Beastborne

by James T Callum

  “This is new to me too,” Besal said, rising to his feet and looking down at the pitch-black substance that coated their hands.

  A new prompt flashed across their vision.

  Synchronization Rate: 79%

  As Hal watched, trying to move one limb to conjure a spell while Besal used another, the synchronization rate fell.

  It was only a single percent lost, but it felt like somebody had driven a hot spike into his wrist. Judging by the growl of pain coming from Besal’s deeper, throatier voice - how he managed to do that with Hal’s vocal cords, Hal didn’t really know - he felt it too.

  “We need to work in concert,” Hal said. “Everything we do must be of the same mind.”

  “Or you could fall back and let me lead this,” Besal said. “Do you even know how to use our new abilities?”

  He had a point.

  Hal had been a bystander watching Besal wreak havoc, and that was at a point when Hal was fairly weak. Compared to his strength now, it was like night and day.

  The Voidwracked Kinslayer gathered himself up and rushed across the broken stone of the parapet at Hal. He let Besal assume control, and took a step back.

  Besal used The Dark Between, tearing a black rent across time and space just as the Voidwracked Kinslayer came at him. A flood of darkness rushed out, stifling all light and providing enough of a distraction to leap aside from the Kinslayer’s attack.

  Synchronization: 70%

  The pain hit a heartbeat later, Besal stumbled to one knee while Hal braced their body with an arm. That wasn’t working. Giving over control was even worse than acting as two separate entities controlling the same body.

  Hal came back to the forefront, there was no being subservient to the other. They had to work together. As one.

  The pulsing strength of Strain was like a second heartbeat within their chest. He had thought he knew power, but this was something beyond anything he had ever understood.

  Unlike the Voidwracked Kinslayer, the pair could see within the unnatural darkness around them. More than that, they were able to rapidly heal all of their wounds.

  It only hit at that moment that ever since he woke up, the Founder’s Day buff was gone. But even without it, his HP and MP were significantly higher than they had ever been before. For the first time ever, his HP crested above 1,000 to 1,012. His MP was even higher at a ridiculous 1,252.

  All of his Beast Magic spells were more than triple their previous strength, and cost a quarter of their usual. For a brief moment, Hal thought to turn aside from the battle before him and dive down to his friends below.

  With eyes enhanced beyond anything he was used to, he could pick out Noth below alongside Mira and a contingent of treants that the Palebark Treant had dutifully awoken to bolster their ranks.

  The battle seemed to be at a standstill. With his newfound strength, he could go down there and almost single-handedly clear the gap and secure the breach.

  “We can’t,” Besal said.

  And though Hal wanted to argue, desperately, he knew Besal was right. For as much as he could descend upon the Shadesblight enemies below, so too could the Voidwracked Kinslayer wreak the same havoc on his friends.

  They were the only thing holding back the creature’s murderous rage.

  Together, they conjured a Bomb Toss and lobbed it the charging Voidwracked Kinslayer. It looked unlike anything Hal had ever seen before.

  Rather than a patchwork goblin bomb, it was a smooth swirling mass of violent red-and-black energy. It was too much effort to work in tandem while keeping the opposing essences of aberration and shadow as Hal would usually go for. Instead, they opted for shadow and eldritch.

  The condensed swirling bomb of mana was nearly sucked up into the Voidwracked Kinslayer’s black hole when they detonated it by command half a foot from the man’s chest.

  A colossal explosion leveled the parapet, throwing huge chunks of stone across the gap to rain down on the monsters below. Many were crushed, dozens more injured to the point that they were useless by the time they reached the breach.

  Hal and Besal were thrown back from the blast. Their massive black wings swept through the air, twisted and shifting in ways that were quite unnatural as the pair worked to steady themselves.

  Before the smoke could clear, the Voidwracked Kinslayer sent his reply. A crackling black bolt of lightning that struck them like a meteor.

  As one, the pair shielded themselves with pure essence. A rift of fiery black-red energy rolled off their body and rose up to meet the spell. It blasted through, but was significantly diminished.

  That mattered little when a full damage spell would have killed them outright. Hal and Besal were thrown back farther away from the Settlement and closer to the edge of the manaseed’s barrier where the voidmist pressed relentlessly for any weakness.

  You cast Bomb Toss IV.

  The [Voidwracked Kinslayer | Lv.??] takes 1,219 points of damage.

  The [Voidwracked Kinslayer | Lv.??] casts Void Anvil Lightning.

  You take 489 points of damage (-75% Essence Deflection).

  You learn Essence Deflection.

  Utilizing pure essence (requires tier 3 or higher), you are able to filter offensive magic through the essence, reducing their incoming damage.

  A grin creased their darkened features, as a semblance of control came back to the pair. Hal had never seen so much damage outside of an Ultimate. Nor had he ever known they could wield essence in that manner.

  Raising a hand together, they summoned red crackling eldritch energy to flood across their outstretched arm. With a burst of speed, the pair launched their body at the Voidwracked Kinslayer.

  171

  Noth looked up high on the eastern wall fencing in the gap, a wide-eyed expression plastered on her face.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Many others watched with a mixture of fear and fascination. Noth could hardly blame them. Even from such a distance, she could feel the waves of mana pulsing from the duel high up on the eastern ridge.

  Two dark forms battled for dominance, and at times even Noth couldn’t tell the difference between them. Ribbons of ruby red mana met coruscating lines of sapphire blue, setting off brilliant flashes of light amid the occluding clouds of darkness.

  Hal’s voice, so full of uncertainty and worry came back to her. “What’s the difference between a man and a monster?” he had asked. Though she realized now, that he wasn’t actually asking her.

  That question was for Hal to answer.

  At that moment, in a lull between fights at the breach, Noth understood Hal’s fears and worries. She had seen the Beast take control, had even helped Ashera face it.

  But this was something else entirely.

  The levels of power it was giving off was troubling, she had rarely seen strength like that in all her long years as a Reaper. And when she had… it was never good.

  That much power was a drug few could resist. Despite herself, she feared for Hal. She didn’t know if he was strong enough to resist the allure.

  Noth wasn’t sure anybody was strong enough for that.

  Unlike before, the dark creature above was as much Hal as the Beast. Something about that worried her. Noth wasn’t sure if she was worrying too much… or not enough.

  A grasping clawed hand reached for her as she was distracted by another powerful clash. Bright lines of pain were drawn down her cheek and she snapped her attention back to the battle.

  Before Noth could spin her scythe up and deflect the follow-up attack, a thick pale bough bent down and fended the creature off. Back on even footing, Noth sprang up on a lowered branch from the Palebark Treant and launched herself back into the fray.

  She couldn’t spend her time worrying about Hal.

  The Voidwracked Kinslayer leaned back, thrusting out his chest. It cast Void Acceleration again. Sweeping ribbons of darkness rolled out from the black hole.

  Anything that it touched withered and broke apart.

  The
parapets were laid to waste. Dwarven craftsmanship couldn’t withstand the rolling waves of essence that the pair were throwing at each other. Every so often the Voidwracked Kinslayer pulled out yet another void-based spell that set Besal and Hal back on their heels.

  Using Diffusion, they were able to stabilize their Strain, but it was fast turning into a battle of attrition. For as much damage as Hal and Besal were able to put out, the Voidwracked Kinslayer was always a step ahead.

  Even with their cunning use of Essence Deflection, the pair were taking considerable damage. Ironically, once they were both in control, Warding stopped working.

  Their only advantage was that they possessed eldritch essence, one of the few essences that the Voidwracked Kinslayer didn’t have. Not that it mattered much when he could easily counter with dragon essence, or use an essence that Hal didn’t possess like aquan or amorph.

  Hal led the next attack, a wave of blood-red aberration essence that rolled off his sweeping clawed hand like a ragged wound in the air. The attack managed to survive the sweeping ribbons of void magic. Just to be sure Hal swept forward with his left hand, letting loose a wave of eldritch essence that crackled with spiteful lightning.

  Just as fast, he reversed and leaped into the cloud of impenetrable darkness. Even the Voidwracked Kinslayer’s black hole heart couldn’t touch that haven. Had it been able to, the fight would have been over soon after he ascended to Primal Strain.

  Within The Dark Between, Hal and Besal could rapidly heal their many wounds. But now that they were joined, they were quickly burning through their MP without growing any stronger.

  Neither knew what would happen if they hit Strain Affliction Level 5. As far as Hal knew, that would spell the end for him. Was it worth dying to destroy the Kinslayer?

  Every time Hal thought they were able to rise above the twisted man, he managed to pull out another move that nearly spelled their doom.

  A crackling arc of black lightning lanced through the darkness, narrowly missing them. The only silver lining was Hal’s Manatorpor was still in effect.

  Though it barely seemed to slow the Voidwracked Kinslayer, the Arcana Siphon from his Manatree Skill allowed him to recover some of the MP being exhausted within its area of influence.

  It wasn’t enough. Even with the multitude of buffs, Hal and Besal were still losing. Slowly but surely, the Voidwracked Kinslayer was getting stronger and every minute they fought the wily Kinslayer, the man began to understand his new powers better.

  Had it been a test of Beastborne powers, Hal and Besal would have already claimed dominance. It was clear the Kinslayer thought the same considering his increasing reliance on those bizarre void spells.

  Another Void Anvil Lightning reached out for them, but the Voidwracked Kinslayer couldn’t see through the impenetrable murk and it went wide. He could - and had - used large area spells that consumed the whole space, but that just gave Hal and Besal time to dodge aside.

  Though it did force them to flee from their safe haven for a time.

  The Kinslayer had already learned not to wade into the darkness. He was more than happy to sit outside the roiling black. Any spell leveled his way by Hal and Besal was often consumed by that devilish black hole in the Voidwracked Kinslayer’s chest.

  Hal paused and squinted, looking through the darkness. “The black hole is growing,” Hal muttered to himself, and by extension, to Besal.

  “I’ve noticed that too. It seems to be consuming him. And as it grows, so too does his power. We are barely matching him.”

  Another thunderous report announced another streak of lightning, this one coming close enough to Hal and Besal that they could feel the incredible icy cold of its void magic.

  “I want to test something, think we can ricochet his lightning back at him?” Hal asked quietly.

  “Only one way to find out,” Besal said.

  Using Convergence the pair waited with bated breath, hoping that their opponent hadn’t tired of their game.

  When the air began to charge with energy, they leaped out of the darkness, summoning a hardened shell of crimson aberration and eldritch essence across their forearm.

  Just in time too. Void Anvil Lightning struck out from the Voidwracked Kinslayer and at the last moment, they swept aside the aberration and eldritch essence bracer.

  Using aberration essence, Hal and Besal thought they were able to not just deflect but reflect the attack back at its caster. Unfortunately, Void Anvil Lightning was not one, but two elements.

  And while aberration essence was an appropriate counter to the base Anvil Lightning’s arcana essence, eldritch essence was a poor substitute for whatever void’s opposing force was.

  The spell was appropriately named. It felt like being hit by an anvil. Luckily, the majority of its arcana essence was negated by their shielding aberration essence.

  Void energy lanced and curled over their body as Hal’s body was blown back, soaked in ice-cold agony. They landed on a sharp jut of rock, well outside of the Manatorpor’s dome of glittering energy.

  For a moment, all they could do was stare up at the manaseed’s barrier holding back the endless voidmist. To their right, the eastern side of the ridge was beginning to lighten, the mist there thinning as the sky lightened from the rising sun.

  “We just need to last until the sun rises,” Hal said through chattering teeth.

  “There is no guarantee that this creature plays by the same rules,” Besal reminded him. “He was not supposed to be here. We need to kill him.”

  Hal was only half-listening to Besal. He was staring at the manaseed’s barrier, watching it shimmer and glisten like polished opal.

  “I’m an idiot!” Hal said suddenly. They slowly got to their feet, aching still from the attack. “The answer was staring us right in the face this entire time.”

  They should have made it a priority to get to the area of the Manatorpor’s spell, but they didn’t. Hal insisted he knew how to counter the Voidwracked Kinslayer’s attack.

  So they slowly limped toward their opponent, making sure the Voidwracked Kinslayer saw how weak and slow they were. How desperate they were to finish it. He needed to believe that a single Void Anvil Lightning would spell their doom.

  While at the same time, they had to appear to have some final trick up their sleeve. Otherwise, the Voidwracked Kinslayer would just descend upon them and finish them up close and personal.

  They had to look vulnerable. Not a difficult feat considering how much that last spell hurt.

  “If you’re wrong,” Besal said, watching their doom approach. “We’re not going to get another chance.”

  Their opponent was expecting them to return to their haven, and as they instead came for him, a look of hatred burning in their eyes, a flicker of concern twitched upon the Kinslayer’s face.

  As Hal and Besal began to weave a new shield for the coming attack, the Voidwracked Kinslayer stepped back and launched another Void Anvil Lightning at them.

  172

  Blessed by the silvery moonlight of a Manatree, Hal lifted the shield of mana wrapped around his forearm like a bracer.

  The Void Anvil Lightning kissed the coalesced energies. Their aberration essence reflected the core magic of the spell, and just as the manaseed’s barrier repelled the voidmist, so too did the silvery Manatree energy reflect the dark void aspect of the spell.

  It was an answer that had been inside him the entire time. His soul was entwined with a Manaseed and he could utilize its mana in much the same way as essence.

  But there had never been a reason to use it before, not like he was at least. Whenever he cast Manatorpor it used a similar type of mana, it had taken a final reminder to connect the dots.

  The Voidwracked Kinslayer’s coal-black eyes widened in shock at the sudden reversal. He was hit before he could bring his black hole to bear and the ridge shook with the violent explosion of the spell.

  It threw the man backward with the sound of two boulders crashing into each o
ther. Bits of the parapet’s once-level floor were blown apart.

  Hal and Besal threw up their numbing arms to fend against the tiny bits of shrapnel that flew through the air at them. As the dust began to settle, they rushed forward, gathering up mana in a bid to unleash a wave of Manatree energy.

  The Voidwracked Kinslayer was already upon his feet, his black hole heart was even larger, it had almost entirely consumed the Kinslayer’s chest. His face twisted in a grimace of pain, he came forward with a curling wave of watery aquan essence.

  Hal and Besal thrust out their wings, there was no dodging the wave of killing energy. While Besal gathered eldritch essence to try and weather the attack, Hal gathered the silvery light of the manaseed within and let it out in a streaking slash of congealed moonlight.

  Their HP dropped to 17%, their left wing vaporized in the ensuing attack. But the silvery light of the manaseed from within Hal struck the Voidwracked Kinslayer straight in the chest.

  It didn’t react like anything they had used to hurt the fiend before.

  The light shrunk and was pulled into the black hole heart, but there the similarities ended. A bright corona of silvery moonlight flashed out from the darkness and the Voidwracked Kinslayer cried out in pain, raising a gnarled hand to his chest.

  The black hole shrunk. And a plan began to form in Hal’s head.

  Like all of his plans, they were risky and borderline psychotic. But if they could pull it off, Hal was sure they could defeat him.

  At the very least, they would all die.

  When death was no longer the end of everything, it was sometimes worthwhile to die in service to something larger.

  As the Voidwracked Kinslayer began to recover, Hal quickly muttered his plan to Besal. He could feel the incredulous look Besal plastered on their face.

  “It’ll work,” Hal said, gathering more of the manaseed’s energy within himself.