After seeing Lariel push the Warlord towards the ground, Ivan looked at his status to try to gauge the extent of his injuries.

Status:

Name: Ivan Geldian

Class: [Warrior (Shield Of Pride)]

Level: 22

Health: 17.4/1977 (Regen: 1.97/sec)

Stamina: 38.2/1523 (Regen: 1.62/sec)

Mana: 545.1/745 (Regen: 7.61/sec)

He had placed some of his latest Free Stats into Intelligence due to the early morning talk with Lariel and Kan. Or was it yesterday's early morning talk? He did not know. It might already be past midnight. And honestly. He did not care.

They had bitten more than they could chew. They would already be dead if Lariel was not here. Hells! They were going to be dead if Lariel failed to kill the Warlord.

Ivan then thought back to the talk he and his party had had before coming here.

"We need to be careful. We are not geared towards fighting an overly powerful opponent," he had said at the time. Which was true. Everyone in his party had their skills towards killing large numbers of opponents. It was Kan that had the most singular power out of their party. Not only in single target, but also in crowds. He dominated the remainder of the party.

"We must figure out a way to counter the Hob Captains and the Hob Warlord," Ivan had said. And they did. They would separate until all other threats were finished while Ivan and Kan kept the most powerful at bay.

But who could have guessed that the Warlord was so powerful? They were used to weakling goblins. They were ready to fight against an enemy that would not overwhelm them in power but in numbers. They should have taken the difficulty to kill the other Warlord seriously and dropped their idea of going for the layer boss.

And now Lariel was dealing with the consequences.

Ivan looked at the fight just in time to see the Warlord swing mid-air after Lariel had inflicted a wound going from his shoulder to his knee. Lariel was truly geared for this. In terms of fighting one-on-one, Lariel was the best.

But Ivan had no illusions that they could beat him if it was a nine-versus-one situation. Most of them had surpassed level 20 after all. And besides that, Lariel fought and tried to conserve his life. The Warlord did not try to conserve his own life, he tried only to take it from others.

After Lariel gained a few meter's distance from the Warlord, the monster went berserk.

Its side was fully covered in blood from the gash Lariel inflicted, and its back was all black, probably from internal bleeding from when he was smashed against the ground.

After seeing the Warlord go berserk, he saw Lariel gaining even more distance, and putting his left hand forward while his right hand was holding the spear horizontally behind his back. Lariel's fighting position.

If Ivan had any doubt before, now he knew. Lariel was dead serious about this fight, even though his grin still flashed obviously on his face.

Mana Bolts, Rock Bullets, and Wind Blasts flew out of his hand, smashing against the goblin that was now rushing towards Lariel. Ivan was starting to get worried. The Warlord was made for destruction and endurance. Lariel was not. Lariel used precision to kill, that was why Ivan's party would fare better against Lariel. The Warlord used strength and smashed. Lariel used precision to cut.

He continued to see the fight go on. Their future, at the hands of Lariel.

--------

Fucking hell man. How high is this idiot vitality? Lariel wondered while once again gaining distance and throwing spells at the Warlord.

He glanced at his status to check his situation.

Health: 743/1099 (Regen: 1.1/sec)

Stamina: 347/1680 (Regen: 1.88/sec)

Mana: 985/1999 (Regen: 2.03/sec)

Current Life Liquid quantity: 126

Current Rejuvenating Fluid quantity: 235

Current Liquid Mana quantity: o

His health had yet to go below 500, so he wasn't that worried about it. But his Stamina had almost been drained and he had been forced to use his Rejuvenating Fluid to a degree.

The spells were also costing a little bit on his Mana, but for now, it was ok.

He cast another Rock Bullet that hit the Warlord directly on the forehead, destabilizing it a little.

Finally, showing some sign of getting tired hum?

He had spent most of the fight until now just dodging, doing a few slashes here and there, and throwing spells. But the Warlord never got tired. Lariel was starting to suspect some kind of skill was at play, but since the Goblin finally had shown some degree of tiredness, Lariel did not give it much thought.

He had a plan to finish this.

He would use one of his skills to give him enough power to cut the goblin completely. Until now he had only managed those slashes, not because he wanted to slash him like that, but because the Warlord had a difficult-to-pierce skin.

For his plan to work, he would have to get the Warlord stationary for at least two seconds, while himself moving. For that, he would need to rely on Ivan.

The only problem was the fact that Ivan was right besides Kan, with his arm visibly broken, and his shield with huge dents in it. Lariel planned on using some of his Life Liquid and Rejuvenating Fluid to try to get him back into enough shape to stop the Warlord for a couple of seconds.

He dodged the Warlord's wild swing and got closer to the two injured roommates.

"Ivan!" he yelled.

"Y-Yes?" came the response. Weak, but it came and that was the most important thing.

"Think you can lock that thing in place for two seconds with one hundred more life and two hundred more Stamina?" That was the biggest part of Lariel's resource banks. He needed the remaining for his own use. The response came again, weak, but the tone of voice clearly changed.

"Y-Yes. If you can get me m-my shield I think I can," he said while looking at the shield that was next to the edge of the crater.

"Alright, then get ready will you?" he said while dodging another of the Goblins swings and getting close enough to touch Ivan, transferring a great part of his resources.

He noticed Ivan's eyes opening wide, but had no time to comment, moving away from them when the Warlord started ramming towards his previous position.

Better to get away than to let the meter and half monster crash into the three of them.

He ran towards the shield. The Goblin adjusting his collision course according to that movement.

Lariel went for the shield, intending to grab it mid-jump-roll, and proceed down the crater to appear at the other side, then tossing the shield towards Ivan so that the plan could proceed.

But reality hit him hard in the face when he tried to grab the shield and was instead face smashed against it with his own pull. This fricking shield must weight at least a fricking TON! No one in his right mind would use this shit with under 50 strength he thought while readjusting his grip and lifting it to position the shield vertically in front of him.

All of that just in time for the Goblin to arrive where Lariel was at, and send Lariel, and the shield, flying towards the other cavern wall with a swing of his mace.

While mid-air, Lariel looked at his health. It had not gone lower with this swing. Maybe I should get a shield for myself... All those thoughts were cleared out of his mind when he realized that hitting the wall at that speed, which would already lower his health by a lot, and then taking the shield right on his face was more than his low health could handle. Even with his remaining Life Fluid, he would be left with less than one hundred, thus making the rest of the fight, in case his plan worked, very dangerous. More so than it currently was.

As such, he quickly made use of his high Intelligence and turned himself to be facing the incoming wall with his shield in front of him, praying that the shield absorbed most of the impact.

CRACK!

He crashed against the wall with enough force to kill a person lower than level 10, crashing against the shield with his own full length. The shield certainly took the brunt of the damage due to Lariel's Health continuing above 500. Lariel only now noticed that the shield was huge. Around one meter eighty from top to bottom. Truly, only someone strength-focused could carry this effectively.

The Warlord was already running towards him. Foam colored with blood coming out of its mouth. But Lariel had other plans relating to this unscheduled meeting. He fell to the floor, grabbed the shield with his two hands, just barely enough to carry it effectively, and started running towards Ivan, who was already up with a stoic look on his face. His running was delayed, but he managed to convey the shield to Ivan before the Warlord caught up to them.

Immediately Ivan brought the shield up with his left arm, the non-broken one, and got ready for the imminent crash. Lariel for his turn just cleared out of the way, preparing his next move. He had no doubts that this would cause damage to the Warlord. However, if it was enough to kill it was yet to be known. When the Warlord was only a couple meters from Ivan, Lariel started running.

Unlike last time motes of golden light, this time lightning crackled around his body. He was starting to activate Magic Empowerment.

The Warlord arrived, throwing the same downwards vertical swing against Ivan's shield as last time, but this time not jumping.

Lariel for his turn used his skills. Spear Crack came to life, but this time in a different form. He would not use it to smash. But to pierce. He discarded Heavy Blow, and while on the apex of the jump, he used Powerful Thrust. Just before he arrived at the monster, Magic Empowerment activated, giving his Wind Control a huge boost, allowing him to increase his own weight and speed even further.

It was not enough to break the sound barrier with his body movement alone. Lariel somehow doubted that even his body could not handle that, his Physical Fitness feeding him that information.

He rose like a god, and fell like Thunder, piercing everything in his path.

Since this was not a smash like the previous one, there was no shockwave at the moment of contact. The Goblin, having gone berserk did not even move a muscle to defend, allowing Lariel to deliver the hopefully fatal blow.

The tip of the spear connected with the Goblins flesh at the junction between the right shoulder and the neck, entering like a knife on butter. Although this was a piercing attack, the huge amount of weight present in Lariel's movement was enough for the Goblin's legs to crack due to the energy being transferred from the tip of the spear to the ground.

That same tip of the spear passed uninterrupted through the Warlord's flesh, which was unable to provide any resistance.

Ivan stood tall, tanking part of the pressure from the move, his shield no doubt absorbing the majority of it.

The Warlord's spine was the next to crack, following it came its hip and every single bone in his thorax. The bones beneath the waist already having been ground to dust.

There was so much pressure that everything inside the Warlord's body burst open, splashing blood everywhere in the nearby area.

Lariel stopped the use of the skills when he heard the *Ding!* signalizing the end of the monster's life. But he was not quick enough. Still, with his momentum, he crashed against the ground. The tip of his spear cracked after hitting the ground, somehow having survived all of this, the rest of the spear soon followed, turning to splinters in Lariel's hands. Luckily for him, the splinters did not affect his hands.

He crashed against the ground with his legs, which absorbed the brunt of the impact.

He stopped, only forming a small dent on the rock-hard ground with his abrupt landing. His whole body was shaking due to the spear impacting the ground and subsequent impact against the ground, but he was fine overall, albeit splashed with blood from top to bottom.

He ignored the notifications and looked towards Ivan, that had gone to one knee. He was fine from what Lariel could tell, so he did not give it much more thought.

Lariel looked around to find his roommates.

There were still two knocked unconscious, but the remaining seemed to be fine, the only damage taken having been the impact against the wall and against their pride.

It had been a hard fight. But they had won nonetheless.