The Reapers (The Neuro 3)

by Livadny, Andrei

  Which meant that they weren’t mounts at all. They had been captured and enslaved.

  “Archers, aim at the riders!” I strained my voice over the crowd. I was forced to shout because I had no access to their battle chat. “Wizards and healers, wake up! What’s wrong with you? Cast fire protection and take care of the wounded! Warriors, to me, now!”

  They froze in shock and disbelief with my audacity. Reluctantly they obeyed.

  The wyverns were almost upon us. They’d learned Enea’s lesson and were now flying low in extended line, their wings almost touching, about to scorch the island with one massive fire attack.

  “Listen to him!” Allan croaked. Even though in shock and unable to scramble to his feet, he had the wisdom to delegate command to me.

  There were about thirty of us left, those who hadn’t cowered in tents despite all the pain and fear they’d just sampled. Three wizards and five archers; the rest were warriors.

  Not good.

  Bowstrings sang. Their archers were slow. No comparison to Arwan with his natural skill. Their bows weren’t that special, either. Still, one of the wyverns shrank away to the side, breaking their formation. It also breathed fire too early, evaporating the swamp and forcing local hydras and other moor creatures to scramble to firmer ground.

  “Close shields!”

  This time they obeyed ungrudgingly. Their ranks bristled with spears. Enea stayed with the wizards in the rear, casting fire and damage resistance buffs while looking around desperately for her pet.

  Alpha was gone!

  The wyverns were almost upon us. Black smoke trailed over the island. All the grass had been scorched. Ashes swirled in the air.

  Finally, I got access to the clan’s local network.

  “We need to kill the riders,” I said, distributing the targets.

  Only the bravest and most desperate stood next to me now shoulder to shoulder. These were warriors and wizards with plenty of gaming experience between them.

  The air quivered in front of us, marking the boundary of the magic shield. It might protect us from the torrent of flames, even if only momentarily.

  The wyverns breathed fire. Their riders reined them in by tugging on the fleshy reins, apparently unwilling to descend onto our ranks that bristled with steel. The wyverns’ heavy wingbeats created gusts of scorching hot wind — but we stood unscathed through this first attack.

  On my command, we showered the Reapers with spears. One rider was pinned to the ground but the others had reacted fast enough to rear up their monstrous mounts.

  Our protection expired. The riderless wyvern ran amok. It stretched out its neck, lunged at our ranks and snatched a warrior up in its predatory jaws. Its powerful tail swept the place clean of any remaining vegetation. Smoldering tree trunks broke like matchsticks, adding the sweet odor of chipped wood to the acrid stench of smoke.

  Battle continued on the ground. Two Reapers forced their mounts to assault us while we backed off slowly without breaking ranks, covering up with our shields and only dealing damage when we had the opportunity.

  We wouldn’t last long this way. We needed to do something radical.

  “Wizards, keep overhealing!” I shouted.

  Normally, overhealing is considered the sign of a hapless, clumsy healer. But now there was no way we could calculate the incoming damage. Also, I kept worrying about our pain thresholds, knowing that none of the Ravens was used to their implants. The moment a warrior’s health dropped below 70%, he or she would go into shock through pain.

  At least I had some good skills in my Neuro development branch which allowed me to attack a wyvern and survive.

  In the meantime, our containment tactic began to sag. Even though our shields still absorbed a lot of the incoming fire damage, warriors were becoming exhausted while the enemy’s psychological pressure kept growing.

  Controlled by their riders, the wyverns tirelessly attacked us again and again, their necks outstretched, their powerful talons ploughing up the charred earth.

  “Keep your formation! Allan, are you better now? Take command!”

  Time for me to jump into action. We couldn’t hold the island on our own — nor could we expect help from anywhere. The only way we could turn the tide in our favor was by killing the Reapers themselves. Once they were out, the wyverns wouldn’t be able to maintain coordination.

  Our wizards were low on mana. They’d already run out of vials — and the natural regeneration of mental energy took too long.

  By now, hydras had climbed out of the boiling quagmire onto the island’s shallow shores, furiously attacking everything within sight. The wyverns became distracted by this new threat.

  Great timing. This was our chance.

  I lunged forward, leaving the ranks. Breathing fire, the nearest wyvern craned its neck toward me, its teeth chattering, as it tried to grab and swallow me.

  Its jaws snapped shut around thin air. I was already standing behind its back.

  The monster kept swishing its tail, sweeping away the surviving hydras. I knew better than to play that game. Instead, I jumped up and grabbed on to one of the bony spikes lining the wyvern’s spine.

  I climbed up onto its back and found myself within mere feet from its rider. I struggled to keep my balance as the wyvern’s powerful muscles rippled under my feet.

  The Reaper noticed me. He used his dagger to slice through the leather straps which kept him in the saddle, then swung round.

  That was all he’d had time to do. His severed arm hung listlessly, still grabbing the reins. Sensing its freedom, the wyvern reared up.

  I crashed to the ground and rolled aside, having lost 30% life. Immediately I jumped back to my feet and raised my shield as the riderless wyvern flew into a blind rage, aggroing everyone in sight.

  A bolt of lightning and a few arrows distracted it somewhat, sobering its fury.

  Not that it had helped us a lot. By now, only one of the wyverns still had a rider but the others were just as lethal in their uncontrollable blind rage.

  My solo performance had impressed the Ravens but hadn’t changed the course of the battle that much. Unlike the wyvern who’d been wounded first, the others showed no intention of fleeing the battlefield and were bent on destroying everything around them.

  Our small group held a position between two clusters of cliffs on the edge of the island. Our tents stood unscathed among all the smoke, soot and tongues of fire. Hydras kept climbing out onto the shore en masse, driven out by the unbearable heat of the boiling water.

  The remaining Reaper must have decided to put an end to us. Raising clouds of ash, his wyvern ploughed its way through the hydras that chanced in its path and came directly for me, growling and stretching out its long neck.

  Its broken right wing dragged behind it. Its thick hide was bleeding. The broken shafts of spears peeped from its wounds.

  An even more threatening growl came from behind me. With a rustling noise, a swell surged over the shore.

  I swung round just in time. An Ancient Wyvern waded its way across the quagmire, wounded and exhausted — a dreadful monster which made all the others pale into insignificance.

  Level 190!

  Its harness was in tatters. The lower half of its rider’s body still hung in the saddle. Someone must have cleft him in two with one clean sweep.

  A loud rustling sound added to the surrounding noise.

  “Alpha!” Enea exclaimed with relief.

  A whole swarm of Black Mantises was approaching us from the opposite side of the island.

  The quagmire heaved.

  Something indescribable stirred in its depths. This must have been the combat avatar of the unknown top-level demon we’d sighted earlier.

  The creature’s leathery wings were singed, its body covered in rotting algae. Black blood poured down its armor ripped apart by powerful claws.

  A weak protection aura still flickered deep inside the demon’s wounds. The monster’s eyes glowed.

 
So that’s who the Ancient Wyvern was after!

  Finally, the giant demon scrambled to the shore where it collapsed to its knees. Leaning on a heavily indented sword, the creature attempted to struggle back to its feet.

  A familiar weak voice touched my mind,

  “Alex, help me... I’m dying...”

  “Christa?!”

  She collapsed to one side in a heap, her fiery eyes fixed on me, begging and hopeful.

  * * *

  Smoke trailed over the scorched ground.

  Raising a powerful wake, the Ancient Wyvern waded knee-high to the shore. Even with the remaining measly 1% health, the wounded monster would make quick work of us the moment it reached the ground.

  The Black Mantises descended upon the island in a merciless swarm, stinging the mobs indiscriminately and aiming for their eyes. The hydras hissed their desperation. The wyverns squawked in alarm.

  Christa’s life had been bled dry. Her hp bar was barely flickering. And we had nothing to heal her with! Regular healing magic and elixirs didn’t work on demons, did they?

  “Alex, do something!” Enea cried out. “Can’t you use Dark Regeneration? That should work!”

  She was right. I’d never had the chance to use the uncategorized spell I’d studied while purging Rion’s dungeons. Averse as I was to using dark magic, this indeed was Christa’s only chance.

  I pointed at the last Reaper-controlled wyvern. “Contain it!”

  Blinded as the creature was by the Mantises’ neurotoxins, its rider held on to the reins, showing no intention of giving up.

  By now, the island was sheer Bedlam. The hydras convulsed, throwing long tentacles in all directions. The wyverns breathed tongues of fire and swished their tails, clawing the ground and overturning giant rocks.

  The surviving Ravens chose the last-ditch defense without attempting to attack. I understood them. Their wizards had no mana left, their warriors exhausted, scared and demoralized. None of them had expected to end up in a slaughter like this.

  They’d heard my order, however, and immediately jumped into action. Crossbows began snapping without any system, their poisoned bolts piercing the wyvern’s thick hide. The Reaper must have gotten his fair share too, judging by his spinning incoming damage counter.

  The Ravens had managed to distract the monsters from me. No idea for how long. Not that it mattered, really. Everything was going to happen in the next few seconds before the monstrous Ancient Wyvern reached the shore.

  Enea ported to me.

  “Come on, Alex!” she gasped impatiently without taking her eyes off the bleeding Christa. “Forget everything, just do it!”

  Instinctively my lips went cold. The words of the ancient spell fell from them like clouds of freezing mist. I felt enveloped in subzero cold.

  Darkness entered my mind. Every fiber of my soul strained, resisting it, then snapping one by one.

  I looked over the area, selecting enemy targets. I then struggled to turn my frozen neck and highlighted Christa as the object in need of healing.

  A wall of black flames arose around me.

  The earth began to tremor, its rocky surface rippling. The dark runes which sealed the spell materialized momentarily in the air, then crumbled to ashes.

  Cold spread over my chest as if I’d been hit with an ice spear.

  Enea turned pale. The precious stone topping her Staff of a Hydra pulsated madly, protecting its owner from dark uncategorized magic.

  Darkness shot out in all directions in sharp, predatory strokes, hitting the dozen targets I’d selected and turning them into clouds of crimson spray. The red haze reached out for Christa and enveloped her, pouring into her terrible wounds.

  Everybody froze as the evil magic flooded over them, drenching their bodies in an otherworldly cold. You know it when you feel it.

  Even the Reaper momentarily lost control of his wyvern, releasing the reins and immediately paying the price. Blinded by the neurotoxin, the monster craned its long neck and sank its teeth into his throat, taking its unbridled fury out on its rider.

  Christa’s body convulsed.

  In the meantime, the Ancient Wyvern had scrambled out onto the shore. It couldn’t fly anymore. Its wings were broken; a bloodied hole gaped in place of its left eye. Its life was deep in the red. But even in this state the monster was lethal, capable of sending any of us back to our respective respawn points with a single blow.

  Groaning, Christa struggled to her feet.

  Her hp bar quivered and began to grow. Her wounds were still horrifying even in her current Infernal avatar. Her armor was mangled. Thick black blood trickled down fingers that still clenched the darkness-enveloped sword.

  The fiery aura filling her wounds gleamed marginally brighter, its crimson glow seeping through the cracks in her mangled armor.

  The Ancient Wyvern hissed its disappointment. It had nowhere to run. It may have expected an easy prey but it now faced an opponent every bit as powerful as itself.

  The Wyvern’s long neck shot out, its jaws spewing a jet of fire. Christa mini-ported out of its path and materialized by the monster’s side, investing all of her remaining strength into a series of merciless blows.

  The Wyvern’s severed head went flying into the boiling bog. Its enormous bulk convulsed, then stopped moving.

  * * *

  The incinerated island was strewn with the dead players’ avatars. Some had been lucky enough to end up back at their respawn points, leaving behind cloth bundles with their possessions. They’d proven resilient enough to survive the agony of being burned alive.

  The bluish haze of loose neurograms still hung over the island. In the absence of Reapers, there was no one here to absorb them. The fine mist of unlived lives was slowly dissipating, disappearing without a trace in the digital space of the Crystal Sphere.

  Enea looked around herself in horror. Her father had been right all along. Virtual reality had changed irreversibly, crumbling under the Reapers’ attacks.

  The skin on the nape of my neck erupted in goosebumps. I was trapped in this 100% authenticity. At least one-third of the Raven raid wasn’t going to resurrect, ever.

  They’d died for real. Burned alive.

  The lump in my throat grew bigger as the fact began to sink in.

  What the hell was going on? What on earth had prompted the corporation to introduce neuroimplants if they already knew that inexperienced players couldn’t survive their effects?

  I felt shell-shocked. My head buzzed. The belated realization of the significance of what had just happened was akin to a crushing blow.

  Back at the market square in Agrion I hadn’t felt anything like this. That day, my mind had shut down, refusing to accept all the traumatic information. My lack of experience had suggested an unlucky coincidence, a play of chance rather than the advent of a new order.

  The surviving Ravens looked around themselves, unable to believe it was over.

  Christa staggered away from the water’s edge. With a practiced hand, she drew a few symbols on the ground, then watched them explode into tiny tongues of black flames.

  A thick haze enveloped her. When it had dispersed, we saw an ordinary girl, dark-skinned and clad in a fine suit of leather armor. She looked nothing like a demon.

  The tag over her head wasn’t legible. She’d changed a lot since our last meeting. She didn’t flash her Dark affiliation around anymore.

  Her change of avatar hadn’t healed her wounds, though. She took a couple of tentative steps, then slumped onto a hillock, groaning and squirming with pain.

  “Here,” Enea walked over to her and gave her a hug, whispering in her ear as if the two were the best of friends.

  Christa’s dull stare warmed. A weak smile fluttered on her lips. She turned to me and mouthed a silent thankyou, reviving my soul and her own as she began to thaw out after the lethal combat.

  My own chest too began to thaw as I gradually recovered from using uncategorized magic. The Founders’ spells requ
ired the supreme effort from my entire body.

  The pristine white raid tents stood defiant amid all the desolation. No one was leaving them. Apparently, those who’d found refuge inside had no idea the danger was already over.

  Allan froze over Urgorn’s charred body. I could understand him. Instead of a cloth bundle containing a fellow player’s stuff, he was now faced with his mangled corpse, burned to cinders and trampled into the ground by the wyverns.

  “What does that mean?” he asked in a muffled voice without turning his head.

  “Your friend is dead. I’m very sorry.”

  Slowly he turned. His eyes glowed with madness.

  “I did try to warn you, man,” I said. “You didn’t believe me. I’m really sorry. We can’t do anything now. If you think you can listen to reason, get your men together and follow us back to Rion. At least they’ll be safe there. And then you can decide whether you’d like to stay or go back to your own castle.”

  The swarm of Black Mantises which had so promptly arrived to our rescue circled a few times over the island. Then it scattered as Alpha’s brethren went about their business.

  * * *

  “The second wave should be coming now,” Christa’s voice broke the depressing silence.

  “We’ve killed them all!” Enea snapped, shaking. “None of them got away!”

  “The Reapers don’t attack in small groups anymore. Those on the wyverns were after me,” Christa explained. “They saw me and followed. There were more of them on horseback. I saw them as I flew past.”

  She reminded me of White for some reason. Like him, Christa had managed to survive in this evolving world which had left an indelible stamp on her.

  “The duckboards can’t support their weight,” Enea objected. She seemed so eager to believe that at least today’s problems were over.

  “They’ll walk. Nothing can stop them when they’re on the prowl.”