Tides are turning

The second **** on the charging station went just as perfect as the first, even though John only got 20 robots out of this one. He threw the bomb, instantly killed a couple of enemies in the process and finished off the remaining ones while they were still stunned (and thank whoever was looking over him for that additional stun time). Even Gary got a kill for himself, as he stuck a single robot to the walls of the structure and repeatedly pierced its chest chassis, damaging the vital machinery that was behind it. It was obviously a big thing for Gary. All in all, this was pretty damn easy; easy enough that he checked in on Astrid while he was doing that.

'Hey, everything alright on your side? You didn't say anything yet, so I got kind of worried,' asked John while piercing one of the robots coming for him from the vicinity. 'Oh! Hey, yeah I didn't want to break your or sis' concentration, so I just kept quiet for now... Everything okay here! Nothing has happened here since you two left. I'm keeping myself busy by checking the... scoreboard? I guess you could call it a scoreboard... But did something happen to sis like three minutes ago? Her numbers seemed to skyrocket since then...'

'Oh I think I can answer what happened there, I might have teased her a bit there, and she then got super pissed and probably let out all of her frustration on the bots. Maybe not my best idea, but I wanted to make this a proper competition,' was his answer. Sure, technically she was a higher level than him, but she obviously didn't take him seriously, so she held herself back.

'That did sound like sis... she was never the smartest or the one with the best temper... I guess you go through these enemies with a specific strategy? Seeing your score pop up twice by a big amount would tell me that. Her score has been steadily increasing, just not fast enough to keep up with you...'

These spikes surely were the times when he used the bombs, seeing as to how he got a lot of enemies that way. And if Brun was steadily increasing, does that mean that she simply took out the next enemy closest to her, starting and stopping for every single one?

As John was lost in his thoughts, he could see how there was another group of enemies, four this time, coming for him. This time, John would not be so stupid and try to kite them until absolutely necessary, he would take them out like he dealt with the wolves in the monastery, by actually using all of his skills.

Once the group was close enough, John used his Magic Rope to pull all of the robots together, the size of the rope luckily long enough to tie them all into a single clump of metal. The bots were struggling to move properly, and before they could try to power out of the confinement, he was already on to them and swung his spear in a wide arc, slicing through the enemies in a single stroke.

Multiple targets struck! Damage applied to every target!
28 DMG + 23 DMG (Light)

At the end of the swing, though, something weird happened. As the spear was still moving through the air, it suddenly got a lot heavier and almost immediately crashed into the ground. The shield he had equipped in his off-hand suddenly vanished as well. This was seriously not good! What happened? Looking at his spear immediately revealed what the problem was:

Spear of Amamyris
Epic
Charges (0/45)
Two-Handed Weapon
10-20 DMG

Shit! The spear didn't recharge after the fight in the free period today, so now it's out of juice! The thought horrified John because now he was not only stuck with a 'lesser' version of his spear, but he also lost a big part of his bonuses... this was going to be harder... not necessarily hard, but harder at least. John also thought about switching back to the Spear of Armageddon so he could use his shield, but against this onslaught of enemies, he would rather have the higher damage so he could kill these robots in a (hopefully) still single strike.

Enemies Remaining: 48
Time Left: 14:49
John N.: 81
Brunhilde G.: 68
Astrid G.: 0

So they failed the bonus objective, too bad but considering he just had a lot more problems, he wasn't too sad about it... He still needed 17 kills to win this, and he was determined to win this! And the next three were just coming for him, how convenient. Taking his spear into both hands, John did the best thing he could think of and tried to use the tactic that had just worked. Binding them together with Magic Rope he struck them with all the might he could muster and applied Mana Charge.

Multiple targets struck! Damage applied to every target!
20 DMG + 2 DMG (Mana Charge)
Enemy crippled! Movement speed reduced by 25%! Damage dealt to enemy increased by 1.5x
Enemy crippled! Movement speed reduced by 25%! Damage dealt to enemy increased by 1.5x
Enemy crippled! Movement speed reduced by 25%! Damage dealt to enemy increased by 1.5x

Damn, they survived the hit... and that was a big problem. Because as soon as they were hit, and not shut off, the robots started to scream in a deafening pitch, forcing John to cover his ears.

-6 HP (Deafening Alarm)
-6 HP (Deafening Alarm)
New Status: Dazed, attacks are slowed by 25%. Chance to get hit critically increased by 10%

So these things had some kind of defense mechanism if they weren't killed in a single blow or fried with electricity. And apparently, the effect was heard for quite a distance. 'What the fuck are you doing there?!? It sounds like you're ripping into one of these robots with a gigantic chainsaw,' asked, or rather screamed, Brun through the connection. 'These things seem to have a defense mechanism like this if they aren't beaten in a single hit,' screamed John back through his mind, trying to overpower the sound of the robots.

-6 HP (Deafening Alarm)

'Well good job, shitlord! Because now the robots near me started to come towards me as well and I can kill them quicker!'

-6 HP (Deafening Alarm)

'FUCK,' was all that was going through his head at that point. Not only did he have a handicap now, but he also just gave Brun an advantage! Well at least he still had a lead on her, he just had to finish quickly enough now to win this.

But was that worth the stress? The competitive spirit inside of him said yes, and that spirit was in control right now!

-6 HP (Deafening Alarm)

And just like the Valkyrie had said, there were a lot of enemies coming for him now, too many to properly fight them off with his slow spear... Finishing off the screaming three, still bound by him, John took a route he didn't want to take because it would be way too mana-costly: he would need to cheese them with his Mana Daggers. He jumped up using Flash Step and pulling himself towards a fire exit sticking out from a building close by. Throwing daggers as quickly as he couldfrom there rewarded him with another two kills.

Mana Dagger, Lv.3, Mana Dagger now deals 38 Damage

John was hoping that the robots, that had not shown much motoric coordination yet, couldn't climb up the walls.

Unfortunately, he was wrong. He knew that as soon as the metallic fingers of the robots beneath him dug themselves into the cement walls and crawled towards him.

And now John had to choose, go down again or climb the fire exit up to the roof. One would put him in the middle of twelve enemies; the other would put him on a roof from where he could quickly escape thanks to his skills. The choice wasn't that hard really...