After getting jolted by that shock treatment, Lin Yun felt a numbness creeping through his body. It was pretty unpleasant—his arms and legs even felt weak. He looked at the Goblin Shaman, whose face twisted into a sinister grin, then at the four goblins charging toward him. Their gear looked shoddy, but it was clearly suited to their builds, and they carried iron weapons.
Good grief, these were the real elites! The difficulty had changed. Lin Yun had thought that after killing so many goblins, they would all be dead. He hadn't expected there to be so many more.
With effort, Lin Yun steeled himself and ran toward the Female Fighter and the Goddess Priestess. It wasn't because he was letting looks distract him. He planted the Lantern Staff in the ground, then raised his shield. As he'd said before, his shield was his Holy Symbol. And now, he finally used the ability that proved a cleric would always be a cleric.
"Rise, my warriors." Right, wrong crossover.
What he should have said was, "Praise you, All-Knowing Eye!" A glow appeared around the arm holding Lin Yun's shield, then spread outward, enveloping the Female Fighter, the Goddess Priestess, the young warrior... and two goblins and a Giant Goblin. After all, the ability had a wide area of effect—a full 30-foot radius, or about 10 meters.
Lin Yun had used it there because he was afraid it would reach the first battlefield he'd just cleared. There were a bunch of goblins there who weren't quite dead, only dying. It would be bad if he healed them all.
"D6=5"
Then came three startled cries: "Huh?" "Eh?" "Waaah!" The three people bathed in the light opened their eyes, looking around in confusion. It was like sitting bolt upright in the middle of dying—a very strange feeling. The two goblins caught in the light, however, didn't open their eyes. Instead... well, they slept even more soundly.
It wasn't because Lin Yun had learned Selective Channeling. He was just as helpless as ever. After all, he was only a level-one cleric, and he could choose only one feat. Spellcasting Genius, a classic limited-edition feat, was obviously more useful. Selective Channeling wasn't an option, so in theory, those two goblins and the Giant Goblin should all have been roused by Lin Yun's Channel Divinity.
Fortunately, they had also been within the Goblin Shaman's Thunderclap Wave's area of effect. Whether or not they had enough Constitution to withstand it, they didn't have enough HP to recover to 0 HP—to the point where they were half-dead but could at least stand.
In fact, the Goblin Shaman's fierce attack had finished off the goblins who were already dying. The glow from Lin Yun's Channel Divinity had merely covered them in the literal sense.
As for the Giant Goblin, that was entirely because the Female Fighter had dealt it far too much damage.
Channel Divinity was practically every cleric's signature ability. It let them draw on miraculous power based on the deity they worshiped. Those who worshiped good deities channeled Positive Energy, which could heal the living and harm Undead Creatures. Those who worshiped evil deities gained the ability to channel Negative Energy, healing Undead Creatures and harming the living.
Since the Eye of Omniscience was a Libra—in other words, absolutely neutral—its clerics could freely choose which side's power to wield. Lin Yun wasn't antisocial, so he naturally chose the more orthodox ability to channel Positive Energy.
Since Lin Yun was only level one, his Positive Energy wasn't all that powerful. It could restore only D6 HP. And although goblins were enemies—and bad people—Positive Energy healed living creatures, and goblins were living creatures too. In theory, they could have been healed by Lin Yun. Unfortunately, their own Goblin Shaman had killed them to silence them.
With Selective Channeling, Lin Yun could choose whom to harm and whom to heal, but only when channeling Positive Energy. As for choosing whom to harm, that would only matter if he had an Undead ally he wanted to spare.
The number of times he could use Channel Divinity each day was his Charisma modifier plus 3. In other words, Lin Yun could use it six times a day. That was why he was so confident. Like he'd said: a cleric would always be a cleric. Unfortunately, Spellcasting Genius didn't improve Channel Divinity's effects.
That was also why Lin Yun had moved closer to the Female Fighter and the others. Part of it was to leave more room to fight, so the goblins couldn't charge right up to them so quickly.
The other reason was that if he used Channel Divinity on the battlefield where the goblins had just been dying, it wouldn't be "Rise, my warriors," but "Rise, an army of the dead"—and then his side would be made up of ordinary humans. That was why Lin Yun had fled so quickly without hesitation earlier. It had all been part of a strategy he'd thought through in advance.
"Mr. Silent!" The young warrior, who had just gotten up from the ground, shouted at Lin Yun, who was about to be surrounded by four goblins. He crawled toward him, then swung his sword at a goblin with an iron longsword, barely within reach.
He'd only meant to ease the pressure on Lin Yun a little, even if only by the tiniest amount. After all, he hadn't exactly performed well earlier.
Though lying on the ground made fighting awkward, the young warrior seemed to have gained some mysterious power from the East. It was an ability known as the Rolling Kill. He was lying flat, yet his sword flashed like a rainbow as he slashed diagonally into the goblin, carving a deep gash into the part of its back that wasn't fully covered by armor. It nearly split the goblin in two.
(Yes, this young fellow finally rolled a natural 20 for a Critical Hit, even though he was lying on the ground and had a -4 penalty to hit. A natural 20 was an automatic hit, and he rolled an 18 to confirm the critical, so it still counted. That was pretty incredible. He rolled 15 for damage, so the goblin was nearly killed. No problem there.)
Lin Yun hadn't expected the kid who'd been embarrassing himself all along to suddenly explode the moment he hit the ground. It was downright terrifying. Or maybe he was only a real person when he had a longsword in his hands, and a useless nobody with a shortsword. Was it really that mystical?
Meanwhile, since Lin Yun was right beside the Female Fighter, the young warrior had to crawl some distance before he could reach a goblin. The Female Fighter simply pushed herself up with both hands. She understood the situation, so she stood and stepped forward, then swung her bare hand at a goblin beside Lin Yun who was wielding a broad shortsword.
Her knife hand struck the goblin beside its ear, making it scream. Then she punched it in the head with her other hand, making it gape and roll its eyes.
Lin Yun's pressure eased considerably. The Goddess Priestess, however, still looked confused, as if she didn't understand what had happened to her. That was hardly surprising. After all, things had been so chaotic moments ago that it was only natural for a newbie like her to be bewildered.
Seeing Lin Yun bring all his teammates back to their feet in an instant, the Goblin Shaman jumped up and down in fury. It shouted in a language Lin Yun couldn't understand, then waved the wooden staff in its hand, apparently preparing to cast a spell.
But to its surprise, Lin Yun was faster this time. Earlier, the Goblin Shaman had ambushed him from the shadows, so Lin Yun hadn't had time to react. Now things were different. Lin Yun reacted faster than it did.
Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that he cast faster.
"Come." Before the two goblins beside Lin Yun could react, he cast Command on the distant Goblin Shaman, ordering it to charge straight toward him without doing anything else.
Lin Yun's spell provoked the two goblins in front of him. One was a fairly sturdy goblin carrying a battleaxe, and the other a dagger. They both attacked him.
Because Lin Yun was casting, he couldn't properly focus on defending against the goblins. The one with the battleaxe took advantage of the opening and hacked him in the thigh. The HP he'd just recovered with Channel Divinity disappeared in an instant, while the goblin with the dagger was blocked by Lin Yun's shield and couldn't reach him.
But...
"D20+1+3=20. Concentration check succeeded." Come to think of it, when you took damage, you had to concentrate to maintain your spell, or you would fail the Concentration check. The DC was generally 10 + damage + spell level. Lin Yun had just taken 5 points of damage, and Command was a first-level spell, so the DC was 16.
Lin Yun grimaced. Things had been so urgent that he'd forgotten he could use Defensive Casting.
Well, there was a special trick when it came to spellcasting. Since you had to focus your attention on casting, enemies around you could easily take advantage and sneak an attack in, dealing damage.
In theory, a sufficiently skilled spellcaster could remain alert to the enemies around him while casting, preventing them from hitting him with attacks of opportunity. But that obviously required splitting his attention. At that point, the spellcaster had to make a Defensive Casting Concentration check. The check was D20 + caster level + the caster's key ability modifier.
In Lin Yun's case, that meant +1 from his cleric level and +3 from his Wisdom of 17. Defensive Casting had a higher DC than a normal Concentration check: 15 + twice the spell's level. In other words, Lin Yun needed to beat a DC of at least 17 to cast defensively.
If he failed the check, the spell would be canceled.
It had its pros and cons.
Although these were iron weapons, unlike those carried by the goblins who had obviously just picked them up, these goblins had been holding their weapons for a while, and the weapons were coated in poison.
"D20+4+2+1=17, save succeeded."
All right, he was safe for now, and it had all been worth it. The young warrior watched the Goblin Shaman charge toward Lin Yun. As it was about to pass him, he gripped his longsword and swung at it with all his strength. The Goblin Shaman had no defense at all, but because of the angle of the young warrior's swing, he only hit the ground behind it... All right, that hadn't been worth it. Actually, no—at least it had stopped the Goblin Shaman from casting a spell at them.
"Damn it! I won't give up like this!" Apparently beside himself with rage, the young warrior finally stood up. This time, he tossed his shield aside, gripped his longsword in both hands, and brought it down in a furious strike. At least he didn't hit the ceiling and bounce his blade off it.
Because of Command—and because it was caught between Lin Yun and the young warrior—the Goblin Shaman didn't notice the warrior behind it. The sword hacked into its back, making it cry out in pain again and again.
Before you continue