New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 992: A Defensive Battle

The pile of corpses rattled before a first hand clenched into a fist, followed by the clattering of bony jaws, half the flesh falling off the kobold corpses with a slurping sound, slapping on the ground wetly, before the bodies stood upright.

David mentally directed them to form another layer of defence around them, creating a secondary triangle outside theirs, in groups of threes, in a countersink array, as he directed the other eleven dead kobolds to slink into the shadows.

With their two-layered triangular defence, there were barely any gaps in their defence, and the ranged attackers in the party felt a bit safer. But now was not the time to let their guard down.

Kary saw a pair of kobolds flee to the back of the room before they disappeared into a tunnel, and she clicked her tongue in annoyance.

"More trouble to deal with," she mumbled before looking back down.

"One issue at a time," she added under her breath.

She could see a group of four kobolds had taken a step back, sheathing their weapons and pulling out straps of leather, and she instantly understood what they were doing.

"Killian, Jin-Sil, and Aapo! Take down the enemy sling men in the back! Don't let them take shots at us!"

The three people concerned suddenly snapped their heads toward where she was pointing and saw the five kobolds setting stones in their slings, and immediately took aim.

The first salvo from them took three of the kobolds down, but two remained. And before they could reload and fire again, two stones shot out of the darkness, heading into the group.

The angle at which they came was too high for Winston to do anything about it, and would be too far for Alex or David to react in time, the speed of the projectiles way over what humans could deal with.

But their group weren't regular humans, either.

With a wave of her hand, Violette conjured a barrier of water over the center of their ranged team, the stones passing through it and losing all momentum. The two projectiles fell to the ground from gravity alone, losing all their threat.

Killian and Jin-Sil wasted no time reacting, taking out the two last sling men, Aapo too slow to reload his weapon, and the threat from afar was quickly neutralized.

On the front lines, the kobolds trying to push through the defence line the humans had formed were quickly disillusioned about their strength, when the first four to charge into it got torn to pieces.

The kobolds David had raised were brutal, almost feral in their attacks, and with no care about getting hurt, they were deathly effective.

And when a kobold managed to make its way past the first line of defence, they ended up against the even more dangerous three humans, who slayed them in a breath, not even wasting a second glance at the fallen enemies.

When no more than ten of them remained, they spun around to escape, only to find themselves face to face with more undead of their kin, fear sinking in at their imminent demise.

The entire ordeal took but a few minutes, but the intensity of it surpassed their previous battles tenfold. They quickly understood the real danger was now truly starting.

But they couldn't waste time here.

"We can't rest," Kary called out, landing in the midst of the group of ranged attackers. "Two of them fled into a tunnel, and I can only imagine the amount of traps they have set from here, to wherever they were going back to," she added, pointing at the tunnel in question.

Liu Yan, who had barely attacked during this fight, waiting to see a chance to take out more than one monster, looked at her with worry.

"If you think there are traps, isn't that all the more reason to take a moment of respite? Wouldn't charging after them only put us at more risk?"

Kary shook her head no.

"Normally, I would agree with you. But I doubt the traps are all active since they most likely came from there, to begin with. What time they waste activating traps is time we can use to catch up with them and slay them. This would at least save us some trouble."

Liu Yan understood her reasoning and nodded, shutting his mouth.

But the sound of clashing blades wasn't done resounding inside the room, as Jonathan and the dagger-wielding kobold were still rushing at each other.

There was barely any time in between each clash, the intensity of their bout far surpassing the battle between the larger groups, and Alex looked at the situation with critical eyes.

'At this pace, he will win, but it'll take him a few minutes. Should I just butt in and end this?' he wondered.

But his question was answered before he could do anything.

"Go ahead without me! I'll catch up!" Jonathan shouted, realizing the room had gone quiet aside from his duel.

Kary frowned, but turned her head toward Alex.

When she saw him nod, Kary sighed loudly, unhappy about leaving someone behind already.

"Fine! But don't die! If you do, I'll have David resurrect you, and I'll personally tear you a new one!" she shouted, before dashing toward the tunnel.

The party followed behind her, but not before throwing a glance at the sparks flying around

the room.

In the end, they could only trust that their leaders knew what they were doing.

Once they were left alone in the room, Jonathan and the kobold clashed a last time before separating and stopping.

Jonathan looked down at his legs, seeing the multiple minor cuts on them, all stopping shy of digging into his muscles and tendons, and he smirked.

"Your blades aren't as sharp as your tongue, lizard," he mocked.

On the other side of the cavern, the kobold looked at him with seething rage. He already knew

this, and having it shoved at his face stoked his already boiling rage.

Over his own body, numerous cuts were oozing with thick blood.

"I can say the same for you, insect!" it spat back.

Jonathan smirked at him.

"I hope you don't think I was going all out, lizard. Because if you did, you're in for an

unpleasant surprise," Jonathan said, a smirk growing on his lips.

'Now that they are gone, I can try this. Let's see how far I've progressed outside New Eden.'

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