by Dante King
“It looks to me like you got several of them killed,” he said, his eyes going hard.
Hazel had heard more than enough. “Where’s your master?” she demanded to know, readying her daggers. “Where the fuck is Ji?”
Vargus chuckled low in his throat. “He’s busy,” the Cultivator said. “The Guildmaster of the Hollow Frog Guild wouldn’t bother dealing with vermin like you himself—it would only give you more legitimacy. Once I wipe all of you out, I’ll return to him and report my success. He should be nearly finished with his women by then.”
“Whores,” I said, pointing the scythe at the Cultivator.
Vargus snickered. His gaze lingered on Hazel, then indicated Lyra as well. “You should talk,” he said, lights flashing around his fingers. I felt a shift in the air around the square, as if a great deal of Mana had been pulled into the man’s body. The barometric pressure dropped around us, like a killer storm was on the way.
“Eric,” Lyra warned, still on top of the cart. “Look out—”
Lightning shot from the man’s fingers.
Vargus Cast Lightning Storm!
A bolt of pure electricity left Vargus’s outstretched hands. He didn’t bother aiming at me—that would have been the manly, honorable thing to do. Instead, he pointed his spell directly at Lyra’s cart.
The redhead had just enough time to jump as the whole thing went up in flames. Sparks flew over the barrels of alcohol, igniting the whole thing in an instant. Lyra landed wrong; one ankle gave out beneath her, sending her to the ground in a groaning heap.
“No!” I roared, closing the distance. “Leave her alone!”
“You brought them here,” Vargus pronounced. He sounded like a judge—a particularly vicious one. “Their health is your responsibility, Cultivator. Or have you not learned these things yet?”
“Fuck you!” I raced to Lyra’s side, but she waved me off. I stood between her and the Cultivator, shielding her from further attack. “If hurting innocents is what being a member of the Hollow Frog Guild is all about, then I’m glad I’ve never learned your lessons!”
Vargus looked taken aback. “What Clan do you belong to, then, whelp?”
I looked around me. At my women. My family.
“Clan Hyde,” I snickered, twirling my scythe. “You’re about to be our first scalp, Vargus. Run while you can—!”
As that last can rung out over the Auction grounds, I charged forward with the scythe held in a low grip. Anna screamed in my skull, her mental legs spread wide at the thought of slicing the arrogant Cultivator to shreds. Vargus stood there, his arms folded in his robes, watching as I approached.
He didn’t even bother dodging. I brought the scythe in a great overhand arc, intending to slam it down like a mining pick right through his forehead.
I swung—only for the air around Vargus to coalesce into jelly. Sparks erupted around the man’s body as if I were trying to grind my scythe against stone. Cords of muscle stood out on my arms as I pushed harder, desperate to crack this strange electrified shield.
“Fuck him up!” Anna roared, fully demonic in my brain. “Make that fucker bleed, baby! Wade through his blood for me!”
Vargus blinked. The world exploded with pain.
More lightning arced through the scythe, frying me from the inside out. As a kid, one of the outlets in my grandma’s house had had its casing fall off due to disrepair, leaving the bare electrical conduit exposed. Wanting to be a good kid, I’d tried to fix the thing for her without telling her—only for my bare finger to graze the circuit and nearly send me to the hospital.
That pain was a candle’s flame next to the bonfire Vargus sent scorching through my body. I nearly dropped Anna, which would have been the death of me. As it was, I barely managed to back away, twisting the scythe to reflect as many bolts of the strange lightning as I could.
“So weak,” Vargus said with a snicker. “You think a fancy weapon can substitute for years of Cultivation, boy? You are learning now that your powers are nothing—”
A knife slammed into the Cultivator’s side. While he’d been busy pontificating, Hazel crept up and dealt him a sneak attack.
“Fuck you, you son of a bitch!” Hazel roared. Her other hand held an identical dagger, aimed at Vargus’s throat. She’d nearly made the cut when the Cultivator’s body exploded with a wave of static force. Hazel shot away from him like a bullet from a gun, leaving a trench in the ground from the impact.
Words emerged in my sight:
Vargus Casts Static Pulse!
Okay, I thought, regrouping. He’s got lightning for long range, and up close he can push people away with a static blast. Shit, that doesn’t leave much in the way of weaknesses, does it?
Having bested two foes without breaking a sweat, Vargus rocked back on his heels and gestured for me to approach. “Come on, then,” he said, sounding more smug by the moment. “Guildmaster Ji would like confirmation of your death before he finishes coming inside of his favorite girl. It’s my hope that the news of Hazel’s passing will send him over the edge.”
What a disgusting thought. For a moment, I worried Hazel truly was dead, but the blonde warrior managed to rise to her feet. She’d almost gotten Vargus, but he wouldn’t fall for that trick a second time. Still, he was bleeding.
As if only now realizing that himself, Vargus put a hand to the wound. Sparks trickled from his fingers into the rent in his garments, healing the dagger’s gash. It didn’t seem like it worked very well—Vargas’s powers were offensive, not defensive. Not at all like my Blossom, or Mana Shield…
Huh. I grinned. Maybe there’s something there after all.
Before he could finish healing up, I charged. Vargas looked up from contemplation of his wound, snickering as I approached. I could feel him charging up another one of those lightning attacks—just like when the Marsh Croc used Gust, being attacked by an aspect of Cultivation gave me greater knowledge of it for next time. Unlike with the Croc, I wasn’t about to split my focus on concentrate on Comprehending his spells, though. No, all my focus had to be on taking Vargus down.
Just a little closer, I thought, swinging the scythe like I was about to do something truly fancy with it. Stay smug, you bastard. Tell yourself I’m going to do the same thing twice.
The gambit fooled Vargus. He charged up his attack, arms outstretched as if he were waiting to give me a hug. “Come on with it!” he roared, laughing.
When I was two steps away from him, I shifted Anna’s stance in my arms. Gripping her with both hands, I tossed her to Vargas. “Catch!”
The befuddled Cultivator did just that. Anna fell into his arms, still in scythe form, cutting his lightning spell off before it could be cast. I reached for my Mana and struck.
Eric Casts Mana Shield!
The twin shields sprang to life over my hands, just as they had in the market garden. With his attention on the scythe, Vargas barely had time to look up as I socked him in the face.
His jaw snapped to the side. I heard teeth break in his mouth. Blood streamed from his nose as it collapsed against his skull, shattering like a plate-glass window.
I followed it up with a punch to the gut. He doubled over in pain, dropping Anna to the dirt. The scythe shimmered as it slipped backward, reverting to the form of my girlfriend Anna in full-on demonic mode. She licked her lips, fangs flashing in her mouth as she watched me go.
“Holy shit, yes!”Anna roared. “Kill him, baby! Kill him!”
I struck again and again. I could’ve done this all day—I barely even felt the impact of each punch. Vargas sure as shit did, though. Each strike broke bone, shattered cartilage, dealt the kind of damage that would take ages to heal through magic. The man looked like a sack of meat.
Vargas screamed.
Vargus Casts Static Pulse!
A wave of force erupted from his body, shoving me backward. I landed in the dirt next to Anna, staring up at the starry sky as I tried to remember what I’d been doing a moment ago.
I sat up—and my stomach dropped into my ass. Lightning flowed across Vargas’s body, charged up with a level of Mana beyond my imagining. The wounds I’d dealt him—enough to kill an ordinary human—faded away before the magic, bringing him right back to full health.
“You infants,” the man snarled, charging up more and more power. “It’s been fun playing with you—making you believe you actually had a chance against me. But now it’s time for the adults in the room to finish this.”
I’d have sworn the man grew larger from the infusion of Mana. Sparks flew from his eyes as he prepared another one of those jaw-rattling static shocks—this one would do more than just knock us backward. He meant to kill all of us, and leave no survivors.
“Anna, to me,” I said, holding out a hand. No wave of light came. “Anna?”
My girlfriend shook her head. She looked like a dishrag that had been thoroughly wrung out to dry. “I’m tapped,” she said, sweat covering her face and forehead.
“Eric.” Lyra tugged at my robes. “You have to use me.”
I looked down at her fractured ankle. “You’re in no condition to fight, Lyra. You should get the girls on the cart and get out of here! I’ll hold back Vargas as long as I can—!”
She slapped me. She actually slapped me!
“This is what I was born to do,” Lyra said, her eyes burning fiercely in her gorgeous face. “You made me a Cultivator, young man. The least I can do to pay you back is to save your life.”
I watched Vargas cackle, drawing more energy into his body. “I don’t think we can make up the gap,” I said, despair filling me.
Lyra’s hand squeezed mine. “Remember our time in the garden, Eric?”
How could I forget? That evening had been pure magic—first the threesome with Lyra, then Cultivating out behind the Hungry Herb Tavern. I’d enjoyed it so much, even though we’d torn up most of the plants…
Wait.
We’d torn them all up.
When I channeled through my girls, they got stronger.
“Change for me,” I growled, gripping Lyra tight. “This is the only shot we’ve got!”
The redhead grinned—and shimmered like a vision from an acid trip, transforming in an instant into the form of the Snake Spear. She felt good in my hands, like she wanted to be there. Like there was no other place in the world she’d rather be.
“Another weapon?” Vargas laughed. “Fancy toys, boy. No substitute for raw power!”
The world darkened around Vargas. Bolts of lightning struck the ground all around him, forming a ball of pure lightning energy around his body. It was like he’d put both of his spells together, layering them on top of each other like a fancy cake.
I raced toward him, the Spear at the ready. The world fell away, calm filling my senses. I sensed the world around me, becoming one with it, and asked the life around me to provide me with as much Mana as possible.
It flowed through the Snake Spear—the weapon that was a woman.
In the same way that Lyra and I—or Anna and I, or Anna and Lyra and I—became something more than ourselves when we were together in the bedroom, Lyra and I combined into something else as Mana flowed through us both. Something Vargas had never seen before. Something no one had seen for centuries.
My secret weapon from Eliezer.
My Dual Weapon Cultivation.
Eric Casts Hydro Blast!
A wall of water shot from the Snake Spear, crashing into Vargas with hurricane force. The lightning surrounding him tried its best to envelop the flow, crush it, but it split his bolts again and again. His electricity fizzled, sparking out like an overheated circuit. I thought of having to flip the fuse box on and off as a kid when using the microwave and laughed.
“What!?” Vargas’s incoherence turned to rage. “You haven’t attained this level of power! How did you do this!?”
“That’s for me to know,” I said, shifting energy through Lyra’s spear, “and you to find out.”
A surge of Mana flowed through me:
Eric Casts Blossom!
The grass at Vargas’s feet erupted in a flood of vines. Within moments, they’d grown around the lower half of his body, rooting him to the spot. He tugged at the thick ropes of plant matter again and again, struggling to free himself, but they grew faster than he could destroy them. Screams filled the auction square as he tried his best to escape. Blossom wasn’t as powerful as it would have been had I cast it through Anna’s scythe, but it was still boosted by channeling it through Lyra’s spear, and more than enough to keep Vargus contained.
“You whelp!” More sparks flew from Vargas’s body. “How dare you!”
The sky darkened. Black clouds rolled in above our heads, a light pattering of rain falling on the Silent Auction. Something had just changed in the air.
Look out, Lyra yelled inside my head. He’s about to do something, Eric! Hit him first!
I charged forward. A wall of static erupted from Vargas, pushing me to the dirt. Then another, and another. I slid back further and further each time, pushed by the incredible static force of a truly pissed off Cultivator.
Other things shot back along with me. Chairs, bodies—anything at all that had been in the square. Vargas shoved them all away, nearly blind with rage. Power surged through him, a dangerous amount of power. This fight might very well kill him—but it would kill me first.
“Eric—oof!” That was a voice I hadn’t heard since we arrived—Regina’s. The wife of Jalen was tossed from the auction block as another of Vargas’s powerful waves rocked the island. The cages holding the beasts tilted, shook—and fell. One of the cages, bent already beyond recognition, snapped open as it toppled to the side.
The velociraptor was free.
The moment it broke loose from the cage, it brought its friends with it. The feathered dinosaur struck the other cages, snapping their locks with its powerful jaws. More beasts emerged—some of the most powerful to exist in the Zone. The rare beasts Hazel and her ilk hunted were all represented here.
And they were pissed.
Regina and the other slaves dove for cover as the animals charged. A whole herd of monsters, with the velociraptor at their head, shot through the space where a few moments ago amoral humans had been bidding on their Cores and their lives. I ran, scooping up Anna and helping her as I carried Lyra in my arms. Hazel followed, booking it for what was left of the cart.
But one person couldn’t move a muscle. Vargas.
I watched as the herd approached, making no move to slow. The Cultivator struggled against the blossoming flowers, lightning singing through their branches, but he was too slow.
“No!” Vargas screamed. “No! Go away, you beasts! Go awaaaay…!”
Vargas disappeared in a thundering herd of monsters. They trampled him beneath hoof and horn, crunching him to dust beneath their powerful legs. As the monsters reached the line of tents on the far side of the island, I noted the blood covering their bodies. Vargas’s blood.
It sobered me up quickly. “We need to get out of here,” I said, shoving Anna and Hazel onto the cart. “Lyra, get up girl! We need your help!”
The Snake Spear shimmered in the air, returning to the form of the sexy older woman. This time, she remembered everything clearly—she didn’t need any coaxing to climb into her seat and get us started. One of the oxen lay dead from Vargas’s lightning attack, and I pulled off its yoke with a grunt.
“Go,” I growled, turning back to the auction block. “I need to get Regina.”
Lyra shook her head. “We’re not leaving without you!”
Hazel shot up from the backseat. “Fuck that! I’m not leaving without Ji!”
Fuck! The Guildmaster! Monsters plunged into the warren of tents, scattering onlookers and munching down on those hidden beneath. If Guildmaster Ji was still inside a tent,
busy with two whores, the chances were good he’d get killed by one of those creatures. Still, I knew Hazel wanted to do it herself.
“If he makes it out of this alive, I swear I’ll help you take him down,” I told Hazel, meaning it with all my heart. “But we’ve got to go. Now. Or we’re all dead!”
Just then, a panting figure raced up to the smoking cart. Her face was so blackened with soot and dirt that it took several moments for me to realize I was looking at Regina.
“It’s you,” she said, embracing me from behind. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me, Eric. Thank you, thank you!”
With a grunt, I shoved the young woman into the back of the cart. The few barrels that remained were smoking wrecks, but no one was of a mind to complain.
“Get us out of here,” I commanded Lyra.
“Gladly.” A savage smirk rose to the redhead’s face as the cart took off. “You’ve done good work here tonight, Eric. Saved the girl, killed some slavers, ended the Auction. Even if Guildmaster Ji survives, you’ve killed his best lieutenant—and put the fear of the Gods back into the man. Things in this Zone will never be the same.”
We made it back across the water. By the time we reached the far bank, what remained of the Silent Auction lay in flames. The beasts Vargas’s spell had freed scattered to the winds, swimming or running through the swamp into the Zone proper. Cultivators will have their work cut out for them bringing those things down, I thought, remembering the vicious velociraptor. But then again, I’m a Cultivator now. Easy money…
Yet as I sat on the ruined cart, surrounded by my women, I realized it was about more than money. More than power, even—though I wanted that very badly. This was about family.
My new family.
The one I’d fight to protect.
And if Ji wanted to take that away… well—I’d show him just how powerful a woman who transforms into a weapon could be.
Chapter 23
