Chapter 692: Fighting The Northern Commander

Marek continued to cast his healing spells, green healing light flaring as fast as he could cast it, patching Theo’s ribs, Vela’s arm, Kayn’s shoulder, working desperately to keep the team standing under an onslaught that hurt them faster than he could heal.

Thankfully, Moon needed no such support, otherwise, with his activity, Marek would have not been able to keep up.

Moon pulled his ice sword free of the archer’s stomach and fell back a step, reassessing.

They were landing hits. The archer was bleeding, slowed a fraction, its stomach wound leaking dark blood into the snow. But the team was accumulating damage far faster than it was, and Marek’s mana wouldn’t last forever.

This wasn’t a fight they could win easily. Moon had known that going in.

Moon reset his stance and went on the offensive once more, because defense against a Surpasser was a death wish. Moon couldn’t allow the archer to distance himself enough to start throwing arrows, he needed to stay in range.

Tempest Rush.

His speed exploded. He blurred forward, both blades whirling, ice and lightning tracing twin arcs through the air, and he layered strike after strike onto the archer.

Phantom afterimages trailed his movements, false blades ghosting alongside the real ones, and the archer had to treat every one as a threat. It parried with its bow, wove between the cuts, but Moon’s tempo forced it onto the back foot for the first time, its bow-work straining to keep up with the sheer volume of a dual-sword attack moving at such speed.

The Beast Soul flanked the northern commander from the opposite side, both spirit blades hammering in, and the archer found itself boxed between two blade masters, both skilled, neither giving it the space it desperately needed to use its bow.

Moon cast [Frost Pillar] in between his attacks.

Ice erupted from the ground around the archer, a pillar surging up beside it and immediately firing spears of ice at point-blank range. It was meant to force the elf to split its attention, to steal even a fraction of a second.

The archer’s response was instant and contemptuous. It loosed a single quick-release arrow without even looking, and the Frost Pillar shattered into fragments, blown apart before it could fire a second volley.

But it had cost the archer a shot and a turn of its head. Moon’s ice sword scored across its thigh in that window, and the Freezing Cold stacked a fraction deeper, the elf’s movements dragging a hair further.

"Elsa, its right side!" Moon called through the chaos.

Elsa, having already drawn her weapon to maximum power with several arrows, waiting for the opportunity, let a stream of arrows at the archer’s newly-slowed flank, and the elf had to twist to deflect them, its reduced speed and Moon’s onslaught making the dodges tighter than they should have been. Two arrows it would normally have swatted away grazed its arm before it cleared the volley.

Although the two arrows had graze its arm, it did no relevant damage, merely cosmetic.

Moon channeled again, mid-swing, never dropping the assimilation on his ice blade.

Moon cast Ice Storm behind the elf, blocking its retreat backward, forcing it to change direction. Having expected this outcome, Moon and his Beast Soul capitalized on the opportunity, forcing the elf on the back-foot, allowing Moon to land two attacks, one with his ice-sword, and the other with his lightning-sword.

Moon could see the pain radiate from the elf’s face, his purple lightning hurt the northern commander.

The debuff stacks were building up as Moon landed more attacks. A fraction here, a fraction there, and the Surpasser that had moved with grace at the start of the fight was, degree by degree, was losing that fluidity.

Kayn saw the opening Moon had created and took it, darting in with both blades for the archer’s hamstring. He scored the cut clean this time, the elf a touch too slow to fully avoid him, though it spun and clipped Kayn across the ribs in return.

A massive grunt of pain escaped Kayn’s throat, as he was thrown several meters away, rolling across the snow before stopping.

"Ugh...That attack broke my ribs...’ Kayn let out, clutching his chest in pain.

Marek’s healing was already flaring to help with the wound, rushing to assist him, and help him retreat.

Marek put Kayn on his back as Moon and others covered for him, "Are you okay?"

Kayn’s face twisted in pain, "...Not really. I need a few minutes to recover with your heals."

"Take your time, just stay back for a while."

The archer snarled and unleashed a burst of its own, loosing three arrows in a fan that forced the whole team to scatter. Vela caught one on her shield and it nearly tore the shield from her arm, damaging it by significant margin.

Theo dove clear of another. The third streaked past Nina close enough to open a line across her cheek, her life flashing past her eyes.

Moon used the scatter.

He hurled a pair of runes from his storage ring, Runemaster’s pre-cast [Explosion] skill, and triggered them the instant they reached the archer.

Explode.

Blue fire erupted on both sides of the Surpasser, blooming like a beautiful mushroom cloud of blue and white.

The archer roared as the blue fire erupted on its body, and for a heartbeat it was wreathed in flame and frost at once, burning and freezing, its transformed body assaulted from every element Moon could bring to bear.

It burst out of the fire, singed and bleeding and slowed, and its grin was long gone.

Moon and the Beast Soul closed back in from both sides, blades raised, and the team regrouped behind him, battered but still standing.

The archer was still a Surpasser, and although they had injured it, the fight as still far from over. It wasn’t that easy to bring down a Surpasser, even as a team of seven.