Silverspear (Rise to Omniscience Book 6)

by Aaron Oster

  Morgan flew back, using his speed to avoid the charge while still sticking close enough to lead the creature away. A metal spike suddenly shot from Raja’s body, forcing Morgan into another wild dodge, only for him to fly smack into another spike, prepared to catch him. The air was forced from his lungs as the spike slammed into him, driving a couple of inches into his stomach and hurtling him back once again.

  Morgan didn’t take the blow uncontested this time, sending a violet spear streaking towards the beast’s eye. Raja’s trunk flashed up, blocking the projectile, but seeing as the spear was charged, still took the brunt of the attack. The beast roared in pain as electricity coursed over its metallic body.

  This gave Morgan the chance to recover his balance and once again check his distance from the city. Seeing that they were far enough away now to not cause any collateral damage, Morgan finally set himself and prepared for a slugfest. Raja was tough and far smarter than he’d given him credit for.

  He reached down, feeling at his stomach. The attack hadn’t gone deep, but the beast had still managed to cut him. Raja, on the other hand, had crushed the spear and was shaking off the effects of the electricity. Morgan had found his weakness, but it would take far more than a single charge to take this beast down.

  Raja trumpeted his displeasure and lowered to the ground once more, slamming his tusks into the ground. Morgan barely had any warning before metal spikes erupted from the ground all around him. He took off, dodging and weaving to avoid the attacks, all while closing the distance between him and his opponent.

  His Aura Sense flared a warning then, and Morgan pulled up short. A massive metal spike passed right before his face, having come down from above and missing him by inches. He looked up, already suspecting what he’d see and found that he was indeed trapped inside a massive sphere of metal spikes.

  “Well,” Morgan muttered, feeling a grin spread across his face. “This ought to be fun!”

  The metal spikes all converged at lightning speed. Morgan flashed forward, using Gravity Tear and teleporting out of the attack. He appeared mere inches from Raja’s face and used Compression. The air gathered in a sphere around him, then expanded in a massive explosion.

  The force of the air threw the beast back, and Morgan followed, throwing his arms forward and sending compressed blasts of air to try and crack the beast’s defenses. Raja trumpeted his displeasure again, throwing his trunk forward and trying to snare him once more. Morgan teleported out of the way, coming up behind the beast and using Earthen Shift.

  The ground beneath Raja’s hind legs split, and with a scream of alarm, the massive beast’s legs vanished into the crack. Morgan darted in then, forming two spears using Stormforge and charging them with lighting. His Maximum increase was on cooldown, but he should be more than strong enough without it.

  Both spears slammed into the beast’s metallic hide, punching in only a few inches before Morgan released their payload. Raja loudly trumpeted as the lightning coursed through him, and spikes began rapidly growing from its body, forcing Morgan to back off. The beast pulled itself from the ground, body beginning to glow not blue, but the ruddy red of molten metal.

  “Oh, shit,” Morgan said as literal tons of metal fell off the creature, leaving it looking far smaller.

  This was not good. Raja’s transformation happened over the course of maybe a couple of seconds, and now an entirely different creature sloshed through the molten slag. This beast was much leaner, far more muscular, and its face was more angular.

  It had lost some twenty feet of mass, but its body was still about forty feet long and twenty-five at the shoulder. Its tail whipped behind it, now crackling with unknown energy. When it roared, it sounded far more intimidating than it previously had. The molten metal around the beast suddenly rose in a wave, and Morgan barely had time to teleport back before it washed over him.

  Raja was right on top of him, tail whipping down and catching him in a blow across the chest. It burned, and Morgan felt something crack as he was sent slamming into the ground. The air was knocked from his lungs as he impacted, but he teleported once more as Raja’s foot, now sporting three-foot claws, came down on top of him.

  He appeared near the beast’s side, pulling molten stone from the earth with his skill and pulling it around his arm to deliver a powerful punch to Raja’s side. The beast howled as the molten stone washed over him and then hardened, Morgan pulling more and more to try and lock the beast in place. A pillar of metal slammed into him from the side, knocking him out of the air and breaking his left arm in the process.

  Morgan righted himself, pulling Stormforged armor around himself as he turned to face the beast once again. His RP was starting to dwindle, and though he’d learned to ignore the pain of his wounds, having one less arm to work with was going to be an issue.

  Raja exploded from the stone prison, his hide seemingly undamaged from everywhere except where Morgan’s fist had left an impression. This told him that despite shedding all that metal, Raja still had some covering him. Morgan summoned another spear and darted in, even as the world around Raja began to glow.

  He could feel the heat as molten metal poured up from the ground, gathering into tendrils around the beast and began whipping outward. Morgan ducked and dodged, spun between tendrils and tried to close with the beast. Raja pointed its trunk, now a grayish color, right at him. Morgan instinctively pulled to one side and instantly was very glad that he did.

  A blast of superheated air whistled past, so intense that Morgan could feel his skin burning. He was used to heat, so this shouldn’t have hurt, yet Raja’s attack did. Morgan whirled around again, teleporting behind the beast and hurling the spear at him. One of the molten metal tendrils whipped the spear out of the air, while another slammed into him, driving him to the ground and cracking his armor construct.

  Before he could so much as move, another attack hit, burning away what remained of his shirt and scorching his skin. The tendril pulled away, only for another to come down, but Morgan thrust his fist forward and blasted it away with a condensed beam of air. He vanished before the next strike could come, this time, keeping his distance.

  His shoulder felt oddly stiff, and when he looked, he saw that it was covered in a layer of hardening blue metal. Getting an idea from this, Morgan used Nature’s Wrath, pulling in the essence of the metal. His entire body was covered in a shimmering blue metallic sheen, and Morgan felt power flood through him.

  Raja blasted another stream of steam at him, and Morgan allowed himself to be engulfed. He could feel the heat washing over him, but with the metal protecting him, it was manageable. The reason he allowed the attack to hit was to finally gain an advantage. Using the cover of the steam, he teleported right up to Raja’s side.

  The beast, still preoccupied with roasting the pesky human, didn’t notice him until it was too late. Morgan used Maximum Increase, then used Increase on top of that. Power surged through him once more as his already quadrupled Strength and Agility were increased a further twenty-five percent.

  His fist flashed forward, still covered in the sheen of blue metal, and struck Raja’s unprotected side. The blow was the single most powerful he was capable of throwing, and it showed. Raja let out a roar of pain so loud that it almost drowned out the boom of displaced air, as well as the massive crack of metal on metal.

  The beast’s entire side caved in, the ripple of force spreading over its whole body and shattering the metallic skin covering it from head to toe. Coppery blood sprayed in the air as the beast was thrown bodily off its feet, then sent crashing end over end across the open ground. Morgan was right on his heels, burning through what little remained of his RP to ensure he could inflict the maximum amount of damage possible in the time he had left.

  He teleported into the beast’s path, then lashed out with a powerful kick. Raja’s spine crumpled under the blow, shattering to a thousand pieces as it was caught between Morgan’s leg and its forward momentum. He teleported once more, kicking
the beast again, his leg sinking into its hide and crushing bones.

  Morgan teleported around, punching, kicking, and bashing the beast for all he was worth, destroying the creature on both the inside and out. By the time his skill was spent, Raja remained as nothing more than a crumpled, bleeding mess in a crater of its own making. He landed next to the beast, Nature’s Wrath released as his RP bottomed out.

  The pain was growing worse, and Morgan knew he should probably get back. Still, he couldn’t resist trying to get the beast’s core. The core of a Pinnacle beast was extremely valuable, and he wasn’t so injured that he couldn’t move. As he approached the beast, he felt a small flare from the core that told Morgan that Raja was still alive.

  The spike that slammed into him and then went through his chest felt like molten iron that was trying to cook him from the inside. His arm came down hard, snapping the spike off, even as Raja laughed.

  “Ha, puny human. You die, not Raja!”

  Morgan stared at the beast for a long moment, feeling the blood dripping down from around the spike, both on his chest and back.

  “No, I don’t think I will,” Morgan replied, extending a hand before the beast’s bruised and cracked face. “I’m happy I always keep a store of this stashed away. Otherwise, this might have ended badly for me.”

  Raja didn’t even have time to ask what he meant before a blinding, burning light, illuminated the night sky.

  26

  Morgan stumbled, only just managing to catch himself as the skill was spent. Raja’s face was now little more than a smoking pile of ash, the power of his Sunblast having burned it to a crisp. Mogan always made sure to stash a bit of sunlight in him, though at the moment, he could only manage enough for one blast.

  He grimaced, forcing himself to remain calm as he reached for the spike that was still protruding from his chest. A portal opened beside him just as he was about to pull, and Katherine, dressed in flanged red armor and carrying her massive mace, came charging out.

  “Damn it!” she exclaimed, noting the smoking body of the beast. “I was too late!”

  “You missed one hell of a party,” Morgan chuckled, then winced as pain flared through him once again.

  “Holy shit! You’re hurt!” Katherine said, realizing for the first time just how badly he was injured.

  “Afraid I’m gonna need to ask you to get me to a healer,” Morgan said, dropping to one knee. “Don’t think I can make it there by myself in my current state.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” Katherine said, moving quickly to get a grip under his right arm and hoist him to his feet.

  “Damn, you’ve really packed on the pounds,” she noted as she pulled him towards a new portal.

  “I try,” Morgan said, fighting to stay conscious.

  He was hiding just how bad his injury was. Right now, the metal spike was grating up against his core. The only reason he was still alive was because of his healing and dense body traits. The fact that his core was made of reiki also helped fight off the invading mana. However, after his initial urge to pull the spike out himself, he decided that it would be best to allow a healer to do it, as he didn’t want to accidentally damage his core in the process.

  “I hope someone saw the fight, at least,” Katherine said as she pulled him through the portal. “Otherwise, I’ll never hear the story.”

  Morgan didn’t reply, and Katherine noticed his body had suddenly become far heavier. Luckily for her, she’d already gotten him through the portal and was now by the healers’ room. She kicked the door a few times, until someone came to answer. One look at the Queen supporting the limp and bleeding body of the supermage was all she needed to see.

  “Bring him in and lay him on the ground. We’ll have to operate immediately. Please stay here, Your Highness. We’ll need your strength to cut him open.”

  Had she been anyone else, Katherine might have asked questions or panicked. The fact that the healer wanted to cut him open meant that the wounds were more serious than they first appeared, which was saying a lot. She was the queen of a kingdom and had seen enough death and destruction to keep a cool head, even now. Morgan’s life hung in the balance, and she would not put him in even more danger because of her incompetence.

  ***

  “Can we go in to see him yet?”

  “Just give us a few more minutes, child. He’s still recovering.”

  Grace glowered as one of the healers practically slammed the door in her face, leaving her standing in the waiting area once again. Lumia, now back to her smaller size, sat perched on her shoulder. Stowed away in a small pack at her side, was the massive core of the Pinnacle beast Moran had killed.

  It had been over five hours since the battle, a battle which Grace was still replaying in her head. Never before had she seen or even comprehended power on such a massive scale. The way Morgan and that beast had fought had been absolutely terrifying, and when Lumia explained the different types of beasts to her, as well as how their power scaled, she’d been even more shocked.

  The beast had been larger than a building and had done significant damage to the city walls. Yet Morgan had somehow beaten it singlehandedly. It was a beast with the same intelligence as Lumia, and even more powerful than her. Their fight had left the ground outside the city cracked, broken, and full of molten metal.

  She hadn’t really examined any of it, and she’d have no idea what it was even if she did, but from what she’d heard, the beast was a veritable treasure trove.

  In addition to the fight, Grace had also witnessed how badly Morgan had been injured. The fact that he’d just kept on going no matter how many times he’d gone down was what stuck with her. Even after taking a spike through his chest, he’d still pulled out some massive attack that had turned the beast’s head to ash. Despite seeing him fight, she had no idea as to what type of ability he could have, and Lumia had refused to give her any details.

  After Katherine had dragged Morgan away, Grace had wanted to follow them immediately, but Lumia had insisted on going to retrieve the core, citing that anyone could come and take it. She’d said that a prize this valuable belongs to the victor and not some opportunistic cockroach.

  Lumia had done most of the work, digging the core free. It had fallen on her to collect it and stash it in a bag. They headed back to the palace after that and had been waiting to see him ever since.

  “How much longer will they make us wait?” Grace grumbled as she flopped into a chair and crossed her arms.

  “Hopefully, not too much longer,” Lumia replied. “He’s already awake and recovering, so I think we should be allowed in soon.”

  Though Grace didn’t say it out loud, she’d been terrified. She was scared that Morgan’s injuries would be too severe, and that he couldn’t be fixed. Lumia’s calm assurance had soothed her somewhat, though she didn’t think she’d fully relax until he saw him with her own eyes.

  “How did he…?” Grace began, but Lumia cut her off.

  “Save your questions for Morgan. He can explain things far better than I can.”

  Grace blew out another long breath, then slumped back once again. She briefly debated trying to close her eyes for a few minutes, but seeing as she’d been unsuccessful all night and that she’d slept all the previous day, she decided against it. Instead, she pulled a soft brush from her pocket and began fixing her hair for the hundredth time that night.

  Time seemed to crawl by, and Grace was debating getting up and asking again when the door finally opened to reveal Katherine. The Queen seemed surprised to see Grace still waiting outside but gave her a reassuring smile.

  “He had a close call, but he’s going to be fine. You can go in and see him now if you’d like.”

  Grace gave the woman a grateful smile, then hopped off her chair, swiftly making her way into the room. She froze at the doorway, her eyes landing on Morgan. He lay in a bed similar to hers. Piles of blood-soaked rags lay strewn about, though his bedsheets were clean. His chest was bare and wrapped in b
andages, and his lower body was covered in a blanket. He was awake and turned to greet her.

  “I was told that you’ve been waiting outside for the last six hours,” he said, his voice sounding strong and steady, despite how pale he looked.

  “Yeah,” she replied, moving into the room and closing the door behind her.

  “She was quite worried about you,” Lumia said, fluttering off her shoulders and drifting to land on the bed next to him.

  “Is that so?” Morgan asked, reaching down to lay a hand on the drake.

  “Um…yeah,” Grace replied, feeling oddly embarrassed. “We actually, um, got this for you,” she continued, reaching for the core at her side and holding it out to him.

  “You managed to collect the core,” Morgan said, not sounding surprised in the least. “I take it you had something to do with this?” he asked, addressing the question to the drake, now pushing her back into his stroking palm.

  “Couldn’t have some rat come along and steal all your hard work,” Lumia said, not sounding at all apologetic.

  “It wasn’t exactly safe to be going out there, especially with the type of beast I was facing,” he admonished.

  “We were perfectly safe the whole time,” Lumia shot back.

  “Wait, we?”

  “Did I say we? What I meant was…”

  Grace watched the two of them bicker and felt the tension in her shoulders relax. Morgan still looked very weak, which meant that they probably wouldn’t be leaving for a few weeks. But that was the least of her concerns right now.

  “Are you really okay?” she asked, interrupting Morgan and Lumia’s conversation. “I mean, really?”

  Morgan looked up to regard her, and Grace felt her cheeks flush at the attention. She gave herself a mental shake, remembering Lumia’s warning that she should temper her physical reactions and try to focus on the emotional instead. It was easy, especially seeing how worried she was and Morgan’s physical state at the moment.