NOVEL FROG Chapter 113
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In the meantime, while waiting for them to bring their Shaman, our foes hiding behind cover somehow managed to close the door that was barely hanging off its hinges by using some string and a hook to pull the broken door close.
Every few seconds, I would see an eye peek from the broken hole in the door, and it was starting to piss me off, so the next time I saw the eye, I sent an Earth Bullet at the door, roughly where I think the peeping tom's body was.
The moment I shot my spell, the eye ducks back from the door, but not fast enough. My Earth Bullet punches through the door and I hear a scream from the other side. “Got you.” I mumbled happily to myself.
Behind the door, there was muffled screaming as the peeping tom's buddies were applying first aid. From all the screaming and his friends shouting at him to stay still, I overheard that I had completely taken off the guy’s forearm.
Another minute of tense waiting went by before I heard sounds from the now more porous door, it was the sound of footsteps, and by the sound of the clinking they were making, I am thinking the backup is wearing armor.
There was some muffled talking, then some goblinoid speak and the door flung open once again to reveal the biggest armored hobgoblin I have ever seen, it was bigger and bulkier than those muscle heads my Dad calls knights. I do not know if it could be called a hobgoblin anymore.
It was truly an intimidating sight to behold, the goblin was wearing an open-face helmet, donned in shoddy but thick-looking plate armor that was roughly strapped to its body. In its hands, it was wielding an axe in one hand and a metal buckler in the other.
Seeing this brute of a greenskin, we did not need any signal to start unloading bolts and magic on the brute, but just as our first volley of bolts and spells hit the hobgoblin brute, its armor glowed and our projectiles did not seem to hit with the same oomph as it should have.
Bolts that should have hit the exposed part of the hobgoblin brute’s arm were slowed down to the point of impact of just pricking it and drawing a tiny bit of blood, the other bolt that should have had enough strength to at least left a nasty gash on the armor plate, merely hit the plate with a melodious *tink* before falling to the ground, everything else was blocked by the metal buckler.
“Shit, it has an Augment spell cast on it!” I warned Dave and Sam.
This would make most of our ranged burst damage attacks obsolete. When dealing with the Augment spell like this, it is a safe bet to use a channeling spell like Flamethrower or a constant stream of lightning to overcome it, unfortunately, spells like those can’t be cast over long distances, and that would mean the hobgoblin brute will need to get closer than I am comfortable with. Fortunately, I have a solution for this.
As Dave and Sam kept firing bolt after bolt, the hobgoblin brute advanced on us at a slow lumbering jog. I on the other hand, had a hand on an activation circle of an array as I kept an eye on where the hobgoblin brute was stepping, and when it had both feet within the last array I made before they took down the barrier, I sent a sliver of mana into the activation circle, and the pile of mana crystals for said array lit up, and so did the array the hobgoblin brute had walked into.
A second after the array under the hobgoblin brute’s feet lit up, sparks formed in the air within the array. For a moment, the Augment spell lit up to protect the hobgoblin brute, but the next moment, the light winked out and the hobgoblin brute was ravaged by electric currents rushing through its body, its muscles involuntarily contracting as its rigid body fell to the floor.
A second later, the Augment spell flared to life again, only giving the hobgoblin brute less than a second of relief before it once again winked out, and the constant output of the lightning array shocked it once again.
This cycle continued three more times before the Augment spell went out for good. Turns out that the Augment spell cast was meant to soak up burst damage before it went on cooldown, but there was a limit to how many times that could happen. And now that there was nothing magical protecting its body, the lightning array continued its work until the hobgoblin brute’s body started to smoke and even caught fire.
It was kind of a rookie move on my part, but in my rush, I forgot to put in an off switch, so the array carried on for a few more seconds until it ran out of power. But hey, it worked.
“Enough!” someone from our opponent’s side bellowed in common, but in an accent I had not heard before, followed by chanting. It seemed like the enemy mage was going to get in on the action, so I started spinning up a few 3rd circle spells in my head.
Then I heard the voice of the person who bellow speak in the goblinoid language and another hobgoblin brute in similar armor to the first, but this time holding a large two-handed blade, came charging out at full speed, and behind it, was a human man wearing patchy leathers and a headdress made of bone and feathers, in his hand, he was holding a rope tied to a human skull as he held it aloft while chanting.
I only had my own pop culture references of my old world to fall back on, but I think it was safe to assume that the human man with the skull as a magic foci was the shaman they mentioned.
Same as last time, me and the boys unleashed bolts and spells in a bid to quickly take the brute down. Learning from my failure to quickly kill the first hobgoblin brute, this time I space out my spells so that once the first spell hits and triggers the Augment spell, the second spell will come hit when the spell enters its cooldown.
It was a good plan, but life rarely lets things go my way. As my spell flies, the blade-wielding hobgoblin brute literally cut down my opening Earth Bullet and blocks a second with the flat of his blade. All the while, he was pretty much ignoring Dave and Sam’s bolts, trusting that the Aument spell and his armor would keep him safe.
When the hobgoblin brute was past its dead fellow brute and almost halfway down the corridor, I knew I had to do something before it got to the boys. So I told the boys, “I will take the hobgoblin, target the guy behind it!” and vaulted over the barricade, flared my aura, drew my sword, and charged the hobgoblin brute.
Better to fight the hobgoblin brute in the enclosed corridor before he reaches the room and has more space to maneuver. This may be one of the few situations where my small size works to my advantage.