Starbreak (Rise to Omniscience Book 2)

by Aaron Oster

  He thought he’d heard a crunch when his foot connected, but he didn’t look. Having used the ape as a springboard and launching himself in Sarah’s direction, he used advanced flight, rocketing toward Sarah’s broken form. He managed to catch her right before she hit the ground, grunting as her weight slammed into him.

  He drifted slowly down and placed her gently on the ground, feeling his heart seize up as he brushed her blood-soaked hair away from her face. Her eyes were closed, her face matted with blood, and her body twisted in a way that made his stomach clench in sudden fear.

  He quickly placed his head to her chest, grabbing at her wrist at the same time to feel for a pulse. He waited for what felt like hours, but in reality were just seconds, hoping to hear something. Finally, when he was about to lose hope, he heard a slow thump, followed by a light pulse under his fingers.

  He blew out a sigh of relief, feeling the fear that had been closing like an icy claw around his heart ease somewhat. He quickly straightened, pulling the portal key from his pocket.

  She might still be alive, but she wouldn’t be for too much longer if he didn’t get her to the healer quickly.

  He was about to stick the key into the air, when a bellow of rage caught his attention. Turning his head, he saw the ape charging at him once more, blood streaming from where his foot had impacted. In a split second, Morgan realized that he wouldn’t have enough time to open the portal and get them through before the ape reached them. Then he felt something that he never thought he’d feel again. Rage.

  Boiling anger started up in his chest and quickly spread through his entire body. He stood from Sarah’s prone form, vision becoming red tinged around the edges, and his pulse pounding in his ears.

  This ape had nearly killed Sarah, and now it was trying to prevent him from saving her. No one would hurt her like that and get away with it. He would show this beast who the real monster here was.

  Morgan let out a roar, loud enough to match even that of the ape’s. He didn’t know it, as he couldn’t see, but his body began to give off a bright purple and gold glow that had nothing to do with his shield. The ape actually faltered for a second as it beheld the glowing human before it. Its instincts warned it that this was a rival predator, one with far more power than its own, but the magic of the zone quickly overrode those instincts and the ape roared back, continuing its charge.

  Morgan flashed forward, covering the distance far quicker than should have been possible without the aid of his skill. He slammed a glowing fist into the ape’s abdomen and he felt bones crack under that blow, but the ape roared. Striking back, it sent its claw-tipped fingers tearing into Morgan’s exposed skin, and began ripping massive chunks of bloody flesh from his side.

  Morgan ignored the horrendous injury, spinning in place and slamming his leg into the ape’s grounded arm. There was a loud crunch as the limb snapped, and Morgan grinned, his blood-flecked face appearing almost demonic as he did so. The ape bellowed, staggering back and clutching at its broken limb.

  It stared at the human in incomprehension. Its instincts told it that the animal before it should be close to death after all the damage it had inflicted, but it appeared to be whole and undamaged.

  Morgan roared again, reiki and divine energy mixing together in a glowing sphere before him and blasting out in a wide cone. The ape roared back, rearing up on its hind legs and baring its chest. It opened its mouth, using another ability, this one from its wolf aspect. A glowing lance of freezing flames shot from its mouth. The two attacks collided, sending smaller beams firing off in all directions.

  A ring of blue flames sprang up around the pair, burning with such intense heat, that the stone itself caught aflame. Where the ape’s flames touched, the ground writhed with blue fire, and the stone melted and solidified under the intense heat and coldness. When Morgan’s attack hit, the ground exploded, sending showers of shrapnel in all directions. The ape roared and intensified its attack and Morgan yelled back, grinning madly the entire time. He let off on his attack and allowed the ape’s beam to come flying at him, then he ducked under it, flashing forward in an instant and stopping before the ape.

  Both his fists glowed with gold and violet light, then he slammed both palms into the ape’s chest. The ape roared in pain as a ripple flowed out from where his hands had made contact. Morgan stared it straight in the eye, meeting the ape’s blue ones with his mismatched gold and purple ones. His wild grin widened and he said one word.

  “Die!”

  The voice that came from his mouth sounded nothing like his usual one. It was high pitched and reeked of madness.

  The ape only had the chance to roar one more time before two massive holes were punched straight through its chest and out its back, twin beams of gold and purple emerging from the other side. The ape staggered back, with blood streaming out of its chest. It stared down in incomprehension as Morgan’s fist slammed into its chest one last time. His hand came back clutching something that glittered blue and red, and the beast crashed to the ground, dead.

  Morgan stared down at the glittering core in his hands, then tossed it over his shoulder. His heart racing, his body thrumming with power and the mad grin still plastered on his face.

  This wasn’t enough. He had to do more. He had to kill more!

  He turned, looking for something else to fight when his eyes landed on Sarah’s prone form. Her body flashed blue in his vision, and his grin widened.

  Another challenger! And a powerful one at that!

  He took a step toward her, preparing a glowing sphere of gold and violet in his hand, when a heard a voice off to his left.

  “My, my. It would appear that you’re progressing nicely, but I can’t have you killing her just yet. We still need her alive.”

  Morgan’s eyes landed on a woman standing just a hundred feet from him. Long black hair was whipped around a heart-shaped face by a breeze that had sprung up around her. Bright green eyes showed through the dark strands of her hair, and her red painted lips were turned up in a smirk.

  Her aura flashed gold and black to his vision, and Morgan grinned, turning away from the much weaker opponent to his back, and faced his new opponent.

  She was strong. Stronger than anyone he’d ever met. Killing her would be fun!

  He let out a loud cackle and launched himself at her, using the same attack he had used earlier. Gathering his power around himself, he used a tremendous amount of gravitational force to warp the space between them and appeared before her in an instant, slamming a glowing fist right into her face.

  “Are you quite finished?”

  Morgan pulled his fist back to see the woman regarding him with a bored expression. She was completely unharmed, but instead of deterring him, this only encouraged him more.

  “Not even close!” he yelled, then unleashed a barrage of attacks, each one aimed at a vital area.

  The woman watched him in amusement. On anyone else, these would be crippling blows, but not to her.

  Morgan pulled his fist back for another attack, just as the woman finally struck back with two simple movements. She knocked his fist casually to the side, then flicked him in the center of his forehead. She was careful to hold back, but the blow still sent him flying with enough force to break the sound barrier.

  She let out a long sigh as Morgan’s body tore a long furrow in the ground, finally coming to rest near his friend’s still unconscious form.

  Should have kept a closer eye on him, she thought, walking over to him and examining his unconscious form. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  She bent down, retrieving the key from his pocket and opening the portal back to Katherine’s room.

  At least the girl had had the foresight to get a healer ahead of time. She could spot her waiting on the other side, ready to tend to them as soon as they came through.

  She squatted, getting a grip under both their collars and hauling them up off the ground. She saw a glittering core lying on the ground, and levitated i
t off the ground and into Morgan’s pocket. She took one more look down at him. His features had returned to normal and his core looked to have calmed down.

  She grimaced as she tossed them both through the portal, throwing the key in after them.

  He wouldn’t remember the fight, but the skill would show up in his status as soon as he opened it. She just hoped he wouldn’t use it again before he could control it. She’d worked too hard to have him ruin all her plans now.

  She silently cursed at the rules that wouldn’t allow her to block the skill, knowing that she’d already stretched them as far as he’d allow.

  She took one last look through the portal, seeing a very confused looking healer tending to both Morgan and Sarah. The next moment, the portal snapped shut, cutting them off from her sight.

  She took one last look at the damage Morgan had done to the beast and felt her sour mood lift slightly.

  At least she now had a small taste of the kind of power he’d be able to wield in the future.

  43

  Morgan slowly came to, feeling a warm sensation running through his body. Squinting his eyes, the healer that Katherine had sent for slowly came into view. He blinked a few times, focusing in on the woman for a few seconds, confused as to where he was.

  “What happened?” he asked, sitting up and examining himself, noticing the state of his armor.

  “You tell me,” the woman said. “The two of you came through the portal not five minutes ago. You were both unconscious and your friend over there was in pretty rough shape.”

  Morgan looked over to see Sarah sitting with her back against one of the couches. She had her knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them and hiding her face behind them.

  “I’m not sure,” Morgan said, feeling gingerly at his head.

  He remembered bits and pieces of the fight, but it was so disjointed that he couldn’t make any sense of it.

  The healer gave him an understanding look.

  “Head injuries often result in short-term amnesia. Don’t worry, though. It’ll come back to you,” she said, patting him lightly on the arm.

  She rose to her feet and headed to the door.

  “Wait,” Morgan called out, as she was opening the door.

  The woman stopped, turning to give him a questioning look.

  “Thank you,” Morgan said. “Can I have your name?”

  The woman smiled at him but shook her head before leaving, closing the door behind her with a click.

  Morgan stared after her for a few seconds before shrugging. Some people preferred to keep to themselves. He wouldn’t fault her for doing what he’d done many times before.

  He then noticed that Sarah had lowered her knees to the floor and was looking at him with a guilty expression.

  “What?” he asked, rising to his feet and going over to sit next to her on the floor.

  The fight was still disjointed, especially towards the end, but it was slowly coming back to him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her voice was so low that he could barely hear her.

  “For what?” he asked, genuinely confused.

  She motioned to the state of his clothes.

  “You must have been pretty badly hurt for your clothes to look like that.”

  Morgan shrugged.

  “So were you,” he said, gesturing to her equally tattered clothes, surprised that she wasn’t attempting to cover herself up more, with the state her clothes were in.

  “Yeah, but it’s my fault. I dragged you in there, knowing that I’d be horribly hurt, and you’d need to finish the beast off on your own.” She buried her face in her knees again, as Morgan tried to wrap his head around what she was saying.

  “I don’t understand. We both knew we would be hurt, that’s why we had a healer waiting.”

  But Sarah was already shaking her head.

  “I went in planning on getting hurt. I thought that your near-death experience might have been what caused your evolution, so I decided to try it for myself.”

  Morgan’s eyes widened when he heard this. Was that why she’d insisted on trying to kill the ape herself?

  “You know that my near death experience only came after I discovered the massive energy cost to my next rank.”

  Sarah bit her lip, then slowly nodded, burying her face into her knees once more.

  How could she have been so stupid?

  A memory flashed through Morgan’s mind, of Sarah’s attack missing the ape by a hair, just injuring instead of killing it.

  “Did it work?” he asked, prompting Sarah to look up in surprise.

  He could see tears at the corners of her eyes and understood that she felt responsible for his injuries, but it made no sense. He’d gone in there willingly, so she had nothing to feel guilty about.

  “Aren’t you angry at me?” she asked.

  Morgan shrugged.

  “It’s not your fault. I went in willingly. It was a stupid plan, but if it worked, then it might have been worth it.”

  Sarah flinched a bit at his admonishment. He didn’t raise his voice or even say it in an accusatory tone, but it hit her hard all the same.

  “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug.

  Morgan dug into his pocket to retrieve his last core and was surprised when he came out with two.

  He must have killed the ape and taken its core, though he couldn’t remember doing it.

  He handed one of the cores over to her.

  “Will this be enough to get you to the next rank?” he asked.

  Sarah took it and examined the core for a second, then nodded.

  She was about to absorb the core, when Morgan stopped her.

  “Don’t wanna make a mess,” he said with a grin, rising from his seated position and going to get the folded square of leather.

  When he came back, he was relieved to see that her mood had improved somewhat, and she gave him a weak smile as he placed the leather on her lap. She turned her attention back to the core, taking a deep breath before absorbing its energy. The core crumbled and Sarah’s body shuddered with the rank up.

  “So?” Morgan eagerly asked.

  Sarah’s eyes flickered through the air as she read over her status, and slowly, a smile spread across her face.

  “It worked!” she said, closing her status and beaming up at him.

  “How do you know?” he asked, not noticing any physical changes.

  “I haven’t evolved yet, but the energy cost to my next rank jumped from 80,000 to 320,000!”

  Morgan noted that the cost of evolving a mage ability seemed to be less than that of a supermage ability, though it did make sense.

  “So, all we need to do is gather enough energy to get you to rank 21,” Morgan said, examining the core clutched between his fingers.

  In truth, he’d wanted to use the energy for himself, but the amount contained in this core would be significant and would help Sarah on her path to evolution.

  Before he handed it over, though, he opened its stats so he could check something that Dabu had mentioned.

  Name: Chimera-flame ape core

  Rank - 21

  Total available energy: 42,217/42,217

  Total available AP: 12/12

  This core was taken from a chimera-flame ape. As this core was taken from an advanced beast, the amount of available energy has been massively increased.

  Morgan grinned as he saw that Dabu had been telling the truth. He could let Sarah have the energy, but he would take the attribute points before handing it over. He remembered that the azure-crystal wyvern core had shattered when he’d absorbed all its energy and he had a feeling that it had had a few attribute points as well.

  He focused in on the attribute points and thought about absorbing them.

  Would you like to absorb 12 AP from the chimera-flame ape core?

  Yes/No

  Hitting yes, Morgan saw the AP go down to zero. He held his breath for a moment, but thankfully, the core didn’t shatter. He’d be
en afraid it might, but even if it had, it would have been worth it. The AP in the core was far more valuable to him than the energy would have been.

  “Here,” he said, handing the core over to Sarah with a grin. “I think this should be yours. It’ll definitely help you to your next rank.”

  Sarah took the core and let out an excited gasp, absorbing it immediately, and she started going through her status.

  Seeing that she was now busy with her status, Morgan decided that he’d use the AP he’d received from the core. Grinning to himself at the thought of upgrading one of his skills, Morgan thought about using the AP he’d collected, and a status screen flickered into view.

  You have 12 attribute points to distribute. Would you like to distribute them now?

  Yes/No

  Mentally selecting yes, Morgan watched as a new screen popped up.

  Strength - 119

  Agility - 150

  Constitution - 135

  Intelligence - 126

  Wisdom - 126

  Morgan stared at his attributes, extremely confused by what he was seeing.

  All his attributes had dropped by 2 points each. This had to be some kind of mistake.

  He decided to look at his skills, hoping that they might have some kind of answer for him.

  Skills:

  Advanced flight - 1/10

  Gravity impact - 4/10

  Explosive movement - 1/10

  Storm blade - 1/10

  Divine:

  Shock-blast - 1/15

  Rage of the Gods - 5/1,000

  Traits:

  Gravity field - 1/30

  Recovery - 1/30

  Aura sense (inherited) - 4/50

  Extra:

  Gravity storm (2nd category) - 1/20

  Starbreak - 1/30

  Morgan’s eyes widened when he saw the new skill and immediately examined it for more information.