Now it was two on one? Nathan frowned. Was he on the wrong end of this?
He blinked. Of course he was. What reason did he have to refuse Fei’s request to change her enhancement? She didn’t have a gem yet. Until she did, Nathan could change her enhancement at will. She should try out different enhancements until she found the one that suited her best.
Somehow, Nathan still felt off. Fei should have a speed enhancement.
“No, it’s fine,” he forced himself to say. “Did you want a strength enhancement? Or something between both, Fei?”
“The second one,” Fei said. She brightened up, her tail beating up a storm behind her. “So we’re going back to the keep?”
Shaking his head, Nathan reached out for the mental tether he had with Fei. “No need. Changing an enhancement is child’s play. I can’t do it mid-battle, but we don’t need to use the binding stone once you’ve become a Champion. So, talk me through what you want.”
Several minutes passed as Fei rambled about upper and lower body strength and how she wanted to be fast but strong. As was typical for more detailed enhancements, she didn’t know what she wanted, but knew how she wanted it to feel. Vera rubbed the bridge of her nose as she listened, appearing to grow more frustrated with each passing minute.
“So you want to run fast and be able to dodge swiftly, but be able to hit hard and cut through armor and demons easily,” Nathan summarized.
“Um, more than that—” Fei tried to correct.
“Some of what you said isn’t possible with an enhancement,” he said, stopping her. “But I can let you keep your speed, increased reaction time, and leg strength, while increasing your ability to land heavy blows.”
Fei paused. Then she nodded slowly.
Having gotten her agreement, Nathan slipped into her mind using the tether. She didn’t even attempt to resist him. If anything, she welcomed him and he heard her sigh in pleasure beside him. After a few minutes, he had made the adjustments to the enhancement and returned to reality.
Fei twitched in front of him, drool falling from the corner of her mouth. She moaned, her eyes curved in pleasure. That same sweet scent from when he first enhanced her wafted through Nathan’s nostrils. Vera held a hand over her face.
“Maybe do that in private next time?” Vera suggested.
After Fei cleaned herself up, the trio rode through the pass. Droplets fell toward the far side of the pass, and a light shower fell as they reached the checkpoint.
Nathan pulled his horse to a halt in front of the guards and clerks, who sheltered within the guard posts. A guard wandered out, saw who it was, and waved them through after saluting.
As planned, they didn’t stop at the keep now that it was raining. The storm deepened as they galloped north along the road. Their horses kicked up mud and splashed water everywhere as they rode, but their magical nature allowed them to keep going without regard for the slickness of the road. As the rain fell harder and denser, the forest became hazy and vision dropped. Eventually, the road fell away, and the horses had to slow to a trot.
Magic guided the horses to their destination, which was good as Nathan had no damn clue where they were. He could find his way back to the fortress using the leylines, but getting to the cairn relied entirely on the original orders he gave to the horses.
Trees fell nearby, brought down by the winds. A crack of lightning in the distance started a fire that the rain soon doused.
The good news was that Sen wouldn’t be using fire magic.
The bad news was that this was not good weather to fight in. He’d underestimated how bad the storm would get. At the same time, he didn’t want to retreat. If he could capture Sen, then he could recruit another Champion.
More than that, he would have one of his old lovers and friends back. Nathan wanted that more than anything.
Shouts drifted across the storm. Nathan felt the thrum of magic, deep within the soil.
“They’re nearby,” he called out to the horse next to him.
Vera nodded beneath the hood of her cloak. He couldn’t see her face. Fei burrowed against his chest and pulled his cloak farther around herself.
After what felt like a century lost in the storm, they spotted the bandit camp in a small valley. Huts built from logs, and tents reinforced with stones and tree trunks. Some of the tents had collapsed. A tree had been uprooted in the storm and taken part of the embankment with it, pouring rocks and soil into a section of the camp. Dozens of filthy men and women were out in the rain, pulling belongings from ruined huts and tents.
In the center of the camp was a huge pile of stones stacked five or six meters high. It glowed in the storm. Countless lines of red light snaked all the way to the apex of the cairn and met at a single point.
Two women stood in front of the cairn, shielded in a weatherproof bubble. Nathan recognized both of them.
One was Sen, bundled up in her cloak but with her hood off. Her short brown hair was a dead giveaway.
The other wore the uniform of a Champion of the Amica Federation. She had short, spiky black hair, and angular facial features completely unlike almost anybody from the Empire or most nations on Doumahr. A pair of curved short swords hung from her hips.
Most importantly, a single onyx glimmered on her collarbone.
She was Sunstorm. A monogem Champion who had fought for Nathan and become close to him in the last couple of years of his timeline.
Now he had two former Champions to capture in this bandit camp.
Chapter 13
A monogem Champion, a spellblade, and a camp full of bandits.
Nathan’s decision to charge out and capture Sen as swiftly as possible looked more and more foolish with each passing second. The storm hadn’t passed, and visibility was terrible. Even the magic in Nathan’s eyes barely let him see the center of the camp. He didn’t know how good Fei’s or Vera’s vision was in the mist.
He waved Vera back from the lip of the hill from where they had been overlooking the camp. It took several seconds before she spotted his gesture, but she followed him back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked after they dismounted, leaning in close to him.
“There’s a Champion down there,” he said.
Vera froze, her eyes widening.
“Onyx gem, black hair,” Nathan continued. “Only a monogem. I can handle her, but I’ll need the two of you to handle the rest of the camp.”
Vera unfroze, but looked uncertain. Huddled in his cloak and pressed against his chest, Fei looked up at Nathan.
“I’m your Champion,” Fei protested. “I should be protecting you.”
His hand clumped up in her wet hair when he tried to pat her head and she shook him off, sending water flying everywhere and demonstrating how sodden her tail was. She scowled at him.
“I can use the binding stone to support my sorcery,” Nathan said, drawing his sword. “A monogem Champion will tear you apart. Either of you. But the spellblade will be weakened. I’ll provide some summons to support you, but the plan of attack is simple: we blast apart the camp, scatter the bandits, then focus on the Champion and spellblade. I want to capture them alive.”
“Alive? How?” Vera said.
“Earth prisons, shackles, dogpile them with summons. I don’t care. I need to know what the Federation is up to,” Nathan said, lying about his reason for capturing them. “You can’t deny that they’re behind the destabilization of the leylines anymore, and if there is a Champion here, then that means a Bastion is involved.”
And if a Bastion was involved, that likely meant that the Federation was intentionally trying to start a demonic invasion in the Empire.
Had Nathan uncovered the truth behind the fall of the Anfang Empire, and, consequently, the rest of the world? That the Federation had been willing to unleash demons on the Empire for the sake of their own expansion plans?
He pushed the dark thoughts aside. Whether they were true or not, he didn’t have time to deal with the consequences
and what they meant for his long-term plans.
“Fei, I need you to support Vera,” Nathan told his beastkin Champion. Her ears pricked up when he said her name. Droplets of water scattered from her fur and splattered onto his chest. She nodded at him in acknowledgement.
With directions given, the three of them split up. Fei slunk over the hill and into the valley, Vera right on her heels. The rain bucketed down harder than earlier. Nathan could only see the shadows of the bandit camp now, and their shouting was barely audible.
The bubble in the center of camp stood out like a sore thumb, however. It crackled and glowed in the distance, marking the center of the camp.
Nathan reached out toward the binding stone. It felt distant, as it should. The leyline was directly beneath him, and the cairn brought even more magic to the surface. He didn’t dare approach the cairn, however. If Sen had claimed the cairn for herself, then she could sense another sorcerer trying to use it.
The binding stone didn’t have as much power as Nathan would have liked, but it would suffice. If we wanted to defeat a monogem Champion, Nathan would need a constant flow of power from the binding stone. Hopefully, its meager reserve would be enough.
The storm had caused him to lose sight of Fei and Vera, so Nathan checked on Fei’s relative location with magic. She was close to the bandit camp. That meant the duo would attack shortly.
Go time.
Using a big bundle of power from the binding stone, Nathan summoned a half-dozen armored soldiers at once. They were slimmer than the armored knights Vera used. Their armor comprised a bronze breastplate, gauntlets, greaves, armored skirt, and helmet. Each soldier wielded a round shield the size of their body and a long spear. No flesh resided within the armored husks.
Nathan hadn’t developed these summons himself. They were a popular summon used in the western nations, such as Falmir and the Empire. Supposedly, soldiers had once worn armor like this millennia ago, back when the Watcher Omria walked among humanity. They had been known as hoplites.
The bubble in the center of the camp vanished. Nathan heard Sen screaming at the bandits, but he wondered if the bandits heard her. The storm was ferocious. The roar of the wind might have buried her orders to the bandits.
Sen had sensed the summoning. That was why Nathan had waited. Powerful magic stuck out, and Nathan had done the equivalent to slapping his dick on the table while screaming nationalist slogans.
With a mental order, Nathan sent the hoplites into the camp, with orders to kill any bandit they ran into, dogpile Sen if they found her, and avoid Sunstorm.
Then Nathan pointed toward the far side of the valley and vaporized a sizeable chunk of the hillside.
The roar of the storm was drowned out by the rumbling of falling trees and rocks. Countless tons of rock and soil poured down into the valley, and whole pine trees tumbled down with it. Although Nathan couldn’t see them, he heard the panicked screams of bandits as the other side of their camp was taken out by the landslide. The ground itself seemed to groan and begin falling in on itself to fill the gap that Nathan had made. More trees toppled over and made the situation worse.
Something began flying across the bandit camp. A tornado full of logs, tents, and bandits hurtled across the camp for several seconds before vanishing as quickly as it appeared, sending everything hurtling toward the ground. Nathan didn’t watch the aftermath. It was bound to be gruesome.
He ran down into the valley. The bandits weren’t putting up any real fight. Between the landslides, the storm, and the bombardment of sorcery, they were terrified. Dozens of them fled their own camp, carrying whatever they had on them.
Blasts of light punched holes through the remaining buildings, and through any bandits foolish enough to be in the way. Vera calmly strode down the hill, her arms outstretched and white triangles spinning in front of her palms. She blew blast after blast of magic into the camp.
Farther down the valley, Fei scythed through the few bandits foolish enough to fight back. Her footwork was as swift as earlier, but her blade was slower. She no longer targeted limbs and instead went straight for the torso. Her scimitar gleamed crimson. Sparks showered and blood flowed as she cut through steel, flesh, and bone alike. A single slash was enough to bisect a man now, no matter what armor he wore.
Nathan couldn’t see Sen or Sunstorm. Then he felt Sen. Or her power, more accurately. The light of the cairn glowed ominously, and magic built up in the area.
Cursing, Nathan realized that Sunstorm might have ran away. Or perhaps she was waiting for a better opportunity. Her gem was perfect for stealth, after all.
As such, Nathan focused his efforts on Sen. He pointed his sword where the surge of power was coming from and unleashed a triangle blast of force. The hut blocking his view transformed into sawdust, and a massive puff of shadow exploded into the air. Nathan saw Sen and Sunstorm standing next to each other for a moment, a glowing red hexagon around Sen’s greatsword.
Then that mass of shadow consumed the cairn, Sen, Sunstorm, and the entire center of the camp. The darkness was too dense to see through, and even Vera’s blasts of light had no effect.
Sunstorm hadn’t run away. This shadow was part of her gem’s ability. She controlled it.
Her name was deeply misleading. Sunstorm had always complained about her gem’s ability.
Nathan scattered half of his hoplites to take care of the fleeing bandits, then called the rest toward the shadow. The bronze automatons hovered at the edge of the dark mass, shields raised and spears at the ready. A lull fell over the battlefield. The roar of the wind picked up. Rain pelted Nathan’s face and chilled his body to the bone.
The shadow lingered.
Somebody had to break the stalemate. Nathan sheathed his sword and drew on magic from his binding stone. The shadow summoned by Sunstorm didn’t belong to any natural element. That was why Vera couldn’t dispel it, even though light normally overpowered darkness element sorcery.
But the power building up in the golden square around Nathan’s open palm didn’t belong to a natural element either. The magic of the binding stone pumped through Nathan’s mind and into his spell. He focused it. Aimed it. Released it.
The mass of shadow shuddered as if it were a great ball of jelly. Its edges shimmered with an odd translucency.
Nathan clenched his fist, which glowed gold.
The shadow condensed into a ball roughly the size of a man’s head, all within a single instant. A great rush of air followed, along with an audible crack. The rain seemed to halt for a moment, then exploded outward across the clearing. Fractures appeared along the ground. The few remaining huts burst apart into splinters.
And in the middle of all of this stood Sen and Sunstorm, who bore the brunt of the blast. Sunstorm shook like a leaf swaying in the wind, blinking rapidly beneath her black cloak and leather armor. Her Champion enhancement protected her, and she likely felt little more than a tickle.
Whereas Sen collapsed to her knees, holding a hand to her chest for a moment. When the explosive force blew out, she slammed backward into the ground and appeared to scream. Nathan couldn’t hear her, so he wasn’t certain.
Sunstorm stared up at the ball of shadow hovering above her. Then she looked at Nathan, who held a glowing golden fist aloft. Her eyes narrowed.
She was a sharp one, he remembered. Nathan hurled the ball of shadow high into the air, where it burst into a mass of shadow once more. A moment later, the shadow vanished. Sunstorm must have unsummoned it.
The hoplites closed in on the downed Sen. Looking around her, Sunstorm realized she was surrounded. Her pair of single-sided short swords appeared in her hands. A moment later, she vanished, and a hoplite fell to pieces. Nathan barely caught a shimmer of a shadow dart past the collapsing bronze automaton.
True to her orders, Fei charged toward Sen. The bandit spellblade was already rising to her feet, using her greatsword as a crutch. Her eyes were wide, and she looked around wildly. Vera should have blown her off her f
eet. Nathan couldn’t see the sorceress amid the storm.
A shadow shimmered in his peripheral vision. Nathan spun to his left, raising his guard. Sunstorm ran at him, torso parallel to the ground and arms straight out to her sides. Dark mist roiled off her body.
Nathan sighed. He held his hands together and a pair of golden triangles appeared on the back of each palm. A moment later, a shimmering barrier appeared around him. Something slammed into it from behind, and an explosion of shadow ensued. Immediately, Nathan spun, dropped the barrier, and unleashed a blast of wind in that direction.
Her blades spinning, Sunstorm darted backward. The wind blast met her blades in a blast of shadow and vanished. A beam of light slammed into Sunstorm’s side, and the Champion dropped to one knee with a curse.
Vera strode up and fired off another beam, but Sunstorm blocked this one. The Champion crouched on the ground, glancing between Nathan and Vera. Her eyes made it clear she knew was surrounded. She charged at Nathan. Two beams of light shot at her.
In a puff of shadow, Sunstorm vanished. Nathan whirled, sensing her appear behind him. She was a Champion, and like all Champions she stuck out like a sore thumb magically, shadow abilities or no.
Sunstorm glared at Nathan. She kept her distance, swords up, and glared at him.
In the distance, Fei dueled with Sen. The red hexagon spell had flickered out of existence when Sen had been knocked to the ground. Sen kept trying to hit Fei with third rank spells. The cairn flared with power, and Sen swung her greatsword each time.
Except Fei kept hitting Sen with the strength of a hundred men and sent the other woman sprawling in the mud. Their speed was equal. Sen’s magic could disintegrate the Champion and her sopping wet tail in an instant if she got off a single good spell. The bandit spellblade knew from their previous encounter that the beastkin didn’t have the raw strength to match her, either.
But this time things were different. Fei didn’t slip around Sen’s massive swings, or try to slash at her from behind five times each second. Instead, Fei went for the jugular with every swing. Blow after blow rained down against the spellblade. She held on for as long as she could. Rolled with every blow she took and avoided letting Fei cut her open. Her greatsword slowly chipped away.
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