Hell to Pay (Ascend Online Book 2)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “Five, Four, Three,” Quinn counted down in hushed tones as he strained to contain his spell. “Two, one!”

  “Breach!” Quinn called out as the fireball sped from his hands and smashed into the heavy door before us, sending it crashing inwards with explosive force.

  “Go, go, go!” I shouted, leaping into the room behind the exploding door, not even bothering to wait for the flames to clear. I felt the power of the sigil consume me as I sprinted through the shattered doorframe, my vision clouding over into a now familiar crimson haze.

  It had been three hours since we’d left the guild headquarters, three hours that the entire Underworld had been at war.

  And it was even more vicious and brutal than I ever thought it would be.

  Rushing through the billowing smoke of Quinn’s fireball, I found myself bursting into a large room filled with overturned tables and piled chairs, serving as makeshift defenses to slow down our assault. With everyone flinching from the sudden explosion, I managed to clear nearly half the distance to the barricade before the panic-stricken defenders recovered and fired a volley of crossbow bolts in my direction.

  The majority of the bolts directed at me were aimed out of reflex and flew wide as I sprinted across the room. However, a handful of the more experienced defenders took a moment to check their aim before firing, their bolts crashing into the magical shield that Molly had cast upon me. Pulsing with a dull flash of light, the shield managed to deflect two crossbow bolts into the ground before shattering, leaving a third bolt to slam straight into my chest.

  Feeling like I had been struck by a hammer, I couldn’t help but grunt as the bolt rebounded off of the heavy chestplate that was my newly Re-Forged armor, leaving me slightly winded but otherwise unharmed. Continuing my charge forward, I heard the room break out into shouts as the deafening echo of Quinn’s spell began to fade from the air. With my full momentum behind me, a powerful leap easily sent me over the barricade and crashing into the cowering group of defenders hiding behind it.

  Kicking one of the defenders hard in the chest as I landed, I sent him sprawling backwards, feeling ribs crack and snap under my heavy boot. Giving no time for the other defenders to recover, I swept my blade around me in a wide cleave, barely feeing its razor edge slice through the two defenders standing on either side of me, causing both of them to fall to the ground, each clutching a massive wound across their body.

  Whirling to my left where the defenders were thickest, I rushed down the enemy line, barely noting the fleeting tags that appeared in my vision as I picked out my next target.

  [Guild Cutthroat] – The Damned – Level 8

  The sigil’s rage flowing through me felt muted and distant as I dispassionately carved my way through another thief, splitting the terrified man’s chest open with a near effortless swing of my sword, then kicking the falling body away from me.

  I had long lost count of how many people we had killed since the war began, focusing instead on the task at hand while reminding myself that this was just all a game. Whatever soothing magic that the game system played on my psyche was all that was keeping me standing, constantly blurring the nonstop combat over the last three hours into a distant memory.

  I thought I had understood what Isabella had meant when she’d said that this war wasn’t one of conquest and that it would it be a vicious, bloody fight through the city.

  I was wrong.

  This was a war of vengeance, a savage example of what the consequences were for betraying the Underworld. There were no warnings, ultimatums, or threats given to The Damned. There was simply a sudden rush of violence as hard men and women broke into The Damned’s hideouts with murder on their minds.

  By the time the morning sun rises, The Damned will no longer exist as a guild, I told myself through gritted teeth as I mechanically smashed the hilt of my sword into a cutthroat’s face to knock him backwards, then drew my glass-steel blade across his body. Even if we don’t end up finding Dorian and Edith.

  “Clear!” Elmar’s voice rang out behind me, bringing me back into the present and piercing through the crimson veil that hung over me.

  It’s clear already? The thought pierced the crimson veil that hung over me as several other voices began calling out the same. I turned to cast a glance around the room, startled to find that the barricades I had leaped over had been completely shattered by magic. A handful of bodies littered the ground in front of the barricade, some singed with arcane fire while others were filled like pincushions with crossbow bolts. I felt my heart flip in my chest when I noticed that two of the fallen belonged to Elmar’s group of thieves.

  I didn’t even hear any of the magic behind me. My eyes drank in the sight as I slowly processed what I was seeing.

  “Clear,” I called out belatedly as I dismissed the sigil’s power from my body and shifted my glance back to the path of carnage that I had wrought through the defenders’ ranks. Eight bodies, all belonging to The Damned, littered the ground behind me as I realized that I had taken just under half of the defenders singlehandedly, sweeping through them with little more effort than a scythe did to wheat.

  But what scared me most of all was that I barely even remembered doing so, the combat already appearing as brief, passing flashes in my memory.

  “What a waste,” I spat bitterly, feeling the acrid smell of copper in my throat as I slowly became aware of my body, the lingering effects of the sigil finally fading away.

  Reaching up to my chest, I felt a dull aching pain in the exact spot where the crossbow bolt had struck me.

  Damn, that was lucky. I ran my fingers along the newly Re-Forged armor and found a small scar in the metal, centered right over my heart. Swallowing hard, I couldn’t help but glance once again at the fallen bodies, unconsciously bringing up the item’s stats in my vision as I made a mental note to thank Quinn again for his help.

  Grim Shadow Bruiser’s Cuirass

  Slot: Chest

  Item Class: Relic

  Item Quality: Mastercraft (+20%)

  Armor: 110

  Armor Type: Light

  Strength: +3 Agility: +3

  Durability: 179/180

  Weight: 5.5 kg

  Grim Shadow Bruiser Armor Set: 1/7

  That could have been me, I thought to myself as a wave of guilt then forced me to tear my eyes away from the sight and look around the hideout that we had just stormed.

  It was the fifth hideout on Molly’s list belonging to The Damned that we had attacked, and the second one with a significant amount of opposition. The element of surprise had lasted along enough for the three of us, aided by Elmar and his crew, to easily raid and destroy the first three hideouts without any serious casualties. But by the time we had reached the fourth, word had begun to get out about the war consuming the district and we had begun running into prepared defenses.

  And had begun losing people.

  Judging from the bodies lying on the ground before me, our casualty count had now risen to four. A third of all the team that had been assigned to us, that volunteered to come with us.

  “Lazarus!” Molly’s voice echoed from the far end of the rectangularly shaped room, which I realized was much larger than I had thought, now that I had a chance to look around and collect my bearings. “We have a prisoner.”

  “A prisoner?” I called back with surprise as I started walking towards her voice, passing by a pair of guildmembers that had begun the grisly task of checking and moving the dead. “I thought we weren’t taking prisoners.”

  “We still might not be,” Molly called back to me as I finally spotted both her, Quinn, and Elmar standing on the far side of the room in front of two massive tables with a man kneeling before them. “It depends on how cooperative he is.”

  As I approached the trio, my eyes were drawn to three intact skeletons that lay on the two tables behind them, one of them being notably smaller than the other. Shifting my glance towards the man in front of her, I noted that he was much better dres
sed than any of the other thugs that we had just sliced our way through, and his demeanor was far too haughty for one caught in the middle of an Underworld war.

  Clutching at a wound in his arm, the silver-haired man had been clearly burnt and beaten during our attack as he stared up defiantly at Molly, the sleeve of his finely crafted grey robes slowly turning dark while a small puddle of blood dripped down on the floor from his hand. Holding her sabre to the man’s throat casually, Molly nodded her head towards me as I came into range.

  Looking up at me with pale blue eyes, I saw the faintest flash of fear cross the man’s eyes before it was replaced by a scowl.

  “You have all made a dreadful mistake tonight,” the man hissed as he slowly shifted his glance away from me and back towards Molly, mindful of the sabre sitting on his neck. “The Damned will have your heads for this.”

  “I doubt it,” Elmar stated bluntly while shaking his head at the man as if he were a small child. “Seeing how The Damned is set to be purged tonight.”

  “You are insane!” the man exclaimed in disbelief. “You can’t purge a guild the size of The Damned!”

  “You can when all four of the other guilds are helping you,” Quinn replied to the silver-haired man.

  “They would never do such a thing,” the man snorted in derision, despite a sudden twinge of nervousness in his voice. “It would cause chaos!”

  “Have you even looked out into the city today?” I asked rhetorically, cutting into the conversation while casting a glance towards my girlfriend. “Why are you keeping this guy alive, Molly? He’s an idiot.”

  “He is,” Molly agreed while motioning her head towards something on the table with the three skeletons on it. “But we found those things here.”

  Glancing towards the table, I saw a number of various tools and implements scattered amongst the bones of the three skeletons, their purpose not easily recognizable to me. Judging from the fine powder that covered nearly everything on the table, along with the surrounding floor, I guessed that they had something to do with either cutting or working bone.

  Continuing my scan, I found my eyes landing on three spherically shaped pieces of bone that lay separate from the other tools. Each of the pieces appeared to be engraved with a variety of runic marks, half of which had been inlaid with gold and the other half with silver. Joined to the bone with a golden clasp was a dull gray length of leather that looked like it had been braided together from several smaller pieces.

  Feeling my skin begin to crawl the longer I looked at the grisly craftsmanship, I called up the item’s tag, already suspecting what was lying before me.

  [Hellborn Soul Shard]

  Shifting my glance back towards the one smaller skeleton, I noticed that it was missing several of the bones that belonged to its leg.

  “So, you were the one who made those.” The words hissed out of my mouth as I looked down towards the kneeling man. “What are they, exactly?”

  “Like I would divulge guild secrets to you!” the man countered without even bothering to look in my direction.

  “You wouldn’t be divulging much,” Molly said as she pressed her sabre into the man’s throat, drawing a thin line of blood and causing the man to gasp. “We already know that they are used as vessels to store the spirits of devils called from another plane and that they can be given to unwitting people, then forcefully possessed by a command word.”

  The man’s eyes widened slightly at Molly’s information, but to his credit, he maintained a silent and defiant glare as he looked up at her.

  “I would take this opportunity while we’re still asking politely and at least tell us something,” Quinn told the man. “We’re not exactly in a patient mood, and you’re not really giving us a reason to keep you alive.”

  “Then stop wasting your time,” the man goaded in a shaky voice as he leaned forward into Molly’s sword. “Let us be done with it, then; death would be a small price to pay compared to what The Damned would do to me if they even suspected me of speaking secrets.”

  “We can protect you from that,” Molly offered, easing her weapon from the man’s throat. “But only if you tell us everything about these soul shards and what Dorian has planned for them.”

  “You are wasting your breath, girl,” the man growled. “Assuming I even know anything, I wouldn’t betray my guild so easily.”

  “That…is a shame,” Molly replied sadly as her eyes flicked over to me meaningfully while removing the sabre from the man’s throat. “Because we’re really not in a position to take no for an answer.”

  Staring up at Molly for a moment, the man processed her words, his face turning pale as he caught her hidden meaning. “Do your—oof!”

  His reply was cut off as my boot smashed into his kidneys and sent him sprawling to the side, cracking the side of his head off of the heavy table before crashing into the ground. Not letting up for a second, I stepped closer to the man, using the momentum to send an even more powerful kick into his body, the meaty thump of my foot connecting with his body echoing through the air.

  Concussed from the impact of hitting his head, the man threw up almost immediately as he fell to the ground before contorting wildly in pain from my thunderous kicks with a desperate moan. Taking a step back from the dazed and wounded man, I noticed that the fall had caused his already weeping arm to begin gushing with blood as it began to pool on the ground.

  Motioning to Molly, I took a second step backwards as she knelt down towards the fallen man, touching him gently with a glowing hand.

  “This will happen as many times as it needs to.” The man flinched in surprise as she whispered to him before standing back up and giving me a nod.

  Bending down, I grabbed the man by the ankle and effortlessly dragged him across the ground and away from the table, turning him over onto his back in the process. Looking up at me with a freshly healed face, the man’s defiant expression had been replaced with one of pure terror as Molly’s words sank into his mind.

  Pulling back a fist while wrapping my other hand around the man’s throat, I added my own words for the man to ponder.

  “You should have talked while you had the chance.”

  W

  “Now, that you’re feeling more cooperative, Hedon, I’m going to ask you again,” Molly said to the dazed man sitting on the floor as she held one of the soul shards in front of his face with a pair of pliers. “What is this?”

  “It’s a type of soul shard,” Hedon replied numbly, his eyes straining to focus on the bone talisman that Molly was holding. “One attuned to a specific plane.”

  “And which one is that, exactly?” Molly asked.

  “I do not know,” the man replied before blinking twice, then suddenly lifting his hands towards Elmar and me in a panic. “I honestly do not know! The instructions I were given did not say, I swear it!”

  “Instructions?” I queried while looking down at the uninjured, yet still blood-covered man.

  “On how to craft the soul shard,” Hedon explained. “Thief Lord Dorian presented the blueprints to me and the other Bonecarvers…we were not permitted to ask questions, only to follow our orders.”

  “There are other…Bonecarvers?” Quinn jumped in with a note of worry in his voice. “How many of you are there?”

  “Nine, that I know of,” Hedon replied with a shrug. “Possibly more if they trained their own apprentices or if the guild recruited others.”

  “And you were all tasked with creating these soul shards?” Molly glanced at Quinn, catching on to his train of thought.

  “As far as I know,” Hedon answered slowly as he inclined his head towards the skeletons on the table. “The materials needed to create them aren’t the easiest to come by, but Dorian was…adamant that we not slow our pace.”

  Following the man’s glimpse towards the table, something finally clicked and caused my eyes to widen in surprise.

  “You’re HP,” I stated as I recited one of the entries in Cayden’s ledger. “Three
intact skeletons, two Human, one Elf. Dry and clean.”

  “Damn,” Molly cursed in surprise as her head swiveled towards the table and landed on the skeletons. “You’re right, Lazarus.”

  “H-How do you know that?” Hedon’s eyes widened as he cowered away from me.

  “I killed Cayden,” I answered bluntly while motioning towards the table. “Where is the rest of the order?”

  “Y-You did what?” Hedon stuttered, his eyes widening in fear.

  “You heard me,” I growled at the cowering Bonecarver. “Where is the rest of the order? The gold, the crystals, the skin?”

  “Gone, used up,” the man answered. “The crystals were taken to another location…I don’t know where, but the rest of it…”

  Hedon waved at the necklace that Molly still held before him.

  “How many of these have you created?” Quinn asked slowly before correcting himself. “No, how many of these do you think have been created between you and all of the Bonecarvers?”

  “That’s hard to say,” Hedon hedged. “I don’t know how fast the others may have been working, or if they ran short of materials…”

  “Take a guess, then!” I barked harshly, a sudden pit of dread filling my stomach.

  “Ah!” Hedon flinched as he reflexively covered his face. “I don’t know! At least a hundred, probably closer to two hundred by now!”

  Feeling the world lurch out from under me as I processed the implications of what Hedon had just said, I slowly looked towards Molly and Quinn, seeing pure shock written across both of their faces.

  Making eye contact with me, Molly was the first to recover from the man’s words, her simple statement managing to capture exactly what each of us were thinking at the moment.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Chapter 21

  Twenty minutes later, we were all sprinting through the moonlit streets of Eberia as if Hell itself were chasing us, which given Hedon’s gut-wrenching revelation, we fully expected to become reality. Even in our wildest estimates, we’d never imagined that Dorian would have been insane enough or even able to produce so many soul shards in such a short timeframe.