Stormforge (Rise To Omniscience Book 5)

by Aaron Oster

  “Seems like I’m two for two now,” she said, her lips quirking to one side.

  “Looks like the all-powerful supermage is as weak as a newborn!” Le’vine said, cackling hysterically as Morgan lay there, trying to wrap his head around what was going on.

  One thing was for sure. Aside from the horrific pain radiating through his skull from his broken nose, the shame of losing once again was far worse. He felt this pain in his soul, scarring deep where the broken nose barely registered.

  Then, before he could so much as move, the pain vanished. The room went black, and a moment later, Morgan once again found himself standing in the throne room. Hilda was stalking around across him, and Le’vine’s mocking grin told him they all knew what was coming next.

  “Seems you can’t get enough,” Hilda said, flexing her fingers. “I don’t mind. I’ll keep beating you over and over again until you break.”

  Morgan braced himself, already flinching as Hilda ran forward once again. This battle didn’t go well for him either. In just two seconds, he was on his back once again, his left knee shattered, and his nose once again splattered across his face. The mockery was no better this time. In fact, Morgan was pretty sure it was worse.

  “Why are you doing this?” he called out, coughing as blood worked itself down into his throat.

  “For your own good,” the god’s voice called back.

  “How is this…?” Morgan began, but the room stuttered once again, and he was back on his feet.

  Hilda’s smirk was no less smug this time and the pain that followed was no less humiliating.

  Morgan found himself lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling in the darkened room of the building. He’d faced Hilda and lost countless times by now. Judging by the light and the fact that the mystery god had pulled him out of the sequence, he was going to get a bit of a respite.

  “Four-hundred and twelve fights in a row,” Morgan heard him say. “I’ve never seen anyone lose that many without even trying to fight back.”

  Too tired to argue and too relieved to be out, Morgan didn’t respond. He merely laid there as he stared at the darkening sky through a crack in the ceiling above. It seemed the god wasn’t content with mere silence, and just a moment later, his face loomed in Morgan’s view, a half-eaten brown stick poking from the side of his mouth.

  “What I don’t understand is how you could lose so many times. It’s honestly baffling.”

  “Well, if you’d just let me use my skills, I’d have beaten her in no time flat,” Morgan replied, feeling the anger and frustration he’d been pushing down all day fighting to come to the surface.

  “And there’s your problem!” said the man, throwing his arms in the air. “You’ve become too reliant on your skills, and as a result, have suffered as a fighter overall. If you want my opinion, I doubt that short of killing her, you couldn’t defeat Hilda in a fight, even with your skills!”

  Morgan felt the anger building as he heard this. He’d been subjected to defeat after defeat today, suffering broken limbs and ruptured organs over and over. He could feel his core now, unlike before, and with his anger burning hot, allowed it to burst out as he flew to his feet.

  He screamed, and the entire top floor of the building vanished in an explosion of violet light, the reiki pouring out of him in waves as he simply channeled the pure force of his overwhelming power.

  He was a supermage! He was the epitome of what the gods had intended when making the rules of this world. The Pinnacle Kings, the most powerful beings in this world, were based on him! There was no way he could lose to a mere super, let alone one weaker than him! Still, Morgan was unsatisfied.

  His yell grew in pitch and volume, the night sky now being illuminated by the violet glow growing around him. His arms flew up into the air, and his Starbreaker formed above them, expanding into the ball of swirling superheated gas. The nimbus of red and orange energy contrasted with the glow emanating from his body.

  More and more of the building crumbled away as a gale-force whipped about him, ripping massive chunks of stone into the air. The attack finished charging then and with a scream, Morgan hurled it down on top of what remained of the building. Even as the attack hit and the sphere of swirling destruction expanded over fifty feet, Morgan was already charging up his next attack.

  His 4th Category Gravity Storm crashed into the adjacent building, the whirling wind and crushing force reducing it to rubble within seconds. Lightning whipped across the distance, colliding with the storm and adding to the destruction, expanding farther and father as the ground tore open and molten stone spewed forth.

  Still not done, Morgan used Collapsing Star, hurling the tiny black spec down between the raging tornado and ball of destruction. The ground shattered and any remaining buildings in the area were torn apart, inexorably pulled to the black hole now standing in the middle of the city. His rage still wasn’t spent, and Morgan reached for yet another attack. However, even as he tried to pull on his core for even more power, he suddenly found that it had nothing more to give. Even more surprising was the fact that he seemed to be falling out of the sky, plummeting towards the raging destruction below.

  Finally coming to his senses, Morgan flailed for a few heart-stopping moments as he continued to fall, trying to grasp at the remnants of his spent power. Then, his regen kicked in and he breathed a huge sigh of relief as he caught himself, flying back up into the air and narrowly avoiding being torn to shreds by his own attack.

  “You done throwing your temper tantrum now, or do you want to reduce the entire city to rubble?”

  Morgan whirled mid-air, to see the god floating next to him. Except, he wasn’t standing. He was sitting, reclining in a massive, plush chair with a strange rectangular object poised on his lap. Even stranger than that was the fact that the rectangular object was reflecting light back at his face, though Morgan couldn’t see where the light could possibly be coming from. This more than anything brought him back to his senses, as the entire scene was just too bizarre.

  “Good, I can see that you’re done,” the god said, reaching up and pulling the top half of the object down to his lap with a loud snap.

  This immediately caused the light to vanish, leaving the man’s face to be illuminated only by the chaos and destruction taking place below.

  “I’ll have you know that that building was one of the few remaining untouched ones in the entire city. It survived years after the destruction here, and you managed to reduce it to rubble in just a matter of seconds. Good work.”

  For some reason, one that he could not for the life of him explain, Morgan felt oddly ashamed of what he’d just done. Never had he thrown a tantrum to such an extreme, destroying simply because he could. His destruction always had a reason, a purpose, or served him in some way. But this…This was just destruction for destruction’s sake.

  “I’m sorry,” Morgan said in a quiet voice.

  The god didn’t respond, and the two of them simply stood there, watching Morgan’s attacks slowly die down. When they finally did, they left three very distinct craters in their place, leaving a massive seven block radius completely devoid of anything at all. All that remained were three patches of blackened and burned ground, making for a very notable scar, even in this desolate and destroyed city.

  “Do you understand how the misuse of power could have led to the implementation of Samuel’s rules for this world?”

  The god’s question took Morgan completely off guard, as he was expecting more chastisement or perhaps being thrown back into the sequence to be beaten to a pulp a few hundred more times to teach him a lesson. But most definitely not this.

  “Yes,” he replied simply. He could see why.

  “What I never understood was why supermages were created in the first place,” the god continued. “You are the very thing he fought to eliminate. Those with unlimited potential, with the necessary power to rival even the gods, and sight beyond what they could hope to dream of. To be omniscient
is to know everything, past, present, and future. Something like that would have driven them all mad, but not the supermages.

  “They were given that singular ability and through constant effort and growth, could eventually reach that height. Your problem, Morgan, isn’t that you don’t have the power, but that you simply lack control, experience, and patience. Add that to the fact that you’re prone to bouts of violent destruction and have a lust for battle that I have yet to see in anyone, and that includes the Pinnacle Kings, and you get a monster that can not only threaten this world, but all others in the universe.

  “If the leaders of the Five Kingdoms had any sense between them, they’d go join the Pinnacle King and together, move to take you down before you grew even more dangerous. Because, while Octagon and the others all act within the bounds of their natures, that restriction was never applied to you.

  “Sure, you’re part beast, but you’re part human too, which makes you potentially more dangerous than all the Pinnacle Kings combined. The fact of the matter is, the world would probably be better off with you gone…”

  The god trailed off, leaving Morgan both dumbfounded and more than a little angry. Before he could respond or try and defend himself, the god continued.

  “But, seeing as you’re here and still fighting for the good of this world when you’re not slaughtering beasts or destroying cities, I guess I can’t really destroy you. Besides, you didn’t really attack me, so there isn’t much I can really do to you directly. Indirectly, though…” the man’s face curled up into a grin, and a moment later, Morgan once again found himself standing in the familiar throne room.

  Well, shit, Morgan thought as Hilda’s fist came flying for his nose. This isn’t going to be pleasant.

  25

  “I give up! I have no idea where he might be!” Sarah exclaimed, pushing back from the desk with a groan of frustration.

  Though Katherine wanted to chastise her, she had to admit that Sarah’s annoyance was warranted. The two of them had spent the last two days scouring the map, trying to brainstorm ideas of where he might be. But, in all that time, they couldn’t really figure it out without being able to go and check using her portals.

  They had a few guesses as to where he might be, but without sure and solid proof, they simply couldn’t afford to go out there on their own. They had no trackers either, so it would be impossible for them to find him by his reiki, which meant that they were effectively at a dead end.

  “You’re sure you can’t think of anywhere he may have gone?” Katherine asked for about the hundredth time.

  “If I knew, don’t you think I’d tell you so?” Sarah snapped back.

  Katherine bit back a retort, but only just. Instead, she looked back down at the map, eyes traveling inexorably north towards where the Pinnacle King’s glacier stood like a fortress of ice, looming over the North Kingdom. It seemed like just a few days ago that she’d sent Gwendolyn out to City Nineteen to find out what had happened, and then, she’d vanished. She was likely taken by the Pinnacle King’s minions. She had to assume this because Gwendolyn was a supermage, far too strong to be turned into a simple beast.

  The fact that she hadn’t been seen among the Pinnacle King’s leadership also told them that she was likely immune to whatever power he had over the others. He couldn’t have simply killed her either. Someone like Gwendolyn would be a valuable source of information, which meant that she was most likely still alive.

  Over the years, she’d gotten to know her — or rather, her alter ego Vivian, the woman who’d faithfully served her for years. Katherine sighed then, knowing that Vivian would have been the perfect person to…

  “Gwendolyn!” Katherine said, sitting bolt upright and startling Sarah.

  “What?” Sarah yelled, nearly topping backward off her chair.

  That sight alone made all of her sniping and griping almost worth it. Almost.

  “We need her,” Katherine said, rising to her feet and beginning to pace. “Think about it. With her here, we could have her track Morgan down. Not only that, but with another supermage on our side, we could likely get the others to join us, even with Morgan’s failure.”

  “I thought she was impossible to reach,” Sarah said with a quirked eyebrow. “Kinda why you didn’t go after her up until now.”

  “Not impossible, simply difficult,” Katherine replied. “To reach her, we’d need to head past City Nineteen all the way to the massive glacier where the Pinnacle King’s base is. Then, we’d need to navigate the treacherous tunnels to find her, free her, and escape back here without being caught.”

  “Yeah, sounds pretty much impossible,” Sarah replied.

  “Not impossible,” Katherine replied. “Simply difficult.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Sarah said with a snort. “Besides, who would even be able to pull something like that off?”

  Katherine looked up at her then, and Sarah got a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  “No. No way. There’s no way in hell I can do something like that alone!”

  “Who said you’d be going alone?” Katherine asked.

  “Who could possibly…?” Sarah began, but then it hit her. “You can’t!” she said, now completely dumbfounded. “There’s no way another attack isn’t coming, and with you gone, the city would fall in under an hour!”

  “And with me here, it’ll fall in a few more,” Katherine replied soberly. “This is war. A fight for survival. At this point, we have our backs up against the wall. There is no safe way forward, and if getting Gwendolyn back is our best chance at success, then it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  Sarah could hardly believe that Katherine, the Queen of the entire Kingdom, was talking about leaving on a suicide mission. Of all the people Sarah would have expected to pull something like this, she was the least likely candidate. Something like this was Morgan’s territory, not hers!

  “How do you even know she’s still alive?” Sarah asked, trying to reason with her.

  “I don’t,” Katherine replied with a shrug. “But if we are to have any hope of defeating the monster who’s threatening the very existence of my Kingdom, then it’s a chance I’m willing to take. I can’t do this alone, though. I might be strong, but there’s no way I can succeed without someone watching my back. So, what do you say? Will you come with me? If not for the North, then for the man you claim to love?”

  Sarah bristled at the insinuation, rising to her feet and lifting her chin. Katherine had no idea the things she’d done for Morgan, the sacrifices she’d made. She’d left her entire life behind for him, crossed the width of the continent and fought countless battles, some of which had nearly cost them both their lives. Their bond had been forged in blood and it would not be broken so easily.

  “You can count me in,” she said, making sure to meet Katherine’s eyes. “But if you’re wrong and I never see Morgan again, I’ll be holding you personally responsible.”

  “I can live with that,” Katherine said, giving her a tight smile. “Now go pack up. We leave in fifteen minutes. There’s no time to waste.”

  ***

  Arnold stood with his back to the wall, arms folded across his chest and staring out into thin air. Or so it seemed. In reality, he was paying very close attention to the goings-on of those around him. He was currently standing in a lavishly decorated room, something which royals and nobility in general seemed to enjoy, and sweating bullets.

  It was odd when he thought about it. As someone of his high rank, temperatures of over ten times this shouldn’t bother him, but here he was, sweating because of a seventy-degree day.

  Must be due to the Master’s power, he thought. It was the only explanation that made sense. It stood to reason that a beast that thrived on the cold would be uncomfortable in warmer climates, even ones that regular humans considered to simply be ‘pleasant weather.’ In truth, Arnold found the heat stifling, to the point where it was almost unbearable. Not that he allowed it to show on his face. Thi
s meeting was too important for that.

  “And why should I cave to your master’s demands?” Hu Shane, King of the West demanded, pounding his fist into the arm of his throne.

  “Because,” Fiona said. “He will soon rule this world. And if you comply now, willingly, you’ll be looked upon much more favorably.”

  Arnold had to admit that Fiona was a master of her craft. For nearly an hour now, she’d been slowly wearing Shane down, getting him closer and closer to making a deal and all without threatening him once. She came across as sympathetic, wheedling information out of the King that he likely wouldn’t have given away to his own mother. At a certain point, he’d even dismissed all his guards. That’s how comfortable he was around her, a complete stranger, in under an hour.

  The Master really has picked his left hand well, Arnold mused, listening to Fiona’s sibilant voice continue to soothe the nervous King.

  “Besides, do you even really want to fight him? He doesn’t really want to kill everyone, just bring them all under his rule. The Five Kingdoms have been squabbling for millennia, costing thousands their lives, and for what? So a few people can maintain their hold over their insignificant potions of land?”

  “But I earned my place here,” Shane said.

  “Did you, though? Did you really earn it?” Fiona asked. “Or were you simply born into the right family? What right do you have to rule over any other person in the street? What sets you apart from the rest?”

  “I’m royalty!” Shane said with more than a little heat in his voice.

  “And who decided that you should be royalty while others are not? Who bestowed that right upon you?”

  Shane faltered for a moment, trying to find some way to answer this question.

  Arnold had long ago seen the flaw in the logic of the human race as a whole. The fragility of their system of power, held together by mere perception and the might of a single ruler. Had the people truly wished to rebel, it would only take the ruler’s top guards to subdue and kill their master, then the people could live however they’d like. But it was because they’d been living a certain way for thousands of years that they refused to accept change when it came.