To say that the current state of events was unexpected was an understatement; this situation never should've been possible. Gorum was in a dire situation, steadily losing more and more ground against three buffoons that were just barely half his level.
Now that Idalia was healing them when Hoig couldn't, Gorum couldn't keep using his skills or else he would just end up killing himself. It was a battle of attrition and he was losing. The fight had already gone on for two days and soon the sun would rise making a third.
The pattern he was locked in with the three Omen Canidates was nearly inescapable. Dealing with Julian left him open to Lily and dealing with Lily left him vulnerable to Julian. If he somehow took them both down to go after Hoig, Idalia would simply heal them and repeat the whole process. On top of it all He wasn't regenerating health or stamina properly either due to his old age, his regeneration and resistance passive skills were all weakened from his human lifespan reaching its near end.
Julian had been grabbing at Gorum and peeling off bits of his armor, Lily was trying to sever the belts of certain pieces by slash at them Gorum with barely any armor left on his torso. Only one of his vambraces and his helmet remained at this point.
Even the dragon leather gambeson that Gorum wore under his armor was torn to shreds by Lily's blades, exposing his pale and slightly wrinkled skin. Thick yet sinewy muscles that were covered in countless scars of all kinds, most notably there were large burn scars that glew with a greenish light, the wounds looking to be constantly festering with pale green flame beneath their tissue.
'There must be a way out of this but...' Gorum couldn't think of a way out. If he went back to using skills, he'd end up killing himself in the process and because of his advanced age his skills weren't doing the amount of damage that they should anyway.
'No time for thinking this out..' Gorum readied himself as Julian and Lily launched themselves at him once more.
Julian lunged to try and grapple Gorum but was imapled through the palm of his hand and had it pinned to his chest above his heart. Swinging the imapled Julian above his head, Gorum intended to hit Lily midair only for Julian to pull himself further down the spear to knock Gorum onto the ground with a direct hit to the top his head. With no time to recover, he rolled away as fast as he could but it wasn't fast enough. He could feel the searing pain from Lily's blades making his blood boil out of the wound. Her strikes were getting stronger and faster the more his blood were drawn and now they'd robbed him of his spear.
Gorum was slowing down, his stamina was getting low and he couldn't activate any regeneration skills. It had been a long time since he was pushed into a corner and he could feel a chill creeping up his back.
"Not like this…" Launching himself from a crouched position, Gorum rocketed towards Julian who just finished removing his spear and slid under his legs, transitioning into full sprint as he aimed for Hoig.
"Quick!" Lily shouted as she dashed after Gorum and swung her blades at his back, sending wide arcs of dark red energy colliding against him. He nearly made it but Lilys slashes staggered him just enough for Julian to catch his ankle, swing him overhead and toss him away.
'No…' Gorum sprung up despite the pain, savage and ragged breaths leaving him as he nearly began to growl. Reading himself to attack again, he was cut short as Julian tackled him pinning him to one spot against a rock.
"Get off!" Just as Gorum was about to push Julian off of him, a bright beam of mystical purple and blue blasted him in the face, indenting his whole body into the giant boulder Julian had pinned him to. The strength left his legs and he slumped backward against the rock, dropping onto his ass.
"Woo! Good going Julian!" Lily said, coming over to congratulate Julian. She was ragged with sweat and blood but seemed to have plenty energy left.
"Indeed, a splendid tactical decision, making an opening for Madame Idalia to fire off a spell." Hoig clapped, spoiling the muscled man-child further. Hoig of course, was as clean as when the fight began.
'So that was one of Idalia's attacks? Since when did she have a spell like that? Half my face is gone!' Gorum could barely move, the strength depleted from his body as he was stuck reeling from that attack. His helmet was smoldering scrap and the entire right half of his face was blasted off, exposing bone. It didn't help either that his body was still aching from Lily slashing at his flesh and Julian battering him with strikes.
"Now if you don't mind, I'll go ahead and finish him off." Hoig said, readying his scepter by swinging it a few times.
"Oi, slow down, me and Julian are the ones who did most of the work here! It should be one of us!" Lily said, stopping Hoig from going any further.
"What are you on about Woman? 'One of us' as if anyone other than me should get to kill him!" Julian said, angrily flexing his muscles at the both of them, a bickering match soon taking place, All the while Gorum was stuck listening to their foolish behavior as he tried to recover.
'Well, that confirms my suspicions about Idalia not being willing to hold up the deal. Is this what it's all come to for me? Old and broken, about to be mere experience for idiots like these?' Gorum trembled a bit with anger, his long tossed away ego beginning to crop up as he slowly dragged himself into an upright position by clawing the rock.
"Heh…heh…heheh…hehehehe" Gorum began to laugh, blood gurgling in his lungs and dripping from his scarred lips.
Hoig spun only to see Gorum towering over him, drenched in his own blood and staring down at him with the one remaining eye he had. Gorum was smiling, too.
"W-What?" Hoig said. A wave of terror washed over the three of them as Gorum's grinning half face stared upon them, a strange pressure they couldn't feel before running across them. Their knees trembled as they felt a mountains weight on their shoulders, the feeling of needles pushing into their pores assaulting their skin.
"Why…what are you laughing for?" Hoig asked as he trembled unable to bring himself to move.
"Ahh…don't worry about it, just something I do sometimes." Gorum replied, leaning back against the rock so he wouldn't fall.
"I've lived long enough, it's time for my blaze of glory." He said as he touched forward and swung his fist faster and harder than before.
Lifting up his arms above his head while they were Paralyzed by the active version of [Destroying Prescence] Hoig's cranium had to take the full brunt of a [Destroying Blow].
Sadly for him, he was incapable of such a thing and the pig-orcs head and shoulders exploded into a mess of gore. Next, finally breaking free of the paralysis Julian charged forward to unleash a fury of blows on Gorum.
"DIE ALREADY YOU USELESS PEAS- OUGH!!!"
Unfortunately, before he could get the first punch out, Gorum plunged his fist into Julians chest cavity, smashing past muscle and bone to quite literally punch him in the heart.
"Nghgrk-" Julian let out a gurgle as he dropped to his knees, convulsing and shivering as he clasped his chest. Letting out a whimper, he woefully glanced back at Idalia, as if begging for a heal, only for it not to come.
'Good…Idalia can't keep healing injuries on the catastrophic level, especially not if she's conserving mana like I guessed. She can't run either, in my presence.' Gorum thought as he stared down at Lily, a red river running from his mouth, nose, eyes and ears.
"F-Fuck this!" Lily said as she dropped her blades and turned heel, dashing away from the battlefield at her top speed. She shouldn't have been able to move quite yet, but she may have had some psychic resistances like Julian. Gorum knew she was a coward though, he knew she'd find a way.
Gorum let her run as he unhurriedly walked to his dropped spear and lifted it above his head, tensing up his muscles before launching it using [Homing Ending Toss]. A thunderous boom ringing out as the spear soared through the air, eventually impaling the woman through the back and nailing her to the ground.
Gasping and gurgling, she struggled on the spear weakly. Her heart slowly sliding down the haft of the spear.
"Now then, Idalia-" BOOM! Gorum was interrupted as another one of those mystical purple and blue beams came blasting him in the chest, then another then another...
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
"You...mongrel! How dare you! Do you have any clue how long I've worked for this? What I've sacrificed!?" Idalia was screeching at the top of her lungs, continuously blasting Gorum with more of those mysterious beams as she ranted and raved at him. Obviously she must have broken the paralysis too.
He was still standing but staggering backwards as the beams practically blew away chunks of his body with every hit. However...despite the damage, Gorum started pushing forward against the attacks, marching towards Idalia wordlessly as she bombarded him.
"Urgh..." Idalia groaned a bit, blood running from her nose, her eyes starting to go bloodshot as she kept pouring out mana into her attacks, firing off her most powerful spell over and over was taking its toll, to no one's surprise. Huffing and puffing, she looked up at Gorum, who was now standing right in front of her and Damia. Broken and battered with his entire visage unrecognizable from so much damage, he stared down at her.
"Well...what now? Is this the part where you pop my head like a rotten fruit? Or are you going to say some nonsense about how even though I'm evil you'll forgive me? Or are you just going to fall on me? By the by, don't do the last one since I don't enjoy having dirty old men on top of me." Idalia said. Her voice was filled with annoyance, even taunting him as she realized Gorum was out of energy, unable to actually attack anymore.
"Er Idalia..." Damia tried to interrupt.
"Quiet, I'm not done." Idalia said, hushing Damia.
"Honestly what's with you, you bastard? Did old age turn you mad or were you always a damned idiot!? You've ruined thousands of years of work in literally one night! Do you have any clue what kind of hit my reputation has taken tonight? It's going to be 1,000 times harder to stage the coup now because of you, you ignorant human filth! You pathetic street urchin!" Idalia screeched, unloading her frustrations on the immobile Gorum.
"Idalia!" Damia shouted.
'What!?" Idalia snapped.
"He already died." Damia said, gesturing to Gorum, who was now a lifeless corpse, stood upright.
"Eh? But-" Idalia said, staggering away from Gorum as shock painted her face.
"He died while you were talking, I think." Damia said, looking his corpse up and down.
"That's Impossible, if I killed him, I would've heard a notification and gotten a soul item, not to mention a fucking mountain of experience!" Idalia panicked, running back up Gorum to examine him.
"Do you suppose, maybe, he died on his own? This is good though right, we wanted this didn't we?" Damia mused, poking Gorum's upright corpse with her mandibles.
"No way..." Idalia stared at up him in disbelief.
Despite Idalia's strange disbelief, Gorum indeed had passed on. Just as Idalia started talking, he tried lifting his arm and using [Destroying blow] to hopefully kill her, but the health cost was too much. He died simply trying to activate his own skill. A unfitting end for a warrior such as himself, old and unable to fight to the fullest anymore. Killing himself with his own strength.
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"Such a tragic end for a tragic Hero, surely the history books will disrespect his name even further once the public learned how he died. A great hero subject to the ridicule of fools and scholars who would never be able to approach his power, a great shame. Well, it's a shame for him, but this is good news for me!" A womans voice said.
"Go ahead and summon him, fix up his appearance too. I dislike that nasty old form he held when he died." The voice said, speaking to another, giving them an order.
"Of course, my Lady Crimson." responded the servant.
"Good, he should make a fitting champion..." The woman said, chuckling a bit as she awaited the arrival of her new pawn.