The Corrupted Soldier stood there, unmoving and watched him run back into the small stairwell. It did not bother charging after him. William paused at the doorway and stared at its careful, measured approach. That did not sit well with him for some reason. The Corrupted Guardsmans were all unthinking and filled with a near blinding hatred for him and anything living. He could take advantage of that and use their aggressiveness against them.
William surveyed the entire courtyard again and noticed no other lying mob moved from their positions. The soldier hadn’t screamed and shouted at the top of its lungs. While there were clear disadvantages to a more cautious monster, the advantages were that he didn’t need to deal with needing to hurry and close the door behind himself.
Most importantly, the Death Knight had not moved an inch from its spot.
The soldier shifted its head sideways to continue to keep him within its gaze like some horror movie monster. It crouched low and got into an athletic position while holding the spear above its head. William did not wait to see what it was going to do or how fast it actually was, rather he turned and rushed back to the stairwell’s ledge. He hid in the same spot as the original fight and waited for it–
Something crashed into the small hall between the stairwell and the courtyard.
William cursed.
He had no clue how much noise was enough to activate the Death Knight nor was he going to risk finding out. He was sure it had woken up. The soldier crashed into the building and almost stumbled off of the ledge due to its broken leg. William was quick to close the door and lock it shut. Targeting their legs and debilitating their movements had to be the smartest thing he had come up with so far to contend with a monster much more powerful than he was.
By the time he looked back, the Corrupted Soldier had regained balance and control of its limbs.
There goes my chance to finish this off quickly.
It began to circle around him. Continuing its habit of caution and preparation as it leveled the spear directly at him as well. He let it continue to move around until it was directly where he wanted it to be with its back toward the preplanned area he would push it down. Only then did he charge it with his shield up. The second he felt some resistance, he would throw a [Heavy Strike] at it in hopes of ending this early.
William’s newfound strength and speed gave him a sense of confidence that he used to fuel his charge. Those stats allocated allowed him the freedom to attack and retreat faster than he could possibly have imagined. All together, beyond anything humanly possible.
He felt the spear brush at his shield and pull back. William got closer, activating his skill and swung his sword as hard as he could at the soldier. It got into a low stance and parried his strike like it was nothing. Spinning and channeling to swing the butt of the spear to smacking him directly on his nose with solid, probably system enhanced, wood. William heard the cracking of bone and was sent reeling as he fell backward onto the ground. Face stinging and painful, eyes blurry with tears, and blood leaking out of his nostrils.
A groan escaped him as he struggled to get back up only to find the spear’s pointed end stabbing at his skull. He scrambled backward with his shield raise, the heavy strike drove him back onto the ground. It kept going trying to find an opening as it kept attacking without any sign of growing tired. Its endurance was going to be endless, he noticed. William was the exact opposite. All of his resources were finite.
I need to do something! I can’t keep going like this!
William knew that he was getting too close to the stairwell and falling to his death. That was not an experience he wanted to go through, yet he was being pushed back further and further if he didn’t want a face full of metal spear point through his head. He struggled to find an opening until he remembered what the Corrupted Soldier had done to him a few minutes prior.
He copied the Corrupted Soldier and allowed the next strike to get in further than he felt comfortable and parried it to the ground. Sparks flashed around him as the metal point slammed into the stone flooring underneath them. He was done trying to block so directly. More importantly, he finally got a reprieve for the pain in his arm. He had not gone unscathed blocking so many heavy attacks one after the other.
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William took advantage of the moment and used his [Heavy Strike] skill. He knew it would not come out with full power because he couldn’t get any leverage behind it while being on the ground and without his feet set. Yet, it was enough to sweep the soldier’s feet from under it, sending it to the floor in a heavy thud of metal and dry skin and bones. William shot up to his feet and lunged towards the soldier. He kicked at its head, sending the unstrapped metal helmet cap rolling away and almost falling off the ledge and pinned the spear under his full weight.
He felt the soldier’s strength as it almost threw him off the spear with a single hand, but he was quicker.
This time around, he had not gotten the opportunity to throw it off the ledge, but rather he picked up his sword as high as he could and used another [Heavy Strike] to slam it into the face of the Corrupted soldier. It’s free hand snapped to grab at his leg, sharp skeletal fingers tried to dig into his meaty thighs, but was unable to pierce through the leather armor without more momentum or a sharp weapon.
Its teeth chattered for a few seconds with Willaim’s sword piercing its face, red glowing orbs for eyes flickered in and out before they finally dimmed. The Corrupted Soldier went limp a few seconds later, dead where it laid. Willaim stabbed it three more times until it had nothing but tiny fragments for a skull, he was not about to take any chances.
William took a few steps back and fell onto his back side. His breathing was hard and his body was covered in slick sweat. He hadn't even noticed how exhausted he felt during the battle, adrenaline kept him focused. Now that high and feeling of power vanished as he felt the fatigue that had accumulated during the encounter slam into him at once.
The battle had not even been thirty seconds long, yet he was completely exhausted.
He couldn't imagine what a fight that would last for hours would feel like.
William made a mental note to keep leveling up his endurance if he was going to continue fighting untiring, unwavering dead monsters that felt no pain either.
The system dinged to show him that the fight had ended.
Battle Concluded!
Killed - [Corrupted Soldier (E+)]
Runes Gained - 2633
Skill Upgrade -
Block Head [3/99] -> [7/99]
Novice Heavy Strike [2/99] -> [3/99]
William pulled up his status page as well. He didn’t have much left over after leveling his [Pathetic Tavern Brawler] class to level two. Just enough to give him a clean number, but that didn’t matter at the end of the day when the requirements of the next level were not rounded into a nice zero anyway. Though he likely had enough for another two levels in [Knight Guardian Novice] and one in [Pathetic Tavern Brawler].
Status User William (1oPg72j9) -
[Class] - [Knight Guardian Novice (F+)]
Level - 5 [5/49]
Runes Held - 2650
Runes Needed for Level Up - 952
He checked how much it would have cost to level up his [Knight Guardian Novice] class and found that he could only afford two level ups. Yet, if he only leveled it up once, he would still have enough for two full level ups of his [Pathetic Tavern Brawler] class at around seven hundred runes each instead of nine hundred and a thousand. He did exactly that and collected seven more unallocated stat points.
This time around he rounded out both arcane and intelligence to ten with three attribute points each. His entire page looked far more satisfying now that he had nothing below it. William placed his final available point into endurance to get it to twenty. Another clean number he enjoyed.
Status User William (1oPg72j9) -
[Class] - [Knight Guardian Novice (F+)]
Level - 6 [6/49]
Runes Held - 240
Runes Needed for Level Up - 1102
Strength - 13
Dexterity - 10
Endurance - 19 (+1) -> 20
Vitality - 15
Intelligence - 7 (+3) -> 10
Wisdom - 10
Arcane - 7 (+3) -> 10
William got up and began to loot the Corrupted Soldier for everything it had. Unfortunately, none of the items gave him any greater amount of stat points considering they were all Imperial Standard armor and weaponry. The only reason he would change would be for conditional situations where he needed a spear versus a sword, different armor sets to hide his identity, or to match pieces together for the best look possible.
Otherwise, they would sit in his inventory until it was completely full and he needed some more space for better loot overall.
Though he did find a pouch of gold coins, seven to be exact.
Maybe he could turn it in once he was out of this Dungeon World for much better equipment than he had on currently. He had to guess that gold coins from somewhere as dangerous as this place would be far more valuable than any other type of coins except for those that come from more dangerous areas. Or so he hoped.
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