Novel Full Chapter 2086 Deepest Hole
Chapter 2086: Chapter 2086 Deepest Hole
— Gareth —
Greaves pulled her shield and mace out slamming down towards them. As she did this, a blur came up from the hill and slammed into Timmy. Apparently her orders for the Timmy she controlled was just to take his out of the fight. Gareth didn’t have long to get distracted by that because Greaves was nearly on him. Gareth raised his much larger shield to meet her mace attack.
It was an awful idea. The damned thing was enchanted up the wazoo and despite having a good deal of work done on his own shield… it was nothing compared to this. Gareth found himself covered in ice, and buried halfway into the ground. The impact of the mace had nearly broken his legs, and the fact his shield hung on felt more like a miracle then good decision making on his part.
The ice left him shivering and slow, the fact he was imbedded in the floor didn’t improve his movement either. Perhaps if he was alone that wouldn’t been the end of his fight right then and there… but Gardor wasn’t useless, and had jumped away, perhaps guessing there was something odd with Greaves’ weapons or perhaps he just wanted to make distance.
Gardor flung several pebbles her way and they expanded into small boulders as they flew through the air, forcing Greaves to hop away instead of following up on her initial attack. Gareth grit his teeth and heaved, his sword arm was only half frozen and he was able to use that to smash some of the ice. He ripped his shield free a moment later and then tried to free himself from the ground. He wasn’t willing to drop his shield for it, but he could sort of manage.
The problem was Greaves wasn’t going to give him that time. She let herself flip onto the ground and slammed her shield into it a moment later. Spikes of ice rose up from the ground in a wave, looking almost like a cone of wintery grass growing at her actions. Sadly, they were all made out of tiny knives that launched upwards after a moment of stillness. Most missed him completely but far too many were a danger. Some of the ones from further back were raining down on top of him, while the wave itself got closer and threatened to skewer him from below.
Luckily for Gareth he was still an earth attuned human, and pit trap was a nice spell to have in your boots. It meant that in situations like this, you could just drop down and avoid it all. Slipping downwards and then blocking the entrance with his shield worked wonders when it came to avoiding damage… but it also blocked his vision of Greaves, allowing her to chose whatever followup she wanted.
Gareth couldn’t see what Gardor was doing but he could hear rocks whistling through the air so the answer was probably something. Deciding to make use of that, he waited for all of the ice to finish impacting his shield and then burnt yet more mana to shoot up out of the hole, creating a small pillar under his feet as he went. Simply jumping out was an option but…
His caution proved useful. Greaves was somehow ready for his move, and was throwing a much larger icicle at the rough area of his ascent. If he’d jumped his options for how to deal with it wouldn’t been far more limited, but simply bailing out and off to the side was a perfectly valid response.
Seeing that this missed as well, Greaves quickly pivoted, the wings on her boots flared and she shot forward… towards Gardor. The dwarf seemed ready for that though, and started flying rocks at her in response. He enlarged a number of them to try and knock her back, but Gareth could see Greaves block one head on with her shield, and simply pushing it to the side somehow, barely affected by the momentum that should be behind such a thing.
Gareth grit his teeth and paid the mana tax to summon a wall immediately in front of Greaves. She seemed a bit startled by the sudden appearance of a stone wall, but just a bit. She ploughed through it without stopping, the stone not thick enough to damage her through the ridiculous enchantments on her armour, causing Gareth to grit his teeth. He didn’t have time to do anything else as her mace slammed into Gardor, sending him flying backwards, ice coating most of his body and… Gareth wasn’t even sure if he could still fight.
Greaves had flown away after the hit landed, making distance instead of following up, and that was somewhat nice because it gave Gardor some time to rest. Gareth tried to follow after her, but he lacked ariel mobility and simply wasn’t that fast. What he did have, now that he was thinking about it, was some loot from the various chests they’d found underground.
Gareth pulled out the first useful one he could think of and hurled the net up at her. Greaves responded by quickly swapping out her mace for a sword and trying to slice it in half only for the net to fail to budge against her sword. She seemed infuriated by that for the extra moment it took to wrap around her. It didn’t bring her down or stop her flight sadly, the net simply phasing through the glowing wings… but it was something he supposed.
While Greaves was focused on getting out of the net, Gareth sprinted over to where Gardor had fallen and looked over his partner. The ice was coating him pretty completely and it didn’t seem like he’d escape, so Gareth carefully kicked at Gardor’s stomach, shattering the ice between his boot and Gardor’s armour.
That didn’t seem to break enough to free him, so Gareth much more carefully used his sword to chip at the ice around Gardor’s arm to try and free him. Gareth kept glancing over at Greaves who seemed quite content to get out of the net before doing anything else. Seeing this, he kept working. As the ice around Gardor’s arm cracked the dwarf was able to move it somewhat and slam his hand into the ground, breaking more ice around it.
That was enough for him to start wiggling, and separating his armour from the ice, and Gareth used that as a chance to rip other chunks off by wedging his sword under the pieces when there was space. It wasn’t the best for the blade but it was enchanted and should be fine… except for the fact that Greaves had managed to free herself and apparently still had some bombs as one was being lobbed their way.
Gareth threw a fist in the way once again, and was happy that exploded. Knowing it was real was a bonus. Of course, he was a tad distracted by his success and missed the second bomb thrown after the first. It came down from above, completely silent and Gareth didn’t hear it at all until it went off next to him.
Gareth blink through the pain. The moments between now and the bomb going off were completely lost. He’d probably blacked out a for a few moments. Even if his armour had protected him somewhat the shockwave was clearly enough to rattle his brain. Greaves was standing over him, mace raised to come right down on his head and he didn’t have time to look for Gardor.
Gareth raised his shield, imposing it between him and the descending mace as quickly as he could. Sadly, that speed came at the cost of proper bracing and the mace managed to slam into the shield with enough force to slam his arm and shield into his face rattling him. Gareth readied his mana to react to whatever enchantment Greaves had in store for him…
But a heavy slam interrupted him. Greaves too it seemed as he moved his shield away to see what had happened. Skye was behind Greaves and her strikes hadn’t let up. She continued to rain blows down on Greave’s head, clanging off an invisible helmet but still rattling the woman. Or at least… so it seemed for a few moments. A hand that had been waving around, seemingly in panic, suddenly moved right in front of Skye and a small knife launched from it straight into Skye’s throat.
The healing stumbled backwards, gurgling as her neck was filled with blood. “Ah Skye. I’m surprised it took you so long to crack,” said Greaves, completely calm as she turned to look at the healer. “I suppose once a traitor, always a traitor,”
“F-ffuck you,” gargled Skye. “You h-haven’t fed me in two days. I’m weak, barely have any orbs, and I’m going to lose regardless. If what we have could even be called a partnership you definitely betrayed me first.”
“Surprised you can still talk, what with the missing throat… but I suppose you healers can be tough bastards,” sighed Greaves.
“Exactly,” said Skye with a grin as she pulled out her own explosive and lunged at Greaves once more. “Sorry Gareth,” Skye added at the last moment. Gareth barely had time to flip his face away from the light as the explosion rang out across the area.