It doesn't seem to hurt much.
HP went from 21 to 13; the greenskin Nob's full-force strike dealt 8 points of damage.
The damage was lower than David imagined; the Iron set was proving its worth.
He thought this move would be like a Vindicator's, crippling him in one blow.
David quickly compared the stats of both sides in his head.
greenskin Nob: 50 HP, 12 Defense, equivalent to wearing a chainmail set; 8 damage per hit, slow attack speed.
Himself: 21 HP, 15 Defense; switched weapon to an Iron axe, sacrificing some attack speed for 9 damage.
Aside from the significant gap in HP, everything else was fine.
And for HP, he happened to have a way to compensate.
David took out a Grox Sandwich, a look of slight heartache on his face, and stuffed it into his mouth.
Regeneration II, 30s.
The red heart icon began to pulse rhythmically, each beat accompanied by a small recovery in HP.
Combined with the recovery effect provided by the sandwich itself, within a few breaths, David's HP climbed from 13 back to 21.
As the dust settled, the surrounding Boyz stared wide-eyed at the unscathed David.
They instinctively backed away, leaving enough space for the greenskin Nob and David in the center.
Then, they cheered deafeningly, "Kill him! Kill him!"
To David's surprise, the Orks didn't choose to gang up on him; they only blocked his escape route.
David saw an "Inspiration I" appear in the greenskin Nob's status bar, and looking at himself, he had the same buff.
The Boyz' cheers were completely impartial; such were the Orks.
In their minds, race, stance, and grudges were no longer important at this moment; what mattered was the battle itself.
"You're interesting. Daring to break into our cave alone and stealing our stuff—you're the first human like this I've ever seen."
The greenskin Nob pointed his hammer at David, his address for him changing from "runt" to "human."
"Name."
"...David," he replied, taking out a crafting table and starting to tinker with it.
"Gorg," the Ork Nob announced his name, revealing a mouthful of jagged teeth. "The Ork who's gonna be a Warboss!"
The greenskin Nob disdained sneak attacks and waited quietly for David to finish his preparations.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
The two figures erupted simultaneously, charging at each other.
Gorg's body showed an incongruous agility; the warhammer felt weightless as it swept toward David.
David didn't retreat. Using the same old trick, he still chose to block with his shield.
Gorg let out a grunt, forced back a step by the recoil of his own strength, his hammer-swinging posture distorting.
An opening! David jumped, and his ready Iron axe moved.
He used the Iron axe because of its high damage; slow weapons were suited for battles with few attacking opportunities.
Using the momentum of the fall, the Iron axe slashed down hard at Gorg. -10.5.
With the Iron axe's high base damage of 9, plus the extra 50% from a critical hit, and after armor reduction, it ultimately dealt a high damage of 10.5.
Blood slowly trickled down Gorg's coarse greenskin.
Gorg winced in pain but didn't retreat. He wiped the blood from his face with his other hand, a look of cunning in his eyes.
"The same trick won't work on Gorg twice. That broken shield of yours is strange, but it can't be used continuously, right?"
Whoosh. A chill came from below as Gorg's mechanical leg kicked straight toward David's heart.
David didn't dodge, nor did he care to. With Regeneration II, any trade of health was in his favor.
The mechanical leg slammed into David. His health bar flickered but quickly recovered.
A flash of astonishment crossed Gorg's eyes; he clearly hadn't expected the opponent to be so courageous.
As the mechanical leg retracted, David stepped forward again with another slash. -7.
Gorg retreated in haste, attempting to pull away, but David pursued relentlessly, leaping forward for another jump attack.
After all, Gorg was a battle-hardened Nob with significant combat wisdom.
Soon, he figured out the pattern of David's attacks: this human always liked to jump when attacking.
Didn't he know that when a person is in the air, with nowhere to gain leverage and difficult to change direction, they are the best target?
As David repeated his trick and leaped high, a fierce light flared in Gorg's eyes. His body erupted with incredible power as he swung his warhammer in a vicious upward strike, aiming right at the mid-air David.
David looked at the shield in his inventory, which had already finished its cooldown, but chose not to block.
Everything was going according to plan.
Since Gorg's first attack, David had noticed that the hammer's knockback was staggering, often sending him flying.
So, during the battle, he intentionally or unintentionally used jump attacks—partly to land critical hits and partly to lure Gorg into knocking him upward.
What he wanted was exactly the knockback from this strike!
The surrounding scenery plummeted as the wind whistled in his ears; David flew toward the high ceiling of the cave.
David's body reached its peak in the air, just enough to touch the rock wall overhead.
The instant before he began to fall, David waved his arm, placing several [Anvils] on the block directly above Gorg's head and the surrounding area.
Under gravity's relentless summons, the anvils broke free from the rock wall.
Turning into streaks of black death, they fell straight toward the crown of Gorg's head, who had just swung his hammer and was in a brief state of exhaustion.
"Watch your head!" The spectating Boyz erupted.
Gorg had just looked up when he saw nothing but an expanding shadow.
He had to escape. Gorg's intuition screamed a warning as he gathered all his strength to dive to the side.
David landed before the anvils, using a perfect MLG water drop to return to the ground.
Want to escape? No way. With a wave of David's arm, a wooden boat appeared out of thin air.
"What kind of trick is this now!" Gorg roared in anger, slamming a fist the size of a sandbag into the wooden boat.
The wooden boat shook and shattered instantly.
As expected, for a creature like Gorg with a certain level of intelligence, the boat's trapping effect was very limited.
But this slight delay was enough.
Clang! The sound of the anvil falling and colliding with the skull echoed throughout the cave.
The Boyz stood agape, watching their incredibly powerful Nob get struck right in the forehead by a strange block falling from the sky.
Gorg's massive body stiffened for a moment, his small eyes bulging and distorting.
A muffled grunt came from his throat; his massive body swayed before collapsing face-first onto the ground with a loud thud.
He turned into a floor full of experience points and a weapon drop.
[Gorg's warhammer, Attack Power 8, Extremely Slow Attack Speed]
[Special Ability: Can be charged. Damage increases during charging, reaching a maximum of 13 after 3 seconds, and deals massive knockback.]
David scooped up the warhammer drop. While the cave full of Orks was still immersed in the shock of their Nob's death, he turned and ran without a moment's hesitation.
He wasn't about to bet on the Orks' sense of honor; he'd rather make his escape first.
He rushed toward the cave wall, and a stone pillar rose beneath his feet, lifting him high up.
Before the Orks could react, he scrambled up the rock face, placing blocks on the protrusions. In a few leaps, he sprang out of the encirclement like a nimble bharal and dove into the Mine shaft.
On the way, reflecting on his battle plan, he could only say his luck had been quite good this time; nothing had gone wrong.
Had the knockback from Gorg's hammer been any weaker, failing to send him to a sufficient height, or had he failed to adjust in time to place the anvils precisely at the peak...
...the plan would have failed.
But so what? Even without the anvils, David felt that by playing it safe, he could have defeated Gorg—it just wouldn't have been this easy.
It was just a pity about those anvils; he hadn't had time to mine them back. They were all Iron blocks, after all, David thought regretfully, looking at his inventory full of iron ore.