Stormforge (Rise To Omniscience Book 5)

by Aaron Oster

  Wincing at the horrible, splintering cracking sound as the wood around the knob shattered as well, Morgan pulled the door open and entered the office. It looked much the same as last time, with the exception of a large map spread out over the table. Morgan also couldn’t help but notice that the room looked just a bit messy. Several plates were stacked up in one corner, and the floors looked as though they could use a good scrubbing.

  It smelled nice though, and Morgan could recognize the scent. There were two actually, both Sarah’s and Katherine’s. Well, not their scents, so to speak — he wasn’t a dog, after all — but the perfume they both favored. It lingered throughout the room, trapped inside by the closed windows and sealed door. Oddly enough, it soothed him, and it hit Morgan just then how much he actually missed them both.

  He missed Katherine for her friendship and seemingly endless support, and Sarah for just about everything else.

  Except for the fighting, definitely don’t miss that.

  Morgan opened his Aura Sense and began scanning the room, looking for a sign of the cores Bell had mentioned. However, his search didn’t turn up a single thing. Biting his lip ever so slightly, Morgan looked again, concentrating harder on the walls, floor, and ceiling. He couldn’t spot anything out of place, but on his third scan of the room, he felt a small pinprick of power coming from literally right beneath his feet.

  Quickly crouching, Morgan focused his Aura Sense on the small area and discovered something odd. A small square panel was hidden beneath the carpeting and wooden flooring. The strange part was that while the panel was giving off a faint sheen of light, nothing within stood out to him. Only once before had Morgan come across something that could block his skill, and that had been in the Merchants Guild headquarters in the South Kingdom.

  Not really having much time to ponder on that thought, Morgan removed the rug, then ripped a few of the floorboards away. He once again winced at the damage and sincerely hoped that Katherine’s gratefulness would outweigh her anger.

  Then again, Morgan thought as the small silvery panel was revealed. I’ve never actually seen Katherine angry before.

  The woman seemed to have an endless amount of patience. He figured it was probably due to her upbringing and training to become a ruler someday.

  Morgan’s fingers slid over the outside of the small square, searching for some kind of seam. However, he couldn’t find one, and when he tore a few more floorboards, discovered that the box didn’t seem to have an opening.

  Hope this isn’t expensive, Morgan thought, then brought his fist down on the surface of the box.

  There was a loud clang, and the metal dented, leaving a fist-sized impression as he drew his hand back.

  That’s not gonna work.

  A light wind rushed into the room as Morgan used Stormforger and summoned a small blade made of purple energy. He then plunged it down, and this time, the metal gave. He’d summoned a relatively short blade, so as not to accidentally damage the items within. Moving the blade quickly, he soon cut a small square of the metal.

  As soon as he pulled it aside, a bright light shone in his Aura Sense, so heavy and dense that Morgan actually recoiled, forced to close off his senses, lest he be blinded. Peering in, Morgan could see that the safe was quite a bit larger than he’d originally thought, spreading out to either side and covering a good few square feet.

  Reaching in, Morgan removed a small wooden chest, the one that had been shining with energy. As he did, his hand bumped against something else, the sharp corner of some kind of frame. Setting the small chest down, Morgan reached in once again, removing a small painting. As soon as he saw its contents, his face turned a deep red and he shoved it quickly back into the safe.

  Nope! I did not see that!

  That one item was enough to convince him that looking through anything else would be a very bad idea. Clearly, Katherine had gone to great lengths to hide this safe, even from him. Bell knew about it, but he doubted that Katherine ever thought the knowledge of its existence would reach him. So, if she asked, all he’d done was remove the chest with the cores. That was it.

  Quickly moving to the desk with said chest and trying to unsee what he’d just seen, Morgan broke the small padlock and opened it. Except, instead of seeing any cores, all he saw was a small, swirling black portal.

  “Oh, Katherine, you freaking genius,” Morgan muttered, now realizing how so much power could have been packed into such a small chest.

  Reaching into the portal, Morgan’s fingers immediately landed on a glassy surface. When he drew out his hand, he was holding red and blue cores, each around the size of his fist.

  Name: Sunstalk-Gorilla Core

  Rank - 31

  Total available energy: 78,412/78,412

  Total available AP: 21/21

  This core was taken from a Sunstalk-Gorilla. As this core was taken from an Advanced beast, the amount of available energy has been massively increased.

  Name: Duskwave-Gorilla Core

  Rank - 32

  Total available energy: 81,613/81,613

  Total available AP: 23/23

  This core was taken from a Duskwave-Gorilla. As this core was taken from an Advanced beast, the amount of available energy has been massively increased.

  Name: Megaton-Gorilla Patriarch Core

  Rank - 36

  Total available energy: 138,000/138,000

  Total available AP: 38/38

  This core was taken from a Megaton-Gorilla. As this core was taken from a zone Patriarch and an Advanced beast, the amount of available energy has been massively increased.

  Core after core was set on the table, and each and every one was an Advanced beast core with some amount of AP. The more Morgan took out, the more excited he became. Sure, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to use any of the energy here, but all of the AP, which Katherine would never be able to use anyway, was fair game in his mind.

  Morgan removed over fifty cores before he started to run out of room on the desk and was forced to migrate to the floor. By the time the portal-in-a-box was fully empty, he’d removed more cores than he could count. Sure, each only had a small amount of AP, ranging from 12 to about 60, but all together they would add up to be quite a lot.

  It was only when Morgan heard the sounds of battle outside that he realized just how long it had taken him to simply remove all the cores. In his excitement, he’d forgotten exactly why he was here and had wasted precious time. Inwardly berating himself, Morgan quickly reached for the first core and absorbed all of its AP, shoving it back into the box and grabbing another. This would take him at least an hour, but by the end, he’d probably have enough for that one skill. The one that would hopefully help him reach Sarah and Katherine before it was too late.

  37

  Morgan dropped the last core into the box, slamming the lid shut, and dashed to the center of the room where the safe lay open and unprotected. He knew that he couldn’t simply leave it this way, so as soon as the chest was inside, he grabbed the cut-off piece of metal and reattached it to the rest of the safe by crimping the edges with his fingers.

  He briefly marveled at the fact that he was able to mold metal as easily as dough, but as soon as it was reattached, he threw the rug over it and ran for the window. He had just enough AP for the skill and by just, he really meant it. He had exactly the amount of AP needed to learn the skill, 3,800 AP. If that wasn’t a miracle, then Morgan didn’t know what was.

  The shutters banged closed behind him as he took off into the air, moving at a breakneck pace for the city walls. As he flew, he opened up his status and pulled up the skill he wanted to learn.

  Gravity Warp - Gravity has no hold over distance.

  Progress: 430/3,800 AP

  Morgan grinned, realizing that he’d forgotten about the small amount of the skill progress he had. The description was still horribly vague, but at least he’d be left with something after he learned it. All he could do was hope that the skill was what he thought it was.
So, taking one last deep breath to steady his nerves, Morgan added almost all of his available AP to learn the skill. A shudder passed through him as it was activated, and Morgan felt his mind expand to make room for his new skill.

  Gravity Warp - Your power over gravity is such that space can no longer contain you. Vast distances can now be covered at speeds previously unimaginable.

  Cost - 30 RP per second

  Morgan let out a huge sigh of relief, glad that his hunch had been correct. Now he had to test it out and see what it could really do. He didn’t really know where Sarah and Katherine were, nor had he been past the walls of City Nineteen before. Morgan read the skill over one more time, noting that teleportation was not mentioned.

  There was also an ongoing RP drain, meaning that this would be a sustained skill. Could it be some kind of flight skill, only one that would move him much faster?

  Only one way to find out, Morgan thought, and activated the skill.

  He experienced a moment of vertigo as the world seemed to bend around him, his surroundings twisting and warping in the most disconcerting way. Then, he was flying. Although he was used to flying, this was the strangest sensation of flight he’d ever experienced. The landscape blurred by so quickly that he barely had time to register it before it vanished, the world below turning into a blur of colors and shapes.

  Another odd thing was the lack of drag. He couldn’t even feel a breeze, let alone wind resistance. It felt like he was traveling through a tunnel, though it was not like any he’d ever seen. When he looked straight ahead, he could see that same strange warping around the edges of his vision and quickly looked back down. It was too nauseating and disconcerting. Morgan decided that he would do his best to pick out landmarks as he went, as he really had no idea where he was headed. On the bright side, the skill worked, and he needn’t have been to the destination previously to get there quickly.

  Over the next few minutes, Morgan concentrated on the blurring landscape, picking out the occasional mountain or lake. However, he couldn’t find any signs of civilization. He was just beginning to wonder if he wasn’t moving as quickly as he’d thought when he spotted a wall out of the corner of his eye.

  He immediately deactivated the skill, coming to a screaming halt. The exit from the odd space was just as jarring as his entrance, and for a second, Morgan was in freefall. Then, he oriented himself and used his flight skill to catch himself. The first thing that hit him was the cold. It was far, far worse here than it had been in City Eleven. If he were to guess, it had to be at least a hundred below, if not more.

  The world was a stark white in all directions, a small bank of clouds visible in the distance. For just a few moments, as he looked, Morgan had to wonder if he’d imagined seeing that wall. However, when he really squinted, he could just make out a grayish blur in the distance.

  Holy shit, Morgan thought as he headed back in the opposite direction.

  In the time it had taken him to see the wall, process it, and deactivate Gravity Warp, he seemed to have traveled several miles. It took him a few minutes to make it back, using his regular flight, as he didn’t want to risk accidentally overshooting the city. As he approached it, he began to pick out details — mainly, the massive wall covered in ice and snow that he was now facing.

  Even the walls blocking City Eleven weren’t this formidable, and for just a moment, Morgan wondered which city this could be. Then, a small bit of information that Katherine had once mentioned off-handedly came back to him. She’d mentioned that City Nineteen had the largest walls of any city, especially the North-facing one. City Nineteen faced the open tundra, where beasts ran wild and rogue tribes had once wandered. As such, the massive walls were a necessary precaution to protect their borders and the citizens who lived there.

  As the realization hit, Morgan was completely dumbfounded. He’d traveled several thousand miles in the span of just a few minutes, and all for the low cost of just 30 RP per second! His regen replenished far more than that, meaning the skill basically didn’t cost him a thing. Morgan grinned, feeling a new sense of certainty come over him. He could reach Sarah and Katherine in no time, and if he could bring them both with him, they could return to City Eleven in no time flat.

  ***

  Octagon the Bitter sat on his throne, eyes closed, and legs pulled up to his chest. Each day, he spent over eight hours replenishing his reiki and consolidating his power. His minions believed him to be all-powerful. However, they did not understand the amount of effort it took to keep such a large army under his control, nor how much it took from him to continuously supply his current top commanders with their enhanced abilities.

  If Octagon had simply focused on himself instead of his underlings, he’d likely be near rank 75 right now. Instead, he remained at 50, choosing to strengthen himself by empowering those beneath him. In time, their own power would catch up, leaving him free to advance on his own. That was the difference between regular beasts and a Pinnacle King.

  While beasts craved power and did all they could to obtain and hoard it, he looked to the future. Sure, his own personal power would suffer in the short-term, but Octagon had his sights set on the future. If he invested his own power now, then in just a few short years, his strength would nearly triple.

  The reiki demands were costly, though, so now he sat, moving the mana and chi in his core, replenishing what he’d lost over the past hour. He was fairly certain the Big D’s would be reporting soon, which meant that his trance would probably be interrupted. But for once, he really wouldn’t mind. He’d get his prisoner back, plus a couple of powerful fighters to turn to his cause, whether they wanted to or not.

  The peace of his inner world was shattered as something entered the periphery of his blanketed senses. For just a moment, he was confused, as the mass of power was moving so quickly that he was sure it had to be a mistake. Then, he felt it, the distinct feeling of reiki as it disrupted the weaker lines of mana and chi spread throughout his domain.

  Octagon’s eyes snapped open, a bestial grin coming to his face. It seemed that the Beast King had finally come for a visit. And what kind of beast would he be if he didn’t go offer his greetings?

  ***

  Sarah stumbled back, a crack appearing in her shield as the dark-furred monster slashed at her with his glittering sword. A moment later, another crack appeared as the lanky one dashed in on her blind spot and whipped a chain made of ice right for her face. She tried to avoid the follow-up from the monster with the sword, but she was too slow.

  The sword cut cleanly through this time, despite Sarah’s efforts at patching it, and she felt the bite of the icy-cold steel as it rammed into her shoulder. She cried out in pain, retaliating with an icy trident hurled at the monster at point-blank range. His sword was stuck in her shoulder, so the monster couldn’t avoid it and took the three-pointed weapon right to the chest.

  It didn’t do nearly as much damage as Sarah had hoped, just punching a few inches into the creature’s thick hide and forcing him back. A muffled groan left her lips as the blade was torn free, the icy cold replaced by the hot feeling of her blood running from the open wound. Her shield was hit again, and she spun in place, shoulder crying out as she fired another attack at the lanky monster.

  He dodged nimbly to one side, her Bitter Frost having worn off by now and leaving him to move as quickly as he could.

  Katherine was battling the third one, the one with the mark across his forehead, and was not having an easy time of it. Before, when she’d been battling the sword-wielding monster, she’d stood a chance at least. Now, she was up against a ranged fighter and couldn’t manage to close the distance. The monster was adept at using steam, as well as other forms of liquid that Sarah was unfamiliar with. Seeing as how the entire area was cut off from portal use, she couldn’t get close enough to land a hit.

  “Damn it!” she yelled again, whirling to face the swords-monster and hurling more tridents to keep him away.

  Her shield cracked fr
om behind, and she cried out as a line of hot pain lanced across her back. She could feel the blood pouring down from the open wound and wondered if she should use her healing skill. She immediately dismissed the idea. That skill had a finite number of uses per 24-hour period, and she’d already used one on Gwendolyn. She had one left for her and one for Katherine, which meant that they should only be used in the direst of circumstances. She could handle a few cuts. She’d taken far worse in all her hair-brained fights with Morgan.

  But they were losing, and badly so. Her MP was out, and she could only attack when it regenerated enough for her to use a skill. She was also fighting two to one, never giving her the time to focus on damaging one opponent enough. They were also actively working to keep her and Katherine separated, intervening whenever they tried to group up. Had they managed that, Katherine could have handled the melee while she worked on range.

  Instead, they were both fighting at a disadvantage, with time ticking down by the second. Sarah took another cut to the leg, the sharp sword cutting into the tendon and driving her to one knee. This wound hurt, and Sarah screamed as she tried to retaliate. The snow around her surged before simply dropping back to the ground, her MP once again bottomed-out.

  The chain came from behind, smashing into her shield in rapid succession as the monster before her kept too busy to defend. Large cracks formed around her, her already weakened shield faltering more and more. Another painful lash on her back drove her to her stomach, and a second later, her shield gave way.

  “Don’t move, little girl, or I’ll take your head.”

  Sarah felt the sharp tip of the sword pressed to the back of her neck. She knew it was no idle threat, as the monster made a point of digging the sword in hard enough to draw blood. She could feel helpless rage threatening to take over, fighting to break free. They’d come so far, snuck into the Pinnacle King’s lair, rescued Gwendolyn, made it more than halfway back, and fought off swarms of monsters. Now, when they were so close to succeeding, they’d lost.