Ch 203 – Limitations vs Effort
Letting go of the chain leashes they'd been holding over their Pitwalkers, the Dredgers released the mutant hounds from their restraints and the creatures immediately broke into a sprint toward Deacon and Leon, and then as the Pitwalkers let out similar sounding barks that echoed through the cavern their speed suddenly tripled as though some kind of enhancement skill had been activated, the hounds now shooting forward like missiles and leaving their hulking handlers far behind in the dust.
"Let's focus on clearing out the hounds first, but if any of the Dredgers try breaking off to go for Bonehead and Val, switch your focus to keeping them locked on you instead," Deacon said to Leon, maintaining his Power Boost at 5% to conserve his stamina and mana reserves for what was likely going to be a prolonged fight. Before then breaking into a sprint toward the charging Pitwalkers, with his flame-wreathed dual short swords raised parallel to his body.
Howls and frenzied barking bounced off the tunnel-ridden walls of the massive cavern as the Pitwalkers sprinted with feverous intensity toward the group of four non-mutant humans, their twin mouths frothing with neon green liquid at the tantalizing scent of non-mutant flesh.
Three of the seven Pitwalkers split from the main pack and rushed directly at Deacon who was sprinting to meet them head-on, while the remaining four kept together as a unit and rushed toward the much larger human covered in shiny rock armor that reminded them of the Burrowing Tortoises they'd managed to dig up and kill a while back after clawing off the creatures' protective shelling and biting into the soft, juicy flesh within.
The leading Pitwalker rushing toward Deacon suddenly leaped into the air to close the remaining distance between them in a single bound, attempting to latch both sets of its jaws onto Deacon's face with one head and his throat with the other while using its superior body weight to push him backward and down onto the ground where it could savage him properly.
However, the mutant hound completely lost sight of Deacon as the soles of his boots suddenly became shrouded in orange flames, and he disappeared from the creature's field of view in the split second before the Pitwalker felt immense burning pain erupting from its abdomen.
Upon activating Flame Art: Flame Steps, Deacon's forward momentum and lateral speed increased dramatically as jets of flame propelled him faster than his natural running speed could achieve.
He ducked low beneath the leaping Pitwalker's trajectory while extending his left short sword upward, piercing cleanly through the creature's chest from sternum down through its pelvis.
The superheated metal and the considerable power behind Deacon's strike allowed the blade to bypass the Pitwalker's hardened skin, muscle tissue, bone, and toughened internal organs as though they were made of wet paper.
Without stopping and while the disemboweled Pitwalker was still airborne above him with its organs spilling out, Deacon kicked his feet out from beneath himself and dropped into a slide across the stone floor, passing directly between the two remaining Pitwalkers running at him and using both short swords to slice off one head from each of their bodies in a spray of acidic blood.
The twin-headed mutant hounds went tumbling and skidding past Deacon's position while letting out agonized howls of pain as they crashed heavily onto the ground, bleeding profusely from their neck stumps and spraying blood across the stone in wide arcs.
Twisting himself out of his slide and pivoting sharply on his heel to rush back and finish off the two Pitwalkers he'd just beheaded before they could recover, Deacon stopped short as he watched with morbid fascination.
Despite losing one of their heads, the twin-headed mutant hounds had already managed to get back onto their feet, their remaining head seemingly having full control over the rest of the body. They were already rushing back toward him with even more rage than before.
So it's just like fighting a two-headed ogre, Deacon mused to himself as he reversed the grip on both of his short swords so their blades ran almost parallel to his forearms, the tips nearly touching his elbows.
He brought both weapons up into what resembled a boxer's defensive stance, the knuckles of his fists positioned to protect his chin as he waited for the hounds to rush him with all the murderous rage their mutated bodies could muster.
Even if you cut off one head, it doesn't kill them outright. You have to remove both heads to truly put them down permanently, Deacon thought as he took a quick moment to glance at the disemboweled Pitwalker lying on the ground with its back to him.
The Pitwalker struggled desperately to push itself back onto its legs even as its internal organs continued spilling out from the massive vertical wound running the length of its torso.
It'll bleed out and die soon enough, just ignore it for now and focus on the immediate threats, Deacon decided to himself as he glanced away from the Pitwalker and its organs that were trailing behind it.
A few meters away from Deacon's position, a loud, resonating bang echoed throughout the massive cavern as Leon thrust his tower shield forward with considerable force, the entire surface of the shield glowing with a faint light-green aura.
He drove it directly into both heads of the lead Pitwalker charging straight at him, the impact crushing both skulls and the connecting vertebrae with a mighty blow that didn't push Leon's planted stance back even a single inch.
The three Pitwalkers following several paces behind what had been the lead hound —now nothing more than a twitching corpse sliding off the face of Leon's massive tower shield —widened their milky eyes in what might have been recognition of danger.
But they couldn't stop their full sprint in the short time available and could only barely begin twisting their strides to go around Leon's position, or at least veer away from a direct collision with his shield.
With a mighty overhead swing of his right arm, Leon's warhammer came crashing down, glowing with the same faint green aura as his shield.
The hammer smashed directly into the side of the Pitwalker closest to his right flank with such force that the impact created a visible ripple at the point of contact, accompanied by the unmistakable sounds of multiple bones cracking and splintering simultaneously.
The Pitwalker's entire body was launched ten meters through the air before crashing back down onto the stone floor, tumbling and rolling across the ground until it came to rest at the feet of the nearest Dredger, which had its hands crossed behind its head.
As the first of the two single-headed Pitwalkers that had been charging Deacon leaped at him with its jaws spread wide, immediately followed by the second hound launching itself from just slightly behind and to the side of the first.
Deacon took a single step forward and swiped his right short sword across in a wide horizontal arc, the flaming blade slicing cleanly through the ribcage and internal organs of the first leaping hound before he immediately followed through with his left short sword, coming around to sever the creature's back leg just as its momentum carried it past his position.
Within that same flowing motion, Deacon used the rotational momentum he'd built up from the power he'd put into the strike that had cut through the Pitwalker's hind leg to smoothly twist his entire body around to face the last of his Pitwalker pursuers, and he brought his left short sword up in a rising diagonal slash that caught the lunging creature's neck and slid through muscle and bone with ease, removing one head entirely.
Taking a step forward while simultaneously swapping his grip on his right short sword back to a standard overhand hold and brought it down in a powerful descending cut that severed the Pitwalker's lower half from its upper torso in a spray of acidic blood.
Both Pitwalker corpses tumbled to the ground with wet, meaty thuds as Deacon casually sauntered over to where the disemboweled Pitwalker was still struggling to move and stabbed his left short sword down through the back of its skull to finish it off properly.
Turning his attention back to check on Leon's situation, Deacon caught sight of one Pitwalker that had managed to leap onto Leon's tower shield and was frantically trying with both of its heads to snap its powerful jaws around Leon’s helmet-clad head, while another Pitwalker was whimpering pathetically as it dragged its upper half away from Leon using only its front legs, since its lower half and rear legs had been completely crushed into pulp by what must have been a shield bash or hammer strike.
Seemingly unbothered by the Pitwalker clinging to his shield and trying desperately to tear his face off with its twin sets of teeth, Leon took several measured steps forward and raised his warhammer high into the air, where the weapon became enveloped in that same light green glow once more.
Bringing it crashing down onto the upper torso of the Pitwalker, trying to drag itself to safety, the impact crushed the creature's chest cavity completely, killing it instantly.
Simultaneously, the Pitwalker that had been attempting to chew through Leon's helmet met its end swiftly as an arrow fired from somewhere behind him split into two mid-flight and each one punched clean through the center of the Pitwalker's heads, dropping the creature dead onto the top edge of Leon's shield before it slid off and hit the ground.
Oh, so Leon knows how to manipulate and channel stamina through his equipment, Deacon observed with interest as he watched the green glow fade from Leon's weapons. That makes sense as to how he's managing to hold his own on the frontlines as a tank despite not having chosen a Warrior Class.
Though the knowledge and ability to actively control and channel stamina through his body and equipment would definitely help bridge the gap between Leon and a dedicated tank-specced Warrior at equal levels, the closer Leon got to reaching Tier Two without taking a combat Class, the wider that gap would inevitably become, because by choosing Builder as his Class, a production-focused Profession over a combat-oriented one, he would be fundamentally unable to gain any Warrior-type Skills through normal leveling progression since the System simply wouldn't acknowledge or offer them to him.
At least not until he reached Tier Two and had the option to choose Warrior or another combat Class as his Second Class, because otherwise he'd be forced to manually create every combat Skill from scratch, develop them through repeated use, and improve them through personal training without any acknowledgment or assistance from the System's normal Class progression mechanics, which would be incredibly tedious.
Not to mention, they wouldn’t even appear on his Status Page.
"Well, that probably won't come to pass anyway," Deacon muttered to himself as he shifted his gaze away from Leon and toward the Dredgers who had been calmly standing in the background and watching without any visible reaction as their Pitwalker hunting hounds were slaughtered by the group of humans they came across.
The hulking mutant handlers didn't look worried or annoyed or even mildly distressed in the slightest by the loss of their hounds, and instead they seemed to be smiling with what looked disturbingly like anticipation, which immediately set off alarm bells in Deacon's mind.
Then he noticed their muscles beginning to visibly swell beneath their already grotesque frames, their thick corded flesh expanding and bulging outward as though something was being pumped directly into their tissue, and the bone spikes protruding from various points across their bodies began growing longer and sharper while their skin took on a darker reddish hue that hadn't been present moments before.
"Oh, they're growing," Deacon heard Bonehead's voice call out from behind him with obvious complaint in his tone, and Leon immediately began moving to rejoin Deacon's position at the front as the only one standing in the way of the four Dredgers. “Great…”