Breaker of Horizons: A LitRPG Adventure, page 71
The wind billowed through her loose clothes. Lightning came and went, a strobing aura around her.
“You showed,” she said, sounding unsurprised.
Nic said fuck it and did a dramatic little bow. Why not? Everyone else was being as dramatic as possible. He might as well get in on the fun.
“You have no idea what you’re playing with—”
As he straightened up, he threw his dagger straight at her throat.
He didn’t expect it to work. It didn’t.
But it made her shut up as she jerked herself out of the way, and with a furious snarl, she counterattacked. Her open palm swept towards him, and the blood formed into a spray of a hundred crimson arrows. Nic took off with a kick, changed directions suddenly, and barely avoided her follow through—a spear of lightning that made the world flash red as it hurtled towards where he’d been a second before.
He rolled behind a half-broken wall and heard the wind whistle as the arrows swept down, chipping away at the stone with the force of a machine gun.
Sula was in motion. She was taking the left flank, skating along a raised path of ice and throwing knife after knife as Azmin danced between them, blocking some with a flick of her blade, simply evading others as her feet barely seemed to touch the ground.
Fast, but not mobile. She could dodge each individual strike but not escape from the overall volley. She was trapped in her opponent’s forward momentum, reacting rather than acting.
Nic vaulted over the wall, made a tall pillar of sand appear underfoot, and launched himself through the air with a fistful of sand in one palm and his axe gripped in the other.
He landed just in time for Azmin to realize her position. She swept a cloak of blood around herself, absorbing Sula’s arrows, and twirled towards Nic. As she turned, the cape flickered and split into a writhing knot of red vipers held in her hand. They lashed out, diving and weaving to strike from all angles.
Nic chopped the head off one, slammed into another with his shoulder just beneath its jaw, and met the next two with a downward stroke that cut them in half. They broke into droplets of blood that flowed backward along the ground to rejoin with Azmin.
He turned.
Dropping onto his hands, he felt his skin peel apart as a new form burst out from within. Six arms hit the ground and carried him forward into a sudden lunge, his jaw expanding, filling out with powerful new bone and muscle, as his lower body collapsed into a single winding length of scales. He took on his Warform as he charged towards Azmin and drew the Sandrider Blade from his back, towering above her.
His muscles burned and let out smoke, bulging underneath his scales, as he burned his lifespan through the Internal-Sacrifice Cauldron to fuel a blow that made the air warp as it descended.
His sword arm swept down, and she met him straight on with a forward parry. The clash of steel exploded out, and the force swept down his arm, numbing him to the bone. She turned his blow aside, and her own sword weaved underneath his guard in the same motion, chopping down at his chest.
Nic blocked with the back of one of his six arms and felt the blade bite down through bone to sever the entire limb.
His world lost sound and light in a moment of grey pain, and he snapped free of the shock just in time to weave aside as her sword’s tip came piercing towards his throat. His lithe body let him weave around the blow, and he came back with a vengeance, spitting poison towards her feet. She dodged.
His tail swept up and slammed into her side, kicking her through the air.
She went flying, nearly cracking against a pillar as she hit the ground and tumbled. Nic dropped to all his remaining arms and shot along the ground after her, not wanting to give her an inch.
Sula appeared from above, dropping towards Azmin’s back with a long glaive of ice gripped in her single hand.
Azmin thrust a hand upwards, and the river of blood that followed her took the form of a massive serpent rising to devour Sula. The ice-glaive carved deep, but the bloody hand simply flowed back into place, and the jaws snapped shut.
Nic kept coming. He drew Scarseeker from his bag, slicing through the air and sending out a beam of sharp energy that lanced towards Azmin’s torso. She drew the snake around her in a defensive coil and sent it rushing towards him.
He had drawn the Desert Lion’s Khopesh now, and all five of his arms held a weapon. Axe, twin swords, and a single giant spear.
As the snake swept down upon him, he thrust his spear upwards through the top of its jaw, preventing it from swallowing him. His blades swept out in all directions, tearing the beast into a wave of shapeless blood.
It slammed into him regardless, throwing him back. He lifted a wave of sand and met the blow head-on.
As the two forces collided, it was Nic who was thrown backward, crashing into a low stone wall. Sula rolled out of the collision a few feet away, her entire body covered by spiked armor of black ice.
Azmin smirked triumphantly.
So did Nic.
Rising, he swept his glaive in a long arc and created a crescent wave of swordlight that shot through the air. Azmin lifted her hand to counter…and the blood refused to move to her command.
She had just time to widen her eyes and fling herself aside before the attack slammed into her clumsily-raised guard. The wind from the blow tore at her clothes, flicking her backward through the sand, and Nic followed up by emptying Scarseeker’s reserves to strike out three more times—three quick lances of deadly light piercing through the ruins.
With each blow he moved closer, weaving across the ground after his prey.
She parried, parried, dodged, backing up, but she wasn’t fast enough. He’d already sensed she needed to stay near the totems, and now she was nearing the first of the pillars.
He swept down, leading with an overhand chop while making an agile thrust towards her right leg with the spear. His second blade was already in motion, following up with a slash from another angle.
Fear was in her eyes. For the first time, Nic felt himself seizing the advantage as she awkwardly parried the first blow, unable to take the stance needed to bring her strength to bear without letting the spear pierce her through the leg. She wove around the glaive’s point, catching the second blow head-on and letting it push her back out of range.
It was beautiful. Even with the sweat and terror on her face, it was such an act of grace Nic had to respect the clarity with which she saw the fight, dancing through his blows.
He did respect it.
But he didn’t hesitate to raise a spear of sand from the ground to pierce into her back, barely missing severing her spinal column as she screamed out in pain. He flung his hatchet in the same moment, aiming to hit her dead in the chest and fill her heart with the centipede’s poison.
She lifted the blood from her wound up, forming a shield that narrowly deflected the flying axe.
Behind them, the battlefield was mired in a great stain of red, but she was unable to control it. Nic had mixed her blood and his sand together to create a dead zone and struck before she realized what had happened.
Now he dropped down upon her, his size and weight feeding into each blow as his swords and spear hammered against her defenses like comets striking into the earth. He focused on speed, not sheer strength, and kept her from seizing even a second to counter-attack as he rained down steel against her dancing blade.
Between the net of black iron and white steel aftertrails that stood between their bodies, he watched her face darken with rage.
And then his empty hand shot forward to catch her by the wrist, yanking her up into the air. With a brutal swing that turned her body into a blur and snapped the arm in his grasp like a twig, Nic smashed Azmin Hale through the first of her own pillars. Chunks of broken wood rained outwards as her body swung in his grip.
Chapter 108
Misstep
The bloody taste of victory filled Nic’s mouth as he swung Azmin against the earth.
It was a situation he’d been in. Against a foe who could get you off the ground, your own strength wouldn’t matter. Sheer momentum was enough to control the grapple. And now, unless she broke free, he’d continue to beat her against the earth until every bone in her body was broken.
Sand swirled around his arm, forming a defensive barrier, keeping her from costing him another limb.
He swung again, smashing her through a ruined arch.
Against the earth.
And then, on a third arc from earth back to ground, she moved. Her leg exploded into gore, dissolved from within as her blood cascaded out to pierce through his fingers. It wove into a serpent that coiled over his arm and struck for his throat.
As Nic caught the serpent and crushed it into nothing, Azmin landed. She pushed herself up, the blood pouring from her stump forming into a new limb. It was pitch-black and covered in backward-bending spines, a single thorn rising from the knee.
She stood, grabbing her sword from the sand.
Drawing a hand over her face, she set a mask of bronze in place. It bore the image of a mask with a curling mane and long tusks and an open socket between the eyes, just sized for a small pearl.
Her aura became more focused, sinking down around her body.
With a single gesture, she sent a spear of lightning tearing through the air towards him. Nic dodged aside, twisting out of the way as it tore into the ruins. He twisted, trying to close in again, but she leapt back and fired off another lightning spear that forced him off course.
Each shot made an explosive whipcrack of thunder fill the air.
She had opened a wide field between the two of them. In that space, there was no cover, only open sand. Now she wove blasts of crackling power through the air, trying to hold him off, every advance cut short as a lightning spear slammed into place.
But at the same time, she was backed into a corner. She had reached the first of her five totemic pillars. Any further retreat and the source of her strength would be undefended.
Nic just needed to close the ground and force her back.
That was when Sula reappeared, a wave of icy vines and flowers erupting from the ground as she ran forward. They arched into the air and crashed down towards Azmin, crawling towards her legs, trying to overwhelm her. Without the blood she’d leeched from the dead elves, she had no easy counter. She was lifted into the air and crushed down, but her body was incredibly durable.
There was a piercing note of thunder, and a spear of lightning melted the vines away into a sparkling mist. It lashed out like an angry dragon, heading straight for Sula.
She vaulted high into the air and escaped over the attack, vaulting towards Azmin with a whip of ice forming in her fist. As she did, the remnants of the frost-vines were gathering around the second totem, grasping and crushing. Azmin parried the blow easily, but she was forced to turn back rather than counter, rushing to save the totem.
At the same time, Nic had reached his own goal. Plunging Scarseeker into the ground, he grasped a totem in both hands. Ripping it from the ground, he lifted it overhead.
Something evil burned his skin. It was a dark, malevolent force, full of whisperings that clawed at his soul. He grunted and threw the totem into the next pillar, destroying both. His palms still burned where they’d made contact.
In the distance, Azmin let out a howl of frustration. The source of her power was being torn away, and she couldn’t stop them.
Abandoning the totem that was being torn apart by Sula’s vines, she retreated towards the next one, covering her movement with a hurled spear. Nic’s eyes narrowed. As the totems broke, her ability to control the lightning was lessening. It was still hideously powerful, but that power lacked the focus to sharpen it into a definite shape.
They were winning.
He stared into the mask’s eyes and wondered what Azmin was thinking. What her final plan was.
But more and more, he was sure she didn’t have one.
Nic surged forward, chasing her. His serpent body easily dodged as she continued to fire off lightning blasts, each impact causing the sand to explode upwards and freeze as it turned to a statue of glass. The desert was full of such strange, rippling shapes.
He rushed past them, his reflection shivering across the warped surfaces as they glowed with molten heat.
Nic felt victory in his bones. He could see it in his mind’s eye. He tasted blood on his lips, and his world felt unreal compared to the vision in his head of striking Azmin Hale down. Of her blood raining to the parched earth below.
And just before it happened, he heard Sofia’s voice.
“Nic! Look out! You’re being—”
Tricked.
He realized he was under a spell as the lightning bloomed in Azmin’s hand. But by the time he could break free, it was too late. That red-black lightning was filling up his vision, the light burning so bright his eyes stung.
And then it pierced through his chest, and he felt his organs burn to dust as it punctured through his back. His world ran in slow motion as the pain surged through his body.
As he fell, he saw Sula collapsing as well, her leg torn through by that same bolt. Azmin’s illusion had caught them both and lined them up for the skewer. One lightning bolt. Two down.
Even now, reality felt less real than the victory he’d imagined. It seemed impossible to lose this way. A single misstep, and he was gone and turned to dust.
But…
This was how it worked. This was what every person he killed must have felt. The disbelief that such a small mistake could cost them.
His fist clenched.
He refused.
Even as the lights before his eyes began to fade into dizzy, murky black, he forced his body to change back. His scales lost definition and faded into pink, wet skin, and five arms became one. His entire frame was covered in thin, bloodless lacerations that he’d failed to notice during the fight.
How many times had she cut him without him noticing?
How long had the illusion been working into his mind?
Azmin was walking forward, her boots stomping across the ground. He rallied his aura, burning what little he had to simply sink under the sand and vanish. Dark earth poured over his vision and buried him alive.
Alive.
Still…barely…alive.
Chapter 109
From Underground
For a long time, that was the end. His regeneration was spreading through his body slowly, sealing the cuts, the scratches. But there was barely any blood left, and his heart was an open wound. He felt his mind struggling in and out of consciousness, the dark of his earthly coffin replaced by the more comforting, total dark of sleep. In and out.
Purgatory.
And then pain as his regeneration started to repair his heart. As the muscles, fibers, veins, and arteries crawled back in from the edges of the wound. Agonizingly, he was reborn. Buried alive, he couldn’t scream or thrash. The weight of the earth pressed down on him as his body twitched violently in the minute space left.
And then the first heartbeat radiated through him. The blurred infinity of time ended, replaced by the steady, thumping count of his pulse. His aura pushed outwards and shaped the sand around him into a tunnel.
On hands and knees, Nic crawled, not wanting to come up where he’d fallen. He found the base of a ruin imprinted into the earth and slid around the wall, coming up in its shelter. His body ached desperately, but he crawled forward slowly, following the trail of blood in the sand where Azmin had dragged Sula across the desert.
As he went, he drew out talismans from his bag. Azmin had finally abandoned defending her pillars, choosing to head towards the goal. Now he rigged them to detonate as he made his way into the core of the ruins.
What he saw was this.
The elven ship was moored to the stub of a broken pillar nearby, splattered with blood and burning embers from Azmin’s lightning. Everyone on board was dead. Their corpses littered the ground around the Dimensional Anchor, cut down fighting to defend their prize.
The nuclear fire.
The grey-green egg with its viper-yellow markings sat in the shadow of the Anchor. The Anchor itself was an obelisk—a four-sided pillar of dark stone with a golden pyramid cap. Runes ran across every inch, flowing like serpents across the surface and releasing a strange, radiant mist.
Azmin stood in the shadow of the obelisk. Sula was screaming, writhing on the ground. All Azmin was doing was holding her down, but Nic could see grotesque bulges moving under the elf’s skin as her blood was manipulated inside her veins. She was being tortured—likely for a way to destroy the Anchor.
“Tell me. The sooner you tell me how to break this, the sooner this can end…” Azmin hissed.
Nic slipped forward and climbed a broken pillar, scrambling to the top and leaping onto the husk of a broken temple. He moved along the roof in silence.
He could see it now. The nuclear fire was here as well, set alongside the obelisk. Just the sight of the grey-green metal made the skin on his neck prickle.
It was an evil, evil weapon.
Sula was fighting as long as she could. There were scorch marks littering the ground, but the pillar itself was unharmed. Azmin had tried to break through with force and met with no success.
Nic stared at the marks on the obelisk and saw what Azmin couldn’t.
The whole thing was breathtakingly complicated, but ornate, beautiful runeworks were easy to break. The runes could resist any amount of raw physical force, but they would come undone with a single alteration.
There wasn’t enough strength left in Nic’s body to hold out against Azmin. He couldn’t win a fair fight. But he could do this, and maybe the Inquisitor would change things. Maybe an opportunity would open.
Maybe.
“Nicolas…” Sofia warned, “it’s not worth it.”
But he was already determined. Stupid pride or not, he wouldn’t turn back.
