by Aaron Oster
“What do you think our chances are?” Sarah asked, watching the creature finish stretching as it turned its eyes back on them.
“Of winning?” Katherine asked, pulling a massive black mace from thin air.
“Can’t we just run?”
“Not unless you’d like this thing to go off and warn its master,” Katherine replied, sizing the beast up. “It’s probably Intermediate, though I can’t be sure of its rank until after the fight starts.”
“Any idea what it is?” Sarah asked resignedly.
“Never seen anything like it before,” Katherine replied, taking a few practice swings. “Just watch my back and offer support if you can.”
Before Sarah could respond, Katherine dashed forward, the ice cracking beneath her feet as she pushed off. Sarah had watched Katherine fight a handful of times, but those fights had been during their major battles, where she generally held back and conserved her strength. Here, it seemed she wasn’t holding back.
Katherine rushed in, swinging hard at the beast’s head and trying to end the fight quickly. However, one of the pillars of ice throughout the room shot between them, intercepting the attack. The heavy mace shattered the ice, but the beast used the opportunity to slip around her guard and strike at the side of her neck.
Had Katherine been alone, the attack might have worked, but Sarah was with her. Four Icicle Tridents shot across the room, catching the beast and hurling it back against the far wall. However, instead of crashing into it, the beast literally flew into the wall. The ice rippled as the beast vanished, melting into the wall as though it weren’t there.
Katherine grimaced, freezing in place and trying to find the creature based on sound alone. Sarah was cautious as well, specifically watching above, below, and behind her, where she knew the creature was most likely to emerge.
The beast exploded from the ice right in front of her, mouth agape and rows of razor-sharp teeth glinting in the light of the tunnel. Katherine was over in a blink, her powerful mace slamming the creature back to the ground where it once again submerged into the ice.
“This is going to be annoying,” Katherine muttered, eyes flicking around the room. “Not to mention it’s a serious problem.”
Sarah knew what she meant. The longer they were here, the greater the chance they’d be discovered. And if they were busy hunting this ice-lizard-bear-fish thing, or whatever the hell it was, for hours on end, they’d definitely be caught.
Two Ice Golems spun into view, and Sarah set them to watch their blind spots as they waited for the beast to emerge once more. The obvious thing to do now was to make sure it couldn’t vanish again once it appeared, which meant one of them would need to hold it, while the other attacked. And seeing as how Katherine was the only one with the brute strength necessary for such a task, she’d be the one holding it down.
The beast wasn’t about to make it easy for them. For the next five minutes, they continuously swiped at empty air as the beast dove at them from all angles, more annoying than anything else. Its presence kept them from leaving the room for fear that it would raise some sort of alarm. Which seemed to be the whole point.
Sarah almost screamed in frustration as the beast vanished yet again, flying up from the ground, tearing the sleeve from her coat and vanishing into the ceiling above. Neither of them had been able to react quickly enough, and it was becoming clear that if they didn’t change their strategy, they’d end up stuck here forever or be forced to run and risk the alarm.
“You picking up any patterns?” Katherine asked, still remaining calm as she scanned their surroundings.
“Not my specialty,” Sarah replied with a growl.
Morgan was normally the one to spot obvious patterns or weaknesses. Much as she hated to admit it, he was just more suited to combat than she was. Sure, she could hold her own and give as good as she got, but Morgan could see things in a fight that a normal person would miss and could take advantage of a split-second opening. He could even somehow sense when they were about to come.
In her entire life, Sarah had never met anyone more suited to fighting than him, and maybe that was the problem. She’d always relied on him to win fights. Even during their trials in the Solarspire, when she’d faced the Guardian alone. In the back of her mind, she’d known Morgan was there, that he would save her, should anything go wrong. And now, when he wasn’t here, she was having a difficult time managing.
The beast exploded from one of the tunnel walls then, its mouth wide open and an icy blue light shining in the back of its throat.
“Shit!” Sarah yelled, yanking a wall of ice up from the ground, just as a wave of icy cold exploded from the beast’s mouth.
Freezing, liquid ice crashed up against the wall before being forced to either side. Cracks began appearing on the wall, forcing Sarah to reinforce it before it collapsed. She had a feeling that being hit by that freezing beam was the very last thing she wanted right now. Her left arm was growing colder by the second, clothed only in her thin shirt with the coat sleeve torn free. It was becoming numb, and holding the wall in place was starting to become more difficult as the weight of the accumulated ice began to cause fractures to appear faster than she could plug them.
“Keep holding it!” Katherine yelled as a portal opened and she stepped through.
That bitch! Sarah thought indignantly, gritting her teeth against the strain.
Typical of the treacherous Queen to just run off and leave me to do all the work!
The wall began to falter then, and Sarah was forced to use her Condense Water, pulling on her MP to strengthen the walls. Being forced to create water was far more costly, and as she layered the wall over and over to keep it together, it began to fall rapidly. There was little she could do now, other than order her golems to move and brace it as she fought to keep it intact.
Sarah had no idea how the beast could continue an attack like this for so long. The ice was nearly up to the ceiling by now and had spread across the entire length of the cavern. The cold was growing worse, falling rapidly as wind and droplets of freezing water stung her exposed face and arm.
The cold was so intense that it burned, and Sarah’s lungs began to seize up. It was then that she realized the real danger from this attack. It wouldn’t come from the ice or cold, but from the lack of breathable oxygen. Quickly looking back, Sarah noted that the ice she’d funneled around herself was sealing up the tunnel that they’d come through and in a matter of seconds, would be completely closed off.
She’d be trapped with no air, while the beast continued to pour ice on top of her, keeping her pinned down while she slowly suffocated. She wanted to do something, anything, but all of her concentration was focused on holding back the tide. Darkness closed in around her as the ice covered her exits, leaving her in an ever-shrinking space. She was in a pocket of trapped air that would soon run out.
Sarah wasn’t sure how long she stood there, sweat beginning to bead her brow as the room heated up. Her breathing became labored as she fought to regulate her breath, trying to conserve air but not having any luck in doing so. Just as she began to fear that she would collapse, both from mana fatigue and lack of air, the attack suddenly stopped.
She staggered forward, falling to her knees as the strain of holding the wall fell away. Sarah had no idea of what was happening, but knew that she needed to break a way out before the attack began once again. However, just as she was reaching to move the ice, a tear in space appeared and Katherine stepped through, a bloody core clutched in her hand.
“Leave the walls up. We can use them to cover our escape.”
Sarah had half a mind to ignore her and move them anyway, but the lack of oxygen and the need to get some into her system had her dashing for the still-open portal instead. She took a huge, shuddering breath as she exited on the other side, coming out into the half of the room not covered in a wall of ice.
The beast lay just a few feet away, its head cut cleanly from its body, and a pool of frozen bl
ue blood lying around its corpse. The chest had been torn open as well – likely for the core – exposing a line of gleaming, metallic ribs. Before her stood a wall of jagged ice, completely blocking off the other side of the room, as well as the tunnel beyond.
“With the wall up and blocking both sides, we can escape using my portal. If anyone’s following when we do, they’ll assume we went a different way.”
Sarah turned angry eyes on Katherine as she stepped through the portal.
“What the hell took you so long?!” she hissed.
“I was waiting for the ice to fill in all the cracks,” she replied with a shrug. “Besides, I had to get close enough to finish it with one blow, and charging a strong enough attack took a bit of time.”
Sarah wanted to argue, to chastise and curse the arrogant woman for the asshole she was. Katherine could easily have filled the damned wall herself, so she’d likely just done it to make her suffer. The fact that Katherine had retrieved the core before coming for her was evidence enough of this. Before Sarah could say anything, a roar echoed down the far tunnel, shaking the room and putting both of them on edge.
It was a grim reminder that they were in enemy territory, and a very dangerous enemy at that. They needed to find Gwendolyn and leave as quickly as possible.
“Hide the body,” Katherine said, keeping her eyes on the far tunnel. “We need to get going.”
For once, Sarah didn’t argue, doing just what the woman had ordered her to. Leaving the body would be an obvious sign of intruders, and she was the only one who could hide it without a trace. In just a few seconds, the beast was gone, buried in the ice. It was as though the beast had never even existed.
Then, the two of them turned, jogging down the opposite tunnel and deeper into the Pinnacle King’s lair.
30
Wind whipped around Morgan as he flew over the walls and into the East Kingdom once more. The trip had taken him a bit longer than expected as he’d run into a few beasts on the way and had been forced to fight them. He had gotten a few high-quality cores, and even as he flew now, Morgan examined his status to see how much energy he’d received from them.
Name: Morgan
Advanced Supermage: Rank - 51
Energy to next rank - 1,988,111/4,000,000
Ability Advancement - 11,660/15,000,000
Total Available AP: 1,349
Ability - Natural Disaster
RP - 4,580/4,580 (Regen - 46 per second)
Strength - 484
Agility - 629
Constitution - 467
Intelligence - 458
Wisdom - 460
Skills - Supersonic flight, Concussive Burst, Stormforger, Rupture, Nature’s wrath, Maximum Might, Compressive Blast
Traits - Dense body +, Recovery +, Aura sense (inherited), Aura flare (inherited), Perfect Self, Soul Stealer
Extra - Gravity storm (4th category), Starbreaker (3rd category), Collapsing star (Nova), Shooting star
He’d gained quite a bit of energy and was nearly halfway to rank 52. What he’d been most interested in was examining his Perfect Self, which the mystery god had said was the reason he’d been able to predict the phony-Hilda’s attack. However, when he looked at it, he was slightly disappointed.
Perfect Self - The road to the Pinnacle of power is nearly at its end. Gather the required energy and find your Perfect Self.
Progress - 3%
The improvement that the god was talking about was just a single percentage point. Which begged the question: what would he be able to accomplish at one hundred percent?
That brief vision, the insight into the future, had been what had lit a fire beneath him once more. The ability to see everything had always been more of a vague dream. Something that he knew he might one day be able to accomplish, but so far off that he rarely thought about it. However, the more he advanced, the closer he grew to achieving that legendary status. Already, he could spot falsehood, which meant that no mortal could lie to him.
Gods could still do whatever they wanted, of course, but he could spot pretty much any lies. Sensing attacks coming by observing his surroundings was also something he could now do, though if what the mystery god said was to be believed, he was only using about fifteen percent of his full potential. He’d said that fighting without his Aura Sense would help his overall advancement and control. He’d proved as much by tossing him in that scenario where he had no access to his skills, leaving him to fight only with his accumulated knowledge of hand to hand combat.
He’d found his old self and improved on it, blending his knowledge, tempering it with caution, and bringing it together to defeat Hilda. His skills had been sharpened as a result, but he had to remember that if he didn’t actively fight to hold himself back, he could kill someone without meaning to.
Morgan shook himself, pulling his arms in and speeding up even more as he rushed headlong towards the palace. He hadn’t bothered hiding himself this time, so he was sure Le’vine would know he was coming. She’d have called Hilda in by now and was most likely preparing to fight him off.
He had no idea what the Queen of the East had been up to in the time he’d been away, but he could only hope that she’d be open to listening to what he had to say.
The sun was high in the sky when Morgan finally spotted the palace off in the distance. He could feel his heart begin beating with trepidation as memories of his failures came flooding back to him. But he fought them down, reminding himself of how many times he’d faced Hilda’s projection and lost. By now, another defeat wouldn’t really mean much, and he took solace in that.
A few mages tried to shoot him out of the sky as he approached the city walls, but Morgan easily dodged, shattering the enchantments above the walls and entering the city at top speed. People looked up, gaping at the spec that blurred past, leaving a billowing gale in his wake to kick up dust and send the trees dotting the city swaying in the wind.
He shot straight over the castle gates, right past the guards assembling there, and right through the still-open doors. He had no trouble locating the greatest mass of power in the building, and seeing as he’d been there before, Morgan had no trouble finding the throne room. In fact, they’d made it easy for him since they had yet to repair any of the damage he’d left the last time he’d been here.
When he entered the throne room, he was actually clean, not covered in dust and debris, and felt oddly refreshed. The food the man had given him had been extremely energizing, removing any small fatigue he may have felt. He’d discovered this when he’d left and decided to give the pastries a try. He had been pretty hungry after not eating for so many days in a row, and the dense bread had hit the spot in a way that suggested it was filled to bursting with enhanced ingredients. Morgan had no idea what they were, but he was going to find out the next time he met the man.
He stopped inside the entrance, taking a few moments to look around. Le’vine stood upon the dais, looking livid. Before her stood a line of guards, all pointing their weapons at him. To her left stood Hilda, and next to her, Shul. However, the man who stood to her right was someone Morgan had not expected to see here.
“Morgan,” King Herald of the Central Kingdom said. “What an unexpected surprise.”
Well, this makes things easier, Morgan thought.
If Herald was here, that meant he could save himself a trip to the Central Kingdom and go straight back to the North from here.
“King Herald,” Morgan said, nodding to the man. “This saves me a trip.”
“What are you doing here?” Le’vine hissed, practically glaring daggers at him. “You lost, and according to the rules set by the challenge, you were never to come back!”
“Yeah, well, I came back anyway,” Morgan replied flatly.
“Why have you come here, Morgan?” Herald asked. “From what the Queen has told me, you gave your word of honor that you would leave should you lose.”
“With all due respect, Herald, I’m not a citizen of her kingdom, nor
do I take orders from anyone I don’t want to. Frankly, the challenge that was set up was in poor taste, one designed to heavily favor Le’vine’s fighter and ensure I would lose.”
“Is this true?” Herald asked, turning to face the Queen of the East.
Le’vine grit her teeth but didn’t deny the claim. It was true, and lying about it would do no one any good. The fact of the matter was, that whether it was a favorable fight or not, Morgan had still lost, which meant that he was technically breaking his word, and by extension, that of Katherine, the Queen of a Kingdom.
In fact, had Herald not been here right now, Morgan would have expected Le’vine to order her men to attack right now. But the tall, darkly tanned man had an air of calm assurance that made everyone, rulers included, defer to him. For centuries, his Kingdom had kept the peace between the others, offering a neutral haven for all. He was a respected man, and even someone like Le’vine, who commanded a much more powerful army, would heed his counsel.
“In light of recent events, as well as both the West and South Kingdom’s refusal to join our cause, I believe it beneficial for Morgan to be allowed another opportunity to plead his case.”
“No! He doesn’t deserve it!” Le’vine cried, sounding more like a petulant child than a queen.
Herald gave her a sidelong glance, quirking an eyebrow.
“Do we really have so many powerful fighters that you’d turn him away without a second chance?”
“No, but he lost, then fled in shame! How can we ally ourselves with someone like that?”
“Did he actually lose the fight, or simply the challenge? Because the Morgan I know has yet to lose a fight to anyone, including the former King of the North.”
“You’re just playing favorites because he helped your Kingdom,” Le’vine said.