BlueShear
patreon
Chapter 71
🕑 Added 2024-10-29 19:54:44 +0000 UTCEleanor deftly evaded yet another colossal downward strike.
Like a dancer, she moved with the seismic tremors that followed, sidestepping three other such attempts to smash her flat. Yet even as she stepped, twirled, and slashed with practiced ease, Eleanor keenly felt like a fish out of water—desperately gasping for air.
Every ragged intake like she was breathing down hot coals.
In fact, she had just begun to flag, to fully submit to the heavy chains of exhaustion that plagued her, when Jun had activated his new, suspicious, and clearly quite dangerous ability. Where he was getting this from, she had no idea. As far as she knew, rift spawn were only supposed to have a set number of abilities.
Regardless of her familiars increasingly dubious origins, though, now with a glowing gel coating her blade, she really didn’t know what to expect as she lashed out at an opening in the Undead Brutes’ barrage of attacks.
Slashing a pale line into the creature's calf, one that sealed back almost as quickly as she could make the cut, Eleanor was immediately alarmed to find that a trace amount of the gel had scraped off. Bits of the flying goop hardening in midair. Molding themselves into what looked a lot like floating flower petals.
It only occurred to her that, perhaps this was what the ability was meant to do, when, after ducking a massive swing and flicking out her blade to counter, the strange petals raced to follow. Now, instead of one pale line carved into the meat of the Brute’s arm, three such quickly sealing lines appeared.
And again, more of the coating had shed away, only to coalesce as two more vibrant petals. But that wasn’t even the most amazing thing. The truly astounding part had been when the first two petals to carve a line in the Brute suddenly multiplied.
Splitting off to create four identical rose petals. Then, much to her excitement, after she’d delivered yet another slash, this time with all six petals, six more suddenly emerged. Eleanor couldn’t hide her grin. Because while, sure, she might not be able to kill these undead rift spawn, even with this ability, at least now, finally, she’d be able to do some lasting damage.
***
It wouldn’t be outrageous to say that Jun rarely struggled with resource management. When the resource effectively amounted to his mental fortitude, very rarely was it the case that he completely ran himself dry.
There were always those last dregs of “can do attitude” for him to fall back on. To scrape from the bottom of the metaphorical barrel.
Aura a near limitless resource, with his body’s adverse reactions to the channeling of said aura the only real limiting factor. All that is to say, the simple fact that, by the time he was finished charging up his new mantra, he was essentially running on empty, should really tell you something about the sheer enormity of the task.
And the strangest part was, it didn’t look or feel all that powerful, despite costing him more than any number of previous aura expenditures had, and not by a small margin either.
Much like his [Field of Rose Petals] mantra, [Launching Spear | Reaching Spear] seemed to require a physical manifestation to function. A focus of some kind that seemed to drink up aura by the ocean full. In this case, it took the shape of a slender emerald rod. Slightly tapering to one end, it was smooth to the touch, as thick around as his index finger at the base, and about fourteen inches long.
Hovering an inch from its tip was a rapidly spinning ball of light, which he pointed at where he figured the pointy bit should go—towards the still oblivious Lich. Which ultimately left him standing nearly the entire length of the chamber from its throned dais, nearly three hundred paces all told.
Pointing a glowing wand in the S Grade Monarch’s direction and feeling more than a little foolish whilst doing so. He didn’t even know the true range of this thing, nor any possible drop off it might have. That said, he couldn’t seem to shake this feeling it wouldn’t disappoint.
He only had one shot at this, so it had really better not.
Unable to drag even an ounce of focus away from the arduous task, he wasn’t able to shoot a look Eleanor’s way. To warn her somehow of what was to come, or even check up on how she was fairing. Instead, all he managed was one last trickle of piercing aura, before his field of vision was consumed by emerald light and his body fell limply to the floor—mental energy completely exhausted.
In this way, Jun never got to see the fruits of his labor.
Never got to watch the Lich’s eyes flare wide, as a beam as wide around as a royal carriage grew to eclipse its perspective in less than a second. As the S Grade Monarch Class, the Undying Lich, tried to teleport, tried to shield itself, scrambled for anything and everything that might somehow avert imminent disaster.
As first it’s shields were disintegrated, then it’s sphere of invulnerability pierced, and finally as its undead body was consumed in an unstoppable outpouring of radiant light.
***
On the artificial earthen platform, there were one of two reactions to the massive beam of concentrated energy first sheering through the side of the fallen bastion, then continuing on to carve a circular path through anything and everything in its way. Punching through cloud banks, flocks of unsuspecting rift spawn, and finally a line of mountain ranges in the far distance.
Carving through each with a series of explosions, sending up massive clouds of dust and chunks of boulder sized debris to gradually arc through the air.
Those reactions being outright disbelief, and a stark, almost animalistic terror.
The gale force winds kicked up by its passage, not to mention that ungodly piercing whine it made—like nails drawn across a chalkboard embedded in one’s ear canal—merely adding to the knee jerk reaction of the latter.
When at last the emerald beam flickered, faded, and then ceased to be entirely—when the winds died down and the high-pitched whine had receded—only then, in the dead silence that followed, did they notice the stark absence of sounds they’d otherwise grown accustomed to.
The shuffling feet of a restless army, the moans from tens of thousands of throats. Looking down from their roost was all they needed to confirm it.
The undead… were gone!
And they hadn’t merely dropped dead where they’d stood, it would appear as though they’d ceased to be entirely.
No, that wasn’t right. At least not entirely. There were still a few odd stragglers standing here and there, shuffling away from the Fallen Bastion. A bastion that was now, inexplicably, crackling with power.
Even as they watched, a roaring pillar of flame licked out from a hidden recess in the massive tower, burning the very last of the undead into little more than dry charcoal and ash.
Sharing looks of incomprehension, at once, each knight of their elite squad turned their gaze toward the top of the once fallen tower, a newfound wariness evident in the hunch of their shoulders.
***
It would be woefully inaccurate to say that the perforated lands of the greater anima—the frontier that lay just beyond its true inhabitants’ purview—were an inhospitable, chaotic, and lawless place.
Where the will of the strong is paramount, and those with power gladly leverage their strength over others—adopting the law of the jungle in all its savage brutality. Enforced, high and low, with ripping teeth and gouging claw.
No, a statement like that would be very incorrect indeed.
Although, that isn’t to say it hadn’t started out that way. A near constant, tumultuous struggle, with spirits of every cast and grade and origin vying for dominance above all else. To prove themselves worthy of supremacy.
No, it had been all that and more. It was merely that, unbeknownst to the self-proclaimed human population, eventually, a resolution was ultimately reached. Nine greater spirits having clawed their way to the top—each eventually labeled with the rather fitting class of Monarch.
And while, under this new world order, the law of the strong was still very much in play, the efforts of the truly powerful were now exclusively leveraged towards upholding the natural order, rather than on conquest and unending bloodshed.
Maintaining stagnation above all else, while ruthlessly cracking down on growth of any kind. Suppressing up and comers who might one day seek to supplant their rule, while growing their own power base in turn. A tumultuous sea made placid by main force.
And it was in this still pond that the death of a monarch resounded around the world like a gong.
***
Beneath the endless sand dunes of the Black Dry Desert, a subtle tremor can be felt for miles around. Having been startled from its dormancy, from the charcoal depths beneath, a bottomless titan emerges, displacing sand in the way a leviathan does water. It’s coming to the detriment of all that would call the black sands home.
[Old Man of the Desert (Monarch Class — S Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
Within the snow swept tundra of the northern reaches, sitting atop his crude throne made entirely of ice, a giant’s fist reaches for his trusty war hammer. Plucks it up from where it rests with casual ease. The mountain of cracked skulls shifts ever so slightly. The flash of a smile peaks out from his wild and unkempt beard.
[Crusher of Ice & Bone (Monarch Class — S Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
Within the scorching domain of Volcanic Ashlands territory, between the geysers, steam vents, and slow lava flows, a translucent membrane peels back to reveal a reptilian eye shot through with gold.
[Black-Scaled Drake (Monarch Class — S Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
Beneath its tangled canopy, within its impenetrable depths, dark hunters string their bows. Inured to the pitch black of the Grim Dark Forest, they put down internal strife, and take up arms instead. Set aside generational enmity, in favor of setting down traps to snare their enemies. At the behest of the Soul Alchemist, the dark hunters ready themselves for war.
[Cursed Soul Alchemist (Monarch Class — S Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
Within the depths of the Noxious Swamp, the spider matriarch calls out to her children. Miles of swampland tremble and quake under their many legged tread as they rush to heed their mother's call.
[Arachnid Swamp Queen (Monarch Class — S Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
Within the sweltering heart of the yellowed grasslands, the roar of an apex predator proclaiming the bounds of its domain silences all other chatter for many, many miles. Prey huddle in burrows, should they be lucky enough to possess them. Lay supine in the tall grass should they find themselves without. Every instinct in every creature, whether they consider themselves predator or prey, telling them in that instant, that to make noise now, is effectively to die.
[Royal Lions Pride (Monarch Class — S Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
Throughout the whole of the western jungle, the shrill chorus of howls and rapid thumping of chests drown out all else with their unholy cacophony. The great king of the apes, naturally, the loudest among them.
[Monkey King Howler (Monarch Class — S Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
From atop the fortified ramparts of her makeshift golden citadel, brilliant blue eyes look out over the paltry extent of her conquered domain. Golden locks trailing gently in the wind, the lord commander listens patiently as, obscured by the great majesty of her white feathered wings, advisers debate her best possible course of action. With a gesture, she silences all of those present. Then, in soft, resonating tones, she orders a full rallying of the angelic host.
Effective immediately.
[Seraphic Lord Commander (Monarch Class — SS Grade Rift Spawn)]
???
