Inferno: A LitRPG Adventure (Elemental Mastery Book 2), page 1
Elemental Mastery 2
Inferno
A LitRPG Adventure
DB King
Copyright © 2022 by DB King
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
v002
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Contents
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Free progression Fantasy Novel!
Contents
Series by DB King
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
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Free progression Fantasy Novel!
About the Author
Series by DB King
Apocalypse Knights
Crafter’s Fate
Dragon Magus
Dungeon of Evolution
Elemental Mastery
Kensei
The Last Magus
Mage’s Path
Shinobi Rising
Summoner’s Shadow
The Last Magus
War Wizard
Chapter 1
Leathery wings, adorned by back-sweeping claws, blocked out the sun as they framed a sleek, reptilian torso and a winding, sinuous neck that ended in a draconic snout. Crimson eyes blazed above flame-wreathed nostrils. Fangs flashed as a sweeping maw opened and tendrils of fire wisped forth. Claws as long as scimitars trailed through the air, held aloft on four back-jointed limbs. Muscles rife with predatory grace and infinite power rippled beneath the golden-scales that sheathed its form.
Yes, that’s definitely a dragon, Zephyr thought.
Beside Zephyr, Vincent clutched the sides of his face and screamed in horror. Still clad in the blue robes of a Tempest School initiate, the sandy-haired jeweler’s apprentice stood no taller than a few inches above Zephyr’s elbows. A year of battling Shadowswarm and constant training had filled his slight frame out with muscle and given his formerly gentle features a resolute cast. That was why, Zephyr thought, the sight of Vincent screaming like that was so disconcerting.
He wasn’t the only one who held that opinion. Nella, once a grim and painfully shy ranger from the Blight Boundary, wasn’t very impressed either. She’d changed back into the attire Zephyr had first seen her in, a year ago at the foot of the Ascent of Wind: a deerskin tunic above roughly sewn brown breeches. A long, elaborate braid of red hair trailing from her scalp bounced off her shoulders as she reached over and cuffed Vincent behind one ear.
“Shut up!” she said. “Ostar’s teeth! What’s wrong with you? You’re an Archmage of Tempest Magic! Why are you so scared of a dragon?”
Well, she’s not painfully shy anymore and maybe slightly less grim, Zephyr thought. But she’s right. We’ve mastered Tempest Magic. We defeated a Twilight Fiend. We’ve slain thousands of Shadowswarm entities. We shouldn’t be scared of a dragon…
Even though that dragon was literally eight times larger than Zephyr, who stood closer to seven feet than six and whose limbs were packed with muscle from a lifetime of training as a Wu warrior monk. The downdraft coming from the dragon’s massive wings flatted his dark hair against his skull and rippled the folds of his sleeveless blue tunic. His heart beat wildly with awe and terror as he looked up at the magnificent creature, unsure of what he was supposed to do next.
“Die,” Gabriel Xorst said. “Looks like we’re going to die. That’s a dragon.”
Nella turned and jabbed the crimson-robbed Phoenix Knight in the side, hard enough to make him flinch and send his crest of red hair flapping upon the shaven sides of his skull.
“Didn’t you just say there’s nothing to worry about?” she demanded.
“Can’t worry if you’re dead,” Gabriel replied, shrugging. He pointed over the edge of the battlements upon which they were all standing. “Well, if the dragon kills us, we won’t have to worry about those iron drones crawling up here.”
“Gabriel Xorst!” Grand Sage Avora roared. The white-haired descendant of the legendary Tarkus Avora stood behind the trio, his normally genial features twisted into a mask of frustrated anger. Zephyr had never seen the Grand Sage so upset before, not even when he’d been grievously wounded by Archmage Xanthus when the latter had been possessed by a twilight fiend. Avora still hadn’t recovered from his injuries, which meant that he still couldn’t cast any spells.
“Yeah, what?” Gabriel turned to Avora.
“You dropped us into an active warzone!” the Grand Sage cried, wringing his wrists. “What were you thinking?”
“Didn’t know things had gotten so bad,” Gabriel said, shrugging again. “Oh well.”
This is the Phoenix Knight who’s supposed to teach us Inferno Magic? Zephyr thought, his heart sinking. He shook his head and turned to the mental techniques he’d learned in the Wu monastery, focusing his mind and pushing his doubts aside. Now was not the time for such ruminations.
“Vincent, Nella! Take care of the iron drones!” he said to his friends. “I’ll handle the dragon! Gabriel, keep Grand Sage Avora safe!”
“Got it, Zeph,” Vincent said, raising his hands. Tendrils of lightning danced across his fingertips, before coalescing into a delicate crafting hammer in his right hand.
“Let’s kill them all!” Nella snarled. Electricity poured from her eyes, and her powerful enchanted bow, Heartseeker’s Wrath, appeared in her hands, drawn from the extra-dimensional storage of her mage band. An arrow of lightning appeared upon the bow, nocked and ready.
“I’m your teacher, you know,” Gabriel grumbled. “You can’t tell me what to—”
“Go!” Zephyr shouted, before casting Soaring Breeze and wreathing his body in the winds of Tempest Magic. He returned his gaze to the dragon, which had been studying the trio curiously all this time instead of attacking, and flew up to meet it, tendrils of lightning crackling in his wake.
As he ascended, he looked to the Codex of Ascension, a spiritual artifact Avora had embedded in the trio’s souls. A codex display, a curious scroll that unfurled in midair, materialized in the corner of his eye, listing his weapons.
Lethal Swiftness
Enchanted saber +9
Wielder Resonance
Facet Shift
Current Aspect: Gathering Clouds
Ponderous Inevitability
Enchanted skyforged greatsword +5
Armor-piercing, Shield-breaking, Mercurial Blast
A thought would bring either weapon into his grasp, but Zephyr was reluctant to arm himself. He flew up so that his gaze was level with the dragon’s, and he looked it straight in the eye.
It still hasn’t attacked yet, Zephyr thought. But Gabriel thought that it was an enemy right away. Why?
Zephyr received an answer to his question soon enough. A spot of shadow upon the dragon’s horned brow, just between its eyes, writhed and roiled, before unfolding into an inky, vaguely humanoid entity that wore a crown of black light upon its head. The creature unfolded its clawed arms and cackled at Zephyr.
“Ah, Sacred One, you have arrived,” it said. “We weren’t quite expecting you, at least not yet, but nevertheless, it is good that you’re here. Within our reach.”
Shadowswarm! Zephyr called Ponderous Inevitability to his grasp. The hilt of the massive greatsword filled his right hand, its weight shifting mercurially as he spun the weapon into readiness. The words of his codex display shifted when he focused it on the shadowy creature.
Shadowswarm Entity
Night Prince
Cat
Weaknesses:
Tempest magic (minor)
Skyforged armaments (minor)
Essence Orbs: 300
Greater Shadowswarm creature, second in power only to twilight fiends; knows numerous spells of dark magic; able to corrupt and possess other beings
The night prince has possessed the dragon, Zephyr realized, thinking of the hapless Master Venn. She’d been a Storm Scion and one of the instructors at the Tempest School until a night prince took over her mind and body, forcing the trio to kill her.
“We are pleased to see you, Sacred One,” the night prince went on. Its shadowy mouth twisted into a grotesque parody of a smile as its head inclined downward, so that its sightless gaze swept over Vincent and Nella. “All of you.”
Zephyr knew what the monster’s cryptic statement meant. He, Nella, and Vincent shared the same soul, spun back into the realm of the living as three individuals by the machinations of the Great Cycle. According to Avora, the trio were the reincarnation of Caruthas, the Hero of Light, whose power was so great that his soul could only be reborn by fragmenting into three parts. For some reason, the Shadowswarm, the insidious monsters that the Hero of Light gave his life fighting, referred to the trio as their “Sacred One.” Zephyr didn’t know why the Shadowswarm did that, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
He didn’t waste time trying to converse with the night prince. There was no point in trying to talk to or reason with Shadowswarm. Aloft on his Soaring Breeze spell, Zephyr streaked forward, greatsword held high in readiness to cut the night prince in half.
Instead of casting any spells or raising its limbs in defense, the night prince merely folded its arms across its chest. Zephyr had barely a moment to ponder the curious response before an enormous gush of wind buffeted his face, heralding the sweep of the dragon’s mighty forelimb as it arced a set of razor sharp claws at him.
Zephyr quickly cast Lightning Shield, summoning a barrier of crackling, cobalt-blue energy across his left forearm. He’d learned Lightning Shield relatively early during his training at the Tempest School, but he’d enhanced it to the highest degree of mastery possible with the essence orbs the trio gained from slaying Shadowswarm entities, making it a potent defensive spell that could also be cast quickly.
Lightning Shield (Master)
Conjures lightning shield; full resistance to electrical damage; 95% resistance to unholy and shadow damage; 75% resistance to cold and fire damage; 45% resistance to chaos damage; can be used to block physical attacks, 1 ether per 10 seconds
The dragon’s claws crashed into Zephyr’s Lightning Shield, and for a moment, the defensive spell held, its coruscating surface keeping the razor-sharp claws at bay. That moment passed swiftly. Cracks cobwebbed all over the Lightning Shield, and then it broke apart into shards of cobalt light.
Zephyr cried out in alarm at the sight. His Lightning Infusion spell fired off reflexively, flooding his soul with Tempest Magic. At the same time, his internal energy roiled through his greater meridians and main channels in accordance with the teachings of the Carefree Sutra’s Fifth Cycle. Magical and martial energy intermingled and mixed, filling Zephyr’s limbs with strength and heightening his reflexes.
Lightning Infusion (Master)
Allows Tempest magic infusion up to the Fifth Cycle of the Carefree Sutra
+80% alacrity, 1 ether per 5 minutes, -50% physical strain
Time slowed down. The remnants of his Lightning Shield spun past Zephyr’s face in languid spirals. The dragon’s claws swept in, their tips already grazing Zephyr’s side and shoulder. They would slice him into pieces within the span of another eye-blink. But with lightning running through his soul, Zephyr had far more than an eye-blink of time to react. He soared upward, bringing himself from the dragon’s grasp, before plummeting down once more, angling his sword at the night prince’s skull.
The dragon’s crimson eyes flashed upward in their sockets to meet him. Its massive wings snapped, creating a draft powerful enough to overpower Zephyr’s Soaring Breeze spell and send him hurtling backward through the air.
It’s as fast as me! Zephyr thought as he fought to reassert control of his flight. Lightning crackled around his body as he infused his Soaring Breeze spell with as much Tempest ether as he could pour from his soul. Out here, beneath the open sky, he could channel as much ether as he needed. There was no need for him to conserve his magical strength, as he would have needed to within the otherworldly confines of a Dark Labyrinth.
A heartbeat passed, then another. That was the equivalent of an eternity to Zephyr’s heightened reflexes. But he eventually managed to right himself in the air and square off against the dragon once more.
He clenched his jaw and readied his sword, only to see an orb of fire was growing in front of the dragon’s open maw. The fiery sphere expanded to twice as large as Zephyr was tall. Then a red-blue beam flashed toward him, filling his vision with dancing flames.
A dome of swirling lightning fell over Zephyr just before the beam struck home. He gasped as waves of unbearable heat washed over him. Vincent’s Cosmos Bastion spell had stopped the dragon’s fiery breath in its tracks, but it still couldn’t keep the backwash of its effects at bay, it seemed.
Cosmos Bastion (Master)
Creates a wall or sphere of Tempest magic capable of stopping or slowing physical attacks; full resistance to electrical, unholy, and shadow damage; 95% resistance to cold and fire damage; 55% resistance to chaos damage; 20 feet by 20 feet; 20 seconds per cast, 16 ether per cast
Vincent was flying up into the air, borne aloft on a mighty cloud elemental he’d summoned. His hammer crackled with electricity as he hurled Cosmos Invocation spells repeatedly, sending massive bolts of lightning lashing out at the dragon’s flanks and sides.
Astride her sky-wyrm, a majestic lightning beast with a winding, sinuous body, Nella flew by the dragon, her bow singing. Electric arrows flashed through the air before exploding against the dragon’s torso in starbursts of cobalt-blue light.
The dragon grunted and flinched, obviously discomforted and pained by the barrage of Vincent’s and Nella’s mighty spells that cascaded upon its form. Zephyr’s eyes widened at the sight. The trio had enough magical power to lay waste to entire cities. Yet the dragon had suffered little more than minor singes and scratches beneath the onslaught of Vincent’s and Nella’s Tempest magic.
Moving impossibly fast, the dragon pivoted in the air and swiped at Vincent. The jeweler’s apprentice was nowhere near as fast as Zephyr. Its claws crashed against the Cosmos Bastion Vincent had placed around his own body and sent him flying away through the air, pulling his cloud elemental along with him.
It turned on Nella next. A forelimb flashed forth, clamping down the middle of the sky-wyrm’s winding body. Before the ranger could react, the dragon lashed out with its forelimb and closed its claws around the sky-wyrm’s snout, barely missing Nella by a hand’s breadth. As Zephyr watched, the dragon pulled the sky-wyrm apart in a single, jerking motion. The lightning beast shrieked and dissipated in a shower of sparks, leaving Nella adrift upon empty air. She had time to squeak once before she began plummeting to the ground.
No! Zephyr returned Ponderous Inevitability to his mage band and dove toward Nella, doing his best to coax every last ounce of speed from his Soaring Breeze spell. The ranger was exceptionally bad at casting Soaring Breeze, which meant that without her sky-wyrm, she had no way of stopping her fall.
Zephyr reached her just before she would have struck the battlement’s stone surface. His hands spun out, enacting the motions of the Carefree Palm, a martial technique he’d learned in the Wu monastery. The Carefree Palm’s most basic form manifested as a thunderous, empty-handed blow capable of shattering stone and denting plate steel. Its more advanced variant allowed Zephyr to absorb and redirect momentum with his bare hands.
Which was what he did, pulsing his internal energy through the channels of his open palms, and then using that energy to weave a web just beneath Nella’s descending body. The ranger struck the roiling energies of the Carefree Palm instead of bare stone. Her body bounced skyward once more, all of its descending momentum repurposed in the opposite direction.
