage.

“Multishot, pinning shot.” Darkshot ignored the strikes as he cast these skills, causing his arrow to split and soar through the sky towards Aegis and Hunger. Hunger turned to face the incoming arrows and defensively jumped back away from them, readying his spear to parry the arrow glowing with the Pinning Shot that was mixed in with the others.

As it closed in, Darkshot took several more hits. Aegis canceled his single projection and created two more. One shield was projected behind Hunger to hinder his movements. The other was used to separate Alicia from Darkshot.

With these two actions, it seemed inevitable that Hunger would get hit, but at the last second, Skar projected a shield in front of Hunger to block the pinning strike and some of the multishot arrows. Others hit Hunger, but didn’t deal any significant amount of damage.

“He just blocked it. I took all that damage for nothing.” Darkshot shouted in frustration. As he did, Alicia chucked a smoke bomb over Aegis’ shield projection so that it exploded in the sky above Darkshot, then shadowstepped into it so that she’d fall on Darkshot from above. He quickly spun around and shot a grappling shot towards the ground where there was no smoke, then yanked on the rope that streamed out the end of his grappling shot arrow to propel himself downward and out of the path of the falling Alicia and her daggers.

“Fire it again,” Aegis instructed him. Darkshot expressed his displeasure with this command on his face, but no one saw it from within the arena, only Aegis’ viewers. He knew better than to hesitate or second-guess Aegis, though.

“Rakkan, obscure them with enlargement,” Aegis ordered, to which Rakkan nodded as he positioned himself in front of Darkless and Skar.

The moment Darkshot landed on the ground, he recomposed himself in an instant and pulled an arrow from his quiver and released it towards Hunger. Hunger still had his eyes on Darkshot and saw it coming, and watched the arrow split into a multishot, then eyed one of the arrows as it began glowing with the pinning shot spell, just like the previous attack.

Simultaneously, Alicia shadowstepped back into a cloud of smoke on the ground and dashed out of it towards Darkshot from behind, plunging them into his back. Aegis nervously eyed Darkshot’s health bar beginning to dip, taking more damage than the simple healing aura was able to sustain - he knew he was going to be forced to hardcast a heal on Darkshot soon to keep him alive.

“Rune: Enlarge!” Rakkan cast, causing his crossbow-wielding echo to gigantify as his main body and two melee echoes rushed at Skar and Darkless. The crossbow echo dashed to line itself up between Hunger, Darkless, and Skar, so that its body would cut off vision between them.

Hunger saw this and attempted to dash away to regain line of sight with his companions. Aegis gave up on all immediate defensive maneuvers with his shield projections and instead used them solely to box Hunger in and prevent him from getting back into view of Skar and Darkless. Similarly, on the other side of the gigantified echo, Rakkan used himself and his two melee echoes to limit Darkless and Skar’s movements.

The only hope left for Hunger to avoid the pinning shot now was his own spear, and he struck out at the Pinning Shot as it soared amongst the multishot arrows. He managed to knock it away, but Darkshot was ignoring Alicia, stabbing at his back in favor of controlling his arrows. He cast a second Pinning Shot on another one of the multishot clusters.

The second Pinning Shot arrow got through and pierced into Hunger’s shoulder, shooting out multiple vines from the impact point that dug into the sand-covered tiles of the arena floor, locking him in place. He grew a look of desperation on his face and started cutting at the vines with his spear, while Aegis lunged at him with his wings and claws.

“Darkshot, go defensive. Rakkan, keep the tank and healer away. I’ve got him!” Aegis shouted into his party interface. His heart began pounding inside his chest from adrenaline. An opportunity was given to him by the efforts of his companions that he knew he could not waste. In the time it took for Hunger to cut through the vines, Aegis closed the gap and threw his shield onto the ground, clipping his foot into the straps to drag it along. He used his right hand to grab Hunger’s shoulder and hold on to him, preventing him from escaping.

With him in the permanent range of Aegis, he was now able to retaliate against Hunger’s attacks appropriately and began slashing at him wildly with his claws and wings. Hunger desperately parried some of the strikes but was overwhelmed.

“Get this echo out of our faces!” Skar shouted, which prompted Alicia to abandon her attacks on Darkshot as he went defensive again. “Ignore Aegis and pierce it!” Skar ordered.

As Alicia appeared in the shadow of Rakkan’s gigantified crossbow echo, she slashed at its ankles with her daggers to deal massive damage. Hunger turned his spear away from Aegis, who was bearing down on him, and with incredible speed, thrust his spear forward towards the echo as if he was throwing it. The spear remained in his hand, but a copy of it made purely of orange magical energy shot out of the end of the spear like a bullet, through the sky towards Rakkan’s giant echo.

Aegis desperately created a guard to block the spear from hitting the echo, and it worked, but his health was starting to get low from his continued exchange of attacks with Hunger.

Just as Skar and Darkless couldn’t get a line of sight on Hunger, Aegis had no vision of them, though, and they went reckless in their attacks to break up Rakkan’s crossbow echo despite Rakkan doing his best to protect it. The biggest threat to the echo was Alicia, but because she’d let up on Darkshot, he was able to fire multiple streams of arrows at Hunger that pierced him from behind as he was held in place by Aegis.

At the same time that Rakkan’s crossbow echo was destroyed, a message came from the arena announcer.

Combatant Hunger has been defeated.

His body faded from Aegis's grip as it disintegrated and vanished from the arena, but the damage that was transferred from Rakkan’s dying echo was massive. Aegis looked to see that not only himself, but Darkshot and Rakkan were all dangerously low on health.

“Stay on Rakkan!” Skar ordered. Rakkan and his two remaining echoes were isolated from him and Darkshot, surrounded by the three remaining enemies.

Aegis raised his hand and aimed a divine spell in Rakkan’s direction, casting a greater heal silently with a flick of his finger and hoping that Skar wouldn’t notice - but despite all that’d happened, he was still waiting for this moment. An immediate charge strike towards Aegis was followed up by a predictable…

Casting interrupted - the spell [Greater Heal] has been interrupted by [Staggering Strike] - Source: Skar

Spells of the Divine magic school can no longer be cast for 10s.

Following this, several tendrils fired out of a smoke bomb near Darkshot and dug into him from behind.

“Shadowsteal: Pinning Shot. Smoke bomb!” Alicia cast in rapid succession. The tendrils briefly grasped at Darkshot’s legs before vanishing.

“RAKKAN, DEFENSIVE FOR 10 SECONDS!” Aegis shouted out desperately as he started charging towards Rakkan and his three echoes. The last thing Aegis saw from Rakkan was a nod before Alicia’s smoke bomb exploded around him. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝~𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖~𝕟𝕖𝕥