Pandora Unchained - B1C43: Where Archers Excel

Announcement for Blood Thickening Cultivators: I'm going on vacation, so I'm uploading all the chapters from now until the end of the 27th. Merry Christmas!

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Stephan ignored the looks of horror their other teammates gave them and allowed Gareth and Lise time to inspect the camp from up close. "Well?" he said a few minutes later. "Is it confirmed?"

"It's confirmed," said Gareth as mana faded from his eyes. "We spotted adventurers gear off to the side. What you're smelling is actually a stew. There's a large pot, about ten meters wide, at the center of this encampment. By the looks of it, an entire team of adventurers was captured and chopped up into that pot. I see no cages and no survivors."

"There you have it," said Stephan. "Cyclops are dreadful creatures, everyone. They're tribal, cannibalistic, and will eat anything with meat, including humans. Raw, if they don't have access to fire yet. Normally, I'd advise sneaking past them, but in this case, we have a duty to our fellow adventurers. Unless anyone objects?" Not even Nale was against teaching these creatures a lesson. "Then I suggest we return to the outskirts and pick off any members we find in the caves. We can hide the corpses as we kill them. See if we can whittle down their numbers. Alternatively, we could throw a fireball into their camp and see what damage we can cause?"

"No need to waste Daphne's mana," said Lise, mana fading from her eyes. "I finished surveying the camp. They're too spread out.

"Gareth, I have a suggestion," Sorin interrupted.

"Go ahead," said Gareth.

"Since we're already here, I was wondering if I could have Lorimer deliver a present."

"A present?" asked Gareth. "Are you thinking poison?"

"I am a poison user," said Sorin. "And I happen to have been bleeding myself every day for the past five days, just in case."

"If you have an idea that can neutralize a portion of their threat, go ahead," said Gareth.

Sorin smiled as he pulled out an enchanted waterskin and took a squeaking Lorimer out of his pocket. "Shut up, you lazy mouse," he said, strapping the water skin on his back. "It's time to earn your keep." The rat squeaked loudly in complaint, but Sorin shushed him. "This poison is no threat to you, Lorimer. You've drank enough of my blood to gain immunity. What I want you to do is sneak into their gamp and start burning with low-intensity flames. The herbs I mixed into my blood will cause it to smoke up when heated. Have them chase after you until all the blood evaporates, then hide until I provide further instructions."

The rat squeaked in protest but ultimately lowered his head in submission. He then wobbled off into the wilderness with the enchanted waterskin.

"Let's not stick around for the show," said Gareth. "Since we'll be provoking them early, I suggest we strike a few of their bigger groups before they congregate. Unless Team Oasis opposes?" No one did. "Then let's move out."

Gareth and Lise split up their groups and led their two teams in separate directions. Barely two minutes passed before Sorin's team arrived at a cave. To Sorin's surprise, Gareth directly shot an arrow imbued with wind mana into the dark cave. A group of six angry cyclopes rushed out of the cave and, upon seeing them, charged.

Stephan launched himself at the largest target, while Gareth shot the second largest in his single eye. Sorin used Adder Rush to close in on the third largest. At the same time, Lawrence appeared behind the weakest of the cyclopes and used Tripple Stab Execution. Three bloody holes appeared on the cyclops' chest, and it fell onto the ground, dead.

If I hadn't broken through with Viper Strike, dealing with these cyclopes would prove tricky, thought Sorin. His opponent was 9 feet tall, making vital points difficult to access. He dodged the cyclops's heavy club and stabbed a dagger into its thigh, piercing its bone. It roared in pain and fell to one knee, exposing its head to a second Viper Strike, which turned its brain to mush.

The two remaining cyclopes were horrified and tried to retreat, but Lawrence appeared behind one and used Tripple Stab Execution to eliminate it. As for the last one, it was intercepted by a single paw from Stephan that smashed its brain out of its head.

"No time to loot," said Gareth when the last of them fell. "Lawrence, sweep the cave and check for survivors while I scout for the next batch."

Sorin's party was, for the most part, a team of oddballs. Stephan was a beastshift warrior, and Daphne was a hyper-distracted and hyper-energetic mage. Lawrence was slippery and immature, and Sorin stuck out like a sore thumb because both physicians and poison users tended to keep their distance from the general public.

Only Gareth had seemed somewhat normal, but it was in this situation that Sorin realized he'd been holding back. In this place where mobility, arrows, and camouflage were essential, he was practically a god of war. Gareth had gone from boring to amazing over a few minutes.

Gareth had them repeatedly strike at small groups and managed to take out five of them before leading them back to their original position half an hour later. They met up with Lise's group at that time. Like Gareth, she'd taken them to wipe out around four small teams before circling around at an agreed-upon time.

"I count 55 cyclopes remaining," said Gareth.

"Fifty-five cyclopes," confirmed Lise. "No prisoners."

"No prisoners," confirmed Gareth. "About half appear ill."

"I count sixty percent, but let's go conservative," said Lise. "Smash and break before they organize?"

"Smash and break," said Gareth. "Unless you two are opposed?" Stephan shook his head, and so did Nale. "Great. Since they're all clustered up, how about you throw your strongest spell at them, Daphne? And Hellen, do you know regeneration-style life magic?"

"I know some, but no one here is wounded quite yet," said Hellen.

"Cast it on Stephan, Sorin, Collin, and Nale," said Gareth. "Quickly!" Seeing that Nale wasn't going to argue with him, she muttered darkly and proceeded to cast her spells. "Daphne, why aren't you charging up a fireball yet?"

"Shut up, I'm concentrating!" said Daphne. "Stupid archer, interrupting me while I'm just about to figure out something big." The mage began chanting in a medium-loud voice that caused Sorin's hair to stand on end. A spell circle appeared around her, and a fireball much larger than the one he'd seen in the rat cave appeared above her head.

As expected, there's a huge difference when she actually has time to chant, thought Sorin. The fireball accumulated mana until Daphne could no longer hold it and shot it at the cyclopes that had gathered together around the cooking pot.

There was a large explosion. Twenty of the fifty-five cyclopes were burned down, and fire spread out to half the buildings in the village. "Daphne's out of mana, so she's out of this fight," said Gareth. "Stephan and Collin, you're vanguard. Sorin and Nale, you're up next. Lawrence and Warren, opportunity to targets, but stay at the edge."

The momentum of the battle did not allow Sorin time to think or rest. He gripped his mithril dagger with his right hand and summoned a handful of poison needles in his left hand while he ran behind their armored bear and steel-covered tank. The two warriors smashed into the nearest cyclopes, with Stephan using Lunisolar Strike to smash one apart as an intimidation tactic, while Collin used a taunt skill to draw the nearest five cyclopes over.

The cyclopes were tall, making it so that Sorin could only target their legs and torsos directly. But the places he did strike melted away. Organs were destroyed, and leg muscles were dissolved. He quickly found himself surrounded on all sides, but fortunately, they were slower than the beetles and could barely land glancing blows as he used Adder Rush to dance between them.

It wasn't long before Sorin was surrounded by cyclops corpses. Moving became tricky, and Sorin, now trapped behind a wall of corpses, could only passively dodge the cyclopes and their clubs.

But the ground was rocky and uneven, and evading was difficult. Sorin soon slipped on the blood-covered ground, and a club came down and caught him in the chest, breaking one of his ribs and tearing open his flesh. Fortunately, Hellen's regeneration spell kicked in, allowing him to push through the dizzy spell that accompanied the traumatic blow and throw a poison needle in its eye.

"So much for Team 'We Don't Need a Life Mage,'" Sorin muttered, jumping out from the wall of corpses.

Sorin emerged to find the cyclopes in disarray. One cyclops was trying to rally his species at the rear, and those not immersed in battle began retreating from the battlefield. "Lorimer, stop lazing around and kill them!" he shouted.

"Screeeee!" A rat suddenly jumped out of a pile of charred corpses the cyclops were retreating past and dug through one of their eyes like it was cottage cheese. He then nipped at another cyclops's heels, bringing it down just before it reached the safety of its new group.

Arrows took down a few of the remaining cyclops, leaving only a group of ten near a strange stone object at the back of the camp. Sorin's eyes narrowed when he felt powerful mana erupt from the object and infuse itself into the leader of these cyclopes, who was a full head taller than the rest.

"It's a sacrificial ceremony!" shouted Stephan. "Gareth! Lise! Interrupt it!" Both archers wasted no time in aiming their bows at the rapidly growing cyclops, but both wind and lightning were unable to pierce the thick shield of mana that had appeared on its skin. "Shit! What a wasted effort. Prepare for battle. This opponent won't be an easy one!"

"What's going on?" asked Nale, running up beside Stephan. "What's it doing?"

"What does it look like it's doing?" snapped Stephan. "That red spell circle is collecting their blood and their lives. It's sacrificing all the remaining cyclopes and the essence of these dead cyclopes and pouring them into itself!"

The cyclops was brimming full of energy. Its arms and legs were twice as thick as before, though it was still only 10 feet tall. Then, all of a sudden, it suddenly sprang up like flowers after the rain, growing until it was sixteen feet tall and gave off a pressure that wasn't lacking compared to a bone-forging cultivator.

"A two-star demon," muttered Nale. "Damn. Should we retreat? This isn't a good match-up."

"We'll be fine," Stephan assured. "We just need to be systematic about this."

"Fine," said Nale, wiping cyclops blood off his blade. "I've always wanted to fight a two-star demon. Let's see what they're made of."