The double headed axe plummeted down at the paralysed and vulnerable Andrew B, the back of his neck just slightly exposed above his red steel chest plate. However a split moment before the axe could connect its blow Andrew B had rolled onto his left side and raised his with his left hand shield, leaving the blade of the axe embedded in his shield. He then somehow rolled onto his back, forcing the poisoned blade further into his flesh, and threw his iron short sword, point first, into his attackers un-armoured neck.
The cloaked figure dropped his arms to his side and his axe fell with a thud to the ground, his head dropped slightly as he looked down at the blade which had pierced his flesh and bone. His health bar plunged from green all the way through yellow, slowly through red and then into emptiness. The health bar fizzled away and the red crystal above his head shattered leaving the pieces on the ground where they gave of a glow and burst into a number of particles. He began to give off a white glow from every part of his body, the glow quickly engulfed his whole body creating a sphere of light. It began to expand slightly before exploding into thousands of tiny particles which moved gently away with the movement of the valley breeze.
Now with his attacker dead, Andrew B turned back onto his front and desperately began crawling towards the edge of the cliff in order to escape the remaining 24 cloaked murderers. However his movement was sluggish and sporadic, allowing one of the fighters to move into his way. This new figure drew a barb tipped spear from thin air, built up a dark red mist around it and stabbed down at Andrew B. The blade effortlessly pierced straight through Andrew B's armour, just above where the poisoned dagger's hilt was just visible. The spear stuck out of his armour and flesh, holding itself up straight.
Within a second of the spear piercing through his flesh, his health bar had dropped straight to empty, giving him no time to even react to what had just happened to him. His health bar dissipated away, the green crystal which slowly twirled above his head stopped dead, cracked and shattered into particles which were taken away with the wind. His body then began to glow white, a white glow that engulfed his whole body. The white glow grew slightly before bursting into thousands of particles which slowly rose into the air before catching the wind and dissapearing into the mountains.
His killer yanked his spear out of the ground, sheathed the dagger to his side and turned to look down at the fight below him. 49 green players, crusaders with a mission to kill against 5 red players, experienced player killers whose name was feared by all but the strongest of the frontliners. Our ambush had been expected, seemingly our whole attack plans were known by the Laughing Coffin, we had lost the advantage of surprise almost instantly. Now we were trapped between two forces, 5 seemingly invincible warriors on one side with another 24 soon to be charging down at us from the other side.
"Get to the cave entrance, we can hold them off there!" I heard Agil shout over the clashing of blades, he then sweeped his axe towards his opponent, forcing them to move backwards, and ran over to the cave entrance. The solo players began to follow suit, pushing their opponent back long enough so that they could run for it to join Agil. The players began to form a small wall of steel at the entrance to the cave, showing that we were now on the defensive in this battle.
Asuna quickly looked over at what Agil was doing and with a few seconds of thought nodded to him and ordered the knights to fall back to the cave to reinforce it with their shield wall formation. Now that the Knights had pulled out those left to fight were now pushed as hard as they could to survive pushing their fighting skill to the very limit as we started moving backwards towards our allies, fighting inch by inch to avoid being caught out alone when the other 24 cloaked warriors eventually found a way down the cliff and joined to fight.
As soon as I disengaged with the knife wielder, with a sweeping attack that forced him to jump back out of the way, I quickly turned and ran for the cave entrance with Sky and one of the spear wielders on either side of me. As we approached the forming shield wall I heard a number of battle cries form behind alongside with the crashing footsteps of charging men. The second we reached the wall a small gap was opened up, letting us get through to join the second file in the formation. The moment that Sky skid through the parting, being the last of us, the gap was shut and the Knights locked their shields in place and crouched down behind them with swords drawn. The players behind the shield wall all drew their weapons to a ready, all glowing, all held with strong grips and feet firmly planted to the ground. This had to work otherwise we would be pushed further back into the darkness off the cave, a field we were unprepared to fight on.
The 29 Laughing Coffin members were swiftly upon us and were attempting to get their weapons through any crack in the shield wall that they could find, swords crashed down at the middle of the conjoined shields, spears were thrust over them at those standing behind, while the knife wielders tried to get past the small openings at the bottom of the wall. On our side the Knights held to the shield wall firmly, not getting pushed back in the slightest while occasionally thrusting their swords at the attackers from the opening at the bottom or by risking an attack over their shields. The players behind the wall parried the blades that got over the shields and attempted everything they could to push the fighters back, getting the occasional hit on them dealing a small amount of damage.
After a few minutes of this seemingly pointless grind of steel on steel Asuna shouted an order to the Knights "Ranked advance!" A moment after her order each of the shields were engulfed in a joint red light which momentarily dazed the Laughing Coffins. This moment of distraction however was enough time for the Knights the charge from the ground and smashing their glowing shields into the cloaked fighters, sending them either to the ground or stunning them for a few seconds. The Knights quickly stabbed down at those who had fallen taking their health down to zero without mercy. We in the second line quickly followed up by charging down the stunned enemies, killing them off in a few quick swipes and buying the Knights time to reform their shield wall.
Once the wall was reformed we swiftly moved behind it giving the Knights a clear path to the remaining 12 cloaked figures who had managed to avoid the surprise advance. This time their shields glowed a bright pink, they then proceeded to charge with their heads below the rim of the shield and the bottom cutting through the hard ground. This time us in the second line quickly followed behind them with weapons held high in the air or low by our sides, glowing a variety of different colours.
However the laughing Coffin members were ready this time. They sprinted towards the shield charge, with glowing weapons and almost simultaneously jumped and somersaulted over the wall of steel. While they were above the Knights a number of them stabbed down with their weapons wounding a number of the Knights with one being killed by the barbed tipped spear. They deftly landed on the ground and within a split second were upon us with the intent to end this fight quickly. Due to their unexpected tactic they were able quickly take down 4 solo players who weren't given any time to block or counter the attacks in any way.
After dispatching the four solo players the Laughing Coffin members swiftly moved into a small circle formation, weapons held outwards. They began to move towards the main bulk of us and they began to spin the circle. Oliver and 2 other Axe wielders ran down at them to try and brake up the formation in three heavy swings from their axes which were raised in the air each glowing dark red. Oliver jumped and span in the air with his axe held tightly at the end of its handle, while the two at his sides swung their blades down to the ground. Oliver's blade sliced through one of the Laughing coffins head exposing a large red glowing line, the axeman to his left had his attack dodged and the one to his right had his blade parried.
The axeman to his left stumbled to the ground, taken down by the momentum of his dodged axe, allowing time for a sword to be rammed through his spine and dragged through his stomach. The axeman to Oliver's right took a dagger to the side, causing him to drop his axe and forcing him to fall back away from the circle. However Oliver was in the centre of the formation, without support and surrounded by 12 Laughing Coffin fighters who quickly turned to face him. Alone there was little chance that he was going to leave the circle alive, everyone watching knew this and so did he. I realised that everyone was just standing around watching what was unfolding in front of them. "Come on people, we need to help him!" I shouted in anger as I began to sprint to them.
Knowing that there was little he could do against 12 opponents at once he started spinning on the front of his feet with his axe held out, with each turn the green glow on the axe grew ever brighter. A dagger wielder stepped forward to attack Oliver, deftly ducking his axe and jumping up to stab down at his now vulnerable back. He was able to stab the blade all the way into his back so that only the hilt was showing from his flesh, however instead of going down like his attacker had expected, he kept spinning and his axe cleaved through his attacker's chest, he then dragged the blade through his virtual flesh and threw his axe outwards at the surrounding Laughing Coffin members.
As his axe buried itself in one of the Laughing Coffin's necks he succumbed to the paralysis poison that was on the dagger, which was still deep within his back, and he fell to his knees. A second before any of us could reach the formation to help him the barbed tipped spear had been rammed through the back of his exposed neckline, quickly pulled out and then rammed through Oliver's backplate above the dagger's hilt. The figure who wielded the spear left it stuck in Oliver's back and quiclky flicked through his inventory to bring out a red crystal.
Suddenly a strange shock wave of some physical form burst out from behind me and created a glass like dome around the Laughing Coffin fighters, with the nearly dead Oliver in their centre. The crystal in the spear man's hand shattered and crumbled into dark lumps of rock, seemingly destroyed by the force that held them in the dome. The spear man drew out another spear from his inventory, this time made entirely from a pure blood red steel, and hurled it at the wall of the dome. The spear struck the wall and burst into bright purple flames and fell to the ground as ashes, completely destroyed. I looked to my side to where I felt the force wave to have come from to see Asuna holding up a pure black rectangular crystal which had small purple flickers moving around within it.