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Incursion Empire Ch. 15
🕑 Added 2025-04-18 19:49:05 +0000 UTCA/N: This is the last chapter that I have pre-written. I'm launching next month but the chapters will be coming sporadically till then.
Fifteen
Dane Rawlings
Lvl. 3
Race: Human
Stats
Strength: 12
Dexterity: 10
Endurance: 10
Vitality:12
Intelligence: 10
Mana Core: F-Grade
Body: F-Grade
Bloodline: F-Grade
Class: Warlock
“When are you going to let me level up? I can’t do anything to the physical realm besides possession until you get me some levels,” Tolic complained as they walked through the forest. The floating spirit seemed to be in a good mood if his complaining could be construed for a mood. It was now the second day of their wandering through the forest looking for more Aji-Abami war parties.
They hadn’t found anything in the forest aside from a few of the mutated beasts that Dane had found when he arrived. Stronger and faster now, they were still no threat to him. [Hellfire] would blast them apart before they got within feet of him, leaving nothing more than charred bits of monster scattered in the dark woods.
“Once I hit five. I doubt that anything good would happen if I level you faster than myself,” Dane said, finally yielding to the incessant questions.
“Five? You’re leveling so slowly. It’ll be days before you hit five!” Tolic complained.
“Why am I leveling so slowly? I should be closing in on ten by how many I’ve killed.”
“It’s a drawback of the adaptation. You got a class allowing you access to class abilities and you’re fighting people who only have general skills. It’s like an adult fighting children. You need to fight things with a higher level disparity to gain the equivalent amount of experience.”
Dane stayed silent and worked with his tracking skill to try to find something to hunt. The snow was undisturbed and as they walked he felt like was close to leveling his elemental resistance. It was a standard cold of a snow filled day, not a mana-storm dropping snow on him. His breath was a constant mist that rose above his head.
Crack
The sound shattered the frost air and Dane threw himself to the ground, rolling across the snow as the tree next to him burst apart. Splinters of wood flew around like shrapnel. As Dane rolled he caught sight of Tolic standing in the open, bored, as lances of wood pierced his ephemeral body.
“Look out,” Tolic said with a straight face as he used a lower arm to cover a yawn. Dane jumped to his feet and ran around the side of another tree just as the crack sounded again. A furrow of dirt and snow exploded right where he had been and Dane searched around frantically.
He and Tolic were on the downslope of the mountain and on the ridge a few hundred yards above him were a trio of natives. Similar in build to Meritorious rather than Elder. They didn’t have weapons, instead they stood there unafraid on the ridge. One lifted a hand and pointed toward him and the air blurred as something accelerated to him with another crack. Dane leapt to the side as the tree he had been hiding behind disintegrated.
“Little help?” Dane yelled at Tolic. The spirit hadn’t done anything besides float there as the three natives fired down projectiles at him.
“I don’t know. I can’t do anything to them. Not while they’re still fully healthy. If I was a higher level I could be more helpful. Interesting.”
“Tolic I will banish you to the deepest pits of hell if you don’t get off your ass and do something!” Dane screamed at the spirit as he started to run at an angle toward the top of the ridge. He ran in zig zags as the natives rearmed themselves.
“Fine,” Tolic pouted, but he turned toward the three natives and shot toward them without another word of complaint. The spirit flew straight up , fearless, and the native that was rearming with a chunk of smooth stone fired at the spirit. The stone split the air but passed through Tolic without harming him. It exploded behind Tolic in a wave of snow and mud.
Dane got closer to them as all three focused on Tolic, firing away stone after stone without slowing down. Reaching out and connecting to the burning depths of hell, he started to draw it forth as he got close enough to fire at them. Tolic drifted away, turning the natives slightly and putting them between him and Dane. A piece of his mind registered that slight movement, the fear Tolic had of [Hellfire].
He raised his left arm and focused on the middle of the three and let the fire come roaring forth. Heat boiled his arm and turned it scalding red as the fire raced forward and out, crossing the distance in a moment. The native spun, alerted at the last moment, and raised a hand palm outward.
A shimmer appeared in the air between the bolt of fire and the native, but the [Hellfire] pierced it without slowing. Composite armor burned away and the native burst apart in a spray that threw both its companions away. Dane drew his sword as he got closer, the sacrificial dagger already clenched in his right hand.
Both of the natives were trying to get to their feet and Dane angled toward the one on the right. His sword sang toward the neck of the native as it tried to get to its feet. It turned its head and let the blade glance off of its shoulder plate, the steel cutting into the composite armor and into the bone.
Golden eyes met his and the hammer blow of the native’s psionic power hit him like a hammer. Blood rolled out of his nose in a steady stream, wet and hot, and Dane leaned forward with the dagger and rammed it into the native’s neck. The mental pressure faded away instantly as the native went gurgled and went limp as the runes ignited.
Another psionic blow hit him and Dane staggered, drawing the dagger free but leaving the sword implanted into the shoulder bone of the soldier. He turned and looked at the final native which had gotten to its feet and was staggering toward him.
The alert that his mental resistance skill gained a level was a distant thought as the pressure lessened by a degree. Dane’s vision still had black dots floating in his vision and his equilibrium was off as the pressure mounted even higher. It lunged toward him with long fingers outstretched toward him. There was no desire to face muscular warrior in close combat, especially as it appeared it had earned its class already.
He flipped the dagger and threw it with a flick of his wrist. The blade tumbled twice and stabbed into the warrior’s chest. Tolic took the opportunity as the runes ignited to reach down and into the warrior, sliding past its defenses before it had a chance to react.
The native jerked upright and froze for a long moment as its golden eyes filled with fear. Its head jerked side to side suddenly then Tolic’s deep voice was politely knocking on Dane’s mental defenses.
“I’d be thrilled if you removed the knife out of my chest. It’s draining the core faster than it should.”
Dane grabbed the sacrificial dagger and drew it out of the possessed’s chest. He wiped the blade on Tolic’s chest plate before resheathing the blade on his hip. He looked over the two other bodies and confirmed that both of them were dead.
Psionic Warrior lvl. 11
Psionic Warrior lvl. 10
“This is a nice ride. Still fighting me too. I could probably get a couple days out of this one. Can’t fully access her abilities though, just a single ability. [Psionic Shield] is what they tried to stop your [Hellfire] ability.”
“You can use other people’s abilities?” Dane asked as his heart rate slowly fell back to more stable levels.
“If I was stronger I could use more. Completely overwhelm their innate defenses and rifle through their memories. As it is, I need you to weaken their defenses and drain away some of their core with that dagger.”
“Good news for you is I just hit level four with them,” Dane said. He pointed at the two dead warriors on the ground.
“Yay. Only one more level. Let’s go get it while I still have a flesh suit. Their tracks lead over the ridge and back that way,” Tolic said. He pointed further up the mountain and past the sparse tree cover of the upper slopes.
“Natives or Aji-Abami?” Dane asked himself, trying to figure out which group he wanted to hunt. The answer was the dogmen, but the tracks were easy to find where the natives had gone. They had leveled quickly too. The native camp hadn’t been far from the Aji-Abami incursion site. It could be that these natives had been stationed near the main base where Elder had been. Which would make finding the Aji-Abami easy enough.
“The levels are good. Let’s go and get some more of them,” Dane said, trudging up the snowy mountain as he followed the tracks of the three dead warriors.
