Stormforge (Rise To Omniscience Book 5)

by Aaron Oster

  He braced himself, throwing both arms up, but that wasn’t nearly enough. He felt his constructs shatter, his shield shatter, and his bones shatter as well. He slammed through the wall over a hundred yards away, feeling the bones in his face snapping and breaking, blood pouring from his body shockingly fast.

  He smashed through wall after wall, finally coming to a halt nearly a quarter-mile from his starting point, his body so twisted and broken that he should have been dead. Yet the Beast King was made of tougher stuff, even as he felt the glacier shaking from the Pinnacle King’s approach, his body began to pull itself back together. Bones healed, skin closed, blood replenished.

  By the time Octagon came smashing through the final wall, he was on his feet again, twisting his back from side to side and grinning madly.

  This was the kind of power he wanted to face!

  Octagon roared once more, opening his mouth and unleashing a purple-tinged blast of ice. He leaped into the air, using his flight, then used Maximum Might and Concussive Burst. He flashed forward through the air, bringing his leg down on Octagon’s snout and driving the beast’s head into the ground.

  “That the best you can do?” he yelled. “I know babies who can hit harder than you!”

  A massive scaled tail came whipping around, catching him on his crossed arms and sending him through another half-dozen walls. Bones broke once again, organs ruptured, but when Octagon came plowing through, Morgan was back up on his feet.

  He flew forward, activating his most powerful skill, Shooting Star. His body blazed with blue and red light, a trail of sparkles flowing in his wake. The explosive power that filled his body was unfathomable. He dove down, slamming into — and then through — the Pinnacle King’s body.

  Octagon roared as Morgan exited through the opposite side of his shredded body. The Pinnacle King’s back was broken, his internal organs severely damaged, and his belly was torn apart, but the Beast King wasn’t finished just yet. He landed hard, cracking the ground, then rocketed up, tearing through the Pinnacle King once more. The massive beast spun in place, his oversized jaws snapping down on his legs and breaking them.

  The Beast King slammed an elbow down, still burning with the power of a star, and shattered his upper jaw, forcing Octagon to release him. The Beast King cackled once more, his laughter ringing in the collapsing room as he rocketed through the oversized beast over and over. He shot through his throat, stomach, and sides, ripping the beast up from the inside.

  Octagon tried to retaliate, but with each successive attack, he moved slower and slower. Finally, as the skill began to peter out, the Pinnacle King’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to his stomach. The Beast King landed before him, folding his arms over his chest and cocking his head to the side.

  He was covered in blood and gore from head to toe, crimson rivulets streaming down his face and from his hair.

  “Behold the mighty Pinnacle King!” he said, spreading his arms wide in mockery. “Guess you’re not as tough as you thought!”

  The massive beast raised its head, icy-blue eyes burning with hatred. From all the holes he’d punched in him, the Beast King was sure Octagon should be expiring any second now, but something wasn’t quite right. His core was still active and the purple glow of reiki was still strong. The multitude of holes in the massive beast’s body began to close up then, telling him exactly why the beast wasn’t succumbing to his injuries.

  Well, damn, can’t say I saw that coming…

  Octagon’s paw swiped out once more, flashing so quickly that he had no time to react. His upper body was torn free of his lower, and his torso was sent flying through more walls, his bones shattering and reforming as he found himself once more in the destroyed ruins of the throne room.

  “Shit!”

  The Beast King coughed hard, his bones knitting back together far more slowly as he floated into the air. His lower body began to regrow itself, his connection with his legs lost as the Pinnacle King swallowed them whole. Octagon came crashing back into the throne room, his body fully healed and bursting with power.

  The Pinnacle King’s mouth opened then, and a massive violet ball condensed down in an instant. The Beast King knew he had only seconds to act, so he summoned his own massive sphere. Starbreaker spun into existence, expanding into a four-foot sphere of whirling orange and red. He launched the attack forward, just as the Pinnacle King blasted the beam from his open mouth. The two attacks collided in the middle of the room and his Starbreaker expanded, turning into a whirling blaze over fifty feet across.

  However, the Pinnacle King’s attack seemed to be even stronger, and even as he watched, the violet light began to freeze his attack. He watched in disbelief as the massive sphere of blazing hot gas began to cool, the purple ice flowing over the attack and freezing it solid, leaving a massive sphere of purple ice in the middle of the room.

  But it seemed the Pinnacle King’s attack wasn’t yet finished and the sphere shattered to reveal a mass of violet coming right for him. He summoned a construct, forging it into a wedge to cover himself and disperse the attack. It didn’t do anything, the ice simply punching through his defenses, and sent him flying.

  He could feel the cold leeching into him as the freezing beam washed through his unprotected body. His arms and legs froze, shattering into pieces, and the ice continued to flow upward, breaking off his torso and creeping towards his core. It was all he could do to keep the ice from advancing. Even as he slammed into the wall, the ice cascading over him, he fought to replenish himself.

  His arms and legs regrew, only to freeze and shatter once more. It was agonizing work, to continuously heal himself, only for his work to be undone seconds later. Still, when the freezing beam finally faded, his body was intact, albeit, not in great shape. He drifted slowly to the ground, blood leaking from small cuts all over his body.

  His left arm, though still attached, now hung limply at his side. The muscles in his legs spasmed as he landed, giving way and causing him to drop to his knees. He was breathing hard, the world swimming in and out of focus as the Pinnacle King loomed over him. The massive beast’s mouth cracked open, and Octagon’s voice echoed out of its open throat.

  “And here I thought you were some all-powerful Beast King. It seems that even you can’t hope to match my power!”

  Much as he hated to admit it, he knew Octagon was right. Sure, he had massive reserves and an uncanny ability for near-instantaneous regeneration. However, he was still limited by Morgan’s body, and while he could pull out one hundred percent of his latent abilities, he was still only at the Advanced stage, while the Pinnacle King was at, well, the Pinnacle. Had Morgan managed to break into that realm of power, even if he himself hadn’t known how to use it, the Beast King would have had no problems in defeating this upstart.

  As it was now, he was fairly confident he couldn’t kill him, not in a straight-up fight. The admission of weakness rankled the Beast King’s pride. However, he wasn’t about to go down. If he couldn’t win this one way, he’d do it another.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he said, rising to his feet and plastering the same cocky grin across his lips. “You get in one good hit, and you suddenly think you can beat me. Well, think again!”

  His arm whipped forward, sending the tiny black spec right into Octagon’s face. The Pinnacle King laughed as he saw the tiny spec, his massive jaws cracking open once more.

  “What is this?” he asked with obvious amusement. “You think you can intimidate me with…What in the —?!”

  The Beast King smiled as Octagon’s body was violently dragged forward, the black hole seeming to expand as all light within a twenty-foot radius was dragged towards it. Octagon struggled and thrashed, opening his mouth and blasting another violet beam at the black hole. All that accomplished was to feed the expanding hole in space and nothing more. The Beast King fell to his knees once again as Octagon vanished from view, panting even harder now. He’d used up far too much reiki in that last attack. Far,
far too much.

  “Damn it all,” he muttered, his vision beginning to go hazy. “I’d really been hoping to stick around a while longer this time. Sorry, Morgan. It looks like you’re going to have to finish what I started.”

  With that, the Beast King’s vision faded to black.

  57

  Katherine stood with her back to the castle wall, desperately fighting against the swarming horde of monsters. Next to her stood Hilda, now separated from her Queen as the fighting had grown more hectic. The advance of the monsters had drastically increased once their walls had fallen, and they now found themselves pushed all the way back to the center of their city.

  They were surrounded on all sides. The forces that were holding the eastern side had been forced to retreat rather than being caught in a pincer attack between the monsters coming over the wall and those coming in from the west. As a result, the monsters on the eastern wall were now coming over by the thousands with no resistance to stop them. Herald was somewhere on the far side of the castle, fighting alongside his troops to keep the tide at bay.

  She wasn’t sure of their casualties, but reports indicated that more than half of their forces were gone, with hundreds more falling and rising again by the second. This was truly the end. She had little energy left to keep fighting and knew that if something didn’t change soon, the North and their allies would fall. By now, it wasn’t a matter of if, but when.

  Had their group managed to infiltrate the Pinnacle King’s lair, and if so, were any of them even still alive? What if Octagon had simply slaughtered them all, leaving them to perish at the hands of these monsters?

  Katherine was exhausted and on her last legs. Never had she felt fatigued like this, not even after all of the battles she’d fought thus far. She was injured, bleeding, her uniform in tatters, yet she continued swinging her mace, keeping the monsters back and giving her other troops the space needed to use their skills.

  Hilda was just fighting with her bare hands, though all signs of her previous musculature were now good as gone. That wasn’t to say she couldn’t fight, as each of her powerful blows crushed bones, blew monsters to bits, and even the backdrafts of those punches caused damage.

  Katherine’s attacks had similar effects, but she was taking some damage as well. Her defenses were worn down after fighting for so long, especially after the incident at the wall when they’d defeated Arnold. Her breaths were shallow, sweat poured down her brow, and the endless snow was leeching what little will she had remaining.

  Everything was dyed red with the blood of the fallen, and she stood ankle-deep in a pool of blood and gore. The ground underfoot was treacherous and if someone slipped, they only rose one more as a member of the Pinnacle King’s army. The monsters, sensing they were close to victory, continuously pushed harder, driven on by the will of their master. Their numbers were endless, their mentality brutal and their hunger apparent.

  Katherine stumbled back as she felt someone pull hard at her belt. She whirled to attack, but her arm was caught by Herald. He mirrored her emotions and looked about ready to drop. His body was covered in blood, his face lined and weary, and a bloodied bandage was wrapped around his midsection. Le’vine stood beside him, looking just as bad.

  One might think that a ranged fighter like her would be okay, but in a pitched battle like this, no one was safe.

  “Things aren’t looking good,” Herald said plainly. “The eastern wall is close to collapse, and as soon as it falls…”

  “I know,” Katherine replied wearily. “But what can we really do about it?”

  Neither Le’vine nor Herald could come up with an answer.

  “Guess we just keep fighting then, and hope that the group can seal that bastard away before we all die.”

  Herald grimaced and Le’vine looked as though she’d eaten something unpleasant.

  “If it’s worth anything at all,” Katherine said, turning back to take her place in line, “it was an honor fighting beside the both of you. If by some miracle we do come out of this alive, I would be proud to call you my allies.”

  She raced forward then, her mace swinging out in massive sweeps and shattering the front line of monsters to give the soldiers a chance to switch out and take a breather. No one ever seemed to understand just how taxing a long battle could be. Even something as simple as a sparring match could exhaust someone in very good shape in just a few minutes. In a continuous battle, where it could drag on for hours, it was important to keep a rotation of fresh troops.

  Of course, by now, there were no ‘fresh troops’ left, merely ones who’d had a few minute’s rest. But they had little choice. As they grew wearier, the troops would need to be rotated more frequently, which meant shorter rest times. As a result, more would inevitably die, but that was just the grim reality of war.

  Herald stepped up beside her then, a golden sword appearing in his fist in a flash of light. Le’vine stepped up to her other side, a pair of vines extending from her arms and sprouting massive black thorns.

  “After a motivational speech like that, we could not help but come join you,” Herald said, sweeping his blade out and shearing the heads off of a dozen monsters.

  “Yeah, what he said,” Le’vine muttered, whipping her vines forward in a frenzy and tearing more of the monsters apart.

  Despite their current situation, Katherine couldn’t help but smile. Never had she dreamed that such a day would come. A time when other Kingdoms joined together to fight off a threat that was larger than themselves. If they were to go out fighting, then Katherine couldn’t think of better company with which to do so.

  ***

  Morgan found himself violently torn from the dark void of his inner mind and thrust back into his body. Pain was the first thing that greeted him. It was not the emotional pain of losing Sarah, but the physical pain of having been beaten within an inch of his life. He gasped, feeling the blood leaking from his body. His left arm, the tendons severed, was hanging limp, and his legs were so wobbly that he didn’t think he could stand.

  A mass of darkness stood before him. The roars of anger from the beast trapped within it were soundless, due to the crushing force. Yet Morgan could still feel him. He could still feel the core of the Pinnacle King burning brightly. The violet light of reiki had faded once again, and along with it, went the monstrous form that the beast he’d unleashed had been forced to face.

  Morgan didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be in a world where Sarah was gone. But the rage of her loss still burned hot in his chest as he stumbled to his feet. The icy altar lay just a few feet behind him. Before it was Sarah’s lifeless body, cold and stiff. He felt his throat tighten and quickly turned away. The Collapsing Star would fade at any moment, and when it did, he needed to be ready.

  Octagon had taken what he most loved in this world, so it would only be right for him to return the favor. Cold rage burned in Morgan’s chest as he summoned a hammer into his only good remaining hand once again, the massive purple construct whirling into existence and crackling with red and blue lightning. He could no longer stand, as his legs wouldn’t support him, so he floated up into the air and rocketed towards the vanishing black hole.

  The Pinnacle King’s body became visible again, back to its hybrid form at the bottom of a deep crater. Chunks of ice fell around him as he approached, the glacier finally collapsing from the abuse they’d put it through. Before it fell, he’d make sure that Octagon would as well. Morgan screamed as he rocketed into the crater, bringing the hammer up and slamming it down upon the monster’s head.

  Lightning arced in all directions as it hit, ripping into the walls, floor, and coursing through Octagon’s body. The Pinnacle King, recovering from the skill he’d used, was unable to defend himself as Morgan’s blow drove him to the ground. He used Concussive Burst, dropping down and lashing out with a powerful kick.

  A massive purple spike grew from the tip of his boot just before impact, ripping into the beast’s flesh and sending him soa
ring into the air, leaving a trail of crimson droplets in his wake. Octagon roared as Morgan appeared before him once more, and tried to lash out with a punch, but with his reiki all used up, he was far too slow.

  With his skill active, Morgan had an effective Agility of 1,911. The Pinnacle King simply couldn’t keep up. He rocketed around the beast, slamming into him again and again, his hammer crackling continuously as he struck. His body twisted and contorted as he used his legs, which felt near to breaking, with reckless abandon.

  He was in the throes of rage, screaming all the while, cursing the Pinnacle King for what he’d done. Morgan kicked Octagon, only for the Pinnacle King’s body to slam into a falling mass of ice. He made the hammer slam into the monster’s face, shattering the ice block and sending him flying back across the room, and skidding to a halt just feet away from the active altar.

  Octagon tried to rise once more, but Morgan landed on his back, driving the wind from him and knocking him flat. His hammer vanished, replaced by a massive gauntlet that wrapped around the Pinnacle King’s head.

  Morgan yanked the beast’s face up until he was staring right into his hate-filled eyes. As much malice as he could see there, he was sure that his eyes reflected that back a thousand-fold.

  “You took everything from me,” Morgan hissed. “My friend, my mother, and the person who meant most to me in this world! Now, I’m going to take something from you. The thing you value above all. I’m going to take your freedom!”

  Octagon’s fist came up in a flash, cracking Morgan in the face and breaking his nose, yet his grip on the beast’s head only tightened. The Pinnacle King roared as Morgan wrenched his head to one side, then hurled him bodily towards the glowing altar. He strained, flapping his massive wings outward, and just managed to catch himself before he crossed the line.