“What I’d hoped is that you came to your damn senses after I handed your ass to you, and that you got a fresh start somewhere else!” I retorted, slapping a thrust from Mozter to the side and delivering a searing cut across his thigh with a hastily conjured Flame Dagger, a part of my mind finally noticing that he was wearing the same roughly cut leather armor that I’d seen Carver wearing the other week.
“Oh, but that’s exactly what we did, Lyrian!” Mozter replied, showing no sign that my attack had hurt him. “It turns out Carver and his group are big fans of our winner-take-all approach to things…well, at least the winners are! But then again, that’s the point!”
Launching himself forward with a laugh, the two of us exchanged a rapid flurry of blows that made me realize that whatever level advantage that I’d previously enjoyed against Mozter was now gone. Moving with a speed and strength that he hadn’t possessed earlier, the dark elf set me back on my heels as I rapidly tried to adjust to his new skill level, finding it to be a near perfect match for my own. Chancing a glance towards the rest of my party in the hope of support, I saw that the entirety of Mozter’s old group had joined him in his attack, stopping our assault cold, and keeping all of them far too busy to help.
Damn it! I don’t have time for a duel right now and especially not here! I thought as I traded electrified blows with the dark elf, the two of us burning through our mana pools as if they were bottomless, which given the area’s special effect, they effectively were. Plus, with how fast we’re regenerating mana here, draining it is pointless!
Backpedaling as Mozter pressed his attack, I couldn’t help but keep his multi-cast ability at the forefront of my mind and forced myself to fight cautiously, not wanting to be caught by surprise by a blast of magic that I knew I’d have no chance to recover from.
Assuming I survived it in the first place.
“What’s wrong, Lyrian?” Mozter taunted as my conservative style gradually forced me backward to the edge of the outcropping overlooking the tainted Æther below. “Are you feeling hard-pressed to keep up? I expected better than this from you!”
Ignoring the man’s jab, I replied by parrying a sweeping attack from his sword, immediately riposting in return, scoring a wound on the dark elf’s bicep. Seeing him wince from the attack, I quickly followed it up with a yet another Flame Dagger, throwing the burning knife directly at his face and forcing him to leap backward to evade it. Pressing forward, I fought to give myself some space from the edge, hoping that a spirit didn’t pick that moment to climb up behind me.
I can’t keep wasting my time here, I thought as it became Mozter’s turn to fight cautiously, the dark elf now focusing on pure evasion, not wanting to risk contact with my sword, lest it carry a current of electricity. I need to put an end to this and get to Carver before it’s too late!
Continuing to fight in our own pocket amid the greater conflict around us, the exchange between the two of us grew in both speed and intensity. Minor injuries piled up as the battle progressed, each and every one gradually slowing our movements, it being only a matter of time before one of us made a fatal mistake, allowing the other to put an end to the contest. Forming a desperate plan in my head as I felt myself being forced backward again, I decided to give Mozter that very mistake that he was looking for, while silently hoping that I’d be able to turn it around on him in time.
“Ha!” Mozter exclaimed in triumph as I feinted a slip off of the edge of the outcropping, the man taking advantage of the opening to thrust his sword directly into my abdomen just above my left hip, while simultaneously extending his free hand towards me, a glowing ball of azure light forming in his palm. “Looks like I win this time, Lyrian!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Mozter!” I hissed through clenched teeth, adrenaline the only thing keeping the pain at bay as I reached out to grab the dark elf by the collar of his armor while triggering my newly improved Mana Leech ability. In a heartbeat, the growing spell in Mozter’s hand came apart as an overwhelming surge of hunger came over me, the spell’s mana flowing across the short distance between us and into my body. Eyes widening at his interrupted spell, I managed to see a fleeting look of terror cross Mozter’s face as I then threw my weight backward.
Pulling us both off of the ledge.
“Lyrian you fu—” I heard Mozter scream in a panic as the two of us began to fall, his words abruptly cutting themselves off the moment that I triggered Blink Step.
With my vision blurring in a wild array of colors, I felt myself land heavily back on the outcropping’s edge that I’d just thrown both Mozter and myself off of, a wave of sheer agony passing through my side from the impact. Somewhere in my desperate maneuver, Mozter’s sword had managed to tear itself free of my body, leaving a steady stream of blood pouring from it.
“Goodbye, Mozter,” I whispered to myself as I placed a hand over the wound and glanced down the outcropping’s edge, only seeing the tainted Æther below with no sign of either the dark elf or any climbing spirits. “And good riddance.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, I reached into my belt pocket and pulled out a healing potion, downing its contents quickly before scanning the battlefield, having been too focused on my duel with Mozter to keep track of everything going on. Taking in everything at a glance, I saw that in the time that I’d been fighting Mozter, the rest of the raid had continued to press against Carver’s forces, ravaging their ranks until only a small fraction of their original numbers remained standing.
Hang on, I thought as I finished taking in the scene, noticing that while there were a substantial number of spirits on the outcropping now, there was nowhere near the amount that I’d expected now that Carver’s forces weren’t able to keep them at bay anymore. Why aren’t there more of them up here? We should be getting swarmed by now!
As if sensing my thoughts, it was at that very moment that a vicious tremor shook the cavern all around us, causing everyone to momentarily lose their balance. Within seconds of the event occurring, I felt the spirits’ chant suddenly die off, temporarily bathing all of us in an eerie silence. Looking up at the unexpected event, I glanced in the direction of several of the spirits’ seeing them visibly wincing as if they were in pain, their bodies rapidly losing shape with every second that passed.
“What the hell?” I managed to gasp from my kneeling position as the spirits before me dissolved into an insubstantial ball of energy and hovered in the air. Glancing around towards the other spirits that I’d seen just seconds earlier, I saw the same event repeat itself endlessly, each of the ghosts transforming into a hazy mote of emerald light.
I replied to the cat, just in time to see all the motes begin to move towards us.
Cutting off with a scream, the voice vanished from my mind as just quickly as it had appeared. But before I could even begin to make sense of what exactly it was that I’d heard, I was forced to scramble out of the way as several of the shimmering motes shot past me, their speed increasing the further that they traveled. Feeling a spike of dread shoot through me as I twisted my body to follow the wave of disembodied spirits as they sailed through the air, seeing them rush to join a growing maelstrom of energy right at the edge of the outcropping overlooking the Ley Line Rupture.
Right where I’d last seen Carver.
Oh, fuck! I swore silently as I looked up at the well of power, seeing that the torrent of spirits that had been swirling around the Ley Line Rupture earlier in the battle had since been consumed by whatever spell that Carver had managed to conjure and was growing in size with every second that passed.
“Shit!” I cursed aloud, realizing that time was rapidly running out. Making a decision, I signaled for Amaranth to follow me and turned my body towards the far edge of the outcropping where all the spirits were being drawn to.
Launching myself into a sprint, Amaranth and I left the growing battle behind as the two of us charged towards Carver, watching more and more of the emerald motes fly past us. Using Blink Step to help the both of us cross the distance even faster, I didn’t even feel my mana deplete as I carried the both us forward, all of my attention focused on reaching the distant half-orc before it was too late.
Sensing our approach as we rapidly closed the distance, I saw a familiar crimson shape by Carver’s side shift around to look in my direction, its hackles rising the instant that it spotted us. Letting out a savage bark it leaped to put itself between us and its master, who spun around in our direction.
“Carver!” I shouted as cast Blink Step once again, causing Amaranth and me to appear at near point-blank range in front of the pair. With my familiar leading the way half a step ahead of me, I had just enough time to see him slam into the crimson spirit wolf and knock it out of my path, giving me a perfect opportunity to swing Splinter at Carver’s head.
“Lyrian! Well isn’t this a surprise?! You actually made it!” The half-orc exclaimed as he caught my sword on an upraised spear tip and blunted the blow by taking a step backwards, the storm of magic crackling with energy above us. “I guess I’m going to have a few failures to punish once this is all over!”
“You mean Ignis and his group?!” I growled at the man angrily, chopping Splinter viciously into Carver’s spear, noticing that he no longer carried a shield in his off-hand and instead was clinging onto a brightly glowing totem. “Feel free to send them back to us! I’ll happily sort them out for you! In fact, why don’t you tell me where I can pick them up?”
“Heh, I bet you would love to do just that,” Carver replied, a wide grin crossing his face as he retaliated with a combination of spear thrusts that forced me to dance backwards out of reach, both Amaranth and Carver’s spirit wolf also taking the opportunity to break free of their respective battle to fall in by our sides. “But I’m afraid I prefer to handle all my discipline matters internally. Better for morale that way. Besides, I don’t expect you and your little town to be around much longer anyway.”
“Like hell we won’t be!” I retorted, conjuring a Flame Dagger in my hand, hearing Amaranth growl fiercely as I prepared to renew my attack against Carver. “My raid is finishing off the rest of your followers right now, and the moment that I put you into the ground, I’m going to unravel whatever the hell you’re trying to do here!”
“Haha!” Carver barked a sudden and slightly maniacal laugh at my statement while shaking his head viciously to the side, the totem in his hand suddenly pulsing with a wave of emerald light. “God, I’ve always wanted to say this…but you’re too late, Lyrian! You can’t stop any of this now!”
Glancing down at the totem as Carver began to thrust it upwards, I reflexively threw the Flame Dagger in my hand towards it, while lunging forward with Amaranth beside me. But before either the knife or the two of us could reach Carver, a blinding burst of emerald light erupted from the totem, followed closely behind by a wave of force that slammed into us, sending us both stumbling backward.
“In the end, I suppose it’s only fitting that you have a front row seat to this, Lyrian!” I heard Carver’s voice call out as the raging storm of energy above us shifted. “I just hope that this will teach you to keep your nose out of my business in the future!”
“What the hell did you just do, Carver?” I demanded, seeing all of the individual motes that had once been spirits suddenly shooting downwards towards the massive pool of Æther below us, causing what parts of it I could see to roil and churn.
“Oh, nothing too special,” the half-orc replied in a smug voice as a faint tremor shook the cavern. “All I did was give these spirits a little inspiration and a little nudge in the direction they were going anyway. Just to help speed things along.”
As if waiting until that very moment for its cue, a loud mental howl slammed into my mind, the sheer intensity behind it powerful enough to cause my thoughts to momentarily go blank. Gritting my teeth as I tried to focus past what sounded like a million angry voices screaming out at once, I felt the ground begin to shake underneath my feet, this time with more force than any that I’d ever experienced before. Unable to keep my balance, I dropped down to my knees just in time to see a column of tainted Æther erupt from before me, shooting straight up into the air, several others joining it seconds later.
What the hell is—oh no! The fleeting thought crossed my mind before shifting into outright terror as I gazed upwards at the emerald-tinted Æther, seeing it suddenly begin to shift and distort as a familiar ghostly haze enveloped it. Within seconds it then began to rapidly elongate itself, each of the Æther columns transforming themselves into an array of bizarre and twisted looking appendages. Staring on in horror as the strange limbs continued to take shape, I saw massive spectral claws come into being at the ends of a handful of them, while others shifted into twisted, gaping mouths that gnashed at the air.
We’re too late, I couldn’t help but think to myself as a massive shape then rose from the tainted Æther just past the edge of the outcropping in front of me, growing until it towered high above it. Staring up at the entity, I found it almost physically painful to look at, its ghostly, ooze-like form warping and undulating wildly as countless eyes, claws, and mouths played across its body, eventually vanishing from one spot, and reappearing somewhere else.
With the colossal spirit reaching its full height, the shaking in the cavern abruptly stopped, and the mental scream lost some of its intensity, making rational thought possible once more. Feeling like I could finally move again, I shakily pushed myself upwards, despair blooming in my heart as I focused on the massive entity and the tag that I had just seen appear in my vision.
[Ætherbound Shoggoth] – World Event Boss – Level 20
Chapter 55
“Well, Lyrian!” Carver’s voice called out, causing my attention to shift downward towards the man, seeing a wide grin on his face as he put his now faintly glowing totem away and gripped his spear with both hands. “Now that we have that bit of ugly business out of the way, where were we?”
“You have no idea what you’ve just done, Carver!” I screamed, feeling the despair within me morph into white-hot rage as I stared at the half-orc. “You’ve doomed everyone! Us! Aldford! Even Eberia!”
“Do you think that I really didn’t know that?” Carver replied with a savage laugh. “Why do you think I chose this way to do it? Just because it gave me an easy way to wipe out your little town? Ha! I’m playing a much bigger game here, Lyrian. One that goes so far beyond this region.”
“God damn you, Carver,” I hissed as I took a step towards the half-orc, gripping Splinter’s hilt so tightly that I felt the bones in my hand crack. “No matter what happens here today, I am going to be coming for you, and I’m not going to stop until I put you in the darkest hole that I can find. Somewhere you’ll never be able to escape from.”
“Oh, I’ll be ready, Lyrian!” Carver announced with another laugh as both he and his wolf fell into a fighting stance. “Now…why don’t you come over here and see just how sorry you can make me? Something tells me we aren’t going to have long until our friend over there decides to join the party.”
“Good thing I won’t need too much time!” I spat as I lunged forward
with Amaranth by my side.
Crossing the distance between us in an instant, the two of us slammed into our respective counterparts and resumed the battle right where it had left off just seconds earlier. But this time, instead of being completely drawn into our own individual conflict, Amaranth and I stayed together, fighting almost on top of one another in perfect sync, effortlessly switching our focus between Carver or his spirit wolf as the situation demanded.
Deflecting a spear thrust from Carver, I pushed the pointed tip of his weapon out of the way, allowing Amaranth’s claw to lash out and rend open a line of flesh on the half-orc’s leg. Shifting my focus as my familiar attacked, I then swept my blade downward to intercept Carver’s spirit wolf who had leaped forward to snap at Amaranth, and slashed through its spectral body, sending it flinching backward with a yelp of pain. Without missing a beat, I then conjured and released a Flame Dagger in my free hand, throwing it almost lazily in Carver’s direction as I turned my head back towards him, watching the knife fly just past his face, leaving a wicked burn across his jaw.
“Having trouble keeping up, Carver?” I taunted the man as I seamlessly switched targets with Amaranth and slashed out with a crackling Splinter, purposefully driving the blow into Carver’s spear. “I expected more from you after the last time!”
“Hardly!” The half-orc replied fiercely, oblivious to the fact that his voice lacked the same confidence that it had a few seconds earlier. “You haven’t seen anything yet!”
Throwing themselves forward with a roar, both Carver and his spirit wolf renewed their attacks, compensating for their relative lack of teamwork with a vicious burst of ferocity that forced Amaranth and me to rapidly give ground. As the pair pressed forward recklessly, I saw an orb of sickly green light flash in Carver’s hand a heartbeat before he threw it forward, the ball of magic moving too fast for me to get out of its way.
Legacy of the Fallen Page 76