The Land: Swarm: A LitRPG Saga (Chaos Seeds Book 5)

by Aleron Kong

  Ultimately, though, he persevered. Richter could see his friends risking their lives against his dangerous foe. His will firmed, and he pushed through the last seconds of the spell. The ball of gold and black energy rocketed away.

  The spherical spell form shot towards the giant, lengthening as it flew. After five yards, it was an oval. After ten yards, it was a cylinder, and after fifteen yards, it was a javelin that flickered between being a light-sucking black and a brilliant, shining gold, millisecond to millisecond. The javelin flew unerringly towards the giant. The accuracy of the spell was governed by Richter’s thirty-two points of Agility, by no means a paltry number. Taking into account the size of the giant, its slowed combat speed, lower Agility, and the scant distance between Richter and his target, the monster had no hope to evade. The flickering javelin struck the rock giant directly in the chest, and the results were spectacular.

  As soon as the spell impacted against the monster, the javelin disappeared and the rock giant’s skin fractured. Cracks raced through its skin, making pieces no larger than Richter’s palm. The pieces began to peel off, like ash being blown away in the wind. Each piece was millimeter thin and broke apart into nothing once free of the giant. The entire process took only seconds, and when it was complete, the rock giant looked exactly the same as before. All fighting ceased as everyone present, including the monster, waited to see if anything else would happen.

  There wasn’t any outward change, but Richter accessed his combat log and what he saw made him smile.

  Richter has struck the Rock Giant with dual cast Weak Aura Lance. All spell-type resistances decreased by 11.8%. Any resistance dipping below 0% will cause a resultant susceptibility to that spell type.

  “It’s weaker to magic now!” Richter shouted. “Take it apart!”

  Richter wasn’t sure if the giant could actually understand him but it hated him with a molten anger. Ignoring everyone else, it started to lumber towards him, if you could call the sprint of a twenty foot tall, raging monster a lumber. Bravely and perhaps foolishly, Richter pulled his short sword out of the ground and prepared to meet it. He shouted his defiance, “Come on, pretty girl! I’ve got something for you!”

  He sent out a mental call and rushed forward. Richter had never felt a battle high like this before. There was no doubt in his heart or mind that he was going to crush his enemy. A cackle of wild abandon escaped his lips as he ran towards his foe. His motions were noticeably faster than the giant’s, but its large size still let it cover ground fairly quickly. Sion, Beyan, Jean and Ulinde shot the giant in the back, staggering it somewhat, but it kept running. Terrod and Sedrin immediately began to give chase, but they were too far away, having pulled Caulder to a safe distance. Krom raised his hammer to attack the giant as it ran by but was knocked down by a backhand from the monster. The dwarf hit the ground in a heap and didn’t move. Richter sent a quick order to Alma to heal the smith.

  The two foes sprinted towards each other, and for a moment, nothing else existed except for their shared hatred. When the giant was only ten yards away, the grey humanoid stumbled suddenly and fell onto its face. In its blind rage and need to harm Richter, the giant had failed to notice the grass-green body of the shale adder shoot forward between its ankles. The twenty-foot snake interwove between the giant’s legs and brought it down!

  Richter grinned, and his eyes widened manically. He stood before his face-planted foe and raised his short sword high into the air before plunging it down into the back of the giant’s head! A foot of clear green metal sunk into his enemy’s skull. It screamed in agony, more than half of its total health gone in an instant. Richter hadn’t been sure of its physiology, and didn’t know if the blow would kill it outright, but he was glad it was still alive. He reached into his bag and whispered with a smile, “Like a spider monkey.”

  He pulled out the Quicksilver Collar of Submission and swung it around the screaming giant’s neck. “You’re mine!” Richter shouted in triumph. He reached out with his other hand to grab the free end of the collar. With a mighty pull, he brought the two ends together… or at least he tried to. The damn thing wouldn’t fit! He pulled two more times in desperation, but he just couldn’t get the two ends to meet! After the third attempt, it vaguely entered his consciousness that the giant’s latest scream of pain had sounded more like a roar of rage. In the next instant, a grotesque and powerful hand reached back and partially encircled the chaos seed’s chest.

  The giant picked Richter up off of its back and swung him forward, suplexing the chaos seed into the ground, face first. Only luck kept his neck from being snapped. Despite that, he lost consciousness immediately. The next thing he knew, he could hear loud shouts and the sounds of battle. Richter knew he needed to get up, but he couldn’t seem to open his eyes. All he could see was his interface blinking furiously with waiting information. One icon was flashing red. With a thudding of his heart, he realized it was the icon that signified Alma. She only had twenty-four health points left!

  Richter struggled to open his eyes. When he managed it, the sunlight made his already agonizing headache flare into the worst migraine of his life. Through pure strength of will, he forced himself to ignore the pain and focus on his minimap to find Alma’s location. She was only ten feet away. Stumbling forward, he immediately fell prey to a bout of extreme vertigo and collapsed back to the ground. Vomit spilled out of his mouth and over his chest. Richter forced himself back up, crawling as much as stumbling towards his familiar.

  He looked at her blearily. It was difficult to focus, but what he saw made his heart clench. His familiar’s beautiful body leaked red blood from multiple locations. A large swath of her scales were also missing. One wing was mangled, and her left leg and arm were jutting out in unnatural directions. She raised her head weakly at Richter’s approach. All she could communicate psychically though was pain.

  Casting a spell wasn’t an option. He could barely see straight. Thankfully, there was another option. He stuck his hand in his bag and accessed his inventory. For the first time, it took several attempts to make the 20x20 grid appear. He withdrew several health potions. The first went to Alma.

  Richter poured the red potion down her throat, not stopping even as she coughed and sputtered. Each small convulsion spread pain through his familiar’s body and, through their shared Psi Bond, Richter experienced his share of it as well. He almost swooned, but he kept going, knowing that if he didn’t increase her HPs immediately, he might lose the dragonling. That was not an option!

  Once she had ingested the health potion, her health immediately began to rise. Satisfied, Richter poured three vials down his throat at once. Taking the potions at the same time wouldn’t increase his rate of health regeneration, but it would increase the total amount of health restored. Then he fed another potion to Alma. This time, the dragonling took it eagerly.

  Richter sank down on his butt, exhausted even by the faint exertion of feeding alma. As he sat there, the chaos seed heard cries of pain and the crunch of metal on rock. He knew that this should matter, but his head wound prevented him from grasping exactly why. The magic of the potions continued to do its work, though, and after a few minutes, he could start to think coherently again. Richter still felt extremely confused. Being able to concentrate enough to cast spells was out of the question, but he could at least see what was going on. For the second time in minutes, his heart dropped.

  The giant had laid waste to his war party. It stood tall with Richter’s short sword still sticking out of its head, the fourth spike for its crown. Krom was back on his feet and was still swinging his hammer, but the dwarf lazed drunkenly, clearly not fully recovered from the giant’s backhand. As Richter watched, Krom swung his hammer in a horribly aimed strike and missed the giant completely. His momentum spun him around and he fell to the ground. The dwarf looked around groggily.

  Sedrin’s spear was sticking out of the giant’s side, but the guard was down on the ground. Caulder stood over him with his dent
ed war door held up, but the sergeant bled freely from a scalp wound. The man had a beleaguered expression on his face while he weathered a blow from the giant. The war door rung like a bell.

  Terrod was down as well, twenty yards away, moaning and holding his leg. Richter could see a shard of bone extending out of it. Beyan and Jean lay in a crumpled pile nearby. Richter couldn’t tell if they were alive or dead. The giant’s body looked like a pincushion of arrows, but Ulinde and Sion had been unable to bring it down. They had apparently irritated the monster, though.

  While Richter watched, the rock giant untangled the adder from about his legs. Then, using it like a living whip, the monster swung the twenty foot long reptile at the archers. Ulinde dodged out of the way, but Sion was struck by the snake’s head. The sprite was knocked off of his feet and flipped end over end before landing in a heap. Richter could barely think straight but he was pretty sure he heard his friend say, “Motherfucker!” in sprite-speak.

  Alma screeched and pulled his attention back to her, *I need one more potion, master. Please!*

  Richter drunkenly reached into his bag again and produced a red vial. He poured it down Alma’s throat while in the background he heard a resounding clang. Again, he knew that he should care more about what was happening, but all he could focus on was Alma. A good deal of the bleeding had stopped, but her scales had not regenerated and her wing remained mangled. Despite that, when she spoke in his mind, the dragonling’s voice was cold and determined.

  *Pick me up and point me at the giant, master. Pick me up now.*

  Richter did as he was told, his will little better than an automaton’s. He picked up the dragonling, who hissed when he jostled her damaged wing. He stood slowly and almost fell but was able to keep his feet. As soon as he was relatively stable, he extended his arms slightly in the direction of the giant. A yellow glow surrounded his familiar’s small body, and a second later a bolt of lightning streaked towards the monster. The giant’s fist was raised to pound on Caulder’s defense again.

  Unlike the first time lightning had struck the giant, this time, there was a clear effect. Its body arched and it let out a short roar before falling to the ground. The aura lance had done its job! Alma turned her sinuous neck to look at Richter and thought, *Order the snake to bind its arm, then run over to the body. We have to finish this!*

  Richter lumbered forward and sent a mental command as he had been told. The shale adder stirred from where the giant had thrown it against a tree. After a few moments, it started to snake forward. Even though it was injured, it wrapped itself around one of the giant’s arms. The animal looped around the giant’s limb and then flowed around its neck. Its grip began to tighten. No real damage was done, but it did serve to immobilize that one arm. Richter kept closing the distance between himself and the giant: forty feet, thirty feet, and then twenty. Alma looked at Caulder. The guard looked confused for a moment, but then dropped his shield and shambled towards the giant’s head. It had recovered from the stun effect of Alma’s lightning bolt and was in the process of reaching its free hand towards the shale adder.

  Alma gave one more order, *Throw me towards its head, then grab its arm and keep it from harming me.*

  Part of Richter screamed that this was a horrible idea. It would place his familiar in further danger. That voice sounded garbled in his mind, though. The only thing that was clear in his addled consciousness was Alma’s voice. He tossed her towards the giant’s head and then grabbed the giant’s arm. Richter wrapped his legs around the creature’s bicep and extended his body along the rocky arm. He encircled the giant’s wrist with both arms and arched his back, trying to keep its arm straight. Even with his thirty-three points of Strength, he might not have been up to the task, but the giant had other things to worry about.

  His toss of Alma had been enough to get her into position. Her broken wing had almost made her lose consciousness when she landed, but pure spite kept her alive. This thing had dared to harm her master and she would make it pay! She landed just to the left of the giant’s head. Wasting no time, she crossed the few remaining inches and latched onto the side of the monster’s face. After casting a short spell, she attacked with Brain Drain.

  She had tried this attack earlier in the battle after Richter had been injured. Not knowing what else she could do to help her helpless master, Alma had latched onto the giant’s rocky head. The monster had failed to succumb to the mental attack and had swatted her off like a bothersome fly. Though its blow had been almost absent-minded, the assault had still savaged her small body. While she tried the special attack again, she focused on her anger, rather than her fear, as she drained the giant’s life away.

  The rock giant strained both arms, trying to reach the dragonling that was killing it. The shale adder tightened its grip further, and Richter screamed unintelligibly as he strained to keep the giant’s right arm immobile. Both man and snake were unequal to the task. Despite the efforts of the beast and its master, both of the monster’s arms slowly bent towards its face, eager to crush the life from Alma’s body.

  The giant’s left hand was only a foot away from the dragonling when Caulder finally reached its head. Following Alma’s previous mental command, the guard seized the elementum short sword sticking out of the creature’s head. A twist and thrust shoved the remaining foot of metal deeper into the giant’s brain and stole its remaining health. All strength left the giant’s rocky limbs, and both arms fell back. Richter’s already damaged head hit the ground, and all he knew was blackness as a rainbow swirl of light encircled his body.

  CHAPTER 2 -- Day 111 -- Kuborn 1, 15368 EBG

  Richter woke up naked in his bed chamber. A mist light hovered above his bed, the soft grey light softening the edges of everything in the room. Looking to the side, he could see that Alma lay next to him in the bed. A white bandage encircled her body, binding her wings down and in place, though her arms and legs were free. Her limbs all appeared to have been healed. She slept fitfully next to him, her breathing easy. A peace came over him at seeing her in good health, despite the fact that she apparently needed a bit more healing.

  Richter checked his internal clock. It was 2:43 am. He sent out a mental call to Futen. He desperately wanted to know what had happened after he had passed out. His memories after his head had been driven into the ground were fragmented. He was only able to recall bits and pieces of the subsequent battle. Despite his curiosity, Richter didn’t see any good coming from running around in the middle of the night looking for answers. Hopefully, the remnant would be able to fill him in. Also, the fact that his war party was still active told him that less than twenty-four hours had passed.

  All members of his party appeared as an icon on his minimap, so he felt safe in assuming that the rest of his party had made it back to the village safely. Otherwise, their dot would have disappeared, though he realized he might have just been using game logic. Richter decided to just wait for Futen to receive confirmation. Plus now that he was becoming more awake, he realized that his entire body felt like it had been worked over by a gang of angry carnies! He let out a small groan.

  A guard peeked his head into the room, “Lord Richter. You are awake!”

  “Yeah, I am,” Richter replied softly, wishing the man wouldn’t speak so loudly.

  “What can I do for you, my lord?” the guard asked at the same level.

  Richter winced slightly, “A glass of water would be great, man.”

  The guard’s face turned doubtful, “I am not supposed to you leave you unattended…”

  Richter nodded, “And I appreciate that, but I’m awake now. I’m rested and feeling much better. Please grab me the water. I’m parched.”

  The guard nodded and left. Richter eased his head back down onto his pillow and closed his eyes. In the corner of his vision, there was a flashing notification icon. Not having anything else to do, he mentally clicked on it. The first message set his heart racing.

  You have suffered an injury: Severe Sk
ull Fracture. Causes -75% Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and concentration.

  Richter’s hand immediately shot up to check his head. Stopping at the last minute from searching his skull vigorously, he started to feel his scalp with light touches. Not feeling any soft spots or deformities, he checked his stats.

  Name: Richter

  Age: 24

  Level: 30, 85%

  Health: 689 Mana: 504 Stamina: 350

  Strength: 33

  Agility: 32

  Dexterity: 38

  Constitution: 56

  Endurance: 35

  Intelligence: 46

  Wisdom: 27

  Charisma: 27

  Luck: 21

  Abilities:

  Limitless

  Gift of Tongues

  Fast Learner

  Bounty of Life

  Psi Bond

  Skills:

  …

  Qualities:

  Resolute

  Honorable

  Implacable

  Marks:

  Master of Mist Village

  Blood Oath

  Forge of Heavens

  Dragonkin I

  Resistances:

  Air 50%

  Earth 20%

  Fire 5%