NOVEL NEXT Chapter 382 - Battle For Freetown: Part 4
In that terrible moment as Eric soared through the air before crashing down upon his prey, he was nearly overwhelmed by the sight of this arena once more filled with terrified victims about to be sacrificed to yet another goblinoid soul forge. And after all he had sacrificed, giving so much of himself to save 60,000 children just days ago, only to find the goblins about to do the same damn thing over again filled Eric with such towering fury that he now felt nothing but fiercest joy for the dozen planets he and his mother had consigned to eternal ice and transcendent flame. Save for the portal leading to this final pit of hell.
Yet even from here he could tell it linked to an entirely different world than the one connected to Earth that his daughter was valiantly fighting to redeem.
This world had never known anything but the corrupt touch of goblins, as evidenced by the caustic fumes even now slipping through the portal, as well as endless heat and the glowing red glare of cauldrons of boiling steel.
Eric was filled with dismay and fury in equal measure when mercilessly acute Perception effortlessly spotted so many familiar faces in the crowd at the peak of his arc through the heavens, including a friendly innkeeper who had been gracious enough to share martial secrets as well as good meals and company with Eric and Rica. And now they were all secured in rope, bruises, broken bones and despair. The innkeeper’s once fine attire of cotton and linen had been replaced by bandages and rags, and he had no doubt that the young girl roped beside him, holding a screaming child, were his family.
Even the obnoxious gnome Linus, blubbering in desperate panic and struggling frantically against his bindings before a sneering goblin kicked him right in his bright red honker, was doomed for the soul forges, no matter how he shrieked and pled.
Yet what struck Eric harder than anything else was seeing a broken and battered Caliban, hands reduced to bloody stumps, forced to shuffle in that line beside what could only be his wife and children.
The hidden prince of an entire faction, and his family that should have been safely secured in a world far from here were, in fact, right here and about to become soul steel to slap on the side of a goblin destroyer which the bastards would then use to grab even more territory and repeat their cycle of torment and despair for as long as they could, until the galaxy itself groaned under the weight of their foul corruption.
It was a travesty that filled Eric with a fury so blindingly potent that space and time itself seemed to warp and stretch as poor Kevin howled, covered in spirit flame, now paying a price for thinking Eric easy prey.
Eric didn’t care that he was forced to fight for his soul against a monster now desperate to crush his psyche. He didn’t care that he had deliberately relinquished the most glorious of golden ascensions for the precious world he would preserve at any cost. At that moment he was the fiery phoenix he had once been destined to be, and he was determined to END this crime against humanity, no matter what it took.
Yet the phoenix’s shriek of fury became a man’s desperate cry when Caliban’s tear filled eyes gazed at the heavens, howling like a broken beast as armored sentinels slammed him in the back, thrusting blasters in his mangled face as they forced him towards the portal.
And yet still, the doomed prince shrieked for a miracle that would never come,
Until it did.
“Incurvo Gravitas Attentio! Roboro Ventus Attentio!”
Eric’s heart roared in his ears as he shrieked words to give him control of his environment, no longer bothering to hide his mastery of runic arts as gravity and wind became his to control while his conquest overlay flared with countless thousands of reds. It no longer mattered that his enemy was being flooded by insights that Eric would make damn sure that Kevin never lived long enough to put to any use save beyond the grave.
All that mattered was the look of furious confusion when the sneering goblin snarling Caliban’s way and screaming. “Kill the pretender! Death to the Sylvan faction forever!” became a wide O of surprise when he tried to gasp for air that would never come when a blast of superheated plasma tore right through his neck, instantly pulling the attention of the power armored mercenaries guarding what could only be a suddenly wild-eyed and terrified-looking Kevin.
“No! This is impossible! DIE! You fucking freak! Just die already!”
The mercenaries filled the air with plasma and Eric was suddenly doing all he could to dart and tumble through the air like a fighter pilot avoiding enemy fire, the pyrotechnic display being witnessed by what must have been countless thousands of ogres, gnolls, and most especially orcs hooting from the stands, hollering for Eric’s death, and the death of all humans and elves. All of them filled the thousands of seats overlooking the heart of the amphitheater that was more than large enough to fit the twenty thousand plus souls of Freetown that Kevin was so eager to harvest, and the goblins were so eager to use. It was darkest irony that the wildcard Contender below was happily giving the goblins exactly what they had wanted all along for the inhabitants of Freetown. To serve as cheap carbon and souls to forge near indestructible ship armor so they could corner the battleship market.
Profit at any cost.
Profit enough to hire what seemed like multiple teams of Bronze tier mercenaries to invade earth at their behest as first one then half a dozen fully kitted power-armored wearing exotic bronze alloy battlesuits that were nothing like the other mercenary companies Eric had fought so far that endless night. Before being made to serve Kevin even now screaming for his head, filling the air with plasma fire.
Despite his superhuman speed, these were professional Bronze tier mercenaries, using perk enhanced arts, as the hole now in Eric’s calf that he desperately Power Healed made damn clear. If he let them actually get a bead on him again, he feared they’d do far worse than perforate his calf. So he immediately took steps of his own, even while he mentally manipulated two separate manifestations of his art in the form of wind and gravity to fall to the ground even faster, while desperately holding together the bleeding corners of his mind that Kevin was still doing all he could to crush… even as he fled the stadium.
You have been struck by Blaster Fire!
You have suffered 1 Medium Wound.
You have suffered 1 Serious Wound.
You are now suffering: Mild Impairment!
“Hell Vines! Hell Vines!” Eric roared, knowing that he dare not slow his descent, and praying it wouldn’t matter with his monstrous Vitality as another blast of plasma hit his weaving and darting form, searing through his side, when one of the shell-heads was abruptly grasped by eager fiery vines upon what looked like a massive oak before being tossed high in the air.
It was all Eric could do to focus on the tree behind the loosely clustered mercenary contingent, disrupting plasma fire that could have killed him but instead resulted in abdominal perforations that quick use of Blood Mastery sealed tight as Power Healing set out to start repairs as Eric braced for—
You have struck the ground at terminal velocity!
Physical Resistance has reduced Fatal Wound to Medium Wound.
Vitality check made!
You have suffered no life threatening injuries. You have saved versus stunning blow!
You are up and moving.
Speed Racer perk is now in effect!
“Don’t kill them here, fool! Their souls have to be tied to their bodies to do the forge any good and to give our master his prizes!” Screamed the goblin shaman glaring from between the armored men, taking the place of the now fleeing Kevin as one of the panicked mecha unleashed plasma death through the screaming crowd.
The goblin’s shout was overwhelmed by the echoing roar of what could only be the commander as Eric’s exquisite perception and universal translator picked up the high pitched tinny sounds resonating from their short range helmet transceivers.
“Ludwig! Bruno! Cut down those damned trees! Otto, you’re overwatch! Identify the threat! Lina, you’re with me!”
Eric raced across the ampitheater, roaring the words that filled the colosseum with a mighty downdraft assuring him maximum traction even as dust and grit filled the air, stinging eyes and limiting visibility, at least for some.
Yet still a weaving and juking, Eric could feel the hot glares of multiple would-be snipers from the thousands of amphitheater seats that now had a perfect view of him, those that could even lock on him for more than an instant.
His eyes took in an entire stadium filled with the vilest abominations. Distorted mockeries of grace and decency. Foul abominations glorying in humanity’s fall.
For that crime, Eric could pass only one sentence.
Oblivion.
“Hell Vines! Hell Vines! Hell Vines!” He roared, flashing a fierce smile while his instincts shrieking at him to duck and cover transformed to a more general sense of dread when the countless stands became a fiery jungle of fiery writhing vines yanking hundreds upon hundreds of spectators free of their seats, vicious thorns piercing their burning flesh as furiously struggling humanoids were simultaneously crushed, suffocated, and seared as a handful of massive hell trees became first a dozen and then two as Eric rapidly approached the damnable heart of the panicked mob, where the massive gate was accepting sacrifices even now.
Before lurching in a stumble, blackness coming so close to overwhelming him as he was hurtled into the depths of oblivion.
“NO, Motherfucker! I won’t let you ruin everything, I’m taking your mind… Aiii!”
Eric could feel those slimy hands pulling him under icy cold waters, desperate to drown him. So desperate that Eric sensed a skill evolution with him in mind.
Yet in the blink of an eye, those ice-cold waters turned searing hot, skin scalding off the visualized hands of a now screaming Kevin who had yet to completely flee the arena, now gazing at Eric in horror, the flesh sloughing off his actual hands, as if he really had dipped them into boiling oil. “That’s fucking impossible!”
Eric didn’t bother responding, snapping back into focus just in time to watch the largest of the armored mercenaries pick up Caliban’s wife and place a blaster to her head.
A furious Caliban, somehow having fought off one of the power armored monsters with a dizzying display of bone shattering kicks even with his hands cleaved to stumps, froze in horror.
“I told you Blue Corp assholes that you’d rue the day you refused to forgive my clan’s loans!”
The powerful mercenary chortled coldly a Caliban’s horrified expression. “That’s right, asshole. My family’s loss of reputation, financial ruin, and exile can all be placed squarely at your feet. Everything we endured is your fault, you fucking leech bastards! You thought you could destroy my family? Well I can’t tell you how good it feels to destroy your—”
“REPUDIO!” Eric roared, finally in range.
The world seemed to shudder. The thinnest of crumpled parchments stretched over oblivion. The results of an actual tear would have been absolutely catastrophic. Even Eric in that horrific moment could suddenly sense it. Yet the snap of reality’s parchment being forced straight did naught but smooth out the creases as all the anomalies in that forty foot radius area were instantly dispelled.
The portal between worlds closed even as the laughing mercenary casually chucked Caliban’s wife through… who now just landed in the dirt, crumpling into a ball shaking with horror as her sobbing children raced to her side. A roaring Caliban immediately charged the monster who had nearly killed his wife.
Only to be knocked down by a power augmented fist, groaning when blood exploded from his crushed nose as the snarling mercenary loomed over him. “You think this ends here, you goddamned fucking cockroach? I don’t give a shit about the goblins’ schemes. All I want is your head!”
“Boss! I see him! He’s right in front of you! Boss!”
What could have only been Otto’s voice chimed through the comms, as both the merc head and the woman beside him turned to face the roaring threat rapidly approaching, their Mark IV Hyperion Miniguns rapidly orienting toward the threat they’d happily blow to kingdom come.
They just couldn’t turn their weapons quite fast enough to avoid meeting the gaze of the snarling monster with far too many teeth in a mouth that stretched hideous and wide before their existence became nothing but blinding light and frigid cold, the world seeming to tumble as they fell into blackness, heads shorn free of life’s cares and burdens before falling to the ground, their entire bodies that were covered in such exotic armor shattering like brittle glass upon the ground.
“Phoenix Strike!” Eric’s furious roar filled the colosseum, now holding absolutely nothing back as Kevin screamed in his mind.
“That fucker got Lina and the Captain! What do we do?” Otto screamed in comms. “Ludwig! Bruno! What the fuck do we do?”
Eric turned to the voice, catching the gaze of the panicked looking Classer now raising his minigun right for Eric and the countless hostages that would be vaporized by plasma in the blink of an eye.
“Hell Vines!” Eric roared, wasting no time as he darted forward, ignoring the screaming interface messages blinking with the blinding intensity that he knew could mean only one thing. But he had no time. No time at all if he wanted to save the thousands of souls that were even now being peppered by hurtled javelins and too many blasters that should never have been allowed from all the vindictive shitheads that hadn’t fled the amphitheater as he summoned vines that mirrored so well his own killing fury as roars of outrage at Eric’s daring became panicked squeals when the entire murderous mob suddenly realized that they were the pray.
And then Eric was before the massive vine that the expert Mercenary Gunner Otto had just blasted through with his minigun. Now having Eric dead to rights.
“You motherfucker!” Otto roared.
His final words before Eric’s blade cleaved through his body as effortlessly as shattering glass. Frozen blue chunks of Otto and his gear showered the ground.
You have critically struck your foe with Ice Fire! (Renamed Phoenix Strike!) Baseline damage increased 12-Fold thanks to all Essence modifiers!
LEGENDARY Golden Phoenix Class Essence Damage Multiplier multiplicative of Cultivator’s Might gives a combined 250% Damage Bonus to all Essence Melee attacks!
Total Damage Boost is 30 times Baseline damage.
No opposing essences are in play.
ALL DEFENSES PIERCED BY TRANSCENDENT ATTACKS!
Your foe FAILS to save versus instant obliteration!
NOTE! You have DARED to unleash Transcendent attacks upon a newly ascending world in front of multiple goblinoid vid-cams! Multiple sector edicts and censures have been put into effect!
MULTIPLE warrants for your immediate annihilation have been put into effect!
Silver tier Phoenix talisman currently in play.
All warrants and edicts have been rescinded.
“Kill him!” Roared one of the remaining pair of power armored men, now well out of Eric’s range as he weaved and juked for all he was worth against streams of plasma tearing through the air and, Eric was horrified to realize, could effortlessly cut through his crimson shield and the countless panicked souls behind him.
Quickness Check made!
Your opponents fail to get a clear shot on you!
You have suffered Glancing Blows from multiple plasma beams!
Class Perks PIERCE ALL RESISTANCE!
You have taken 2 Medium wounds.
You have saved against multiple crippling injuries.
Blood Mastery stabilizes blood loss!
“Fragor! Fragor!” Eric roared as he twisted around and raced for the stands, eager for the howling roaring humanoids to bear the brunt of collateral fire, and not the twenty thousand or so panicked victims behind them.
Psionic Shout partially resisted by unknown defense.
Psionic Shout fully resisted by unknown defense.
Eric’s eyes widened in alarm. Forced to accept that these murderous bastards were the farthest thing from pushovers, yet absolutely refusing to unleash an essence-infused version of that attack with the monster now so frantically digging inside his mind. Not when that attack was nearly as dangerous to himself as his enemies, and would cost him a shit ton of Soul Reserves that he was already burning through far too quickly, just trying to ward his mind.
If Kevin actually sensed what he was doing, how fragile he truly was...
One of the mech warriors groaned.
“Ludwig! Get it together!”
“Kids a hot-head! Psionic screamer. We gotta put him down!”
“Hell Vines! Inevitable Doom! Hell Vines!” Eric desperately shouted when he sensed the deadly cold tingle of inevitability, suddenly damned sure that his foes had perks that went beyond chewing through his Elemental Resistance like it was nothing that Eric did NOT want zeroing in on him.
In desperation, he summoned yet more fire trees, both to tangle up his foes and block their line of sight. Yet as was obvious by their careful streams of plasma now slicing through what were, for them, relatively slow branches… it brought him just a handful of seconds at most.
Seconds Eric was determined to put to good use while dancing and racing across the burning arena sands as he felt like a thrum in his soul the final death knells of over a hundred fallen humanoids who had already met their doom in the stands above.
Soldiers that would soon rise once more.
“Surge Centuria! Imperator Imperat Tibi!” Eric roared, and the panicked confusion of the countless orcs and gnolls desperately trying to flee the amphitheater was overladen the snap and crackle of bones fusing themselves together as flesh oozed and boiled like liquid metal soup that poured back over charred and blackened bones as Eric’s fiery trees surrendered prizes that their master now claimed as his own.
“Ave Imperator Abedimus!”
A monstrous transformation that occurred in just a handful of seconds as Eric paid the Mana cost for an early harvest of his kills. It was a handful of seconds that was, unfortunately, more than long enough for the pair of grim-faced expert killers to blaze through yet another fiery cove of hell vines, and Eric just knew at that moment that he was well and truly fucked. Even as the wind shifted, now at that back of the mercenaries. Bronze tier monsters who snorted their contempt, effortlessly bracing themselves against hurricane force winds.
“Think a breeze will stop us, little shit?”
Eric froze then, his mind screaming as something utterly alien to his experience or ken held him fast as a pair of high-tech mercenaries locked their glares with his gaze. Somehow pinning him dead on.
“Thought you could escape me with a little fire, Eric Silver?” Kevin sneered in his mind. “Aww, are your legs too cramped to move? GOOD! Because all my slaves needed was a single second to lock you in their sights, with my mind locked to their own... and I just gave them two!”
Eric’s heart roared in his ears as he desperately reclaimed his nervous system from Kevin’s clawing grasp.
But he was already too late. No longer pinned by a psychotic Mind Lord, he was dismayed to still find himself utterly frozen where he stood as his doom was suddenly made manifest
A White-tier Classer being marked by a Bronze-tier greater feat.
BULLSEYE! Your foe is party-linked to the Mind Lord now raiding your soul! Your foe has deferred two plasma blasts that would have hit you!
Your foes have scored TWO critical successes zeroing in on you during the time you were pinned!
You have FAILED a Willpower check to break free!
Eric’s mind raced, choking back sudden terrible panic, a cowardly part of him WISHING he had flown free with his mother, knowing that this couldn’t be the end.
There had to be a way to break free.
THERE HAD TO BE A WAY!
And he had just a handful of seconds to find it, because his opponents were overconfident idiots.
Just like him.
The rightmost mercenary took a moment to gloat, chuckling to his friend.
“So, Ludwig, what do you think we should do with this little shit who just put down his last chip?”
Ludwig chuckled coldly. “First we take his legs… Then we blow off his fucking cock!” He roared, glaring at Eric through his visor. “You think we’ll take you hostage, you golden boy Contender cocksucking bastard? FUCK NO! We are taking you OUT, little shit, and we’ll be making you scream every step of the way!”
Eric’s heart pounded in growing fury, silently screaming in denial, even if inevitability itself decreed that he was to stand fast, eyes on the barrel of the plasma guns before him, and accept his fate.
The hell with that.
He’d make his own fate.
RUN TO ME, NOW!
Bruno’s smile turned wicked when his minigun began to hum. “I think we should just stitch this asshole in half. Tear out his intestines and give them to our goblin friends to play wi—”
His words cut out as he suddenly lurched forward, fingers pressing against the trigger… but not before the force of multiple tons of flesh and bronze moving faster than any maglev train slammed into his back skewed his shot.
And then Eric was free.
DUCK!
Eric did, as best he could. Before lurching with a cry as his left hand was instantly sheered off in a flash of light.
The only thing more shocking than his missing appendage was the sight of the pair of actual Bronze tier classers being carried forward by the flood of nearly half-ton orc sarissophoroi that had slammed the assholes right off their feet, pure inertia sending the pair flying forward even if their armor didn’t receive a scratch. And before the pair of mercs could collect themselves, they were snatched out of the air by a dozen powerful limbs as Eric’s pride and joy were summoned to his side just as fast as he could move.
Which, with over 700 Quickness and Speed Racer in effect, was pretty damned fast.
Eric didn’t bother gloating while his opponents roared and thrashed against Eric’s revenants, angry blasts of plasma instantly obliterating limbs and skulls. Yet they had no chance in hell of getting a fresh bead on a rapidly charging Eric as they tumbled to the ground head first.
“Ludwig! Help me up! I tagged that—”
PHOENIX STRIKE!
The air flashed with perfect crystalline blue clarity and a surge of pristine fire so transcendentally bright that it was the very essence of creation, light, and ultimate destruction. Even as all heat fled the mercenaries’ bodies, drained into the wicked sharp line of oblivion that had just cleaved through the essence of all they were or could ever have been, before the sudden whiplash of temperature extremes caused the pair of cleanly bisected frozen figurines to explode in a shower of fragments flying in every direction save Eric’s own as he raised his blade with his remaining hand and howled in furious exultation as messages too long denied flooded his psyche and soul.
He would allow himself to savor this one precious moment as the desperate shrieks and screams of his enemies rang through the air, as what were now dozens of treant-like fire trees continued causing havoc amongst all his foes. A moment where even Kevin was strangely absent, perhaps suffering a backlash as the two mercs he had linked his soul to, in order to better triangulate their killing perks, were the ones to fall instead.
Eric’s surviving revenants, those not obliterated by plasma fire, were now rapidly racing around him after the closest revenant handed Eric, quite literally, a priceless piece of himself, all of them working to skew the shot of any mercenary or goblin sniper Kevin might soul-ride that could be surviving the chaotic inferno in the bleachers. Foes sworn to Eric’s downfall, that were no doubt drawing a bead on him even now.
You have successfully claimed your hand and reattached it using Blood Mastery and Unified Restoration.
It will be 69 seconds before you may use this limb at full strength once more.
Unified Restoration is now Rank 15!
Blood Mastery is now Rank 32!
You have successfully slain multiple White-tier opponents below your level (minimum experience earned).
You have successfully slain 5 additional Bronze-tier Mercenaries between levels 10-15!
Swordsmanship is Now Rank 32!
Phoenix Strike is now Rank 11!
2nd Tier Core Saturation is now at 10%!
For successful use of Necromancer perks to get the best of Multiple Bronze snipers that could have shot you dead with perks you have no hope of fathoming (you overconfident idiot!!), Master Necromancer is now Rank 32!
Note! You have FAILED to best any Bronze-tier opponents in the crucible of combat without the use of Higher Order concepts of which your foes had none.
NO additional cultivation levels have been earned.