"Kaleb, you spineless son of a bitch! Now!" Leonard roared again, his voice strained with desperation. But not even a whisper of sound came from the hilltop.
The Gnolls were upon him. Leonard activated Temporal Cognition and Elemental Sword Dance, a desperate attempt to buy himself time. He wasn't attacking; he was surviving.
The world slowed. Not to a crawl but to a manageable blur. He saw the Gnolls' movements, the arcs of their crude weapons, the spittle flying from their snarling mouths. He could react, but even reacting was an almost impossible task against so many.
He focused solely on deflecting. Elemental Sword Dance became a whirlwind of parries, a symphony of ringing steel. Each movement was precise, economical, designed to redirect the incoming blows, not to counterattack.
