Chapter 73 This ls Checkmate
“It’s incomplete. This monster cannot be used to further our goals in the Gweliven Kingdom.” The dwarf clicked his tongue in annoyance. “I shouldn’t have been impatient. I should have continued to play it safe until this thing was born properly. Now, it’s too late. This project has failed.”
The Dwarf broke the bone spear that had pierced his arm, and poured a healing potion over it. His wounds healed up completely, but he wouldn’t be able to fully use his arm for a few days. Since his plans had failed, he decided to leave and start from scratch.
As the man was about to leave, he heard a whistling sound coming from behind his back, and he was forced to roll to his right side to evade whatever it was. Grazing the side of his waist, an arrow shot past him, almost dealing a lethal injury to him had it hit its designated target, which was his heart.
“Dammit!” The Dwarf cursed as he opened another healing potion and poured its contents on his injury.
Ishtar had shot at him due to Lux’s orders. The dwarf couldn’t be let go yet because one of Lux’s mission objectives was to collect information about the unknown organization and pass it to the Knights of Norria. Since that was the case, he couldn’t possibly allow the man to escape at all costs.
Diablo, who also received Lux’s orders, leapt from the ground and aimed to deliver a fatal blow to the Dwarf who seemed to be an Apostle Grade Mage who specialized in Fire Magic.
“Barrier!” The Dwarf shouted just in time to block Diablo’s Heavy Slash and prevent the latter from giving him a serious injury.
The barrier shattered, but the Dwarf was able to use his blink ability to gain distance from his attacker. Just as he was about to cast a fireball at the skeleton in front of him, several whistling sounds reached his ears, which prevented him from doing what he wanted.
The Dwarf slammed the butt of his staff against the ground, which created a powerful shockwave that repelled the arrows that Ishtar had shot in his direction.-.
Right now, the Skeleton Grand Archers, and the Skeleton Warriors were keeping the Ash Wing’s attention, allowing Diablo and Ishtar to work in tandem to defeat the Dwarf Mage, who was responsible for overturning the balance inside the Figaro Gardens.
Ten minutes passed as Diablo and Ishtar fought together against the Dwarf, whom Lux had determined to be at least a Grade B Apostle (Rank 3 Monster). The Dwarf was hard pressed in dealing with the deadly long range and short range attacks that were forcing him to use all of his abilities to their fullest.
Meanwhile, the Ash Wing was being attacked by the hit and run tactics by the Skeleton Fighters, constantly being pummeled by volleys of long range attacks, and gradually increasing the injuries that it had received in total. After fighting against the Abomination, Lux realized that aside from its strength and size, the Ash Wing didn’t know how to fight.
Simply put, it just uses its legs to deliver blows that could be avoided as long as one paid attention to its movements. Just as the dwarf had mentioned, the Beast was a failed project because it was born prematurely.
None of its deadly weapons were fully developed. The Ash Wing was just an oversized meat shield in a nutshell, which made Lux breathe a sigh of relief.
However, although its attacks were very basic, the fact still remained that a single blow from it would be enough to annihilate the Skeletons that were running around it.
After being locked in a deadly battle with Diablo and Ishtar, the Dwarf Mage was finally able to take a breather when he successfully blew Diablo away with a fireball that was fired at point blank range.
The Dwarf immediately used this opportunity to blink away from the battlefield, and he succeeded. He was quite familiar with the terrain of the Monster Nest and had already created several paths of escape to be used once the project had successfully been completed.
His clothes were drenched in blood because the battle had truly been intense. Even so, he just kept on running while pouring Health Potions over his body. Everytime the duration of the skill, Blink, became available, he would blink away again.
This caused his mana to drop at a rapid rate, but he didn’t care. Right now, his priority was to escape the Figaro Garden and report his findings to their organization.
Suddenly, something unexpected happened.
Right after he blinked to a location, the ground underneath his feet exploded. The Dwarf found his left arm being pierced through by a sword, which made him scream in pain.
Lux was riding on top of a Silver Ant, and he used the momentum of its charge to impale the dwarf who was the ringleader of everything. However, his attack was not over yet.
“Mana Drain!” Lux shouted as he grabbed hold of the Dwarf’s left arm, which he had pierced with his sword.
Mana Drain was a range spell that absorbed 2% of the target’s maximum mana for five seconds. Lux knew that his current stats were not strong enough to fight against the enemy, so he decided to use the only thing that he could do and that was to prevent him from using magic.
The Dwarf panicked as he felt his remaining mana be taken away from him. As a Mage, all of his attacks relied on Mana. His mana was already dangerously low, and now even that was being taken away from him.
“Who are you?!” the Dwarf screamed in anger as he tried to break free from Lux’s firm hold. “Why are you getting in our way?!”
Lux didn’t bother to answer the dwarf’s question, as he pulled his sword out of the Dwarf’s arm so he could stab his enemy’s chest. Unfortunately, the dwarf was stronger than him, so the latter managed to kick Lux away the moment he pulled the sword that was piercing his arm out.
After escaping from Lux’s grasp, the Dwarf ran away, only to be pinned down by the Silver Ant that Lux was using as a mount.
The name of the Ant was the Speedy Silver Ant and, just as the name suggested, it was the fastest ant in the Ant Colony. Lux had asked for its help in order to reach the Nest as soon as possible, to help his Summons deal with the situation.
The duration of the mission was only an hour, so the Half-Elf decided to go to the site, and personally handle the matter in order to clear his mission.
“Annoying Ant!” the dwarf roared in anger. “Fire Bullet!”
The Silver Ant screamed after it was hit by the magical attack, which allowed the Mage to use his Blink Skill to distance himself from the Rank 1 Monster, whose only merit was its fast running speed.
This time around, the Dwarf had been drained completely of his mana reserves. However, just like everyone in his organization, he had brought several potions with him, and two of them were mana potions.
Unfortunately, just as he was about to drink one of them, the bottle he was holding in his hand shattered when an arrow passed through it.
A second later, his chest was impaled by a bone spear, which pinned him to a nearby tree. The Dwarf spat a mouthful of blood as he looked in disbelief at the enemies that had appeared in front of him.
“I knew that the Hunter’s Mark is indispensable when hunting prey,” Lux stated as he walked towards the Dwarf who was barely clinging onto life. “I just didn’t know that the first thing I would be hunting was not a beast, but a Dwarf. Sorry, Mr. Dwarf. This is checkmate.”
Lux raised his hand and sneered at the slippery Dwarf who always used his Blink Skill to escape the battle. “Mana Drain!”
The Dwarf spat a mouthful of blood before his entire body stiffened. For magicians, and other spell casters, being deprived of mana was the same as being deprived of their health. When a magician loses all of his mana, and goes into a deficit, their whole body enters a state of shock, which knocks them unconscious.
When they entered this state, they wouldn’t be able to regenerate mana for 24 hours, and their bodies would enter a weakened state, making it impossible for them to cast spells. Diablo pulled the Bone Spear embedded on the dwarf’s chest out, which made the latter fall to the ground.
Lux poured just a bit of healing potion on the bloody hole to close it up. The Half-Elf had no intention of healing his enemy, he just wanted to keep him alive until he handed him personally to the Riders of Norria who were stationed in Leaf Village.
The Half-Elf rummaged through the Dwarf’s belongings and took everything of value from his body. Storage rings, storage bags, his staff, and other miscellaneous items. He had no time to inspect them all because the battle was not over.
For the time being, he stored all of these items in his inventory for safekeeping.
The red-headed teenager then took ropes out from his storage ring and tied the Dwarf up properly and tight in order to prevent him from escaping. Just to be on the safe side, he had Ishtar cast another Hunter’s Mark on the Dwarf as insurance, if he happened to wake up before they finished dealing with the Abomination.
“Speedy, can you take him to your nest for the time being?” Lux asked the Silver Ant that had brought him to the battlefield.
Speedy clicked its mandibles and nodded its head before picking up the Dwarf on the ground. He then carried him towards the hole that he had made earlier, and disappeared from Lux’s sight.
The Half-Elf finally breathed a sigh of relief as he stared at Diablo and Ishtar who stood a few meters away from him.
“Let’s go,” Lux ordered. “There’s one last pest remaining.”
Lux ran towards the entrance of the Nest along with Diablo and Ishtar. Now that the ringleader was defeated, all they needed to do was whittle the Ash Wing’s health away, and put an end to the Abomination that threatened the lives of everyone inside the Figaro Gardens.