Second World Chapter 11 - 11. Kiting Strategy

He heard heavy footsteps and immediately returned his attention to the Skeleton Captain, it was charging at him. He could not afford to spare his thought on Bill, and it looked like it was already too late for him. The Skeleton Captain swung its large arm towards Jack as if it was a mace. Jack jumped and rolled to the side as the massive hand clubbed down and broke the ground. Crack lines radiated outwards as the street floor could not withstand the powerful blow.
The monster was at a pause at the end of its large movement. Jack didn't want to let this chance go. He hastily recovered his balance and make a slash.
Power Strike! 14 damage.
"Damn!" He couldn't resist cursing out. Such low damage even with a skill. How high was its defense?!
The monster turned and made a horizontal swing with its backhand. It hit the air as Jack had backstepped a couple of steps.
Mana Bullet!
A beam of blue energy shot out from his staff and landed squarely on the Captain's face.
Critical! 21 damage.
It was critical but the damage was only a shy above 20. Without critical, the damage would be less than Power Strike. He backstepped further to create a larger distance. The Captain rushed towards him, he pointed his staff and use the staff's innate energy to do standard range attacks. Smaller balls of energy shot out and hit the Captain's body, he couldn't make an accurate aim to hit its vital for a critical again with the monster moving around like that. Damage of 7 appeared above its head.
As the monster approached, he ran away, creating a safe distance. The attack of this monster was too strong, but its speed was average. Luckily he had a boost to his speed due to the starting attribute points from his two classes, which placed his speed much above average than the usual Fighter or Magician class, probably even surpassed the normal Ranger class' speed. In this way, he was a little bit faster than this level 6 Elite monster.
He kept his distance to not less than five meters from the beast and kept on blasting away with the staff's standard range attack, he could not care less to deplete the staff's energy in this kind of deadly situation. When the cooldown of his Mana Bullet was up, he cast the skill immediately.
With this cycle, he kept on grinding on the Skeleton Captain's health while leading it in a big circling trail on the street in front of Bill's house. Luckily the street was not the regular small sized residential street, but the main street with a breadth of almost eight meters. This gave him just enough space to maneuver.
He didn't know how long he had been kiting this monster in circling motion, he couldn't let his guard down by getting sloppy, so he kept on focusing on the same repeating tasks while paying attention to the monster's Health bar on his monocle. It was around 60%. It felt so long already, and he was not even halfway yet? He felt exasperated. He looked at his own bars, his MP bar was around 40% already. He felt lucky that he had taken the Fried Rice that increase his MP recovery, if not, it would be much less by now. But with the way this was going, he would run out of his Mana first.
His stamina was still full, but he was not confident to engage the Monster in a melee brawl. Now he thought his decision to focus on his Fighter class had been a mistake, he should have put more experience into his Magician class instead. He looked at his staff, its energy was also half left. He surmised that it took around three standard range attacks to deplete 1 point of the staff's energy. However, this energy didn't regenerate by itself, so he couldn't use the standard range attack anymore once it ran out. The situation would become much more difficult then.
While he was kiting the monster, he didn't realize his circling motion had shifted. He was passing near where Bill's corpse was. When the monster also arrived near the corpse, it stopped. Jack was puzzled by it, but then his expression changed to dread when the Skeleton Captain reached out and grabbed the hilt of its saber. It pulled the weapon out and brandished the saber towards Jack. Jack imagined seeing a grin on its expressionless skull face. It let out a roar and made a dash.
Crap! Was it faster? Jack was shocked by the sudden burst of speed. He almost didn't manage to dodge when the saber came slashing down. He could feel the wind of the attack brushed past his hair, it was a very narrow escape. But before he could regain his balance, he saw from the corner of his eyes the Skeleton Captain's movement. He hastily brandished his sword in front of him. Parry! The saber clashed with his sword for the second time and caused him to fly back again. His health went down by another 65 points this time.
It was its weapon! Jack finally realized it. It must have given the monster an attribute boost which made it faster. Some weapons in RPG games possessed such a boost. Unlike his common weapon, this Elite monster's weapon was likely to be special. He had been getting used to the monster's weaponless movements, this sudden difference in speed had thrown him off guard.
However, by his calculation, he should still be slightly faster. As long as he didn't get careless, he could still maintain the kiting strategy. What he needed to be aware of was the Monster's throwing attack. It must be a skill of its that sacrificed its weapon for a ranged attack. The damage might even surpass the monster's normal attack, so it was of utmost importance for him to be cautious now that his HP was about half.
Now that he knew of its speed, he put more distance from it. He only attacked once it entered his range, and quickly pulled away again once an attack was made. It was done hastily the early few times, which caused him to miss twice, wasting the staff's energy. But once he got used to it, he got back to the rhythm of previous kiting, albeit at a slower pace.
The saber made a few close calls, his heart was beating like crazy every time it brushed past his body. He had never had such an adrenaline-fueled fight for a long while. He felt like he had gone back to the first time when he had first played VR games. At that time, even though he knew he was perfectly safe, the virtual reality made him thought it was real.
This time though, he knew it was real, and he could not afford a mistake. He knew he got the get-out-of-jail-free card from his inherent Immortal Soul skill. But after that, he would have 24 hours without protection. He could not say he would not encounter another life-threatening situation again within those 24 hours, so he should still treat this fight with utmost caution.
When the Skeleton Captain's HP bar reached 50%, it abruptly stopped. It lifted its left hand which was not holding a weapon up high. It seemed to make some gibberish voices out of its tongueless mouth. Then it slapped its hand downwards. An eerie black light condensed at the ground where its hand was. The ground started breaking and as more black light poured forth, He saw a figure formed within the light. When it dispersed, another skeletal figure was seen holding a club.
Skeleton Thug (Basic monster, Undead)
Level 3
HP: 350
"F**k!" Jack couldn't help to curse out.
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