SB: Chapter 270 – Tracked Down By The Beastkin (Patreon)

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The ruined city was just up ahead with the dungeon entrance. I turned and let out a sigh. So close and we would have gotten away cleanly. “Boris, take this stamina potion,” I handed one over and he took it. While he ran I had the time to put on armor before they caught up with us.

There was a team of ten beastkin and one legend behind us by around 10 kilometers or a quarter of a day. This continent refused to let me go. An eleven to three fight. We began to move towards the dungeon entrance as quickly as Boris could go, since even with the time it took to put on my armor I easily caught up with him.

The beastkin were moving about twice as fast as us, which meant they would catch up minutes after we entered the dungeon at best. Likely the legend would push themselves to intercept us before we entered.

My guess was absolutely right. The legend sped up to reach us just as we reached the dungeon entrance. I would have about 15 minutes facing an exhausted legend by herself before the rest of the beastkin team caught up.

“Go into the dungeon and wait at the base of the stairs,” I told Boris, as I turned around. It was a female beastkin. She stopped a short distance away from me, in spell skill range. I pulled out my sword. It was going to get a test run against the beastkin.

She had a spatial storage bag, but didn’t pull out a weapon. I kept backing away to the dungeon entrance.

“You can’t escape, human,” the legendary beastkin said.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Once I enter the dungeon, I will seal the entrance,” I countered and turned around, rushing for the entrance. I knew why she was hesitating, there was no need to take risks against an opponent with unknown skills. Better to test me at range once the rest of her team caught up.

The legend rushed behind me, but I knew she would do that. I spun around and moved to the side. I kept up my pace towards the dungeon entrance, but she had circled around. Her stats completely suppressed me and she was blocking my path into the dungeon. She didn’t go after Boris, correctly recognizing I was the main threat and that he was just someone I was ordering about.

If I was killed, they could get information out of him, since he clearly wasn’t a fighter. I would have done the same thing. “Fireball!”

“Ward.”

She countered my spell skill with a magical shield. I closed the distance and swung my blade. She easily ducked out of the way. I mentally ordered Ozy to act. Ice sprang up around her feet and Ozy burst out from under my cloak at her face in a surprise attack.

Her eyes went wide. While she broke the ice on her feet easily, it was enough of a distraction for Ozy to slam into one of her legs and bite down. I moved in and swung my blade.

Soul Shield. Soul Strike. Soul Shred.

The tip of the blade lightly grazed one arm. Flames burst from the hit. I felt the rebound of Soul Strike on my soul, but the worst rebound from Soul Shred was absorbed by the blade. She let out a scream. Ozy quickly wrapped around her and used Empowered Toxic Breath right on her face.

“Aura Of Repulsion!”

Ozy was blasted off her and I was forced back several steps so I didn’t fall over.

Lightning Beam x3.

Ward x3.

She countered all my spell skills perfectly. Ozy flew up in the air, circling behind her, forcing the legend to divide her attention. I rushed in again. She dodged to the side and I kept running for the dungeon entrance.

Ozy flew after me towards the entrance and began targeting the support structure of the building the dungeon entrance was residing in. The last time we were here the building was partially collapsed and we cleared the rubble to gain access.

The legend raced after me again and pulled a javelin out of her spatial pouch. My Danger Sense spiked. I spun and used my spell skill through my blade, angling my defense.

Ward x3.

The javelin broke through all three barriers, but was deflected enough that it just missed my head. The weapon pierced the building and kept going, leaving a small circular hole behind. I sheathed my sword.

Lightning Beam 3x.

Ward 3x.

She countered perfectly once more, but that was fine. Ozy used Greater Quake as I dove into the dungeon entrance, with my pet flying right behind me, almost touching my feet. I hit the ruined staircase and went tumbling down it, making it to the bottom with my head spinning.

The ground was moving up and down as well. “Move!” I stood up and ordered Boris as we ran out of the entrance chamber into a tunnel. Large chunks of debris began to fall. My Danger Sense spiked, I spun around.

Ward 3x!

I also activated Ward from my ring, creating a four layered defense. The legend was right behind me and slashed out with her claws, shattering my defensive spell skills. Ozy focused on trapping her feet with rock.

Light Orb. Lightning Beam. Fireball.

I used three spell skills at once. The legend aborted her attack, leaping towards the wall of the tunnel, breaking her feet free easily from the rock Ozy had moved around them. She avoided the worst of my spell skills and then lunged at me.

She swung out a paw. Too close for Ward. Soul Shield.

I took a blow on my chest armor. Even with Tier 3 Durability on it, the armor crumpled under the blow and then the point of impact burst into flames, startling me and making it hard to see with the flames and smoke rising up from my chest, I fell backwards as my feet hit uneven ground.

Trusting my combat instincts, I rolled. The legend slammed a foot down where I had been lying, shattering the dungeon floor.

Fireball x3!

I took the moment of breathing room that my spell skills gave me to flip back up to my feet while freeing my sword. I twisted, but the legend burst through the flames, smoking slightly and struck at my chest again. I managed to get my sword between us, forcing her to abort the attack.

I noted that the tunnel behind her had collapsed from Ozy’s use of Greater Quake. There was no chance the rest of the beastkin were catching up to us any time soon, even if the dungeon entrance wasn’t sealed.

Ozy put out the flames on my armor and used Greater Cure and Greater Refresh on me while hanging back. The legend was eying my blade warily. Inside the dungeon tunnel she couldn’t flank me and the path back was blocked off.

I took a step forward and she brought up her paws, staring at me intensely. She had retreated with the collapsed tunnel at her back. “I will offer once, since a fight to the death is risky for both of us. Truce?” I asked.

“You killed Old Iron Tooth and his grandson. That was unforgivable,” the legend countered with a glare.

“He wouldn’t let us leave peacefully,” I said with a small sigh and shake of my head. “Then let’s fight to the death. I am Human Adventurer Justin Burnstock,” I declared.

“Beastkin Legend Iron Claws of the Fox Clan,” she declared.

She was a close range fighter, using spell skills in conjunction with martial skills. Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t going to play fair.

Ozy used Quake on the tunnel right above and in front of my position. She had to come to me and the tunnels in the 1st layer weren’t big enough to sneak around. While she was faster and had more stats, she also knew how dangerous my blade was. Just a small scratch had done tremendous damage to her, a legend.

That was why she was hesitating on what to do. Now she needed to move forward or become buried under the collapsing dungeon. She rushed forward and feinted towards my right. I didn’t move or fall for the feint.

She changed the feint to an attack and committed to the move, bringing her claws up to intercept my blade. Ozy hit her with Petrifying Gaze, causing her to stumble for a singular moment in her plan to get past me.

Null Strike!

I leapt back and swung intercepting her path and ensuring I would land a critical blow. She countered just as I expected.

Ward x3!

My blade cut through the spell skills easily and into her side. The Null Strike countered the boost the amulet I was wearing would have normally given. But that didn’t matter since the blade was deep in her body and it had a much better skill.

Soul Shred!

I activated the second skill on my new weapon. The blow back from the skill mostly hit my sword, not my soul. “AHHHH!” she screamed as I slammed the blade up to its hilt, and the legend into the wall. She reached out for the hilt of my blade and tightened her muscles, trapping my blade. I let go of the hilt and jumped back.

The tunnel collapsed where we had been previously as I quickly backed away. The legend held onto the hilt and stumbled. Using Soul Vision, she had taken critical damage. While she might not be dead, her skills, stats, and everything about her had taken severe damage. Even if she killed me right now and took healing potions, she would never recover from such a blow.

The only reason she was still alive was that she was a legend. “Curse you, human!” she said while her eyes, ears, and nose began to bleed. She kept a grip on my weapon as she collapsed to her knees.

Lightning Beam x3!

I aimed at her head. She had suffered too much damage and wasn’t able to block. Her body locked up and she fell fully onto the ground, face down. I pulled out a spear from my pack and poked it through her head at a distance.

She was highly skilled and overwhelming, just like I expected of a legend. But she had used up a lot of stamina chasing me and her skills were focused on close combat which my sword completely countered.

I had avoided her one ranged attack, barely, and forced her to fight at close range where I was at my strongest, while cutting off her mobility by flanking me inside a dungeon tunnel. Ozy also helped quite a bit as well, both as a surprise and an additional source of attacks.

I had killed a legend in direct combat. The circumstances mattered, but my victory mattered much more. She was also a beastkin, with a smaller range of skills compared to my vast repertoire. Even with a stable settlement, they didn’t have the vast population base that the College pulled from on the Eldarin continent.

Like all combat, it was about leveraging one’s strengths and minimizing one’s weaknesses. I also had far too many options to draw upon. While the victory wasn’t as ridiculous as the Vorunhusk, I had defeated a legend.

It was just a weak beastkin legend, I told myself. That fight had been far too close. An Eldarin legend would be more competent, and she was forced to follow me. Regardless, this didn’t mean I was about to become a legend killer any time soon.

I picked up her spatial pouch and then put her body into my spatial bag. There was a good chance a skill could be Alchemically extracted from her corpse. Normally such a thing wasn’t done, but I knew the College would look the other way for a cut of the profits. As for her spatial pouch, that could be investigated after we got far away from the dungeon entrance, preferably down a layer or two.

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