Stormforge (Rise To Omniscience Book 5)

by Aaron Oster

  “Okay, I’m done waiting,” Arnold said. “I wanna see your blood!”

  He dashed forward, scrambling across the wall and sending his own monsters flying. He was on all fours, sword forgotten and mouth hanging open like that of a dog.

  “I’ll take the front,” Hilda said, moving before Katherine. “You two attack his flanks.”

  Katherine wanted to argue, but when Le’vine immediately moved to obey, she decided that there must be a good reason for the tactic. Hilda must have been confident in her ability to take Arnold head-on, and seeing as she was pretty beaten up, she wasn’t going to argue. Though she hated to do so, Katherine broke off to one side, allowing Hilda to take Arnold’s charge.

  “Oh, yes! I like where this is going!” Arnold yelled, cackling madly as he neared them. “Yes, yes! What a pretty snack you are!”

  His mouth opened wide, revealing rows of teeth running with stringy saliva.

  If only you could see yourself now, Katherine thought as Arnold flashed past and dove at Hilda.

  The girl took a single step back, bent her knees, and tightened her muscles. Red light flared around her body as Arnold collided with her, but instead of ripping into her face, his jaws locked onto empty air just a few inches from her nose. Katherine had no idea what was happening, but Le’vine was moving to take advantage of the situation.

  A thorny vine shot from her outstretched palm, whirling as it impacted Arnold’s side and ripped into his body. Katherine moved in as well, summoning her Reality Blade and sinking it deep into Arnold’s opposite side. Then, Hilda’s hand snapped up, seizing Arnold by his throat and squeezed down hard. Her other hand flashed out, her arms bulging with such power that the sleeves of her armor were torn away.

  Damn, that girl is jacked! was all Katherine had the time to think, before Hilda’s fist flashed forward, catching Arnold in his bestial snout and sending him hurling out over the city.

  Her blade and Le’vine’s vine tore massive furrows in his sides as he was hurled back, showering them in crimson droplets.

  “Wow, that was easy,” Le’vine said with a wicked grin.

  “You do know that didn’t kill him, right?” Katherine asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied with a shrug. “That doesn’t mean he won’t go down just as easily the next time he comes back!”

  “Yeah? Well, seeing as he’s already coming, I guess we’re about to find out,” Katherine said, pointing to the white and gray blur smashing through buildings and heading towards the wall.

  “Shit, that dude’s seriously nuts,” Le’vine said.

  “What?” Katherine asked.

  “Nothing,” Hilda replied, breaking into their conversation. “Regional slang.”

  Katherine nodded, deciding that she honestly didn’t care enough to dig any deeper. There was a massive boom as Arnold hurled himself atop the wall once more. He looked seriously messed up, his face broken and bloodied, his sides torn open, and his fur matted with red. However, even as they watched, his wounds began to close.

  “Think you can take me out so easily? Well, think…!” Arnold’s rant turned into a snarl halfway, his eyes going wide as he could no longer find the words due to his continued loss of intelligence.

  “Come on,” Katherine said as the unhinged beast’s eyes trained on them. “We’ve gotta put him down before he gets any stronger.”

  Arnold rushed forward, sending massive shockwaves down the length of the walls. The power of each stride was sending massive cracks radiating down. Katherine did her best to ignore this, hoping that they’d continue to hold as they met the monster head-on.

  Her fist flashed out, slamming into the monster’s nose, and Arnold retaliated by slashing her across the chest with his oversized claws. Katherine could feel the pain from her wounds intensify as blood began pouring down her front. Still, she gave as good as she got. Hilda dashed in then, her arms looking a lot less jacked than earlier. That was, up until she moved to strike.

  In that single moment before impact, her muscles bulged, and Katherine finally understood that it was some sort of body enhancing skill, not the girl’s sheer work ethic or some freak of nature that allowed her to become so muscular. Arnold roared in pain as his ribs splintered under the blow, and he whirled to face the girl, giving Katherine the opportunity to hammer in a few more blows.

  By this point, she was so low on CP that melee was all she could do. Seeing as she had a Strength attribute of over a thousand, she packed quite the punch. Le’vine was busy as well, her hands outstretched as she pelted the monster with a hail of purple-tinged thorns. Arnold was once again beaten to a bloody pulp, yet the more they hit him, the more enraged he became.

  The man he had once been was well and truly gone, and only the beast remained. A fully enraged, completely unhinged beast, that was. His muscles continued growing, even as he took massive attacks that should have toppled a dragon, one of the creatures of myth. Yet he somehow didn’t fall. His body continued glowing an angry red as he stomped, swiped, and destroyed everything around him.

  Katherine ducked beneath a wild swing, then swept her leg in a scything motion, taking Arnold’s footing away. Le’vine capitalized by morphing the two vines she had extended into massive ax-blades and slamming them down on his shoulders. Hilda poured even more power into an attack, her arms both bulging as she concentrated and brought them down hard on the monster’s head.

  The wall had been taking some serious punishment over the course of their battle, and this was the final straw. Hilda’s massive blow finally did what hundreds of thousands of monsters couldn’t and brought the wall crashing down. None of them could really get out of the way, having no choice but to go down along with it.

  Below, people screamed as they broke from their covers and ran for their lives. Monsters gave chase, leaping on their backs and tearing them to pieces, only to be flattened by falling debris. The noise was on a level that Katherine had never before heard, as thousands of tons of stone and ice came crashing down. Some of it thankfully fell to the outside, flattening monsters by the thousands. A lot fell into the city as well, destroying buildings and killing many of their own forces.

  It seemed that Arnold was not yet done, as his mouth opened wide and a beam of red light shot from his throat. Katherine barely had time to cross her arms before the attack hit, burning with unexpected cold as she was thrown back. Her arms felt blistered and freezing all at once as she fell from the sky, slamming into the ground some hundred feet below.

  She was up on her feet in an instant, dashing for the falling forms of Hilda and Le’vine as they fought the falling Arnold mid-air. Massive chunks of the wall fell all around her, but Katherine simply batted aside any that would have landed on her. She always made sure to aim outward, so as not to unintentionally kill any more of her men. She reached their group right as they hit the ground, only for them to be buried under the falling walls.

  Cursing, Katherine used what little she had of her replenished CP and dove through a portal, emerging just in time to catch both Hilda and Le’vine, then dive through another set up on the other side of the wall.

  “Damn that smarts!” she cried as they tumbled out the other side.

  Her arms, still red and raw, burned as they scraped across the ground, but as soon as she came to a halt, Katherine forced herself immediately back to her feet. Both Le’vine and Hilda looked pretty banged-up, some of the falling debris having caught them before she made it through. They also seemed just a little disoriented from the sudden portal travel and were much slower in getting to their feet.

  “Come on,” Katherine said, turning to head towards the collapsed pile of rubble that was once a wall.

  She was sure Arnold was there somewhere. Even a fall like that wouldn’t kill him. As she limped forward, feeling the strained muscle in her left leg, both Le’vine and Hilda caught up with her, each taking one of her arms and placing them over their shoulders.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, keeping her eyes locked ahead
.

  “I mean, we do kind of owe you for the last-minute rescue,” Hilda said, cracking a weak smile.

  There was a long gash across her forehead, causing her pale blonde hair to become streaked with red. Le’vine’s shield was completely gone, and one of her arms hung limply by her side. She declined to give her thanks, but Katherine knew that the simple act of helping her walk was the best she was going to get.

  They spotted him right away, the mass of muscle, blood, and bones half-buried in the rubble. Arnold looked nothing like his old self, just like a beast on its last legs trying weakly to escape its fate. He looked up as their shadows fell across him and bared his teeth in a snarl.

  “Of all the ways I thought you’d go, this definitely wasn’t it,” Katherine said, staring down at the sad excuse of a man.

  Arnold simply snapped his teeth, raging against his prison until Katherine finally put him out of his misery. She tore her Reality Blade free, leaving one of the greatest mercenaries to ever live in a pool of his own blood. His battered and broken form was pinned beneath the massive ice block that would forever be his tomb.

  Looking down at her mortal enemy, Katherine wasn’t entirely sure how to feel. In a way, she felt sort of sorry for the man. He had suffered so much in his lifetime, but to go out like this, as a slavering beast with no shred of humanity left, just seemed like an embarrassment. It was a horrific end to what should have been a legendary legacy.

  Had Arnold died in the arena in the Skyflare Tournament, he’d have gone down in history as a great fighter. Now, he would be remembered for the monster he was. He would forever be the second-in-command of the Pinnacle King’s army, and one of the most hated monsters to ever walk the face of their Five Kingdoms.

  “I hate to burst whatever it is you’re doing,” Le’vine said, snapping Kathrine from her ruminations. “But it looks like we’ve got some company, and a lot of them.”

  Katherine already knew what she’d be facing when she turned, though the endless sea of snarling faces that greeted her didn’t make her feel too good about it. Arnold, their commander, may be dead. But the Pinnacle King, the true mastermind, was still very much alive. And so long as he lived, so would his army of monsters.

  “Whatever the hell you’re doing, Morgan, you’d better speed it up,” she muttered, taking her arm off Hilda’s shoulder and testing her leg.

  The monsters would be upon them any second. There was no running, no hiding, no getting away from the horde of chaos that would momentarily be descending upon them. All they could do was take a stand to try and stem the tide. For as long as they could.

  54

  Morgan remained crouched where he was with his hand pressed to the ground as the eighth circle of script lit up. So far, if he’d done his math right, he’d given the construct well over fifteen-thousand RP, and if the pattern held true, this eighth ring would take a total of five-thousand three-hundred RP to be fully charged.

  Still, Solveig was dead now, and the only thing standing between Sarah and an untimely demise was her current attack, which she seemed to be keeping up for the time being. He could see that her MP was completely gone, which meant the attack would only last as long as its timer in the skill. Seeing as he’d never actually familiarized himself with how long Frost Storm’s duration was, he had no idea how long that would be.

  Sarah stood alone in the midst of a gale force, her hair, torn free of its usual braid, whipping about her in the wind as she continuously pelted ice javelins down upon the Pinnacle King. Octagon seemed unable to rise, the continuous barrage of blows keeping him locked to the ground, unable to so much as move.

  She wasn’t doing any real damage, simply stalling for time, which was all he needed. At a regen rate of 46.8 per second, and a full 234 points already powering the eighth circle, it would take him exactly…

  “One-hundred and eight point two seconds,” Morgan muttered.

  That was entirely too long. Fights like these could end in a matter of seconds, and he very much doubted that Sarah’s skill would last that long. However, stuck in place as he was, there was absolutely nothing he could do. As soon as the skill receded, she’d have maybe a couple of seconds to put some distance between her and the Pinnacle King. It would probably take him about two seconds to catch up with her after that.

  Say her attack lasted for another twenty seconds, which was generous, he would still be…

  Way too freaking short! Morgan cursed mentally, trying to force more reiki into the script.

  Nothing happened, of course. His regen only allowed a certain amount per second to be replenished, and that was all he could give. Morgan tried opening his status to force what few points he had remaining into the attribute, but he’d hit the cap with every rank, leaving him unable to invest a single point more until rank 54.

  Cursing internally, Morgan wracked his brain for some way to get loose before time ran out, yet he continued to draw a blank. Sarah’s attack continued, raining down destruction upon the Pinnacle King and keeping him pinned. Her MP was quickly recovering, and if she lasted a bit more, she might be able to defend herself for a few more seconds.

  Morgan gritted his teeth in helpless rage as Sarah’s attack began to die down, four seconds before he’d calculated. Her Wisdom was high, so an extra four seconds could have been priceless.

  “Get some distance between the two of you!” Morgan yelled as the last of the attack faded away and the wind died down.

  Sarah, it seemed, had already been planning to do so, as she turned and ran back towards him. There was always the risk that Octagon would come to him, but with all eight script circles now glowing, he probably wouldn’t want to take the risk. Sarah didn’t have enough time to make it to him and take shelter, so she’d be stuck out there, just a hundred feet away with him unable to do a thing about it.

  Octagon rose with a roar, his body outlined in red, and shaking his head to clear his vision. Contrary to what Morgan believed, he had been damaged by Sarah’s attack. Several of her spears poked from his shoulders and chest. Judging by the depth, they’d hardly done any damage at all, but at least it was something.

  He took off after her, his arms stretching out to grab her. It seemed he wouldn’t be satisfied with simply shooting from a distance, intent on killing her with his bare hands. Morgan could feel his heart in his throat as Sarah whirled, throwing a wall of water in his way before continuing her dash towards him.

  If she could just make it here, she’ll be okay!

  Octagon exploded from the water wall with a roar, his eyes blazing with unsuppressed rage. Sarah continued running, throwing up an Ice Golem to try and slow him down. Octagon, finally noticing Morgan and the glowing script let out a roar, this one tinged with fear and desperation. This didn’t slow his charge by any means, and he continued forward, smashing through the golem with ease.

  Sarah was just fifty feet away now, so close that Morgan felt he could reach out and touch her, yet Octagon was almost on top of her. Sarah stomped the ground hard, throwing up another wall of water and freezing it in place with her guttering MP. Octagon smashed through the wall, real panic in his eyes now.

  Morgan wondered whether he’d hesitate and turn back when Sarah was just twenty feet away, yet he kept coming.

  “Come on, Sarah, you can make it!” Morgan shouted, feeling desperate hope churning in his chest.

  She was so close. Just a few more steps and she’d be with him.

  Octagon flashed forward, his hand snapping out. He caught Sarah by the trailing ends of her hair. She was just five feet from the altar when she was caught, and Morgan let out a scream of anger and despair as Octagon hauled her back, kicking and screaming. Sarah twisted, hurling a bolt of ice right into his face, but Octagon merely ignored it.

  “Come on!” Morgan screamed, standing up and bracing his legs as he tried to force his hand away from the floor.

  It was no good, and he remained stuck where he was. He could feel fear, terror the likes of which he could no
t even describe, as Octagon hauled Sarah into the air, his massive fist wrapped around her head. Morgan could see her face, see the anger and fear as she struggled to break free.

  “This is the woman you love, Beast King. Is it not?” Octagon asked, thrusting his arm out, as though presenting a trophy.

  Sarah’s legs thrashed as she kicked and screamed, throwing water and ice back into the Pinnacle King’s face, yet the beast did not flinch.

  “No! Come on!” Morgan screamed, wrenching with all his might against the script, feeling his shoulder beginning to strain.

  That’s it! Morgan thought. If he ripped his arm off, he could still make it. Sarah would be safe.

  Morgan raised his hand, then brought it down hard on his other arm. Pain radiated up through the bone, yet he was made of tough stuff, and the blow was at an awkward angle.

  “Damn it!” Morgan yelled, bringing his open palm down again and again, trying to break the bone.

  “Look at you, struggling so feebly against your fate,” Octagon said. “I now understand why you refused to join me. Your humanity is your weakness, but do not worry. As soon as your attachments to them are severed, you will be free to be who you were always meant to be.”

  Morgan let out a roar, feeling hot tears of rage and frustration falling down his face as he attacked his stubborn arm over and over again. He didn’t even feel the pain anymore, and when he looked up, his eyes locked with Sarah’s.

  Even now, with her head stuck in the grip of a monster, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world. Her green eyes were defiant and strong. Any hint of fear was driven away as their eyes locked. Sarah’s lips twisted up into a smile then, and the whole world seemed to freeze in that instant.

  It was just the two of them, alone in a vast empty white plane. Sarah’s hair flowed around her in an invisible breeze, the small freckles across the bridge of her nose standing out, and the small dimples in her cheeks showing as she flashed him her brilliant smile.