If he were being fair, Serenity would admit that his ax was only Tier Five. That really wasn’t good enough at Tier Eight, though it retained some usefulness since it was specifically designed as a magic-draining ax. He’d originally intended it to be a shieldbreaker; while that hadn’t entirely worked out for either Vengeance or Serenity because it was hard to capitalize on a broken shield with the weapon that broke it, that didn’t make the weapon useless.

The thing was, Serenity didn’t really feel like being fair to Gabriel and Daryl. He’d been over Tier Four for something like three months; that wasn’t long enough to have a Tier Eight weapon made, even if he’d been in one place for long enough. The two Tier Nine Silver Blades, however, hadn’t jumped ridiculously quickly through their last several Tiers. There was no reason they couldn’t have taken the time.

Sure, there weren’t any great options all that close, but it wasn’t like you had to go to the Empire to get a good weapon, either. There were places, and they were usually famous. In fact, even on Asihanya, Serenity wouldn’t have been surprised to find high-Tier weapons making their way through the market in a place like Stallet or even whatever market Takinat once had. They wouldn’t be custom-made, but they’d still be better than nothing; most people didn’t need custom-made weapons for anything but specialty work anyway.

Gabriel and Daryl looked at each other, but didn’t say anything. Naomi just looked lost.

Serenity waited for a moment, then shrugged. It was up to them to keep up with their equipment, and clearly they were fine for this fight. He’d helped as much as he could; it wasn’t like he knew where anything other than the well-known markets were at this time anyway. “Well, alright. We have to work with what we’ve got, and it sounds like that’s enough. You said we have to be agile; I assume that means Naomi and I should come at him from opposite sides while you and Daryl attack from here?”

Gabriel nodded. “The fight changes based on what weapons the Guardian has; most of the time, he uses a sword and a shield, so a couple of people getting in close will draw his attention; if you can hamstring him, then back off, we can take care of him from here. Getting a deadly injury through can be difficult, but we’re not in a hurry this time.”

Serenity glanced back at the armored headless horseman. He didn’t think he’d seen a shield. The longer examination seemed to confirm that. “He doesn’t have a shield. He has a bow readied; I also see a sword and what looks like some daggers and what looks like a wand.”

Daryl groaned. “Argh, that one.”

Serenity looked over at Daryl. “You know it?”

“We both do,” Gabriel stated with a grimace. “It likes to do to us what we’d rather do to monsters, stay away from everyone and attack at a distance.”

“Yeah, what you aren’t seeing is all the shit it drops behind it when it runs. It has everything from caltrops to trap-spells. Master Zany can avoid them, somehow, and catch it, but the rest of us …” Daryl shook his head. “It’s smart, too. It likes to attack Gabriel the most, and something about the spell it uses with that wand makes it harder for him to heal himself.”

There were Death-based effects that could limit healing in all sorts of ways. Serenity usually didn’t use them, because most monsters didn’t have effective middle-of-combat healing, but they did truly suck in the aftermath of combat. Serenity could remember using some of them as the Final Reaper on large swaths of people he had no intention to kill; it was a way to lock down part of an army. Anything that could control the enemy was useful when you were facing thousands by yourself.

Serenity went over his current options in his head, quickly. He didn’t have the capabilities of the Final Reaper, even if he wanted them. On the other hand, he suspected that Guildmaster Zany was avoiding the traps by using something similar to Serenity’s Footwraps of Air Glide; it was amazing how many traps, even magical ones, required you to touch something to trigger them. “I see a couple things we can do. First, the more defensive option. If Naomi can keep him busy on her own, I can stay back with you. I’m pretty sure I can counter whatever it’s doing to restrict healing, so Gabriel can help himself while Daryl and I attack.”

“I don’t think I can keep up with that, not at Tier Nine,” Naomi said. “Better not to count on it; running speed’s one of my weaker areas.”

“If it can attack me essentially unopposed, it can hurt me a lot faster than I can heal, even if I could heal normally,” Gabriel pitched in. “I don’t think that’s a better plan.”

Serenity nodded. “I figured I’d offer, didn’t really expect you to take that one. Second option is to teleport; I can put both Naomi and myself out there, close to it. We’ll be together and can try to herd it, but separating to either side will be hard unless I drop us almost on top of it; if I do that, I can probably slip around it before it notices me.”

Actually, based on the other monsters on this level, it might well let him get “behind” it easily regardless of the approach; these monsters simply weren’t acting normally. The question was if he’d still be able to herd it; Serenity wasn’t confident he’d be able to. Unfortunately, he also wasn’t sure he’d be able to take its attention off Naomi, even though he was far more suited to actually be able to take the hits than she was.

“I like that plan a lot more,” Naomi said. “You should definitely put us next to him. We can split up immediately, but if we’re right there he has to either move in whatever direction we pick or let us at his flanks. If we can hamstring even one of the legs, we’ll reduce his mobility. I assume he’s not as well armored there?”

“Some leather wound around them for reinforcement is all I’m seeing,” Serenity informed Naomi; she almost certainly couldn’t see that far. “I’ll try to get around behind him, since I can move faster than you can; that should give us the best chance of taking out a leg or two.” It wasn’t just his speed that made Serenity volunteer to be the one that tried to get behind the headless horse-man, but he didn’t really want to draw attention to the monsters’ odd behavior if no one had noticed.

“If you can get it to stop running and use its sword instead of the bow or the wand, I can deal with it,” Daryl said confidently. “I’ve done it before; it usually takes a few shots to hit something vital with all the armor, but it works.”

“And if it keeps attacking you two, the worst it can do to Naomi and me is kick us. Which it can’t do if it’s on the ground. So that’s the first priority for us; after that, we should be able to deal with it if you two can dodge for long enough.” Serenity wasn’t sure which the Guardian would do; there really wasn’t a great choice left if they managed to deny it its mobility. Numbers were a huge advantage, as long as you could use them.

“If you have a teleport Skill, why haven’t you been using it?” The question came from Gabriel. He hadn’t said anything in a bit, probably because he was thinking about that question instead of the plan. “I thought that was a higher-Tier Skill for anyone but a portal mage, anyway.”

Serenity shook his head. “I don’t have a teleport Skill. I have a teleport spell; it’s not combat-useful, except as an opener. We’re going to have to take a few minutes here for me to cast it.”

Gabriel glanced over at the Guardian, who was still not paying the small group any attention. “Then you’d better hurry. I don’t know where you got a spell like that, but the Messenger’s Guild always takes something like half an hour and the Guardian isn’t going to leave us alone for anything close to that long, even if we don’t do anything.”

Serenity wondered for a moment if that was part of the monster’s design or if Zany just triggered the fight when he thought the people with him were wasting time. Either was possible, but just in case it was the first one, Gabriel was right; he’d better hurry. He might not have time to get the spell off, much less try to talk to the dungeon first.

As it turned out, there was indeed enough time to create the spellform. In fact, there was more than enough. Serenity felt like he’d spent fifteen minutes blocking it out and shaping the magic, even though the mana moved oddly slowly, but when he checked the timer, he’d spent only six. A glance at the headless horse-man showed that it was paying just as little attention as it had before, so Serenity took another minute to go over the spell and confirm that he had it correct.

He did. There were a few small curves that were slightly misshapen, but the worst they’d have done was reduce the efficiency slightly and that was fine for a teleport this close, even carrying a second person. “The spell’s ready. Naomi, if you’ll come over here?”

It took a moment to get everyone in position; while they’d all been watching the enemy, none of them had expected Serenity to finish the spell as quickly as he did. The fact that he didn’t make a big production of it also confused Daryl and Naomi, though Gabriel at least seemed to know what chantless casting was.

Serenity gripped Naomi’s shoulder and triggered the spellform. They appeared just on the other side of the headless horse-man on the assumption that it would probably be more likely to surprise the monster. Serenity’s aim was good; there was about a foot and a half between Naomi and the centaur’s head.

Naomi located the monster, then set herself to be ready to get out of its way if it charged her. At the same time, Serenity triggered his footwraps, rose several inches into the air, and slid in a curve around the Guardian.

The Guardian took two steps backwards, drew his bow, twisted himself around to face over his rear end, and released an arrow directly at Gabriel. It was all a single, smooth action; there was no need for the Guardian to hunt for his target. While it hadn’t seemed to have noticed them, it must have known they were there.

Serenity pulled his Crystal Hilt out of its sheath, triggered the sheath’s enchantment, and pushed Death-aligned mana into it to form the blade. The sheath’s Solid Form enchantment would also enable it to cut things like a more normal sword. It wasn’t why he’d picked up the sheath, but it would be useful here.

As for the Death mana, well, the Guardian was supposed to be vulnerable to it. There was no reason not to take advantage of that.

Arrows from Daryl and Firebolts from Gabriel headed towards the armored centaur, but somehow it always seemed to be able to move enough to make the arrows skid off something and the Firebolts hit armor rather than unprotected hide. Naomi moved forward cautiously; when she was close enough, she cut out with her sword, but dodged backwards instead of committing to her strike when the centaur lashed out at her with a vicious kick.

Serenity gained on the centaur more slowly than he’d expected; the centaur kept backing up from Naomi, making it harder to actually get around behind it. By the time he finally made it, the centaur had launched several more arrows at Gabriel. He was slower than either Gabriel or Daryl, but his attacks weren’t deflected; Serenity could hear Gabriel’s involuntary shouts of pain shortly after each attack.

Lillene

As far as I can tell, leg armor for horses isn’t really a thing, since it can significantly impede their mobility/speed. That’ll be less of an issue for a Tier Nine centaur, but it doesn’t remove the issue entirely - especially not when he’d have to use high-Tier materials to make armor worthwhile. If he weren’t alone, he might be able to afford the lost mobility, but the Guardian has to be able to stand on his own.