by Aaron Oster
He looked up to Sarah, giving her his widest grin, then extended his free hand and crooked his fingers back in a taunting motion.
Sarah appeared before him and swung down with her sword. The attack was blindingly fast, and Morgan’s lance flashed up to meet it. They collided, the shockwave from the blow sending cracks radiating out around them and causing a loud boom of displaced air to echo in the still, night air.
Black lightning crackled across Morgan’s armor, and he unleashed it in a blast around him, not aiming for Sarah specifically, instead to hit everything in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree radius.
Sarah threw her shield up, staggering away from his left side as the lighting tore at her construct. Having pinpointed her location, Morgan spun, lance thrusting forward and aiming for her leg. She vanished, appearing above him and bringing her sword down, ignoring the lightning lancing at her armor.
Morgan thrust upward, channeling his Expanse through the construct and blasting a powerful current of compressed wind right into Sarah’s exposed stomach. The goddess was tossed upward, vanishing a moment later and swinging her sword at his head. Morgan increased the gravity output from his armor, giving him more resistance, then summoned a small shield right before his eyes.
The impact still drove him back, the shield cracking – but not shattering – as the blow struck. He whirled then, thrusting his lance to his left, and caught Sarah in the chest as she appeared there, sending an arc of electricity pulsing through her.
The goddess barely seemed to notice as the bloody light around her darkened. She shoved forward, knocking his lance aside and bashing him with her shield. He used Rift, backstepping, but Sarah was right on top of him, bloody spikes extending from the construct and slamming into his armor.
More cracks appeared this time, spreading over the Starforged plates, but Morgan channeled another skill through his armor, sending a blast of wind out in a bubble. A section of wall was torn away as Sarah was sent spinning back with a scream, launched out over the wall and into empty space.
She returned an instant later, her sword, now clutched in a double-handed grip, slamming into his chest and blasting him several hundred feet down the wall. The armor on his chest cracked, Morgan using more reiki to fill it in and keep it together.
Sarah appeared, slamming her sword down, and Morgan was driven into the wall, shattering the stone and being driven down over fifty feet. The stone around him flowed, extending into a field of deadly spikes as he used his Earth Mastery, driving half a dozen into Sarah’s back as she chased him.
She tried to keep coming, but the stone morphed to sand, spiraling up in a twister and forcing her back. Morgan followed, the lance trailing behind and lightning gathering, being tightly controlled by the dense gravity that wrapped the construct.
They both exploded from the top of the wall, Morgan driven by a shelf of stone he’d forged beneath his feet, and Sarah, simply walking on air. He thrust upward, lightning flashing out in a powerful and condensed beam. She vanished, appearing at his back, only for a pair of rifts to open, the lightning vanishing from one and appearing where she had.
She vanished again, only for a dozen more to appear, trapping her within a makeshift cage of lightning. Sarah whirled, her sword cleaving out, the bloody aura of her blade ripping through the electricity and dispersing it, but it gave Morgan the opportunity he needed to retaliate.
His lance slammed into her stomach, the powerful gravity disrupting her blood armor and finally allowing him to land a clean hit.
Sarah screamed as the point of the black lance punched into her stomach, lightning streaming into her body and trying to disrupt her nervous system. Morgan summoned another lance, thrusting it into her chest, blasting away more of the armor. Gravity increased around them, shattering the stone and creating a crater atop the wall as he used his constructed armor to increase the payload, more lightning flashing around them.
“D-d-damn you!” Sarah yelled, her body trembling and twitching as the lightning coursed through her.
Morgan released both lances, leaving them to continually pour lightning into her, and summoned two spears, ramming both into her chest beside the lances and streaming even more power into them.
“Doesn’t feel so good when you’re on the receiving end, does it?” Morgan asked.
He could feel it welling up inside him — the thrill, the exaltation of battle, of fighting a powerful opponent and overcoming the challenge. It was something he hadn’t felt in quite some time. Right then, in the midst of battle, he didn’t have the time to think about it, but Morgan knew that as soon as it was over – if he survived – he was going to have to take a closer look at himself.
He couldn’t go back to the man he’d once been, the monster who’d loved fighting more than anything else. What he wanted more than anything then was peace, and if his lust for battle were reawakened, he knew that he would never have any.
Sarah screamed as Morgan rammed another lance into her stomach, then leaped back, summoning yet another, while pulling the stone up around her to lock her legs in place. He doubted she was really in as much pain as she was letting on, but if he could injure her just a little using these skills, he was going to try his damnedest to do so.
Reaching down, Sarah grabbed one of the spears, and with a powerful flex of her fingers, shattered the construct. Morgan summoned a gleaming spear, sending it speeding toward her, and when she threw a hand up to block it, was met instead by a blast of compressed wind that sent her sprawling.
Her back slammed into the wall, and Morgan pulled up more stone around her, locking her limbs in place. She roared, her bloody aura extending around her, the weapons protruding from her body shattering into motes of light. The stone encasing her cracked, then shattered, but Morgan controlled all of the pieces, sending them pelting toward her in a rain of stone shrapnel.
Sarah disappeared from the wall, but when Morgan turned, sure he was facing another attack, he found her standing nearly a hundred feet away, her armor reforming as the wounds in her stomach and chest closed up.
She lunged, sword reforming in her hand, but this time, she didn’t teleport or walk through space, simply using a straightforward, frontal assault. The blade came cleaving down, and Morgan used his lance to block, except this time, his lance didn’t stand up to the power behind her attack.
The construct shattered, Sarah’s sword cleaving down into the armor on his shoulder and cutting through that as well. Morgan stepped back with his Rift, feeling a burning pain as he did. He appeared ten feet back, then looked down at his shoulder to see a line of blood welling up beneath the cracked armor.
He looked back to Sarah, who was sliding the glittering construct, now slick with his own blood, across her hand. She was grinning in a way that made Morgan feel very afraid.
“You’re tough, I’ll give you that,” Sarah said as she planted the blood-sword into the ground. “But now, I think it’s time you died.”
She extended a hand, now covered in his blood, and squeezed. Morgan felt something seize at his core then, a vicelike grip that began closing down, crushing his very soul. He dropped to his knees, feeling his constructs vanishing into mist as he clutched at his chest. It felt as though not only his core was being crushed, but his lungs as well.
He couldn’t breathe!
Morgan looked up, feeling his face turn red, to see Sarah, grinning as she squeezed her hand.
The hand holding my blood, Morgan realized.
His vision began to blur as the realization hit him. Somehow, she was using his blood to crush him from within, something that should have been impossible. He should have been protected from internal attacks. His Perfect Aura Control should have made him impervious. And yet, Sarah was a goddess, a being of divine power. How could his mortal body hope to resist her might?
As Morgan’s vision began to grow hazy, a voice seemed to echo in the back of his mind. A remnant of the beast who had once been a separate entity but was now a part of him.<
br />
But you are not mortal. You are eternal!
Morgan roared, his power exploding out from him in waves and driving away the invasive attack.
Sarah staggered back, shock clearly written on her face as he slowly climbed to his feet.
“How?!” she exclaimed, still squeezing her hand, trying to crush his core.
“Because,” Morgan said, holding his hand to the side and summoning a shining black spear, his tattered robes whipping in the winds of the gathering storm. “I am no longer mortal. I am eternal!”
76
Grace dashed forward, feeling the rumbling in the ground even all the way out there. She could hardly believe Morgan had grown so powerful in their short time apart. Then again, she wasn’t sure why she was even surprised. Morgan had proved, time and time again, that he was the best. No matter how many times he went down, he refused to stay down, always rising anew, more powerful than before.
At the moment, it was hard to think about that, as they were all in mortal danger. Surrounded on all sides by enemies and charging for their only escape route, Grace felt herself oddly excited. Beside her ran a tall beastman whose name she did not know, and before her ran Katherine, her powerful legs propelling her forward toward the portal.
Shedra, the new leader of the gnome race, screamed orders, calling his troops forward, trying to block off their escape. Most of the forces were still on the outside, so it would take a few seconds for them to reach them. In a battle like this, a few seconds may as well be an eternity.
Katherine, along with Elyssa and Ragnar, crashed into the front of the gnome forces, their powerful attacks blasting them momentarily away from the area. A small shape flitted through the portal, and a moment later, Lumia’s massive form appeared, flying above the gathered forces.
There was a cry of alarm as her jaws opened wide and a deluge of Crimsonfire blasted out, washing over the ground and cutting off the reserves from behind – at least temporarily. To both her left and right, Grace saw more attackers closing in, some glowing with a sickly green energy that she recognized, while others used their own skills and abilities.
“Hold the line!” Katherine yelled, sweeping out with her blade and cleaving a gnome in half.
Grace skidded to a halt, and the beastman did the same, his arms going up and summoning twin beams of white light. They blasted forward, lancing and burning into the ground, cracking the stone and setting it ablaze. Grace, not really knowing what to do, began turning and looking for anyone she could attack.
Once again, despite her increased rank, she found herself outmatched and in way over her head. Still, not even for a second did she contemplate cutting and running.
Lumia soared overhead, unleashing fiery destruction from above and tying up two dozen fighters as they tried to drive her back. In the meantime, the soldiers were starting to break through, moving in to surround them and cut off their exit.
They were so close to the portal, their escape route not thirty feet away, but between them and the portal itself was an ever-growing force of attackers.
A blast of power went off to her right, a blue beam suddenly cutting through the gnomish forces and burning them to a crisp. There was a shriek of rage that Grace was sure had come from a woman, but when she turned, she saw Shedra hopping up and down, his face beet red and screaming at the forces who’d dropped the mana cannon due to the attacking trolls.
“Kill them! Kill them all! How hard can it be to take out a few mangy fighters!”
He drove his force relentlessly onward, and while they were holding, for the time being, Grace could see they wouldn’t be for long. Elyssa was pulling up walls as quickly as she could, trying to buy them more time to clear the portal, but the attackers were too strong and too many, all moving to gather around the portal itself. None were trying to enter – they were likely being blocked by their forces on the other side – but neither could they leave.
Grace clicked her tongue, getting a good look at the battlefield for the first time. The portal lay thirty feet behind them, but the forces amassing there were growing by the second. Before them, more of the gnomish attackers were moving in, in a pincer movement.
To their right and left, though, they had more space — especially to their left.
Those forces were streaming around to provide back up those who were defending the portal. While Katherine and the others were concentrating on trying to break through, Grace realized something important. At this rate, they would all be killed.
If they continued to try and force their way into this one exit, they would never make it. Their charge had been halted, and their momentum stopped. Had they managed to drive a bit further into the enemy force with their initial charge, they might have had a chance. But now that they’d been stopped dead in their tracks, it was only a matter of time before they began to falter.
“You!” she yelled, grabbing the beastman who was blasting light everywhere.
He looked down at her, as though shocked that she would be so crazy as to distract him in the middle of a battle like this. Grace ignored the look and pressed on, knowing that this was their only chance.
“How did you all arrive here? Was it by portal, or did you walk?” When the beastman didn’t immediately reply, she grabbed him by the arms and shook him. “How?!” she yelled.
“Portal,” the beastman finally said.
“How far?” Grace asked.
“A mile, maybe a bit farther,” the beastman said.
He tore from her grip, throwing up a translucent wall of light as a sizzling boulder came flying at them. The glowing green stone slammed into the barrier, causing a web of cracks to appear and the beastman to stagger. He clearly needed help, but Grace knew that she would be able to do nothing here. Instead, she turned, barreling her way through their small group, and seized the closest person in charge by the arm — in this case, Elyssa.
The elf whirled on her, arm raised to punch, then stopped when she saw who it was.
“What the hell are you doing?” Elyssa demanded, jerking her arm free and pulling a wall from the ground right in front of them.
“We’re not going to make it through the portal, and I think you know that,” Grace said, needing to shout to be overhead.
Thankfully, Elyssa didn’t argue with her, allowing Grace to continue talking.
“We have an opening to the east,” she said. “A spot where the enemy forces are thinner. If we launch an all-out assault, we can break our way free of the encirclement and escape into the woods. There’s another portal about a mile in that direction which we can take back to your lands!”
Elyssa didn’t even pause to think about it, giving her a nod, then reaching out and snagging Ragnar.
“Explain your plan to him,” she shouted, “He’s very good at organizing things like this!”
Grace wanted to scream at the wasted time but quickly outlined her plan to Ragnar. The dwarf had a deep cut on his left hand, and he was bleeding from a dozen gashes that had made it through his heavy armor. However, despite those injuries, he seemed quite lucid and receptive to her plan.
“We’ll need a big boom to make our escape,” Ragnar said, nodding along as she finished. “I’ll have my boys arrange it. While I’m doing that, you spread the word to the others. We’re going to break for the east in forty seconds!”
Grace nodded, then dashed off to begin warning the others. There was no way she was going to make it to the trolls in time, but it didn’t look like any of them were going to make it anyway. Well, none, except for the ancient and wrinkled one, who was weaving between the enemy and making his way over to them.
For some reason, the wrinkly old troll was wearing nothing but a weird skirt made of vines, and he seemed completely oblivious to the battle around him, bobbing and weaving his way through weapons, skills, and attacks as though they weren’t even there.
Grace shook herself, dismissing the strange troll from her mind and turning back to the task at hand. She was nearly stru
ck several times, both by enemy fire and friend alike, as she grabbed and warned them of what was about to happen. There was no way for her to warm Lumia, but the drake was resourceful and powerful. She would find a way through.
The last one she warned was the very beastman who’d given her the idea in the first place as she took up her spot beside him once again. She snapped her fingers, feeling how the forces were amassing, and just as she’d guessed, there were far more of them now blocking the portal, driving them back toward the far side of the clearing.
She’d managed to get all of her warnings out in time, and in exactly ten seconds, there should be something big going off. Grace began counting in her head, preparing to run as soon as it did.
There was a roar from up above, as brilliant violet fire lightened the night sky – which had yet to lighten despite the fact that it was around noon – as Lumia dove down, raining destruction from above. Screams of pain echoed through the air as more of the enemy forces began burning and running, rolling on the ground to try and put out the blaze. It didn’t work, of course. Lumia’s flames could not be so easily extinguished, though that didn’t stop them from trying.
The countdown continued in Grace’s mind, several more flaming rocks slamming into the thin barrier thrown up by the beastman. A cry to her right sounded as one of the dwarves, a stocky woman wielding an oversized mace, went down, a sizzling green hole burned straight through her chest.
Grace bit her lip, snapping her fingers and getting an updated view of the battlefield.
Just a few seconds more, and…
A roar split the night air, and everyone froze.
This was no ordinary roar, but one that forced everyone, friend and foe alike, to stop what they were doing and look skyward. As they watched, a massive shadow blanketed the area, darkening the already dark sky and sending a sense of overwhelming dread to wash over them.
Grace felt her muscles lock up as she finally saw what was approaching. It was a massive creature of glittering golden scales, so large she could not decipher its actual shape. All she saw were a pair of black, sheeting curtains flowing downward, and a moment later, she was flattened as a powerful gust of wind slammed into her.
