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Mage Steel Ch. 46
🕑 Added 2025-05-24 01:08:21 +0000 UTCForty-Six
A/N: Last two chapters are a bit short, but it's not going to be the new normal.
“We have to go back. She needs us,” Kon whispered as they stopped under the side, panting as they leaned against trees. Diur stood off to the side with her sword in one hand, the scabbard in the other. Her eyes were wide and wild as they swept back and forth, her nostrils flared as she breathed heavily.
“We’d die instantly. If she survived the fight, she’ll find us. If she didn’t and we go back, we die,” Diur reasoned. She knelt to the ground on one knee and cleaned her sword blade off with a supernaturally fast flick of her wrist. Goblin blood flew free and splattered across the trees, she sheathed the blade.
Kon’s mind was still in a fugue state, a haze around his brain. It had been so fast. The thin layer of confidence he had been building was stripped down, laid bare for the false confidence it was. He was just starting the journey and he had seen a pair who had travelled the path unleash themselves without holding back. It made him feel small. Weak. It was like being trapped back in the shuttle as it fell into the storm.
“We have to keep moving. They’re chasing after us,” Diur said. She looked back in the direction they had come from. Kon turned to look but didn’t see anything.
“How do you know?”
“My senses aren’t as keen as Alice’s. But I can still hear them. We need to head towards the edge of the plateau. It’s our only chance,” Diur cut off as she grabbed a long broken branch and hurled it through the forest. It tumbled end over end and cracked into something loudly in the distance. There was a scream of pain that echoed across the forest as Diur’s aim proved true.
“Run!” Diur barked. She didn’t wait for him, just bursting into a full sprint as Kon chased after her. He shouldn’t have been able to keep up, she was much further on her path of cultivation than he was. Kon barely managed to keep her in sight. He was struggling, breathing hard and lathered in sweat as every breath burned. But he could keep her in sight.
Kon risked a glance behind him and looked behind him. Black armored figures were on the edge of his vision, darting through the trees as they chased them. The goblins weren’t cultivators and they were slowly starting to fall back. Unfortunately, a tall, broad, Lupine was chasing. It was further back than the rest of the goblins. Kon cursed and turned and ran harder.
His nodes were burning as he sucked in energy fueled breaths, trying to copy Diur’s breathing methods. Alice’s healing of him had him feeling fresh, but it was fading as he ran.
A tree in front of him burst alight, hit by a stray laser beam. Kon spun and fired, sending bolts back the way he had come. He didn’t see if any of the shots managed to land, the goblins were so far back that he didn’t think he could have actually hit one of them.
The Lupine was getting closer, filling his vision when he had looked back Kon kept pushing, but he didn’t think he had much time before the wolf caught up to him.
“Diur!” he gasped out as loud as he could. The Ulmna woman slowed far ahead and looked back. Her face blanched as she dug her heels in and skidded to a stop before rushing back toward him. It took only a few seconds to reach him, but by then the Lupine was nearly on him.
Kon threw himself to the side, instincts screaming as he hit the ground and rolled as fast as he could. The oversized pack made the roll awkward, but he landed on his feet, rifle rising up to aim at the Lupine.
He fired a quick burst, three bolts, at the wolf’s chest. The cultivator bent at the waist and spun, a long handled axe appearing in its hand as it aimed to split him in two. Kon nearly froze as the Lupine filled his view, its gleaming silver axe rising up and over him and filling his view.
Diur hit it feet first, ribs audibly cracking as the Lupine flew in a straight line, not stopping as it shattered through a tree and rolled across the ground. Diur hopped to her feet with a grimace, limping as she did so.
Kon hardly glanced at her as he aimed in on the downed cultivator and proceeded to drain the energy pack in a stream of fire. Bolts reflected off of armor, heating and coloring slightly as the wolf got to its feet. Some of its fur burned but it had weathered the blasts with little harm.
“This is a piece of shit,” Kon spat as he threw his rifle to the side. The Lupine lunged at them and Diur drew her sword and blocked it in a single, smooth motion. The ring of steel meeting steel filled the air as the two cultivators circled. Kon cursed and looked around, trying to find anything that would allow him the ability to help her.
The goblins were catching up, their pursuit never having stopped. They’d be on them in a few minutes and there was nothing Kon could do to stop it.
Despair, self-loathing, hatred, frustration, all of it filled him as he looked at the approaching line. Diur and the Lupine were surrounded by steel blurs as they met and went back and forth, blood flowing from each of them. A memory tugged at him.
Alice lifting a finger, a rune burning to life and a fire lighting. Humanity had been mages before they had been Knights. His body was full of energy, thick layers of it woven into his skin, muscle, bones, into his very being. Some of it was the leftovers of Alice’s forced healing, some was what he had pulled to him as he ran, but the majority of it was the treasures he’d absorbed.
Energy filled his body as he looked over at the wolf, rage and frustration mingled as he lifted his hand and thought about the only rune he thought would be helpful. The sensory rune. The ability to process every single sense, the way that it could overwhelm someone.
Lines formed around his finger as power rushed out of him. His senses sharpened, deepening as far as they’d ever gone before. It wasn’t overwhelming this time, he could hold onto himself as the rune slowly finalized over his finger. Kon could see a link forming between the rune and wolf. It started slowly and then firmed in a split second.
The lupine howled in agony, its body jerking erratically as Diur took advantage. Her slender sword struck the wolf’s head from its body in a single blow. Kon’s legs buckled as the power fled from him, turning him mortal again in a split second. It was overwhelming loss that dropped him to the ground as he gasped.
“Empty. I’m so empty.”
Air filled his lungs and with it came traces of power. His runes began to burn again, thin tendrils of power trickled to his suddenly depleted body. Cells stirred to life as he began to slowly regain himself.
Diur grabbed him under his arm and hauled him back to his feet. She had to support him for the first few steps, but then he got his feet under him and began to run. Kon cursed in his head, the powerful, neverending energy of just minutes ago was just a faded memory. Within five minutes he was a sweaty, gasping, mess. Diur had to keep him on his feet, but the feelings of inferiority had evaporated.
“I killed him.” That thought rattled around in his skull as they distanced themselves from the goblins. Their screaming and potshots faded away to nothing. Diur kept pushing him though, not willing to stop as they wove in between rift zones.
“Can you do that again?” Diur asked.
“Not a chance,” Kon gasped back. He felt like an over wrung rag. If it wasn’t for Diur holding him up, he’d be on the ground.
“Dammit. We need to rest,” Diur was nearly as ragged sounding as he felt. They moved together, limping together, as they searched for shelter. Kon tried to stay alert, but his senses had been scaled back to unenhanced levels. The two of them kept walking, stripped of the security that Alice had given them.
Comments
Dominick Ruiz
Thanks for saying that!
StrollingEye
Very interesting use of the rune in that way. That was a good little twist.
