Chapter 296: Variable 1
Tuelus had died without doing much and without mounting any of his own attacks. There was a bigger meaning to that, and that was that, in a team battle, if the allies attacked ferociously, they could easily kill an enemy hero.
Keros had not expected Tuelus to die so meaninglessly, so he started feeling anxious and raised his sword up high. He was going to slam it into the ground and create a shockwave, but before the shockwave was generated, Junhyuk took hold of the allied heroes and teleported away.
Nudra, however, was rather far away, so Junhyuk couldn’t save him. After teleporting, he watched Nudra being swept up by the shockwave. Only a little of his health remained after that, so if someone grazed him, Nudra would die.
Keros ran toward Nudra, but Sarang fired her electric blast at him. Keros was paralyzed, and the allied heroes focused their attacks on him.
Artlan jumped and swung his saber at Kero’s head; Nudra front kicked him; Diane used her multishot; and Vera cast a firewall.
In just a short time, all of the attacks landed. Meanwhile, Halo was also running toward Keros.
With the allied heroes’ combined attacks, Keros started losing health quickly. Last time, even when the heroes’ powers landed on their enemies, the damage they dealt Keros wasn’t that high. However, now that they had new equipment, Keros was losing health in chunks.
Keros had little health left, but the paralysis wore off, so he stepped forward while swinging his ma.s.sive sword. He was aiming at Nudra, and Junhyuk tried to get to him. If anything went wrong, Nudra would be killed, and Junhyuk wanted to prevent that.
Keros had already used all his powers, so it wouldn’t be easy for him to kill Nudra. However, Nudra’s health was almost gone, so he could die from a single hit.
Keros’ ma.s.sive sword was heading toward Nudra, so Nudra clasped both hands in front of himself and released a gust toward Keros. However, right at that moment, Keros kicked the ground and jumped.
The jump wasn’t one of Keros’ powers, but the timing was right, and he escaped the gust. Then, he spun his body around, coming down with his sword on Nudra. Because Nudra was still generating the gust, he couldn’t escape. But that’s when a light green powder sprinkled over Nudra’s head, and he regained 20 percent of his health.
Keros sword attack landed, but it could not kill Nudra, who smirked and kicked him in return.
Whack!
Keros was. .h.i.t on the chin, and Nudra was already in air, kicking Keros’ neck again. It was a critical hit, and Keros also died.
Junhyuk sighed, relieved. Among the five allied heroes, no one had died, and they had killed two enemies. Things were looking bright.
Relieved, the group picked up the dropped items from the ground, and Junhyuk looked at Sarang. The enemies had used area-of-effect attacks twice, but Sarang had survived.
“It’s good that you are still alive!”
Not only had she survived, but she had also saved Nudra with her powers. Sarang smiled at him.
“Last time, they had also used area-of-effect attacks, so I kept a certain distance this time.”
She was still only an expert, but she had been to the Dimensional Battlefield many times. She had measured the distance of the enemies’ attacks and read the timing of Junhyuk’s teleportation correctly, all while keeping her distance while they closed in through the teleportation.
After surviving the enemies’ attacks, she had seized the opportunity.
Junhyuk smiled and looked at the others.
Nudra walked over and put his hand on Sarang’s shoulder.
“Thanks!”
“I did my job.”
He smiled and continued, “Your healing has increased.”
“I’m training hard.”
She was still in high school, so Sarang and Junhyuk only trained together in the evenings. Junhyuk fought the B-ranked monsters, but he didn’t kill them all. Instead, he let himself get hit by them intentionally in order to increase Sarang’s power through practice.
It had worked. She could heal for a lot of health every time now, being able to heal Nudra by 20 percent.
Vera came over and hugged Sarang by her neck, saying, “She is my apprentice!”
Junhyuk looked at Artlan and asked, “What do we do now?”
“We’ll push forward again. Let’s destroy the second bottom tower. If our enemies show up with less than three heroes, we’ll have another team battle,” Artlan said, taking the lead.
Sarang followed him, and whenever she could, she practiced her healing on him. While making their way to the next tower, she healed all of the heroes completely.
When they arrived at the second tower, they saw no enemy heroes, so they all smiled.
“Let’s destroy it and return!”
Enough time had pa.s.sed for the enemy heroes to revive, but they were not there, which might mean that they were giving that tower up.
They would destroy the tower and return. It wouldn’t take long to do it.
However, when the tower was about to fall, enemies showed up. There were four of them, but one of them was really short.
Looking at them, Junhyuk frowned.
“That must be their expert.”
He was two meters tall and he didn’t look like a champion, so he had to be an expert. He had blades for arms, and although Junhyuk knew the Dimensional Battlefield wasn’t just for humans, he was still coping with having to fight such creatures.
With his two bladed arms, the expert also had the head of an insect. As they approached, he just stood there among the enemy heroes.
As Junhyuk scoped them out, he said, “He looks like an expert, so why did they not bring him out last time?”
Experts could die once, so why didn’t they let him tag along? However, even without that expert, the allies had been defeated, which now raised the question: Why were they bringing him out now?
The allies had just killed Tuelus and Keros, and the enemies had shown up without them. Klamp, Aak, Lujet were there, and they looked very st.u.r.dy.
Junhyuk was worried about how to deal with them.
“Destroy the tower before they intervene!” Artlan shouted quickly.
Considering Aak’s health, in an engagement, the allies couldn’t destroy the tower unless they killed the enemies first. The enemies would be buffed if a fight broke out now, so before that happened, the allies had to destroy the tower.
Everyone focused on the tower, and while the enemies aimed for the allies, the allies were able to destroy the tower before the enemies got much closer.
Looking at them, Junhyuk realized that they lacked long-ranged attacks. However, they all had enormous amounts of health. Still, because the allies had focused solely on attack boosts, they might have the advantage in this battle.
Aak was the first to run toward the allies. He could even put pressure on the allies with the force field up. He was that strong.
Seeing him run, Junhyuk decided on who he would attack first, Lujet. Lujet’s attack was really strong, but he had low defense in comparison to the others.
The enemies were closing in, and Junhyuk used the Spatial Slash. At that moment, the expert running toward him suddenly disappeared. If the expert was hiding, there was nothing Junhyuk could do.
He used the Spatial Slash on Lujet.
With a single blow, Lujet lost 30 percent of his health. Lujet hadn’t lost an item yet, so the damage wasn’t extreme, but the Spatial Slash landed beautifully, also generating a shockwave. The expert still didn’t show up.
Aak was already close enough to the allies, so he stomped the ground.
Boom!
The shockwave generated from that paralyzed Artlan, Halo, and Nudra, who were at the front. Vera and Diane had already fought Aak, so they had kept their distances and were safe.
Junhyuk and Sarang had also stayed safe, but Klamp ran toward them and extended his hand. At that moment, Junhyuk felt his body being pulled toward the hero.
Then, Klamp released a pulse from within his body that created a field that surrounded the area.
“Power sealing!”
The power sealing not only sealed powers away, but also inflicted a small amount of damage. Junhyuk grimaced, and he saw Lujet coming forward and extending his hand.
“I, Lujet, command! Come here and help me, Peltra!”
The five-meter tall demon appeared while nearly everyone was stunned and had their powers sealed off. The demon swung its fists toward the allies.
Because their powers had been sealed off, it was impossible for Junhyuk to use his force field. If not, he would have. Junhyuk scowled, and Lujet extended a hand forward.
A missile flew out of the hero’s mechanical hand and hit Artlan. Meanwhile, Junhyuk believed that all he had to do was survive and he would get his chance. He was preparing to use the force field once the seal had worn off when a blade pierced his ribs.
Junhyuk swung his sword at the area instinctively, and the blade in his ribs pulled itself out. It was a critical hit, and he lost 30 percent of his health, so he looked for who had stabbed him.
It had been the insect-headed expert. He had hid and stabbed him. Junhyuk was about to jump to get away when Aak swung his fist toward him. Seeing that, Junhyuk thought he could parry the fist and then raise the force field, but Aak’s fist was larger than normal.
Boom!
Junhyuk got hit in the face, and the world turned black all around him. He lost 50 percent of his health.
—
Another death. He travelled through the thick darkness, but he was having a hard time.
“Aha!” he breathed out roughly, kneeling on the ground.
He thought he would never get used to dying.
After gathering himself, he got up.
“What killed me?!”
Junhyuk didn’t know all of the enemies’ powers, but Aak’s attack was extraordinary.
“Was it one of Aak’s powers?”
Junhyuk’s defense was quite high. However, the attack had pierced his defenses and taken away 50 percent of his health. He’d been killed with a single hit, so he wasn’t sure of the damage.
“He’s only a tank, so how can he deal so much damage?”
He was not sure about what had happened, but he thought that attack would be deadly for Vera and Diane. Then, he decided to head outside and connect to the heroes.
[Champion Junhyuk Lee deployed.]
Junhyuk walked outside and saw the the minions milling about. Without realizing, he touched his own ribs.
“That hide lasted longer than I had imagined.”
The expert’s hiding power lasted longer than Kilraden’s. On top of that, he had penetrated his defenses and dealt 30 percent of damage to him. For an expert, that was a lot.
Junhyuk decided to wait. The heroes might still be fighting, and he didn’t want to connect to them while that was going on.
However, while waiting, the heroes showed up behind him.
“We got killed.”
Shocked, he saw Artlan, Halo, and Nudra walking toward him at the same time.
“All of you?”
“That demon summoning made cookie dough out of us.”
The demon’s attack power was really high. Without the force field, no one could fight it. With the demon attacking uninterruptedly for ten seconds, the allies couldn’t have survived.
“Without that enemy expert, we wouldn’t have been killed,” Halos said.
“Did he use another power?”
Nudra nodded and answered, “He used a multi-restriction.”