Welcome back, dear readers! With two missions done and dusted with victory, time to move to the fight at the literal front gate. If you may recall, a rather large crusader decided that we would not be allowed to simply walk into Gouda. A rather rude decision, but we will endeavor to reeducate this boor towards more interesting goals.

Ceres, Sapphire, and Hana are our heroes still standing, with Ludias probably having enough life to get back up. At their command is a legion of Mush minions, particularly bigshrooms and our Slime artillery. Very few blades or armor on this front, however, leaving our army a little light.

With a slow but unshakeable gait, the champion moved to engage our heroes head-on. The earth crumbles under his immense strength, while his legs move with as much grace as his weaker dexterity allows.

The giant macuahuitl, a weapon made from fragments of sharp Light embedded into a steel bat, was built to be heavy. With its massive weight and the champion’s titanic strength, the macuahuitl bore down with stone-shattering force. Ceres caught it on her sword, only capable of blocking with one hand while carrying her head.

I wouldn’t bother dear. He’s a bit of an emotionally stunted ninja. I mean, if not for his sheer size, and that light magic doesn’t lend to it, he could probably pick up stealth without much work. Does make him a bit of a bore, so why don’t we clear him on out of here?

With synchronized grace, Hana and Sapphire swoop in on the champion’s backside. Sapphire laid down a burst of Ice Basilisk’s breath to give her closer-ranged ally a chance to skate in on an ice flow. Even if the damage is still low, the debuffs are already adding up.

Ice, born of basilisk’s breath and cryomancy, slicks up the champion’s legs. Metal plates chill and shrink in the cold, locking together into a death grip on the massive lad’s legs. Incremental cold damage adds up not just to his gear, but his giant health pool. Twin mages release a veritable cold-snap of icy magic, spending mana as if it were water. The battle has shifted into a race, which will empty first, our mana or his health?

His training shines through when he immediately tries to pull his weapon back from Cere’s bind, but she steps forward to press into the holy macuahuitl. Forced to defend from Ceres or suffer terrible damage, there is little the paladin can do against the mage assassins striking at his back. Already the ice has crusted his perk ass, making moving even harder. Hana surged forward, perhaps misunderstanding me. I said there was little he could do, not nothing he could do.

The paladin burst out with his own damned purity in a holy nova. Even a weak low-level champion’s nova would be a threat, shaving chunks off Sapphire and Hana’s health and a sliver off Ceres. Unfortunately, a paladin is not a weak low-level champion. Instead, the long cool-down ability tore Sapphire and Hana’s weaker defenses to shreds, leaving them with naught save a couple of health points to rub together.

Ceres withstands the blow with grit teeth. Heavier armor and defenses melted in the face of the champion, but she merely skidded backward. Her health was still above twenty percent, which was not as great a pool as I would like. Then again, dullahan’s racial weakness to light worked against us here. The champion, now with some breathing room, spun to strike down Sapphire.

I see our commander has seen an opening to act. While the nova did more damage than we would like, it also carried knockback. Enough to push all our assets out of artillery splash damage. Whilst our artillery has spent much of this fight in the back, it’s time to green out our foe in a haze of euphoric drugs.

Deep behind our lines, our Leafling siege engines hear the most beautiful words an artillerist can hear. “Fire at Will”. Cries ring out, as mushies scuttle around to lay round after round into our foe. The distant sounds of their explosives beating their foes into the mud ignited several hearts with joy incandescent.

From the back of our battle lines, our mounted artillery released with the dull thwack of rope on wood. Through the air, falling stars of green drugs loom. With a veritable barrage of exploding Leafling slime, the air bloomed into a green haze. Liter after liter of tainted air billowed around the paladin. Even a man of such sacred purity can do little against a near-lethal dose of hallucinogenic drugs. He stumbled back, debuffed even through his very dumb resistances.

Sliding in with literally single-digit health remaining, Hana sliced across the back of his knees. Even as the chill air bites at Hana’s nipples, she pumps out more ice magic through her trembling body. Doing the math here, minus five dex from frost, even more from stage three Leafling Haze, and extra from the oxygen deprivation. Oh hey, he still has Basilisk Petrification, though at a very low stage.

Yup, that man is at a whopping 0 dexterity. Or well negative 2, but you can’t have less than no dexterity. Which of course means low resistance against knockback, grapples, disarming, and area of effect damage. Not to mention the outright removal of any physical ranged abilities. 

Mushminions burst forward to grab onto the paladin. A bigshroom basically tackles his left arm to remove his weapon, and several of the smaller mushies crowd around his legs and groin grabbing any dangling bit of armor or limb to immobilize him. Some even take the extra gumption to jump up on his arms and head to burden him just that much more.

It’s honestly too bad we already have a mushie hero unit. Otherwise, that one that got onto the champion’s helm would have my vote. 

Yeeeees. Burst forward into bodily combat. Throw down your sword and fight fist to fist. Prove your martial dominance to all who would question you.

Punch after punch, pulled back and launched forward in a veritable storm of violence. Pure muscular strength beating damage and knockback into the lucky victim. Each blow powered from the leg, through Ceres’ abs and out. Her whole body flowed like a relentless waterfall of punches.

With a final crescendo, a final punch greater than the sum of its parts. Across the entire battlefield, only Ceres’ final wordless roar can be heard. The entire world itself pauses for a moment, so great is the force brought to bear. A single bit flips, showing an overflow. So much knockback is dealt with that the universe itself cannot handle it.

Then with a sudden release, the paladin disappears. Blasted through the map faster than my remote screen can even render the man. Legends will say he is drifting forever beyond the universe. I will ensure those legends are told. Perhaps intimidated, what few grunts were still in the area have universally surrendered.

Ceres, queen, please tell me you didn’t MUTE your communication channels in the middle of a fight.

That… That is very insightful. Do you perhaps have any other insights to share?

Well, readers, it looks like Lupin is about to be stepped upon. Do share some ideas with him, or else he’ll likely perish. Not necessarily a downside, but we do still need his ship.

And again, a big thank you to our patreons and supporters, for the Patreon-voted extra pic of the post here it is Lily testing brand new machines on the sniper:

remember to send actions to help Lupin with his priestess situation. and see you again next time!