Sunscorch (Rise To Omniscience Book 8)

by Aaron Oster

  Now all that remained was to revisit the Great Shaman, receive the location of the last Well, clear said Well, find Gold and reach the Pinnacle, then fight and defeat Sarah’s godly counterpart and restore her to her body…

  Morgan let out a long sigh, only then realizing how much more he still had to do before he could get Sarah back. He’d only just completed the first step, which meant there was still a lot to do before she returned.

  35

  Katherine was half-dozing, her mind filled with images of bright flashes of light and Morgan falling from the sky, when a massive explosion rocked the bunker. She jerked awake as Elyssa let out a pained scream, jerking upright and clutching at her chest.

  “What the hell was that? Beatrice exclaimed, sitting bolt upright, Hilda doing the same.

  “Something big just hit the walls,” Hilda said.

  She was standing by the far wall, the one containing the single window, and was supporting a massive slab of stone as it threatened to come away from the wall. Katherine rose quickly to join her, ignoring the twinge of pain from the burn on her leg.

  “What kind of attack can hit that hard?” she asked, shoving back against the wall as she felt the pressure on the other side increasing.

  The shutters on the small window had been drawn, but she could feel the enemy fighters trying to break the breach wide so that they could storm their small space. Elyssa was sitting hunched over, her face pale and sweating as Liquid Stone flowed into the cracks, sealing them shut one at a time.

  “I don’t know what that was,” she said through gritted teeth, “but I can feel another massive attack building out there.”

  Katherine felt her blood run cold as the elf woman managed to seal in all the cracks, pushing the wall back into place. She then began working to reinforce them, more Liquid Stone flowing up around them and making the inside of their already small space even smaller. This was something she’d never attempted before, which worried Katherine even more.

  “How many of those attacks do you think we can take?” she asked, watching as Elyssa began to shake.

  “Maybe two more,” Elyssa said, her voice sounding almost breathless.

  “Then we’re going to have to go out there,” Katherine said after a moment of silence. “If we want to survive, we have no choice.”

  “We can’t beat an entire army back to get at a single attacker,” Beatrice said. “Remember what happened when you tried this morning?”

  “They’re not all gathered around us,” Elyssa said, coming to Katherine’s defense before she could explain. “They’ve been taking it in shifts to attack. There are maybe thirty or forty surrounding the bunker at the moment. The rest have set up camp about a hundred yards back.”

  “Is that why you thought you could break through?” Hilda asked.

  Katherine nodded.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were just being stupid and reckless, going out there.”

  “Because it wouldn’t have mattered,” Katherine replied with a sigh. “I couldn’t break through either way.”

  “But, working together, we might have been able to…” Hilda began.

  “No, we couldn’t,” Katherine said, cutting her off. “I had a good chance to see what we’re up against when I was out there. There are nearly a thousand of them, and as soon as I came out to fight, an alarm was raised. I barely made it back in here, and I was outside for maybe two minutes.

  “What’s more, I didn’t even try to fight, only run. But the attackers surrounding the bunker managed to keep me from doing even that much. I-”

  “Incoming!” Elyssa yelled, right before the entire bunker shook once more.

  Massive cracks appeared on the same wall that had just been attacked before, and this time, Elyssa pitched forward as she tried to both hold the wall together and fill in the cracks. Hilda rushed over to check on her, while Katherine remained by the wall.

  “I…I can’t take another one,” Elyssa wheezed.

  “She’s burning up,” Hilda said, pressing a hand to her forehead. “We need to do something about that attacker. Otherwise, we’re all done for.”

  For once, everyone was in agreement. Yes, this would be an extremely risky move, but it was either that or wait until the enemy broke through.

  “There’s another attack incoming,” Elyssa wheezed as Hilda lifted her onto the couch, “But I think I know what it is.”

  “It’s not a single attacker then?” Katherine asked, stepping away from the wall as the cracks sealed shut.

  She noticed, however, that more reinforcements were not taking place.

  “It’s a Mana Cannon,” Elyssa groaned as Hilda pulled her dress up to examine her wounds. “If we needed any more proof that the gnomes are behind this, this would be indisputable. It’s a weapon that the gnomes have been developing over the last year or so. They’ve refused any requests to examine the weapon and have actively kept any information out of our hands. Although, they did perform a demonstration of a prototype a few months ago to boost morale.

  “There’s no way a group of Strangler’s Cultists could have gotten their hands on it without the Council of Five themselves specifically giving the order.”

  “How much time will it take for them to use it again?” Katherine asked worriedly. There had barely been two minutes between the first two.

  “Not long,” Elyssa wheezed. “The Mana Cannon works by concentrating massive amounts of mana into a single blast, but with the number of mages they have channeling their power into it, I’d say we have maybe ninety seconds.”

  “Then we move now,” Katherine said, summoning her Reality Blade.

  “I’ll come with you,” Beatrice said unexpectedly. “Hilda will need to stay here in case the walls are hit again.”

  As a mage, Beatrice wouldn’t be much good when it came to supporting the walls, so her choice made a lot more sense now.

  “They’ve set the cannon up twenty-five yards to my immediate left so that they can shoot at an angle,” Elyssa said. “There are twenty-two fighters between us and the cannon, and about forty mages surrounding it. They won’t be much of a problem, though, as this attack has got to be draining them.”

  Katherine nodded, taking a firm hold of the door. From her last attempt to break free, she already knew their time outside was limited, but now, they had even less.

  “Ready?” she asked, tensing her muscles in preparation.

  Beatrice gave her a curt nod, and Katherine jerked the door open, rushing out into the night with the Queen of the South hot on her heels. There was a loud boom as Hilda slammed the door shut behind them, but Katherine wasn’t worried about that. With the skill Morgan had gifted her, Elyssa would be able to warn her when they were returning and pull the door open to let them in.

  The enemy was keeping the area well-lit, in case they tried sneaking out during the night, so Katherine was able to see perfectly – not that a lack of light would have impeded her regardless. At her rank, she could see in the dark just as well as she could during the day.

  A group of five elves stood before her, all seeming to be surprised that they were attempting something, which was just plain unprofessional in Katherine’s opinion. Had she been the one commanding this siege, she’d have instructed her soldiers to expect something like this. A blue sphere of fire flashed past her, slamming into the lead elf and hurling him back into another of his companions, and Katherine slashed her Reality Blade, cleaving deep into the shoulder of another and driving him to the ground.

  She and Beatrice easily dispatched the last two, but those were the only easy wins they were going to get tonight. Ahead, she could see that the others had noticed what was happening, and the group guarding the cannon moved in to try and stop them.

  From where she was, Katherine had a surprisingly good view of the thing and was alarmed by what she saw. The cannon itself was some eight feet long, with the barrel being around a foot in diameter. It was made of a glossy d
ark metal and stood on a tripod made of what looked like a variation of magesteel. Several long rods extended from the sides, and several mages stood along each, their hands gripping tightly, pained expressions fixed on their faces.

  A bright blue light was already building in the mouth of the cannon, and even from where she stood, Katherine could feel the air becoming charged with the immense amount of power being gathered.

  This only spurred her into action faster, and even as the alarm sounded, blaring out into the night, she sped up, rushing into the cluster of elves, gnomes, and trolls with wild abandon. All of them were supers, as it seemed that every available mage here was working on charging the cannon, which meant that Beatrice would be their best chance at clearing them out of the way, while she served as a distraction.

  Her blade slashed out, cleaving an elf in two, only for her to receive a sharp blow to the side of her head. She staggered, even as she gathered a ball of distortion in her left hand and slammed it into her attacker’s stomach. There was a scream of pain as the sphere tore through them, covering her in her attacker’s innards.

  A hail of shining blue lances flashed past her, slamming into the ground and bursting on impact, sending blue fire washing over the battlefield. Unfortunately, the attack didn’t do much more than slow their attackers down. Katherine took several more attacks head-on, beginning to test the limits of what her body could endure, and yet, from where she stood, she could already tell that if they’d didn’t do something and fast, they weren’t going to make it.

  “I’ll take them all!” she yelled, slashing out with her blade. “Do something big!”

  She hoped Beatrice understood, and summoned her strength for an all-out offensive. Her body burned with power as she summoned a second Reality Blade, something she had never done before, due to the danger it would pose to her personally. But, in times like these, she either had to be willing to take a real risk or die trying because if she didn’t succeed here and now, they were all going to die.

  36

  Katherine went into a whirlwind of death, hacking and slashing with her blades, sending out Distortion Blasts, and doing her best to keep the two blades from coming into contact with one another. A dwarf threw a heavy punch at her back, driving her forward on the raised knee of a troll. She groaned as she felt several of her ribs give, and blood flowed from her left arm as a burning pain spread across her entire side.

  Katherine twisted in place, extending both of her blades to the sides in an attempt to give herself some breathing room, but one of her arms was caught. She felt a flare of pain as a gnome tried to break it, and she jammed her other blade through his eye, ripping it free in a shower of gore.

  Two trolls struck her in the chest as she drew the blade back, and she was sent hurling through the air, crashing to her back and losing control of her skill. The Reality Blades vanished, but she sprang to her feet the moment she landed, despite the ringing in her head and the pain radiating from her ribs and arm.

  Her fighting ability was hampered in the extreme right now, as she relied on her Spatial skills far more than she’d realized. Without the ability to access her portals, she couldn’t reach for her usual weapons, nor travel across a battlefield with the speed she was used to. Likewise, almost all of her most powerful attacks relied on her Spatial skills in one way or another.

  The fact that she was even able to use her Reality Blade was an extreme stroke of luck. But, with the group bearing down on her, she had no time to re-summon them. So, she charged back in to fight bare-handed. She lashed out with powerful punches and kicks, trying to keep the enemy at bay, but she was losing.

  Katherine was beginning to lose ground, the enemy pressing in on all sides and unleashing their full might on her all at once. She took empowered punches, kicks, elbows, and knees. She was struck dozens of times by powers she couldn’t even track or have the time to understand. All she knew was pain.

  There was all manner of burns, freezing, shocking, and jarring. She was cracked across the jaw, and she staggered, lashing out with a wild punch and hitting something soft. A squeal of pain followed that, and when she completed her turn, raising her hands once more, she saw a troll lying on the ground and clutching his groin.

  Katherine took a moment to regroup and examine her opposition. There were four trolls, six gnomes, and eight elves. There had been twenty-four when they’d started, and they’d only managed to take out six of them. Worse, they were almost out of time. She could see the cannon glowing brightly, the base beginning to shake as it reached maximum capacity.

  They had maybe ten seconds before it went off, and unless Beatrice acted now, there was no way they were going to stop it in time.

  “Get down!”

  Katherine dropped without a second thought as Beatrice finally used the big skill she’d been gathering while Katherine had been voluntarily acting as a human punching bag.

  A massive wave of bright blue fire exploded from Beatrice’s hands in the form of a flaming bird. It flashed across the distance in an instant, slamming into the gathered enemy forces and expanding to nearly ten times its original size.

  Katherine was on her feet in an instant, running for all she was worth toward the cannon. She could see the enemy forces gathering behind it, making their way swiftly up the small slope between them and their camp.

  The only difference between her and them was that they were all fresh and well-rested while she was injured. Still, that didn’t stop her from speeding up, pouring every ounce of strength she had into reaching the cannon in time.

  The mages surrounding the weapon sagged then, falling to their hands and knees and panting hard. The barrel of the cannon was glowing so brightly now that it was almost blinding, and Katherine dove forward, lashing out with a powerful kick and knocking the cannon to the side.

  She fell to her stomach but still witnessed the devastation from here as the cannon blast was unleashed. It turned in a quick half-circle, broken free from its moorings, and tore a swath of destruction through the advancing enemy. Katherine watched over fifty high ranked supers and mages go down in an instant, their bodies blown to bits and burned to ash. The cannon’s fire lasted perhaps a second, and in that time, it tore a massive hole in the landscape and left their enemies with no small number of casualties.

  Still, that didn’t mean they stopped coming, only that they were slowed down a bit.

  “Katherine, look out!”

  Katherine rolled to the side, avoiding a massive club, glowing green with sickly energy as it slammed into the ground. She kicked up with both legs, using the full power of her massive strength to hurl the troll nearly fifty feet through the air.

  She sprang to her feet, seeing Beatrice waving frantically as the eleven remaining survivors of her attack advanced on her.

  Katherine took a quick look back, then did something that was probably very stupid and irresponsible — she crouched and scooped the cannon into her arms. Although the thing must have weighed over a ton, it wasn’t too difficult for someone with her amount of strength. Still, with her arms full and her speed cut significantly, saying that she was at a massive disadvantage would have been putting it lightly.

  “Make me a path!” she yelled, taking off in a run directly at the oncoming group.

  Beatrice, having little choice, did as she was told. She screamed, extending both arms and blasting a wall of blue fire forward, splitting the charging ground from behind. Then, she threw her arms wide, sweeping them to either side and giving Katherine the opening she’d needed.

  The attack caused her to stagger, and she nearly lost her footing, but as Katherine rushed up to join her, she managed to regain her feet.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Beatrice exclaimed as the two of them bolted for the bunker with an army right on their tails.

  “I was thinking that I would buy us some time!” Katherine wheezed.

  A blast of green energy took her in the back, and she screamed in pain as it burned through her ar
mor and into her skin. She didn’t stop, though, nor did she slow down. Beatrice whirled, unleashing a wall of blue fire, though Katherine knew that just as with the attack she’d used to open a path for her, this wouldn’t do more than buy them a couple of seconds.

  Still, as the door to the bunker flew open and they made their last, desperate sprint, Katherine already knew that Beatrice had likely just saved their lives.

  The door slammed shut behind them, and a moment later, a hail of attacks slammed into it, sending dust falling from the ceiling and small cracks spreading around the entrance. Still, these were nothing compared to the devastation the cannon had inflicted, and Elyssa was able to easily fill them in.

  “What the hell happened out there?” Hilda asked, looking over Katherine’s bloodied and beaten form in alarm.

  “We won,” Katherine said, giving her a bloody grin.

  Then, she pitched forward, the world going black around her as she fell into a dead faint.

  37

  It was around midafternoon when Morgan roused himself from his nap and rose to resume his journey. He stretched his arms high overhead and began walking toward the edge of the bubble, still pushing back the mists and preventing him from flying. However, as he reached the edge, he heard an unexpected voice in his mind.

  “You aren’t planning on leaving this clearing like that, are you?”

  Morgan halted as Sarah’s voice sounded in his mind, and despite himself, he felt a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

  “Why wouldn’t I leave the clearing?” he asked, thinking the words and trying to project them back to her.

  “Because you’re practically naked!” Sarah exclaimed. “I won’t have some troll floozy getting an eyeful. So, go grab some vines and cover up.”

  Looking down at himself, Morgan examined the tattered remains of his clothes. When Sarah pointed it out, the clothes didn’t really do a very good job of keeping him covered. The largest part of his outfit that was still intact was the pocket that the Guardian’s core had been in, and that didn’t exactly offer much modesty.