Chapter 298 - 298. Sacrificing Oneself
It went on repeatedly that way. Each stab was trickier than the last, forcing Jack to continue to backstep in order to give him more room to cope with the repeated attacks. Red Death did not relent, her hands were a blur as she continued to attack. Jack had even activated Adrenaline Rush which increased his arm speed, but all he could do was using that speed to defend instead. He was not given the chance to attack.
Jack decided to brute force his way. He deactivated Magic Shield and started casting a spell as he defended against Red Death's flurry of attacks. He suffered a few stabs due to that. Each normal stab gave him around 70 damage, which was a lot more compared to when he received damage from the average Rogues during the previous battle with the coalition. Apart from her weapons being special set weapons, she must have increased their levels to the maximum as well.
Fortunately, a dagger did not carry as much damage as the other weapons, and Red Death herself did not invest any point into strength stat. Added with Jack's superb defense, her damage although was higher than average Rogues, it was still not too dangerous for him. Still, continuing to get stabbed would chip away his health to a dangerous level.
Red Death had known about Jack's superior defense, hence she was not flustered by how little Jack's HP went down from her attacks. She maintained her aggressive style. But she soon noticed a rune was forming at the tip of Jack's magic staff.
She hastily did several backflips before the rune formation was formed. The Ice Ring spell exploded out, but she managed to jump out of the danger zone right as the blue color ring came sweeping through.
Jack did not feel discouraged for not hitting his target, it had still managed to create a distance between him and that woman. For the third time, he aimed his magic staff at her. This time, his Mana Bullet shot out. He followed by casting Energy Bolts and continued shooting with standard range attacks after.
When Red Death saw the Mana Bullet coming, her feet were enveloped by a spinning green aura. She dashed forward receiving the Mana Bullet instead of running away. When the spell almost hit her, her body ducked down and it passed by above. She then made slashes at the incoming Energy Bolts while continuing to dash forward. She cut at the Energy Bolts which chased after her and side-stepped from the standard range attacks while continued to approach Jack. There was no wasted movement in her advance.
Jack was utterly impressed. The precision of movement that woman was displaying was certainly profound. He knew that green aura enveloping her feet was from Rogue's level 20 skill, Light Foot. It increased the Rogue's movement speed. However, only an expert like Red Death would use this skill to barge through a rain of spells like that.
He had asked Peniel about Rogue's skill the night before, hence he was aware of the ability Red Death had just used. Peniel warned him though, to not assume his opponent only having standard skills. If Red Death was as expertly as the folks said her to be, then she must certainly have gained other exclusive skills as well, the same as him who possessed many non-standard special skills. Jack was also fully aware of this point.
And it was at this time when Red Death arrived at a distance about three meters away from Jack, that she used one such skill. Her body split up into three. All three images rushed at Jack, all with the buff from Light Foot.
Jack could not afford to underestimate her. He had a feeling these images were not illusory like the one produced by his Body Double skill. He felt danger from all the three figures coming at him.
He used Magic Shield again and then activated Dragon's Eye. Red Death's movement slowed down to a crawl. He could see her attacks clearly. Yet his own movement was also at a snail speed, while three figures of Red Death attacks came at almost the same time. Not to mention Red Death used two daggers for the attack, so it was like he was facing attacks from six directions at the same time. Even when he could see all the attacks clearly, he still had trouble defending all of them.
He was again forced to take a few steps back to reduce the pressure. He even combined his blocking and dodging maneuvers with Flash Steps. He still barely managed to defend himself from all attacks. If he did activate Dragon's Eye, many of the stabs from those three figures would have landed on him. This skill that Red Death performed was truly an excellent one.
Yet, the skill was not too overwhelming. After all, it was only at the level of advanced skill. At this stage, none of them could use any Elite skill yet except via magic scroll. Red Death's three images appeared to only move in an adjacent position from her real body. They could not split out like his Body Double skill, hence their assaults always came from his front. In addition to that, its activation time was brief. Her skill expires and her extra copies disappeared after only five seconds had passed.
Jack breathed a relieved sigh. He had suffered a few more stabs again just now, even with the help of Dragon's Eye. But before he could carry out a counterattack, Red Death vanished from in front of him.
He was taken by surprise for her sudden disappearance. He quickly glanced at his radar and found a red dot right behind him.
Red Death had used another unknown skill again. Despite him knowing that she had come up behind him, he knew he could not escape from her quick backstabbing. He resolved to lose some health as he swung his sword at his back, showing her the meaning of an eye for an eye.
Jack's sword came at her at a slightly lower angle. Jack knew if he just simply swung it at his normal hand elevation, she could easily duck from the slash. With a lower angle, she either had to let go of her backstabbing or accept to sacrifice receiving a hit as well.
Red Death was resolved to proceed with her attack. Her dagger went right into Jack's back, delivering critical damage. Her critical damage was higher than normal due to Rogue's Backstab skill. Even with Jack's massive HP pool, his health had still gone down to a little below half already after that last stab.
Even as she plunged her dagger onto Jack's back, her eyes never left Jack's incoming sword. Her other hand shot out and stab at the black longsword. Her stab was counted as an attack, not a parry. Hence her damage mitigated some of Jack's damage. But she still suffered almost half of the damage if the slash had hit normally, since her damage was nowhere near Jack's damage output.
Jack did not use Power Strike, hence she was not thrown away. She was a bit puzzled by why he did not use that skill. Then her attention was caught by the spell formation on the tip of Jack's magic staff. There were three runes on it, and it was almost at completion.
The spell formation had started when Jack's Dragon Eye was still in effect, hence it was formed rapidly. But the skill expired after two runes were completed, the last rune was formed with normal speed. Still, it was a bit late for Red Death to put a distance from him.
Red Death recognized the spell formation though, as he had seen Scarface performed it as well. It was Mage's standard spell that was acquired when they reached level 20. The Arcane Turbulence spell. The spell created a circular area on the ground.
Her position was very close to Jack, so he would have to place the area of effect just a little bit away in order for the spell to not hit him as well. In other words, she would be at the edge of the area of effect. If she paid attention to the spell's starting animation before it took effect, she would be able to escape from it entirely.
So she focused her attention on the ground beneath her. As expected, before long, the ground shone brightly. However, unexpectedly, she and Jack himself were right in the middle of the spell area. Jack had chosen to sacrifice himself just so that she had no chance to dodge this spell!
While she was still dumbstruck by Jack's recklessness, the spell took effect. The area flared and torrents of energy swirled within it, damaging the two players and causing Disoriented effect on them.
Red Death's Light Foot skill had expired, combined with the Disoriented which slowed her movement, she was having trouble trying to escape from the Arcane Turbulence spell area. Jack did not let her go, he dogged her while at the same time suffering from his own spell's damage.