Chapter 34: The Explosive Paladin
## Chapter 34: The Explosive Paladin
As Michael broke through the last line of monsters and skidded into the center of the group, several of the survivors visibly relaxed at the sight of him. Rashid and Maximilian were the first to turn, their faces streaked with black blood and dust, their eyes widening at his sudden appearance. Rashid shouted, his voice cracking with a mix of exhaustion and genuine shock, "Michael! Where the hell have you been?" Close by, Konstantin Gruber and Valerie Wagner dropped their guard for a split second, sighing in relief as they chimed in, "God, thank god you’re alright! We saw the swarm split us up, we were certain you’d been torn apart in the backline!"
The ground around them told its own story. Monster corpses lay three and four deep in places, black blood pooling between cracked floor tiles, and the stink of it hung thick in the air. Rashid had a long cut along his forearm, crudely wrapped with a strip of torn cloth, and Maximilian favored his left leg, his spear doing double duty as a crutch between fights. Somewhere behind them, a few of the others tended to a girl whose arm hung wrong at the elbow, her jaw clenched against the pain as someone forced a splint of broken spear-shaft against it.
Michael didn't offer a dramatic explanation. He planted his spear firmly on the stone, his breathing steady despite the intensity of his recent solo rampage. He looked at them and said, "I was cut off," before his gaze hardened as he continued, "It doesn't matter now. There aren't many of them left, but we have to finish this." He urged them to hold their ground, keep the formation tight, and not let the remaining beasts bait them, assuring them that they were almost through this.
Between the clashes, Rashid caught Michael’s gaze and wiped grime from his forehead, nodding grimly as he stated, "We managed to pull it together while you were gone—we’ve all hit Level 4 now, so we can finally hold these lines properly." Just having him back steadied them. The fear that had started creeping into the squad eased, replaced by grim determination.
For the next twenty minutes, the Audimax became a slaughterhouse as the remaining monsters grew desperate. Maximilian acted as a wall when a massive boar-like variant tried to bull-rush the center, bracing his feet and activating his [Strength Boost] to take the full impact on his heavy iron-tipped spear. As the beast groaned under the resistance, Jonas Holzer used [Sunder] to shatter the creature's knee-joint, bringing the behemoth crashing down so that Fabian Lindt and Elena Becker could finish it off with synchronized thrusts. Rashid utilized his [Sharpness] to make his spear tip hum with a faint, silver light, expertly parrying a lunging wolf mid-air before driving the blade through its throat in one clean motion, while behind him, Alina Sokolov and Sebastian Krauss worked in tandem to pin another predator to the wall until it went still.
Tobias Berger and Mira Demir worked together to hunt, baiting a smaller Hound-Fox into an overextended leap; as it sailed through the air, Tobias jammed his spear into the floor to stop its momentum, and Mira drove her own weapon deep into its chest, the coordinated effort resulting in an instant, clean kill.
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Amidst the chaos, Jakob Wallner found himself locked in a brutal exchange with a particularly vicious Level 3 Wolf-Variant. The creature was fast, snapping at his throat, but Jakob’s focus was absolute. He waited for the perfect opening, his spear vibrating with suppressed energy. As the wolf lunged, Jakob unleashed a strike that detonated inside the monster’s chest cavity with a muffled, violent thud, spraying dark blood across the stone. The beast crumpled instantly, and as the system notification flooded Jakob’s vision, a surge of golden light erupted around him:
[Ding! You have leveled up]
[Congratulations! You have reached Level 5. All baseline attributes have automatically increased by +1 point. You have received 5 attribute points and 1 skill point]
[CLASS UNLOCKED: Explosive Paladin]
With the new class, Jakob felt a sudden, intoxicating surge of power radiating through his limbs. For the first time, a specific skill manifested clearly in his interface: *[Active Skill: Explosive Strike]*.
Driven by a reckless curiosity, he stepped out of the defensive formation, leaving the safety of the group to test his new potency. A Level 3 hound darted toward him, but Jakob didn't retreat. He funneled his energy into the tip of his spear, activating the skill. As he thrust forward, the air seemed to warp around his weapon. Upon contact, his talent amplified the impact into a genuine, thunderous explosion. The shockwave hit the hound with immense force, launching it violently backward, where it skidded across the ground for several meters before finally coming to a halt, dead. Jakob stood motionless for a heartbeat, stunned by what he'd just done, before snapping back to reality.
Everyone was shocked. Even the monsters came to a halt, somehow frightened. Jakob didn't stop. He felt powerful like never before. *With this power, I can end it all alone!* he was totally convinced of himself.
The combination of his talent and his new class must have cut the mana cost drastically, because he didn't feel emptied like the last time he'd made a big move. That's why he stopped defending and pushed toward the next monster, without relying on the others.
For the first time, he was the one on the attacking side. He repeated the strike again and again. One explosion after another blew monsters away. Every strike meant a kill.
The others kept fighting too, and the number of monsters left standing dropped fast.
The last of the monsters went down under the group's combined attack. The Audimax went quiet, broken only by the ragged breathing of the survivors and black ichor still dripping onto the stone floor. Corpses covered the ground from the entrance to the far wall, some in pieces, others whole but for the wounds that had killed them. They had done it.
Jakob stood amidst the pile of carcasses, his chest heaving. He looked down at his own hands, a mix of exhilaration and something rawer he didn't have a name for yet. The others gathered around him, tired but grinning, the fight momentarily forgotten. A few of them clapped Jakob on the back as he passed, too wrung out to say much beyond his name. They started back toward the main entrance, eager to find the rest of the survivors who had stayed behind to guard it.