Chapter 217 - Goliaths

"Come on!"

Rynold's opponent enticed him to fight back as Rynold was only reacting and dodging all this time. Not once had Rynold strike at his opponent, and neither did his opponent land a hit on him.

So, as one could imagine, this constant back and forth was getting really old, really fast.

But, it wasn't for no good reason too. Rynold acted this way because he was holding out for an opening — something that would've reversed this one-sided battle to his advantage.

"Fight back!"

Despite the provocations, Rynold held it in. He didn't want to waste all the time he spent on a shortsighted attack. He had to find an opening. He had to find a path to victory, no matter how much more attacks he bore.

As Rynold's patience lasted much longer than he cared for, his opponent's frustrations rose to an unprecedented level. He expected a fight that would've been enjoyable, but instead, he found a punching bag that evaded every attack he dealt.

The guy's frustrations soon showed in his movements. As each attack was as lethal as the next, Rynold found that his attack pattern became sloppier the more frustrated he got. And, soon enough, Rynold found his opening.

Executing yet another stabbing motion, Rynold shifted his body slightly to the side. The spear passed through the side of Rynold's lower abdomen without resistance. Rynold, knowing this would happen, grabbed the shaft and pulled it towards him, simultaneously pulling his opponent as well.

From there, Rynold extended his free Mana Gauntlet into Strength-form and slammed the guy's face to the ground. It carried enough force to even crack the ground beneath them. Then, Rynold kicked the guy to the side, creating distance between the two of them once more.

"We done here?" Rynold asked, unsure whether his opponent was actually awake to listen. Beads of sweat dropped from his face as Rynold suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him.

The guy pushed himself from the ground and stood on his two feet. He then looked at Rynold with a bruised face and smiled, still as confident as ever. He then laughed for a full five seconds before speaking in his standard arrogant tone.

"I'll give you that one," the guy answered as he wiped away the blood dripping from his mouth, "I didn't expect to get punched like that, especially from an Augmenter too. Now, that adds insult to injury, really. If the others caught wind of this, I wouldn't know how to live it down."

Rynold raised an eyebrow as he took a step back.

He wasn't really upset by what the guy said. Rynold knew how limited an Augmenter's potential was, so the insults didn't bother him that much. Instead, Rynold focused on the fact that the guy seemed fine even after Rynold threw the back-breaking punch.

"But hey! I have to say. I'm impressed with what you just did back there," the guy continued as he stared at Rynold, "To pull one over me like that..., really impressive. Nearly broke a bone too. Heh. Alright, you win. This time."

"What are you-"

"You win, dude," the guy casually responded as he wiped the dust from his clothes. His mood also visibly brightened, too — for some unknown reason. "Besides, I should really head back now. You know, before the cavalry arrives. I look forward to our next fight."

Confused by the sudden turn of events, Rynold failed to stop the guy from leaving. Rynold could only watch. But then, the guy suddenly stopped and turned around.

"The name's Wren, by the way. You put a good fight, much better than anyone else here. Anyway, see you. Try not to get killed by the things on their way here."

With that, he left, leaving Rynold alone in the woods.

'What the hell was all that? I hit him once, and now he's leaving? Did I really have to go through all that trouble?' Rynold asked himself as he wiped away the sweat on his forehead using his forearms.

As his exhaustion soon came up to him, Rynold took his time recovering. He got rid of a lot of threats in the past hour. The worst of it all was the fight that had just happened. He needed some time to catch his breath.

A quick break wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Rynold found a place to sit down and catch his breath for a little while. During the fight, he learned a few things.

He realized his shortcomings when it came to fighting another Magic User. Wren was fast, much faster than Rynold at max speed. Even the attacks that Rynold evaded, he evaded with a small margin. It didn't take an experienced combatant to realize that Rynold won through his instinct and reflexes alone.

But, still, Rynold won. Even if it was through sheer dumb luck, Rynold won.

'What did he mean by cavalry..?'

Letting out a deep sigh, fearing for the absolute worst, Rynold stood back up. He had work to do, whether he'd like to do them or not. As much as he wanted to sit back down, though, Rynold didn't have that option — even if something pushed him down.

The ground rumbled out of nowhere and threw Rynold off-balance, unintentionally landing on his ass. He was back on the ground, or well, forced to be back on the ground.

"Shit," Rynold cursed as he hurriedly pushed himself off the ground, "I guess that's the thing he was warning me about, huh?"

Rynold clicked his tongue as he went towards the source of the trembles and away from the city. He was running straight into danger, even though he hadn't realized it yet. But, even if he did, Rynold wouldn't shy away from it.

The 'Goliath' from before... Rynold knew how bad things were going to be if he let another one near the city. The one thing that could stop the total destruction of Ark City was simple.

It was Rynold.

'This sucks!' Rynold thought to himself as he kept running. He didn't stop until he got a good view of the sky and the things looming over him. 'Oh, this definitely is going to suck.'

As Rynold's head tilted upwards, his jaw fell wide open, leaving his mouth agape. It was unintentional, but it accurately captured the feelings Rynold had right now, feelings of awe and terror all rolled up into one.

'There's four of them! There shouldn't be four of them. No. Why? Why are there four of them?! What?!'

Despite Rynold's silence, he was internally freaking the hell out. Nothing about his brain worked at this moment as the four Goliath Ghouls made their way towards the city. Rynold didn't even realize that he was in the way until the Goliaths nearly stepped on him.

Without skipping another beat, Rynold got out of the way. He sprung out of the forest and found himself a nice treetop to perch on and watch as the Goliaths move their way forward.

'I screwed up.'

Rynold blamed himself for these four Goliaths that were on their way towards the city. He somehow realized it now that it was by his shortsightedness that he didn't notice something bigger in all of this. Rynold was strong enough to deal with these things alone, so he thought that he'd at least realized something bigger was going down.

He wished that he had realized something like this earlier. Rynold knew that he should've played the long game — think long term. Instead, he played with petty squabbles and allowed these things to get close to the city.

But then again, Rynold knew just as well that he could still do something about all of this.

'No time to lose now.'

Springing into action once more, Rynold ran straight towards the Goliath that was nearest to the city. It still had a way to get there, luckily, but Rynold's surefire way to kill the thing was unavailable. Reserve Shot was in cooldown, and it'll take a lot more bullets to charge it enough to kill the Goliath.

That said, Rynold had to put more effort into killing them. It was undeniably going to be an exhausting time, and Rynold was anxious to get started.

"Let's bring you down, shall we?"

Climbing the first Goliath's colossal body, Rynold used every means he had to reach its belly. From there, he lashed out with a menacing fury, dealing rapid damage with every swing of his fist.

'Charging Fist!'

A loud echo emanated from the Gauntlet that made contact with the Goliath's rather unbecoming skin. Rynold made sure that his attacks dealt the most he could muster, carrying his force and weight forward with each punch. And, with Mana Infusion, Rynold tore through the creature's natural defences like a hot knife through butter.

'Flaming Spire!'

Rynold raised his drill up high and embedded it with a bright red-orange flame. Throwing everything he had to the Augment, Rynold had unintentionally empowered the spell.

The bright red-orange flame shone to an unprecedented level. It had even gone past the drill and spiralled upwards, creating a beacon of tornado-like fire. Rynold spent a lot of Mana unintentionally pushing past the limits of the spell, but he didn't care.

Hah!

Slashing downwards, Rynold's spiralling tornado of fire crashed down on the Goliath before him. The attack incinerated everything in its path, including the Goliath's head and abdomen. And Rynold didn't stop until he finished the job.

"HAAAAHH!"

It was at this moment that Rynold caught the attention of so many people. With Rynold being near the city than ever before, a lot of people noticed the attack. The sudden flame appeared out of the sky and slashed down just as suddenly was a spectacular sight.

'That might've been too much.'

Deactivating the spell as soon as the Goliath's body started to dissipate, Rynold landed on his two feet on the ground once more. Judging by how much Mana he spent with that single attack, Rynold felt as though it was a bit excessive to attack like that.

Regardless, he still won, so it's not all that bad. But, his victory didn't come without any costs.

"God damn it."

Rynold felt the toll of using that much Mana in a short time creep up to him. He involuntarily squatted down, both hands on his knees. That right there was none other than a backlash. Rynold couldn't do anything about it but recover for a little while.

As he wiped the sweat from his face, Rynold took deep breaths as he recovered. And, once he was able to move, Rynold continued to the next Goliath, hoping that his Mana Core would stabilize by the time he got there.

"Let's just hope those idiot soldiers actually took my advice and ran away while they still could."

Running at a pace slower than before, Rynold made his way to the second Goliath that was quite a distance away. His speed gradually increased as his Mana soon recovered and, by the time he reached his destination, Rynold was ready to fight once more.

Now knowing the full strength of the Goliaths, Rynold had a better scale of how much force was necessary to bring the thing down. He didn't need to fight excessively as before, especially considering there were two left after this one.

With that, Rynold threw one attack after the other, replicating the same tactics as before. He punched with his Mana Gauntlets repeatedly and, this time, he had even used his drill to attack. Rynold dealt consistent damage, throwing attacks at the creature's abdomen and head.

Not long after he started, Rynold took this Goliath down, but it took much longer than the last time. Luckily, Rynold was in a better condition than last time and used up with a lot less Mana than before.

That said, Rynld moved on to the third one without hesitation and killed it not long after. The fights got a lot easier now that Rynold knew which parts to attack.

All Rynold needed to do now was to deal with the last one, which he would soon come across.