Ultimate Level 1

Chapter 269: Claiming a Fortress

Max took a few seconds to recover as Fowl and Cordellia dealt with the pack of three that rushed them upon exiting the water.

Hundreds of fish were floating upside down, their silver bodies turned orange in the glowing light of fires.

“You are an idiot!” Tanila shouted at Max. “Tom told you not to cast lightning in the water! That could kill you.”

“I am fine. Numb but fine. It’s already wearing off and I can feel my magic starting to work right again,” Max replied. “My choice was to let them get eaten alive or save them.”

She gave him an angry glare before turning to face the others.

Tanila was right and he knew it. The power he had put into that spell had gone out for over a hundred yards and while it killed hundreds outright, it had stunned probably another three hundred past the kill zone. His mind had hurt and the pain inside him was different than a typical spell. It was as if his own magic had damaged something inside and even with Regeneration it was taking a moment for whatever backlash had happened to dissipate.

“I guess we need to storm the fortress?” Fowl asked as he pointed at the twenty-five foot tall doors they had dislodged from the stone walls.

“It would appear so,” Cordellia replied as she pointed at the sea raiders that were exiting from the new opening.

“Let’s get to it then,” Max said as he pulled out his weapon, ready to see what lay beyond.

“Four more!”

? Max swung his halberd, cleaving his current foe in half while seeing the group coming down toward the party.

At least fifty corpses were behind them from the entrance they had squeezed through. Inside the fort were tents and a few siege weapons that no longer fired thanks to Tanila and her spells. The barrels that had been near them provided enough light as the wooden remains of those tall trebuchets burned like a bonfire.

Arrows flew past him and Max moved to finish off the last one bothering Fowl, freeing them up to move to intercept the newest additions.

“We need to get to that building, I think!” Tanila yelled as she sent an earth spear at one of the four, gutting it like a fish.

Max nodded, seeing the three story building that was about a quarter of a mile away, encircled by tents and packs of these defenders. All they needed was time and slowly they could find out if the portal or a boss was there.

***

The building had been empty, nothing but furniture and some bottles of alcohol Fowl had taken.

Each minute brought more defenders and Max tried to figure out where the portal out of the tower floor could be.

“What are we missing? Why haven’t we found it?”

Tanila paused, spinning around, studying the fortress area she could see in the darkness.

All around on top of the walls near fire pits was a flag, waving in the wind with a mutated crab claw and a pair of tentacles.

Biting her lip, she turned and saw at the top of the building they had moved from that same flag only about four times larger, moving slightly in the wind.

She began to cast a stone spear and after it reached the size she wanted, sent it at the flagpole, striking it and toppling the flag.

The moment it vanished from their view, the whole fortress shuddered, and a roar rang out.

Back near the front of the building, a massive claw swiped at it, knocking the stone structure to the side about fifteen feet up.

“Holy goblin shite!” Fowl cursed.

“That thing is super ugly,” Cordellia added.

Standing near the building was a twenty-five foot tall half octopus, half crab, one hundred percent ugly sea raider. It wore a captain's hat on its crab head as two eye stalks darted around the shattered building, looking for something.

Its right arm was a crab arm, with a claw at least eight feet long, dripping with liquid. The other arm was a wiggling mass of tentacles that seemed to stretch and retract, never holding still.

It moved around the remains of the building, one leg looking like a normal human leg, the other a metallic peg leg from the knee down.

“Foolish elf! You dare challenge me?!”

As it shouted, it pointed the wiggling mass of tentacles at Tanila.

They moved suddenly and a burst of light came before the sound of an explosion rang out.

[ Protect Ally ]

Max found himself ten yards from where he had been, near the extent of the range of the ability, shield out and before the woman he loved.

Only his speed and mind allowed him to activate that skill as a cannonball the size of a dwarf came from a hidden cannon underneath the mass of tentacles.

Max tried to figure out where he was. His mind hurt and his body ached. Both arms were broken as he had been summoned by the skill to protect Tanila.

Thirty yards away he was lying on his back, still holding onto his shield.

[ Regeneration ]

For that to have done that much damage…

A little over a third of his life was gone, and he had successfully blocked the attack, with the bonus to defenses the skill had provided.

Storing his shield and climbing to his feet without the use of his arms or hands yet, Max saw that Fowl was charging the boss as Tanila summoned the largest ball of lightning he had ever seen.

A wave of healing came and his arms immediately were renewed, his life well above ninety percent now as Batrire never turned around, her eyes locked on Fowl.

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Squeezing his fists, Max felt his knuckles pop.

Immediately, he was next to the boss, his weapon already moving to attack.

The blade cut at the joint of the peg leg, causing the boss to stumble a little, sending its claw that had been aimed at Fowl to the side of his friend, slamming into the dirt.

Vibrations of metal on metal reverberated through his weapon's shaft, and when the blade came back, only a slight amount of blood came from the injury that looked like just a scratch.

Five tentacles raced toward him and Max dodged backwards, slashing and hacking at them, chopping off two of them, sections falling to the ground and still wiggling.

The boss roared, spinning on its pegleg and pointing the tentacle-covered cannon at him.

Moving quickly, Max turned its back to his friends, drawing its attention and the cannon that still hadn’t fired.

The boss spasmed, its arm lifting slightly, and the cannon boomed, its massive payload shooting out from the opening and blowing a hole in the fortress's wall as it struck.

Tanila’s lightning spell had landed and gave him a moment to attack.

Running forward again, his choices were hard.

So many bosses have had a damage mitigation spell or a way to heal. If I can’t kill it in one shot, then all my abilities will be used and then we have to try to wear it down.

Points on the boss’s body called out. Take out the peg leg and the boss would be weakened and slowed. It might be able to handle a normal strike, but what about his combo of three skills?

? The arm was another option, but it was so thick that even with the cleaving bonus, could he hack the arm with the cannon off?

Going for the head seemed great, but the shell looked much thicker than so many of the things they had faced recently and if he couldn’t kill it and the boss had regeneration, then what?

“Run Fowl!”

The idea felt stupid and smart at the same time.

A barrel of magical fire was making its way toward the boss’s face.

He was now under it with his weapon swinging, ready to test a few things.

[ Power Strike ]

[ Magical Strike ]

[ Rampage ]

That same spot he had hit this time didn’t resist the cut of his blade.

One moment, the metal leg that ran into the creature's thigh was connected and the next it was separated.

Two more attacks were used on the other leg, carving off large chunks of flesh and striking bone each time, cutting tendons and causing the boss to stumble.

As he ran from underneath it, moving faster than most eyes could keep up, he snagged the metal leg, storing it and, hopefully, keeping any possible healing skill from working.

Fire erupted above and behind him and a glance over his shoulder revealed the boss had used its left arm to block the barrel, those tentacles cracking open the wood and a spark that seemed to wait between the moist, wet flesh ignited the liquid.

Another explosion came as the fire covered the arm, setting off whatever mechanism or device caused its cannon to work.

Two shots rapidly came out, arching up into the night sky, both flaming with the liquid they shot through before the entire arm vanished in a massive ball of fire.

One moment it was there, thrashing around, writing and the next shrapnel and gooey, flaming tentacle bits were flung across the inside of the fortress.

Roars of pain came from the boss as the stump above its elbow was seared shut, waving around in the air as flames burnt part of its chest and head, sent there from the demise of its own secret weapon.

Trying to cast lighting still felt impossible, so Max summoned his fire elemental, letting it appear before he summoned a fireball.

Not hindered by a foolish decision like his, Tanila had a lightning cloud forming above the boss, still seconds away from being finished.

An eyestalk vanished into a fine mist as Cordellia managed to hit one with an empowered arrow.

“You all shall die!”

The boss’s shout reverberated off the wall as it turned and faced Tanila and the others.

Even on fire, somehow able to still stand on a badly damaged leg, Max watched as its midsection, which was covered in a slimy, algae like leather chest piece, began to open.

Tentacles from around it came down, providing support as the boss faced the four others.

Max ran around, trying to figure out what was coming, and saw that inside its stomach and chest area were at least a dozen more tentacles, all thicker than its arm had originally had. As they moved, six canons of different sizes began to push from its midsection, aimed at the party.

“DIE!”

The fortress was filled with sounds of cannons much larger than the ones on their ship rapidly deploying shots.

Smoke filled the space before the boss as extra tentacles came down, bracing it as the barrage of cannonballs rained down upon his friends.

Max saw the shimmer of Batrire’s dome, not knowing how much damage it could sustain as everyone tried to gather under it for safety.

Running with everything he had, Max had his shield out, angling to where Fowl was standing, both shields out as he stood before the trio of women.

Air walls shattered in an instant, stone walls were like paper against the assault, and cracks began to appear in Batrire’s dome.

She was sweating, Max saw, something different from any other time she had used it.

“Be ready!” Max shouted over the din as he came to stand beside Fowl.

Dwarf size and human sized cannonballs bounced off the dome as each one destroyed more of the magical protective barrier and after ten seconds, both he and Fowl used their skills.

[ Armored Warrior ]

[ Bulwark ]

The shield shattered and the barrage of attacks began to strike them.

Fowl cried out in pain and Max felt the same thing as he let Regeneration do what it could.

His life decreased slower, ten percent per blocked shot while Fowl suffered more damage, but he received heals, keeping him up as the boss’s roar changed from rage to agony.

Thorn aura!

Each shot Fowl blocked was dealing large amounts of damage back to the boss, and after six more seconds, the last cannon ball came, striking the dwarven warrior’s shield.

A crashing sound from where the boss was, followed by laborious breathing, was heard.

Smoke filled the air, but Max could see with Sonar what had happened.

Chunks of the boss’s body were on the ground, tentacles were writhing, separated from its midsection.

Seconds ticked by as normal sound returned, the echoes of the cannons no longer ringing in everyone's ears.

“Holy… elf… tits,” Fowl managed to say through the pain that Batrire was trying to help heal him from. “The experience… it’s dead.”

Max could sense that Fowl was right. It had killed itself by attacking Fowl.

?