Crossing Serpent's Way, page 53
part #1 of Trials of the Endless Planes Series
Kaito dropped in their midst like a meteor, landing in a shower of dirt that surprised every brave around him.
In a single chilled breath, his [Icefiend Armor (Ra)] coalesced, denser and colder than ever before, making him feel like a frozen titan on the battlefield. His new [Forged Roots (Ep)] rapidly forked out from his feet like bolts of lightning shooting in every direction in a 20ft radius. Before any of the braves could attack him, his [Glacial Shaping (Ra)] molded an icy bunker that slid into place to further protect him.
All of his abilities activated in such rapid succession, that it took his enemies half a breath to respond. And when they did, they found that his defenses were nigh impenetrable by the likes of them. From within his glacial bunker, he barely even felt the walls shaking as the braves turned some of their sand-based attacks onto him.
Meanwhile, his forged roots laid waste to the Mages and Scouts, who thought they were safe behind their hasty sand walls. Kaito left himself a narrow window in his bunker so he could direct the roots to coil around ankles, legs and waists. With a thought, he crushed their bones or slammed them to the ground. And then his roots drank up their mana like thirsty plants in a drought.
He felt the influx of their energy coursing to him and he wanted more. In a handful of moments, half of the Oasis Raiders platoon were nothing but withered husks of themselves. His roots brought their bodies to him and he unleashed the Glutton within to devour the rest of their mana.
Through his small window, he saw flashes of spectral hides charging towards his icy bunker and assaulting his walls. Even though they only did about as much damage as the sand attacks from the braves, Kaito was surprised he was being targeted. Wasn’t it obvious to the onikai that he wasn’t here to fight them?
He directed his roots to seek out the remaining braves and deliver the same withering punishment that their brethren received, while he ignored the attacks of the onikai. A few minutes later, he finished off the last of his enemies and released his bunker and roots so he could move again.
“Who are you?” called out a burly, white-skinned onikai about seven feet tall with a single horn on his head wearing furred robes and what looked like oversized prayer beads hanging around his neck. The spectral monsters ringed Kaito in with their summoners closeby brandishing equally ghostly weapons — swords, axes, maces and javelins.
He purposefully crafted an icy face guard with his icefiend plate so that it wasn’t instantly apparent that he was a human. After all, he wasn’t here to necessarily fight the onikai.
“I’m here for the guilds, not you,” he replied, his eyes scanning the crowd of ghosts and horned aliens.
The onikai squinted suspiciously, “That is not an answer, stranger. We do not need your assistance to deal with this rabble. This is Hollow Scar business. Leave now, otherwise your life is forfeit.”
Kaito snorted and met the onikai’s eyes evenly, “No, I don’t think I will.”
Movement erupted in less than blink, but a blink was all he needed.
[Perilous Gaze of the Behemoth]
The entire company of onikai stopped for a pregnant moment and their spectral summons dissipated in a nameless wind a breath later.
With a single shardstride, he leapt into the air and left them paralyzed. There were more guildsmen to hunt.
* * *
Chapter 47
“Unknown rare Classholder! And they’re using ice!” Basho called through a handheld trinket that connected him to his leader and lord, Ogai-dahn, while they were flying on their giant spectral summons. Her storm wyvern was the fastest and most maneuverable of the three ghostly behemoths. Meanwhile, his own welkinwhal was the most ponderous, though it was arguably just as powerful. However, that was only before Boons, Feats and Titles came into play.
Ogai-dahn was the lord of their tribe for a reason.
She had bonuses beyond what any of them could hope to accomplish. She and the lords of the Scarlet Mark and Blue Thunder had painstakingly built these three tribes themselves after they turned down the chance to Planewalk, deciding instead to help their people grow here in Serpent’s Way. It was a sacrifice that none in Hollow Scar took for granted
“Deal with it, Bosho. I’ll cover your flank,” replied the gruff voice of Ogai-dahn. She triggered her spirit bow ability that manifested into a ballista that sat upon her storm wyvern’s nape. Spectral arrows the size of spears then rained down on the guild forces below and Bosho used that moment to veer away.
He steered his spectral welkinwhal toward the unknown person who seemed to be jumping on thin air. The closer Bosho got, he realized that the man was treading across delicately frozen steps. To be able to do something like that meant the man was powerful. He’d never seen an ability that seemed to have no limit of remaining airborne like this.
Without hesitating, his welkinwhal opened its enormous mouth and let loose a focused tornado of wind mana. The swirling vortex bridged the distance in mere breaths, bearing down on the stranger with a raging torrent of wind.
To Bosho’s astonishment, an ice blue beam of energy cut straight through the tornado attack like a cold knife, cleaving it in half and disrupting the concentration of wind mana. The abrupt detonation whipped up a chaotic mass of winds and Bosho hoped that would be enough to knock the man off course. But the stranger didn’t even seem phased, he just discharged a blast of dense, raw mana that blew away the residual wind like it was nothing.
Bosho frowned.
Not even Ogai-dahn could do that so effortlessly…
The man glanced at him then and Bosho froze for a long moment, his mind blanking as his thoughts skipped a beat. Then…he was falling, wind rushing through his furred leather armor and hair. He blinked away the daze and hastily summoned his spectral welkinwhal again. His back smacked into the ghostly flesh of the monster and he rolled onto his stomach, groaning more out of disbelief and annoyance than actual pain.
Quickly climbing onto his feet, he angrily glared at the retreating back of the stranger. You won’t get away that easily!
He used his movement ability — [Ghostwalk (Ra)].
A ripple of transparent spirit mana spread out from him to engulf him and his welkinwhal. With a thought, they slipped into a different version of reality where the colors of the world drained away. The two of them slipped into what Bosho and his tribe called the ‘spirit realm,’ though there weren’t any actual spirits there. The off-white world was more like a washed out imitation of the real world that was painted in streaks of black, white and gray.
With ghostwalk straining his mana channels, he flew atop his welkinwhal towards the stranger’s distorted image. Here in this alternate realm, Bosho could move as slow as he wanted and still exit as if only the blink of an eye had passed. Once he closed the distance to the stranger, he dropped out of the spirit realm to appear right on top of his opponent.
Bosho hurriedly blinked away an angry headache from the ability strain, then refocused his will to command his welkinwhal to swallow the man whole before his opponent could even react. The stranger vanished into his summoned monster’s titanic jaws and Bosho knew the man was being subjected to the raging heart of a storm now that he was inside.
Few could survive those violent winds. And those who could would still be left beaten and battered.
With that done, Bosho steered his welkinwhal back towards Ogai-dahn to rejoin the battle against the treacherous humans. The audacity of the guilds couldn’t be left to fester any longer. If his tribe had its way, this would be the last sunrise that many from Ashen Flame, Oasis Raiders and Shadow Collective would ever see.
In the distance, he watched Ogai-dahn continue bombarding the weak humans with her spirit ballista while her storm wyvern spewed forks of thick lightning out of its jagged maw. He kicked his welkinwhal forward into a dive, but it suddenly bucked, nearly shaking him off.
“What in the Lady?!” Bosho cried out in surprise.
When he looked at his summoned monster, its ghostly flesh was burning with a green flame that reminded him of the furnace fires that existed in the Emerald Forge dungeon. Before his eyes, Bosho watched his welkinwhal deteriorate, the emerald fire eating through its spectral hide and stealing his footholds.
Bosho immediately ghostwalked away, escaping into the spirit realm in a snapshot of time and appearing dozens of feet away in midair, hurtling towards the ground. Sweat slicked his horn as the ability strain kicked in harder. Two ghostwalks of that magnitude back to back would be debilitating for anyone.
Fortunately, Bosho had more than 40 points in his mentality attribute. He could handle a bit more ability usage.
As he free fell, he kept an eye on his rapidly withering summon that would have been screaming if it felt any pain. It can only be that strange Classholder…but, how?
The forest canopy came fast and he was forced to abandon his questions to ghostwalk one last time for a safe landing. He thudded into the ground with a grunt, though that was better than breaking every bone in his body. With a groan, he hurriedly pushed himself up to his feet. He was on a battlefield and there were enemies everywhere.
Nearby, the shouts of battle mingled with explosions caused by elemental abilities. He could hear the humans calling orders to each other to form up against the onslaught of the spectral monsters that his tribe was known for. Bosho grit his fanged teeth, feeling the need to get back in there and fight.
Reaching into his storage beads, he pulled out an uncommon potion concocted specifically to wash away the fatigue from using too many abilities in rapid succession, downing it in a single gulp. The potion went to work quickly, soothing his overworked mana channels like a healing balm.
A flare in his sensory ability told him that something was coming, but before he could even take a step, a furious roar slammed into him and he felt his legs almost petrify. Wh-What’s happening…
Half a breath later, the stranger he’d been chasing dropped down in front of him as if the man had all the time in the world. Wearing armor made of pure ice, Bosho spotted some red and black refracted beneath the man’s frozen plates. Bosho made a move towards the stranger only for them to glare at him.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the ice-armored man waggled a finger. “You’re the one that attacked me — remember that.”
The last thing Bosho saw was a wall of green flames and then, he was on his knees, sweating and panting like his insides were on fire. He couldn’t think, he could barely breathe.
And he never felt the roots squeezing his throat.
* * *
Kaito offhandedly crushed the white onikai’s mana core in his hand, absorbing the last drops of mana from them that he could get. The horned man was strong and Kaito hadn’t encountered summoned spectral monsters like that before. It was an interesting ability and he saw just how devastating it could be, especially when there was still a dragon and a large bird terrorizing the human forces from the skies.
Using his newly sharpened eyesight, he scanned his environment, peering through the trees in search of another group of guildsmen. When he caught sight of red flames, he dashed towards them in the hopes of finding some drakkar from Ashen Flame. So far, he’d taken care of a couple of Oasis Raiders and Shadow Collective platoons and he wanted to round it out.
In moments, he broke through some cover to find a large group of Earthlings wielding fire-based abilities alongside a team of Fighters from Ashen Flame, who were wreathed in a cloak of red-hot embers. The drakkar fought with flaming great hammers that they swung single-handedly as they used their other arms to bash ghostly monsters away with their shields.
Kaito drew a frozen line of ice across their fronts with his frostlight laser to throw them off balance, giving the monsters an opening to break their defensive line. The Earthlings responded with fireballs, flaming javelins and burning waves. However, their attacks could only be uncommon abilities at best given their apparent range and intensity. Whereas, the spectral monsters were clearly summoned from rare abilities since they walked through the fiery attacks with barely a pause.
Normal monsters wouldn’t have been able to do that so easily, not even rare ranked ones. But, with their onikai summoners empowering them, the spectral creatures were stronger than their counterparts of flesh and blood.
Conjuring some glacial walls, Kaito interspersed them within the group of humans to ruin their lines of sight and disrupt their cohesion, allowing more of the onikai’s own phantom attacks to get through. He left the drakkar and Earthlings hustling to recover, knowing full well that the onikai would overpower them in a few more moments.
Without looking back at the flustered humans, he moved on to look for other groups of guildsmen.
It’s not like he had it out for the Earthlings…in fact, he could care less about them. Their old enmity towards him meant less than nothing. His sights were set on the guilds.
He shardstrided through the forests surrounding the Emerald Forge dungeon like a frozen wraith. He kept his abilities to three or less and made sure to primarily use his ice- or life-based ones.
With his new passive ability, he barely felt any strain and hardly used any mana. It was a godsend for guerilla warfare. When he encountered larger groups of guildsmen who were actually pushing back the spectral monsters, he would steal their mana with his [Forged Roots (Ep)] to skew the skirmish in the onikai’s favor.
In this way, he quickly lost track of the time as well as his kill count, ruthlessly mowing down anyone who interfered with his personal vendetta against the guilds, regardless if it was Earthlings or onikai.
Just as he finished drilling a hole into a white onikai’s face with a cyclone strike, a lightning bolt the size of a tree struck him out of the blue, scorching everything around him in a dozen feet from the earth to the tree trunks.
Kaito grit his teeth as he tanked the abrupt assault, pouring his mana into his [Icefiend Armor (Ra)] and his passive winterspring defenses. His frozen armor cracked, his robes and chainmail smoked and his patterned skin sizzled, but he stood firm. With his already high mentality augmented by his winterspring body, his innate resistances to all elemental magic were at an all time high.
As soon as the stream of lightning fizzled out, he shoved more mana into his defenses to reform and regenerate what he could.
“That’s enough, human. You can take that frozen mask off, I know what you are,” growled an amazonian onikai woman with biceps as big as Kaito’s head and legs as thick as his torso. Her skin was pearly white and she wore black leather straps that covered her chest and limbs with a furred skirt around her waist. Oversized prayer beads adorned her neck, while her long white hair was smoothed back into a ponytail that ran down her back with small beads woven into it that glowed with rune symbols. Meanwhile, her horns gleamed with a mirror shine and looked to be incredibly sharp.
I vaguely remember those cultural rune tablets I got from the fowlings that horn sharpness indicated age…If that really is the case, then this woman must be some sort of elder.
Regardless, Kaito met her barely contained rage with a steely gaze of his own and said, “Like I told the others — I’m not here for your lot. I’m here for the guilds.”
The onikai-amazon snorted derisively, then a spectral dragon swooped in from above to land behind her, its entrance so ethereal that it didn’t even disturb the trees with its passing. “I don’t care about your reasons. You’ve killed my tribesmen and for that, you die. Nobody crosses my Hollow Scar without consequences. My storm wyvern and I will bring you to heel.”
Her Hollow Scar? he wondered to himself briefly, before she touched several beads in her hair.
Mana radiated from each bead’s rune of power, reminding Kaito that there was still so much more he didn’t know.
In a flash of glinting silver energy, the onikai woman was suddenly covered in metallic plate armor that emanated a dense mana signature similar to the frozen armor he wore. Then, another weighty veil of mana descended onto her whole body and her forearms began to crackle with spectral electricity.
She continued to touch more beads, triggering more anchored abilities. To Kaito’s senses, they felt like augmentations. The flows of mana coursing through her grew denser, more polluted by different streams of energy. In his manareception, she was a swirling kaleidoscope of watercolors.
“You’re an arrogant fool for letting me prepare,” she chuckled in contempt as she touched the large prayer beads around her neck, then swept her hand to the side. A vicious harpoon appeared in her grasp made of solid bone and radiating yet another kind of mana. This one reminded him of his old wyrm fang ability.
Kaito curiously tilted his head at her as he inspected her more closely. Despite her various abilities, they all felt marginally watered down as if she needed to stack so many abilities together just to get the same effect of a true Boon or Class ability. He wanted to see just what was possible since he’d never actually seen someone use this many anchored items before.
Besides, after slogging through Challenge Mode dungeons and pitting himself against high leveled rare monsters and their sickeningly higher leveled epic counterparts, the onikai woman before him was a torch next to their bonfires.
She tsked at his silence, then pounced.
At the same time, the storm wyvern behind her opened its jaws and unleashed a stream of lightning.
He brought his foot down and [Tremor Stomp (Ra)] stole her footing, while a frostlight laser from his palm cut through the lightning. The onikai woman compensated instantly, leaping into the air and twirling her bone harpoon as her wyvern snapped its head back, dazed from the icy beam.
The harpoon’s point suddenly erupted in electricity and Kaito met it with a backhand wreathed in his dense, spinning mana, easily turning the attack aside. Surprise flashed across her predatory eyes as she recovered in an instant, deftly changing directions to hammer down with a midair roundhouse kick.
