Ceranai
patreon
SOM - Chapter 21 - Apex
🕑 Added 2024-03-28 12:37:20 +0000 UTCWhen Luke consented to the upgrade, he felt the world spirit vanish from the dungeon. For a moment he thought he had just abandoned him. Then, he felt the evolution take hold. Within his soul, Luke felt the threads of the [Forerunner] shrink, as the aether condensed and changed into something more potent.
[Concept evolved - Forerunner into Apex - Copper. Earned as a direct gift from Gaia, +5 all attributes, +25% Experience. There can only be one.]
Power overwhelming flowed through Luke as Gaia’s parting gift filled him. [Apex] was only at copper rank, the first stage of conceptualisation, yet it gave him more than twice the attributes as the silver ranked [Forerunner]. He had gathered that not all concepts were created equal, but the gulf between them was absurd.
Now I just need to hold on to it, Luke thought. With great power came an even greater headache. Luke was against the clock to become the [Apex] of mankind. Failure would cripple him, and Nathan would die.
Luke had to force himself to focus on the viran horde, something made easier by his new [Wisdom]. He watched the prophet cast a spell of sorts, and light the two champions up with holy fire. They weren’t harmed by the flames, and rushed forward to meet him. The mace wielding one with a shiny black second-skin of obsidian reached him first.
[Level 12 Viran - A psion that walks the path of the Earthbreaker Marauder. Currently affected by Zealous Flames.]
With his soul sense, Luke felt the zealous anger in the domain wreathing the champions. It was reminiscent of his own fire domain, but fundamentally altered. The flames seemed to empower their souls, and burned aether to do so.
With brute force, the [Earthbreaker] smashed into Luke, its mace crashing against his shield with bone-jarring impacts. The second champion poked at him with a glaive, the razor-sharp blade seeking gaps in Luke's armour. The glaive wielder was fast enough to get past Luke's shield and land several jabs to Luke's visor, the metal ringing with each strike.
Luke considered retreating, but he wasn’t going to let a bunch of murderous slavers bully him into submission. The ratlings surrounding him from all angles was a problem, but there was a simple fix.
A quick bash with Luke’s shield sent the elite stumbling back, and he used the opening to run for the edge of the encirclement. Testing his new [Strength] he leapt over the heads of the surprised ratlings. He couldn’t exactly touch the ceiling, but he easily cleared the top of their pointed helmets.
Running through the camp, Luke smashed a few stragglers, before turning with his back to the still burning statue. Up close he could see the tailless prisoners he wanted to rescue. They were in a bad way, their fur matted with blood and their eyes hollow with despair. Luke would readily admit that saving them wasn't his primary objective, but seeing the miserable conditions they were in strengthened his resolve that everyone else needed to die.
The two champions ran towards him again, still burning brightly by the Prophet’s flame. His [Brace] took the bite out of their attacks, but he was disheartened to see another pair of the larger ratlings loping towards him, running on all fours. Clearly not all the elites left in the drills.
His situation only worsened as several more viran aimed aether rifles at him. The bolts sapped his [Bulwark] domain and the enchantments reinforcing his armour. The protective runes flickered under the onslaught.
Aether bolts splashed against Luke's shield, with a couple hitting the armour beneath. At the same time as the volley weakened his defences, the champions launched a coordinated assault. A mace dinged his helmet, followed by an axe to the neck. The two new arrivals knocked him about with crude spiked clubs, the jagged metal scratching at his weakened armour.
Luke found a momentary pause between attacks and seized it. He stepped forward and slammed Fenn into the armoured gut of the lead viran with a [Kinetic Strike]. The force of the blow lifted the viran ten feet up in the air and burst most of its internal organs, blood and viscera splattering the ground. Its mace dropped from its hands, the weapon falling forgotten to the dirt.
Before it even landed, Luke was flowing with the momentum of the upswing, and with the downward arc, he obliterated the axe wielder's head. The pointed helmet folded inwards and drove down into its neck cavity, the viran's skull shattering like an eggshell.
Two elites were down, but there was no time to celebrate. A club hit Luke in the back and almost knocked him onto his knees, and he lost the momentum. He had to activate his [Brace] to keep his feet as the pair continued to bash him about, his teeth rattling in his skull with each blow.
Unfortunately, while [Brace] was a great defensive skill, it was utterly incompatible with his [Kinetic Strikes]. The two viran champions he had defeated were quickly replaced by another elite and a pair of skirmishers, the newcomers eager to test his mettle.
As Luke tried to regain the momentum, he swung at the viran on his left. In response, the skirmishers jumped forward and stabbed at his legs with their spears. The razor-sharp tips sought the joints in his armour. Coming dangerously close to being tripped over, Luke swung a wide arc with his hammer, the heavy weapon whooshing through the air.
The larger champions moved back from the wild swing, which bought Luke some breathing room. One skirmisher pushed its luck and tried to stab Luke in the face, its spear glancing off his visor. He knocked it over with his shield and stomped down on its pelvis with a booted foot. The bone cracked like a gunshot.
Another crossbow bold scratched his armour as Luke whirled to avoid a club to his head. He hooked the arm and pulled the viran champion closer. The ratling’s fetid breath washed over him. In a test of who had the better helmet, Luke head-butted the champion. Rurik’s craft shone through, and Luke barely felt the impact, while the elite staggered back.
For a few moments, Luke flailed around wildly with his war hammer, the weapon smashing into anything that came too close. The champion he had hooked fell to the floor with his fractured skull oozing blood, the thick liquid pooling on the ground. He used the breathing room to back up a little, feeling the fire pit behind him warm his back. The white rocks still burned hot, but the Eldrinsvär Royal Plate protected him from the blistering heat.
A brave skirmisher ducked under one of Luke’s wild swings to stab at the shoulder joint of his armour. It avoided the hammer, but a casual slap with Luke’s shield sent it flying into the fire pit. Fat melted and fur burned, filling the air with a nasty stench.
Luke stepped back again until he was right next to the searing heat of the pit. Even with his heat-resistant armour, he couldn't stand any more. Sweat poured down his face beneath his helmet. In the knotted ball that was Luke's soul, he could feel his affinity for the domain rising, but certainly not fast enough to make him fireproof.
Another volley of missiles, aether bolts from the long rifles, and miscellaneous flying objects collided with Luke’s shield and armour, straining his [Bulwark] domain. Once again the protective runes flickered, like short circuiting lights.
As Luke peeked out from behind his shield to survey the battlefield, he saw three things with his enhanced [Wisdom]:
The first was that around the many corpses glimmering with the allure of loot, many of the pools of blood contained piles of gold coins. That was new. It took him a few tortuous seconds to tear his eyes from the gold.
Next, when his eyes rested on the remaining viran forces he then noticed that their Prophet had emerged, and was organising the enemy lines. That was why the attacks were now coming in regular volleys.
Finally, when Luke hid back behind his shield, and looked to his right he saw again the five cages off to the side of the fire pit. Up close he realised these cages were bigger than the smaller cages dangling from the statue, and each held several prisoners.
Saving the slaves was how Luke originally rationalised his decision to engage. He might embrace his inner [Murderhobo], but he still considered himself a good person. The core of his soul was the same as always, even if he had gained some new bits.
A plan formed in Luke’s mind. He was going to regain the momentum. Luke materialised the [Ring of Corruption] on his finger. The dark metal was cold against his skin, but felt like it belonged. The free attribute point he held in reserve, but ready to use at a moment’s notice.
The Prophet was well-guarded, with two robed viran by its sides and most of the larger elite warriors surrounding it. When Luke had jumped over his encirclement, the ratlings had been sparsely packed, but now there was a relatively dense crowd trapping him against the pit and the still-burning statue.
If he couldn't jump over the crowd to reach the prophet, he was going to go straight through it. He felt his aura strengthen as the [Corruption] domain pumped it up, dark tendrils of power filling in the cracks. Worrying about consequences could come later. The ring wasn't as much of a boost as his [Apex] domain but it was enough to refresh his confidence.
Forwards, Luke ran, his boots pounding against the ground. Like a battering ram, he tore through the smaller viran, their bodies shattering against his unstoppable charge. His bloody war hammer painted the dirt red and gold with savage strokes, the coins glinting in the flickering light. That's where they are coming from!
The war hammer's own domain had manifested. With each pulverising blow, Fenn knocked loose bits of aether from the viran's broken bodies. It was like something out of a video game, and Luke laughed as he watched the coins fly. He felt a sensation of joy emanating from Fenn in return. His only regret was that he didn't have time to collect the crimson-stained coins.
Even with all of his newfound power, pushing through was a workout. Luke might have pushed into superhuman levels of strength, but he was still outnumbered over fifty to one. He could be as strong as five men and still struggle to lift a mountain, and the weight of numbers was pressing down on him from all sides.
Attacks from all angles rained down on his armour, the barrage unceasing. The barrage was enough to put cracks in his [Bulwark] domain, but [Corruption] filled the gaps. He walked through an army, and his armour was barely scratched, the Eldrinsvär Royal Plate living up to its legacy.
Perhaps Gaia had been right about quality trumping quantity. The strong would dominate the weak, the powerful crushing the powerless beneath their heel. It was the way of the world, and Luke was determined to come out on top.
When he reached the cluster of larger Viran champions, Luke's momentum slowed. These were tougher opponents, and it wasn't so easy to overwhelm them with brute force. The warriors, red-robed priests, and Prophet all clumped up close to form something that could be described as a defensive formation. It was far from a Spartan phalanx or Roman testudo but would still be a hard nut to crack.
Luke turned and ran left instead, his mind racing. The fighting had created some pace around the cages, so he ran towards them and began smashing locks, the metal shattering beneath his hammer. Gratitude, defiance, and allies were what Luke had been hoping for. He hadn't been expecting that the prisoners would all just cower inside their cages as he ripped the doors open.
There was one exception, a young-looking tailless prisoner with more scars on his mangy fur than most. The male leaped out of his cage and produced a hidden shiv from somewhere on its person. Luke shuddered to think where he had been concealing the makeshift blade. There was no thanks or appreciation in the prisoner's feral gaze, but an ally was an ally.
Luke took out his looted [Marauder's Axe] and dropped it at the male's feet, the heavy weapon thudding against the ground. If the scrawny prisoner could lift the axe, it could do a lot more damage than with the tiny shiv it held.
Luke reached into his soulspace and retrieved the [Marauder's Axe]. The heavy weapon felt like a feather in his grip. With a casual motion, he tossed the axe at the male's feet. After a moment's hesitation, the male reached down and strained his malnourished muscles to pick it up. Maybe I should have given him a lighter weapon, Luke thought as he watched the ratling struggle.
A wave of missiles landed around Luke, and though he shielded the male with his body, most of the other prisoners were killed by the volley. For all Luke’s newfound power he couldn’t be everywhere at once, but he felt some guilt for drawing the defenceless prisoners into the fight.
Hey look, a distraction, Luke thought as the young male prisoner roared, and charged at the champions. The scrappy prisoner didn’t have a chance: he could barely lift the axe he wielded.
Not one to be outdone by a malnourished runt, Luke threw himself back into the fray, his hammer swinging in wide arcs. The brief detour he had taken was something the viran hadn't expected, and they had broken out from their neat little formation to follow him, their discipline crumbling in the face of the unexpected.
This made it much easier for Luke to bulldoze through them, sweeping them aside like bowling pins. He knocked one champion to the floor, crushed its throat with his boot and sent the second elite behind the first flying with a [Kinetic Strike]. The airborne elite collided with a red-robed priest with a crunch.
Luke was about to finish the downed priest, when a gout of flame caught him full force in the chest. There was a moment where he felt the heat before his Eldrinsvär plate absorbed it, the armour glowing cherry-red. It had a different feel to it than Rurik's fireball, which he remembered all too well. The Prophet was angry.
[Level 15 Viran - A psion that walks the path of the Ashen Herald. Core Domains: Prophet, Fire and Marauder.]
The world around Luke erupted into flames as the Prophet's zealous flames manifested, the fire consuming everything in its path. Another intense wave of heat hit Luke as the surrounding aether bent to the boss's [Empathy].
Fortunately, even though he had neglected his spiritual attributes, as the Saurian method called them, Luke's [Will] was almost as high as his strength thanks to his [Murderhobo] and [Apex] domains, the two powers working in tandem to keep him standing.
Play with fire, and you’re gonna get burned.
