The Bloodfallen Strike [Sunday]

“So, let’s put those points into Intellect and see where that gets me!” John decided the next morning. A quick ten taps on the buttons later his INT reached 75 and he got the expected two pop-ups.

And now his Stats looked like this (Including all Items):

He had a good amount of mana now. Even though it wasn’t an important Stat for him, he should probably concentrate on Strength next. “More Wave 4 Grinding today?” Rave asked as they headed out of her house. “Yep, we should push to Wave 5 when we get to level 40.” ‘And when Aclysia has her next Special Passive-thingy.’ John added in his thoughts. He had fed the Artificial Guardian all of the items that had dropped yesterday. Without a Dragonscale it was relatively hard to level her these days. Well anyway, here is what her Stats look like now.

And for completion's sake a peek at Rave as well

On paper, it looked like Aclysia could whoop Rave’s butt at this point. Then again John had no idea how much her Aura would boost her Stats. Actually, why not find out right now?

Ah, there was a reason. To his interest, he noted that the Verdin got pulled in as well. Not like he had any more reason to hide it after this was over though. Especially because it nicely spawned right next to Victoria.

The Sniper was on the roof with a rifle pointed at him and Rave and about to shoot when John gave Sylph a good portion of his newly acquired Mana to rip the rifle completely off course. Victoria was dumbfounded when John chirped mockingly in his mechanical bird body. Her eyes widened at the bird circling above. Then the roof collapsed under her feet, leaving John with his other worries.

Namely, the twenty Bloodfallen members that had encircled him and Rave. They were all dressed in the same black robe that hid most of their body, the only way to differentiate them was by height, width or choice of weaponry. Armed with swords, flails, axes and staffs they were probably cause for concern. ‘Or not.’ John thought as he scanned their levels. 25-35, a very wide range and heavily weighted towards the lower end. The missed shot was still echoing over the copied streets as John summoned all of his elementals into their physical forms.

“You really should have tried sooner.” He shrugged as he activated Mana Shield. The fight began without another word. Instead, Rave just shouted at the challengers and jumped straight at the black robed figures. ‘Energetic as always.’ John thought with a grin as he sent Salamander and Sylph in as support. Aclysia took action herself and intercepted the right wing of the enemies that wanted to attack John.

As the levels indicated, there were only three individuals amongst the enemies that were actually somewhat threatening. The rest was cannon fodder in this fight. Of these three, two engaged Rave and one Aclysia. Which was a very big mistake. With her superior speed, only boosted by the ignition of her aura, Rave had no problem dodging away from two enemies while still inflicting damage to the lower Bloodfallen with her bursts of lights. Pinning her down was an impossible task. Aclysia on the other hand had such high strength that one person alone couldn’t hope to stand against her swinging that Cleaver of Streets around.

Well, so far John had defused the Sniper, and now the enemies’ formations were in shambles. However, they still managed to pre-occupy Rave and Aclysia, and his two offensive elementals weren’t that great at stopping masses. Therefore, John now had to deal with five cultists storming at him.

A Mana Ray made that four. Gnome made that three. Undine made that two. Undine getting a hundred Mana made that no one. The cultist she stopped as well as the two that tried to get past her were assaulted by a massive wave that came from her body, washing them away. The trio stumbled over the ground and only came to a halt when they crashed into one of the enemy mages at the back row. Now those could become a bit of a problem, especially the one that kept mumbling a long arse incantation instead of throwing spells at his frontline. Aclysia barely got scratched by those and Rave wasn’t getting hit, the few bruises and shallow cuts she did sustain were taken care of by the Hands of Rejuvenation. Still, no reason to let something bad happen.

John took Possession of the mage's robes. Pretty hard to chant something when your own clothes started strangling you. He kept fighting the mage as his robes as he raised his hand for another Mana Ray, three seconds later the attack hit the enemy that was trying to get past Gnome. He also kept a look-out for the building Victoria had fallen into thanks to Gnome’s influence. He didn’t feel like getting assaulted with a handgun out of nowhere.

One of the Bloodfallen started shouting as he transformed into a walking torch under Salamanders continues attacks. The mean spirited fire elemental was laughing maniacally as she stopped in the air for a moment to take in the scene. “Yes, yes, yes! Run little human ru- HEY!” A bolt of ice barely missed her and Salamander flew at the attacker to start her ****.

In the meantime the elite of the enemy finally realised their mistake, one of them changed targets from Rave to Aclysia. While John was fairly confident that she could have taken on two enemies just as well as one, he did not need to run such a risk. His mana had dipped below 300 for a moment, but it now had regenerated back to 314, and all he wanted to withhold was a rough 100. Or to put it easy, he had 200 mana to toy with.

‘Gnome, take care of that one.’ John instructed and the Earth Elemental responded with a ‘Yes, John.’ Before a cylinder of earth enveloped the enemy. That would stop that hindrance for a moment. The mage whose robe John had possessed finally passed out from the lack of oxygen, so he lifted his Possession, doing the same to the elite that was bothering Rave currently. With only one real enemy all Rave now had to do was to take care not to get encircled by the remaining cannon fodder as she took care of the sword swinging level 34 enemy.

The difference in technique and power was astounding. Having a high level through some crazy Blooddrug was apparently not all that helpful if you didn’t have the proper skills to support them. Rave, on the other hand, was a trained martial artist and Innate Fighter and with Copernicus's blessing as well as John’s support the elite was quick to land face first on the street.

Aclysia had a bit more of a fight. Fewer of the enemies had concentrated on her thanks to Rave’s energetic ****, but she still had a level 35 enemy with support to deal with. There was an advantage Aclysia had over them, one so subtle in a society of superhumans it often went unnoticed: Exhaustion. Aclysia had no muscles that could fatigue, all she needed to do was to go into Defence Stance and wait them out with her superior reflexes, the few attacks that did both connect and actually dealt damage through Steelskin were quickly healed thanks to her regeneration. All it took was one misstep, and the Cleaver of Streets in Aclysia’s hands changed into the much lighter Sword of Glory, allowing for a quick counterattack. One by one the enemies were culled down.

Culled down, John realised as the Sword of Glory glistened red in the early morning light. They were actually killing people here. His eyes darted over to the person he had struck with Mana Ray earlier. He couldn’t make out the face of the man under the robe, but John knew where he had hit him with the powerful skill. John didn’t feel bad or guilty, they were the aggressors, they were the ones that had planned Travolta’s ****, and they were the ones keeping a girl locked up for sixty years, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel sorry for the fact that he needed to do this.

Victoria appeared from the building. John estimated the distance. 200 metres? Yeah, that seemed roughly right. She had left her sniper rifle somewhere to get to the battlefield quicker. Not that she could make a huge difference at this point. She took another step, and the asphalt underneath her crumbled as she fell into a cavity he had Gnome make moments earlier. Without the elites, the enemy **** started to crumble.

Without pressure, they took out the remaining enemies through non-lethal means. At the end of the fight John still had 132 Mana, they had killed seven of the attackers, most of which went on Aclysia’s cap due to her weaponry. The remaining thirteen + Victoria, John locked into the earth. When he was done, only their heads were poking from the street.

“Here we are now.” Victoria glared at him. “Here we are,” John responded and kneeled in front of her face. “Did you know your Guild leader was the one to addict Travolta to the Blood of Thana?” “Don’t speak her name, you heinous liar.” She hissed in response, similar accusations were shouted by the others. He sighed, “You guys are really too far gone down the extremist route to talk too.” Was his conclusion. “I will go save Thana now. Should take you a good amount of time to get out of this.” John said and got up. They could only leave the Illusion Barrier by raising their hands into the air, so they needed to dig themselves out first. That plus the need to take a two-hour train ride would give John more than enough time to either succeed in his plan or fail trying.