Chapter 364: Unbeatable

"Of course," Kael muttered as the barrier absorbed his fist.

"What?" the burly man asked while struggling to recover his stance. Kael ducked beneath the Death Knight’s counterattack and answered, "It’s undead. They don’t tire."

The Death Knight struck with its shield, and Kael barely avoided the blow.

The knight parried him aside without difficulty. The burly climber staggered away and added, "Really fucking fantastic."

Kael’s internal energy continued falling, and he disliked what he saw whenever he checked his remaining reserves between attacks. He was not empty yet, but he was getting dangerously close.

He could not maintain Heft over Fire or Frost for another three hours. The portal timer continued counting down with agonizing slowness while the battle gradually began taking pieces from them.

The spear wielder made the first serious mistake when she attacked beneath the Death Knight’s shield. Her spearhead struck the armor but failed to penetrate, leaving her exposed as the undead rotated and brought its sword down.

She attempted to withdraw but could not escape quickly enough. The blade crossed her left shoulder, and blood erupted as her scream carried across the battlefield.

The sword did not sever the arm completely, but it came terrifyingly close. Flesh opened almost to the socket, leaving the limb hanging uselessly at her side.

Kael struck the shield immediately and forced the Death Knight away before it could finish her.

"Your arm is falling off, Back off" Kael told her as the Death Knight turned toward him. The spear wielder looked down at the ruined limb before quietly conceding, "Right."

Soldiers rushed forward from the gate while the others covered her withdrawal. She stumbled toward them with one hand clutching her destroyed shoulder, leaving the group with one fighter down.

The Death Knight did not care about her retreat. It turned toward The Leonard as he attacked with an axe whose blade had already accumulated several chips.

The axe struck the Death Knight’s sword, and the sound of cracking metal passed between them. The Leonard stared as the axe head broke and half the weapon spun away across the battlefield.

"No," The Leonard said as the Death Knight immediately attacked. He abandoned the ruined axe and drew his backup weapon, revealing a sword.

Despite the situation, Kael almost laughed. Of all the weapons The Leonard could have chosen against this particular enemy, he had selected the one the Death Knight had already demonstrated complete mastery over.

The Leonard discovered the problem during the first exchange when the Death Knight nearly tore the sword from his hands. The second forced him backward, and the third opened a line across his armor.

The Leonard was skilled, but the Death Knight was something else entirely. Trying to sword-fight it was like arguing with a scholar in a language one had learned yesterday.

The burly man stepped forward to cover him and met the Death Knight’s blade with his enormous sword. A sharp crack spread across the battlefield, and everyone heard it.

The burly man froze when he saw a fracture running down the middle of his weapon. The Death Knight struck again and broke the sword, sending its upper half spinning away.

The climber stared at the ruined piece remaining in his hands. "Oh, come on, this shit was expensive" he complained before the tower shield struck him.

The blow sent him flying backward again. This time, he struck the ground and did not rise immediately.

Kael was forced to attack alone for several seconds. Fire struck the shield, Frost followed, and Heft cracked the aura again without breaking it.

The Death Knight swung, and Kael crossed both gauntlets to block. Pain exploded through his arms before the impact threw him backward.

Kael rolled across the dirt and rose onto one knee. Deep lines had formed across the plates where he had parried the sword, with one section near his wrist partially split.

Another blow like that might cut through the gauntlets. Kael looked at the damage and muttered, "Fuck."

The Death Knight came for him before he could recover. Kael moved aside by the smallest margin, allowing the sword to strike the earth, then punched the shield and was immediately shoved away.

The mage shouted something from behind him, though Kael could barely hear her over the battle. When he glanced toward her, he noticed that the chains were fading.

They had not disappeared yet, but they would soon. The mage had maintained the slowing effect for almost an hour while casting support magic and consuming one potion after another, leaving her reserves near the bottom.

Once the chains vanished, the Death Knight would recover the thirty percent of its speed that the suppression spell had taken. Kael remembered the railgun projectile being divided in midair and how he had barely seen the sword move.

If that speed returned while everyone was exhausted and injured, they would die. Their deaths would not come eventually after another prolonged struggle, but immediately.

Kael avoided another swing while his mind raced for an answer. He still possessed twenty unused stat points that he had deliberately saved for an emergency.

He looked at the Death Knight and said, "Yeah, this qualifies." The problem was that allocating those points during the battle would create the same difficulties he had experienced before.

His body would change, his balance would shift, and placing twenty points directly into Dexterity could make his movements unreliable for several seconds. Losing control of his body for even a few moments against the Death Knight would be suicide.

Kael blocked another shield strike and retreated as pain shot through his arm. He shouted, "Buy me time!"

The Leonard glanced toward him and asked what he was planning. Kael answered, "I need a minute."

"We don’t have a minute!" The Leonard shouted as he barely avoided the Death Knight’s sword. Kael continued retreating and replied, "Then buy me thirty seconds!"

The Death Knight immediately attempted to follow him, but the burly man attacked from the side with the broken half of his sword and struck the shield. The Leonard joined him with his backup blade while the mage tightened the fading purple chains.

The Death Knight slowed enough for Kael to create distance. He opened his status and found the notification displaying his remaining points: [Unused Stat Points: 20].

Kael selected Dexterity and chose to invest all of them. Another message appeared asking, [Allocate 20 Stat Points to DEX?]

He looked back toward the battlefield before confirming. The Death Knight parried The Leonard, struck the burly man with its shield, and twisted against the mage’s magic while healers desperately worked upon the spear wielder near the wall.

Kael confirmed the allocation, causing a final notification to appear: [20 Stat Points allocated to DEX.] His body seized the moment the decision became permanent.

Kael gritted his teeth as his nerves lit up and his muscles began twitching. The sensation was subtler than his previous forty-point allocation, but twenty points placed into a single attribute remained far beyond what an ordinary climber would add at once.

His fingers jerked, and his vision sharpened in a way that made the world appear slower without actually changing. Time had not changed, but Kael had.

His ability to perceive movement improved while his balance shifted beneath him. The exact placement of his feet became painfully obvious, and he could feel every fraction of weight passing through his ankles.

His muscles attempted to respond faster than he was accustomed to controlling them. Kael forced himself to breathe twice while adjusting to the unfamiliar responsiveness of his body.

The Leonard shouted, "Redhead!" from the battlefield, forcing Kael to look up. The Death Knight had knocked the burly man down again and was turning its sword toward The Leonard.

Kael moved, though his sudden acceleration nearly caused him to overshoot the first step. He corrected halfway through the motion, handled the second step more cleanly, and regained control by the third.

Kael returned to the fight as the Death Knight swung. This time, he saw more than the blade and could follow the movements of its shoulder, elbow, and wrist from the beginning of the attack.

He leaned aside, allowing the sword to pass close to his face. The evasion had been dangerously narrow, but it was clean.

"Better," Kael said with a smile before striking the shield and releasing another eruption of Fire. The battle resumed, though better did not mean enough.

The mage’s chains continued growing dimmer, and her face had gone pale. The Leonard’s replacement sword accumulated fractures while the burly man fought with half a weapon and a body covered in blood.

The spear wielder could no longer hold her weapon properly. Kael’s gauntlets were breaking, and his internal energy continued draining.

Despite everything they had done, the Lesser Death Knight remained standing. Its armor was dented in several places, burn marks covered one side, and Frost coated portions of its legs.

The green aura protecting its shield had cracked so many times that Kael had lost count. They had still failed to break it even once.

Nearly an hour of concentrated effort from five climbers had failed to destroy the shield, despite the fortress artillery joining whenever a clean angle appeared. Kael ducked beneath another sword strike and punched, only for the barrier to intercept him again.

Of course it did. Kael backed away as the Death Knight advanced with the red light inside its eyes still burning brightly.

The creature showed no fatigue, hesitation, or pain. It was exactly as dangerous now as it had been when the fight began, but the climbers were not.

The spear wielder was nearly finished, the mage was approaching empty, and the burly man was injured and effectively disarmed. The Leonard had lost his primary weapon, while Kael had burned through much of his recovered internal energy and spent all twenty stat points he had deliberately kept in reserve.

They still needed to hold the creature for several more hours. For the first time since the fight began, the old rumor no longer sounded exaggerated: if the one-enemy wave appeared, climbers should surrender the floor and try again.

Kael had assumed the Fist King’s warning was meant for ordinary climbers. He had believed that if his master could overcome this trial, then he could accomplish the same.

He still believed that, but standing before the Lesser Death Knight revealed the true meaning behind the warning. His master had not advised climbers to abandon the wave merely because the Death Knight looked unbeatable.

He had warned them because the difference between the undead and its challengers became greater the longer they fought. Climbers exhausted themselves while their potions ran out, their weapons broke, their mana disappeared, and their bodies accumulated injuries.

The Death Knight simply continued. Kael raised his battered gauntlets as the enormous sword came down and managed to dodge by the smallest possible margin.

An hour had passed since the battle began. Somehow, after everything they had thrown at it, the Lesser Death Knight looked increasingly like the victor.