Chapter 101

The lesser guardian of nature crashed through the squirrels, unheeding of the damage it did to them in its rush to reach Luke. The squirrels themselves dodged out of its way, an action which reduced the death toll from dozens to a mere four or five in the second it took for the two to collide.

Luke parried its initial punch with a [Power Strike], which did nothing more than throw the stick monster’s arm out wide and cause another cracking explosion of woods in the trees behind them. The monster barely even reacted to having its attack blocked. Its movements were so uncoordinated and jerky that by all rights, it should have fallen to the ground when he threw it off balance, but it just spun in place, bringing its other arm up to swipe at his head as it rotated.

His attempted dodge turned into a stumble as no less than four different squirrels latched onto his leg. The stick arm swished over his head at least, but instead of a smooth retreat, Luke found himself dropping to one knee and using his free hand to rip the furry little bastards loose. Shreds of cloth went with them, and he was once again annoyed that he hadn’t managed to obtain a spare set of clothes before they’d left civilization behind.

In the interest of being as destructive as possible, Luke hurled the squirrels at the stick monster as he tore them free. It made no effort to defend itself, but he threw the squirrels hard enough that three of them splattered against its vine-and-mud skin, dying it with streaks of red. The fourth managed to somehow twist in the air and barely avoided impact, a feat Luke considered extremely impressive given the speed he was throwing and the fact that the distance was barely three feet.

Of course, that didn’t help it. It just meant that the squirrel died on impact with the tree behind the stick monster. There was even a ding in his head that confirmed it.

Despite that, hundreds more squirrels were converging on the two of them, with a primary focus on clinging to Luke and slowing him down as much as possible. Whatever those druids had cooked up, they really did not want him getting close to it. Once again, Luke found himself unreasonably annoyed that there were no good skills available for use with a mace that would let him attack multiple opponents at once.

Luke had done the math days before they’d encountered the first squirrel. He knew he needed to reach level 32 to have the 100 AP needed to rank up [Life Surge]. He also knew he’d have 26 AP left over, which he’d initially planned on using to purchase [XP Mask]. At the moment though, he needed a boost to his agility and stamina if he wanted to get to those druids and ruin their day.

Luke dumped 13 AP into each stat, bringing his agility up to 53 and his stamina to 49. Flush with new reserves of energy and suddenly able to move at beyond inhuman speed, Luke darted under another clumsy swing and started batting new squirrels away as they charged in. He lashed out with kicks and punches, elbows and knees, and in one case even an appropriately timed headbutt to batter squirrels away.

With his stats as high as they were, and with skills like [Unarmed Martialist] guiding him, low level squirrels that never made it past level 13 had no chance of surviving even a single attack. The dinging notifications in his head were chiming on top of each other so fast it sounded like he’d hit a jackpot in some sort of video game, and he was willing to bet one of those dings was to let him know that he’d reached level 31.

The lesser guardian of nature was having a harder time keeping up with him as he dodged through the trees now. The squirrels were slowing him down, no doubt, and the little bastards still had sharp teeth, but the extra 13 stamina made it almost impossible for them to break skin, and in the few instances some of the higher level ones managed it, he healed back up almost instantly. All the while Luke moved, he kept killing them, determined that if they wanted to come at him in waves, he’d happily reap the experience.

Sooner or later this damn forest would run out of squirrels, or they’d get smart enough to back off. He certainly wasn’t going to get tired any time soon. At the rate he was going, he was going to level up again before they learned their lesson.

The deeper he got into the woods, the more frantic the squirrels got. He was slowly leaving the stick monster behind, but a single mistake would let it close the distance again. Its body was too similar in appearance to the woods around it and there were too many trees for it to hide behind. He spotted it occasionally, more from keeping track of its location by sound telling him where to look than because it was easy to see, and each time, it was farther back.

Luke didn’t trust that at all. If there was anything that should have been moving through the woods faster than him, it was a monster named lesser fucking guardian of nature. He kept expecting it to jump out of a damn tree and try to take his head off, but it never did.

What did end up jumping out at him was bad enough. No less than five squirrel folk armed with primitive spears and stone knives appeared in the branches above him, no doubt intent on ambushing him. Their levels were too high though, at least four or five higher than the toughest of the regular squirrels. He easily picked their XP up through the background noise, and when the first one lunged at him, heading straight down from overhead with spear leading, Luke was ready for it.

He imbued a [Power Strike] into his attack, which took the form of a horizontal swipe after he’d stepped clear of its path. The blow killed the squirrel folk instantly and hurled its corpse into a mass of squirrels still charging at him. Its sacrifice was not in vain though, since it opened Luke up to attacks from its fellows.

A spear stabbed into Luke’s stomach, eliciting a grunt of pain from him. He would have pulled it back out, but he was distracted at that moment by a second squirrel folk with a pair of knives that was leaping at his face. The one with the spear in his guts gave it a twist and shake, but its arms lacked the strength to drag Luke down to the ground like it was probably hoping.

Stupid of it, really. All it managed to do was piss him off and bump itself up to the top of his priority list. He even took a new spear in the back when he turned to deal with it, which in his opinion was totally worth it. Another spear grazed his cheek as he spun back, deep in the thrall of [Twitch Reflexes] and [Tactical Foresight]. There was no way he was coming out of this storm of violence without some injuries, but he was working hard to minimize them and keep them in non-vital areas.

The gut spear was not what he’d call non-vital, so he jerked it free and jabbed the blunt end into the squirrel who’d stabbed him with it. It went flying backwards and skidded through some leaves before getting tangled up in some sort of thorn-covered bush. It wasn’t dead, but it was out of the fight for a few moments.

How the squirrel folk could even see vital spots to aim at them was a bit of a mystery, since he had at least ten smaller squirrels hanging off his clothes, all of them doing their best to throw off his balance and claw their way through his skin. The squirrel folk were all vicious little bastards though, apparently uncaring of injuring or killing their more common cousins.

And then the worst happened. The distraction, because of course that’s all it was, worked, and the stick monster burst through the underbrush. There was no hesitation in that thing, not one single bit. It completely ignored every other monster there to charge Luke, who had no choice but to abandon his defenses against the remaining squirrel folk to handle it

His mace swung up in an underhand smack charged with [Power Strike] that landed right where the stick monster’s balls would have been if, it had any. The goal wasn’t to hurt it though, just to throw it straight up and over him where it would, hopefully, land on a few of the squirrel folk and kill them for him. Luke didn’t stand around to find out, mostly because the attack had revealed something else to him.

Just like his previous big hits on the stick monster, there was an explosive crack of a tree shattering in the woods. Unlike the previous times, it was barely thirty feet away. Luke even saw the tree blow apart and, more importantly, he saw a squirrel folk tumble out of its branches as it crashed to the ground.

He darted through the brush and reached the scene in seconds. Maybe it was a druid; he honestly couldn’t tell just by looking. It wasn’t like they wore a sign around their necks. Either way, he didn’t have the time to throw an [Analyze] on it, not when it was just as fast to crush the damn thing’s skull.

A ding sounded to prove to him that the squirrel folk was dead, but Luke didn’t stop there. Where there was one squirrel, there were more. The fact that despite all his efforts to rid himself of them, there were still a handful of squirrels clinging to his back proved that. More than once, one of the them had managed to crawl up to the back of his head and tear at his hair.

Stamina had, fortunately, reinforced that as well as the rest of his body, so while the tugging was painful, he wasn’t going to end up with bald patches all over when this was over. Hopefully. He supposed he could shave his head if he needed. Luke blinked and shook away those thoughts. He still had a stick monster to kill, and unless he was mistaken, there were more druids standing between him and that goal.

More squirrel folk burst out of the woods to attack him, followed quickly by the stick monster. If his life hadn’t been in danger, Luke would have laughed at the absurdity of the thing. It was like being stuck in a horror movie, where he was getting chased by something that he constantly escaped, but it just showed back up again a minute later. It was invulnerable, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get away.

This wasn’t a horror movie though, not by a long shot. If he had to waste another [Power Strike] to find the next tree that had been magicked up to take a shot for him, that’s what he’d do. It’d lead him to another druid and sooner or later, they’d run out. While he had a second though, there were some squirrel folk that needed to die. They were a far better distraction than the squirrels, too good.

Luke led them on a chase as they closed in, more to keep some space between him and the stick monster and killed them when he could. It still caught up eventually, but he’d planned for that. He hit it again, listened for the echo of the tree the damage had been transferred to, and slipped off to hunt another druid down.

He found it quickly enough and killed it with a grin on his face. He was going to win this, one way or another. There were still plenty of backup AP if he needed it, but he didn’t think he was going to. The stick monster caught up, and he repeated his tactic on it. Only this time, it didn’t absorb the damage. Instead, Luke tore one of its arms off at the elbow.

“Ah, only two then? Their mistake,” he told the monster.