[NR] Chapter 237 - First YubJub (Patreon)

Peter nods, “Protection against teleportation is very high on the list of things to have. No king would stay over in a place without it. The only reason teleporting assassinations isn’t more frequent is that anyone worth being targeted knows better. Now form up, the first yubjub is right ahead. Only one to start, but after that you get thrown into the deep end.”

Courtney raises an eyebrow at him, “Yeah, we can sort of see that. It isn’t like earlier with the rolling hills. There they, right over there.” And she points down the road a couple hundred feet where they can see a swarm of meatball creatures.

Peter shrugs, “Well then, what are you waiting for? If you can see them, you can attack them. Remember, despite there being a lot of the buggers it isn’t a swarm. In fact, it is only a single creature and even with all the eyes it is much more susceptible to your illusions.”

Courtney blinks, “Huh, I missed that last bit. Well, good to know.”

With that, Courtney starts casting a spell as the other two stand in front of her. And of course, if they can see the yubs, the yubs can see them. As the yubs reach half-way to the group Courtney finishes the spell and they stop in their tracks.

Courtney nods, “Okay, they should be out of it for a minute or until we attack them. Speaking of which, we should go with the attack option. Since we have a moment, I’m going to strength buff us all so we can alpha strike them. There are only forty and change yubs, so I want us to clean up quickly.”

Jason laughs, “Fair enough, I won’t mess up the one time your illusions are the perfect solution.”

Courtney rolls her eyes, “Yes, this is the perfect setup for my illusions, but that means nothing if you can’t follow through.”

Jason shrugs and walks off towards the collection of yubs. Rosha and Courtney follow behind, and the three of them position themselves within the group.

Rosha crouches down and pulls back her staff, ready to swing it as hard as she can. Courtney stands on the edge and with a hand on the closest yubs’ shadow begins casting. Jason and Lily go right to the center and spread out a small amount. Lily of course charges her fur up while Jason does some charging of his own, pulling energy from his core and cycling it through his body.

Everyone ready, they wait for Courtney to finish her spell and conveniently she holds up her other hand to countdown. 3, 2, 1, and they begin their attack.

Rosha’s is the most straightforward, her staff whistling through the air as she charges forward. Before the yubs can even respond to her, she has completed three rotations of the staff around her body and moved a good five paces forward. This clears the area nearby as she pulps the yubs. They actually fall easier to her attacks than the cats did.

Courtney’s spell this time isn’t an illusion, or at least not directly. Instead she focuses on her shadow element and raises up spikes of twilight piercing out of every connected shadow within a good distance of her. This move fells ten of the yubs even quicker than Rosha kills her own.

Lily on the other hand has a harder time of it than anyone else. When fighting the swarms, her ability to negate their biggest advantage put her heads and tails above the rest. Now that the enemy doesn’t face such a hard handicap, the fight is much more even than any of the group would like. Of course, this doesn’t stop her from killing a good four or five of them.

Jason, unlike the others, holds onto his attack a few moments more. Waiting for until he has a good idea of how the alpha strike is going. He doesn’t wait long though and bursts out with a flurry of kicks. Each one produces a series of runic flowers that bloom and start to wilt near instantly. As the rune carved flowers wilt though they send out a cascade of razor sharp petals.

The petals arc out and decimate any nearby yubs that get in the way. Within moments Jason has cleared the area around him and he crouches down and springs forward towards the only remaining yubs. He pulls back both fists to his side and plants his front foot into the ground, driving up a shower of dirt as he drops into a deep stance. Then thrusts both of his fists forward, blasting away two of the monsters in front of him. With the arms still extended, he swings them outward to his sides and hammers the last three remaining yubs.

Peter fires off a single arrow that penetrates through the space where the last yub died. Satisfied he laughs, “That went better than I expected. You’ve been fighting swarms so long I half expected you all to fall flat on your faces. Instead, only the rabbit had troubles, which is completely fair. A lot of her combat potential came from swarms not working on her. Now where did she get to?”

Peter and Jason turn around to find that Rosha has Lily off to the side out of the gore. Courtney is next to them, rolling her eyes, casting prestidigitation to clean them both off. Rosha for the most part ignores this as she cuddles Lily and comforts her about how she did in the fight.

Peter shakes his head at this but Jason just shrugs, “What can you do?”

Peter sighs, “Not much. Anyway, you seem to be able to fire off attacks at a greater distance than I would expect. While it has more range than Qi, Energy isn’t known for ranged attacks.”

Jason laughs, “If I was using Energy for the runic blooms, I would agree the range is too much. However, runic bloom is the stamina based effect of my war stomp.”

Peter raises an eyebrow, “Still, war stomp also isn’t known for ranged attacks in general. Even people who channel Mana through it generally do not get projectiles like your flowers throw off.”

Jason just shrugs, “I guess I’m just odd.” And he smirks.