Forran clung to the tree as it creaked beneath and the earth shook all around him. His eyes were locked on an ever-expanding clearing in the distance as two forces clashed. Demons just like the prophets had spoken of poured through a pillar reaching toward the sky to surge into an army of men and women.
The battle was eerily quiet, no screams of pain or battle cries reached him, only the clashing of blades, mana, and the sound of dying demons. He could see the trail of dead and dying warriors but their faces bore now pain, they bore nothing at all. Bisected bodies hurled spells to shatter lines of demons even as the light left their eyes and every second the man watched the chill in his heart deepened.
They may have looked like men and women but the man saw the truth of it with their every move. Monsters battled monsters.
The monsters cut through the demons faster than he would have thought possible and abandoned their dead without a second thought. Forran’s pocket thrummed so he reached into it and grasped the message stone.
“Alec! Report,” His commanding paladin shouted through the stone.
“The cultists seem to be turning the battle around. Intervention likely isn’t needed here,” Forran replied instantly, his training overriding his fearful thoughts, “The Enemy is still present and his power is being held at bay by level one-hundred-fifty-eight Seeker Shadow Lord.”
“Good, you know your objective. Do not fail our lord…” The Paladin warned before the message stone went dead.
Forran shivered at the thought of his objective. He almost couldn’t believe the girl they had taken was related to that thing…
----------------------------------------
The Slayer’s next step took him slightly further back than required but his senses had detected the approach of the fiery soul and the other two warriors. Alone, each of them was worthless but as they moved to join him in battle their now fearless and focused minds brought them to another level.
Leo’s sword struck down onto the Shadow Lord’s forearm as its hammer tore the ground apart just inches from The Slayer’s feet. The strike barely scratched the demon but in the next instant fire exploded from his off-hand into the demon’s. It hissed not in pain but in surprise as its vision was impaired.
At almost the same moment a one-armed warrior darted low and threw himself into the legs of the demon as his body flashed green, yellow, then red. The air cracked and the already broken earth compacted from the blow. The Shadow Lord’s leg moved slightly as its greaves dented and buckled. Exterminator’s Regards returned to hack into the demon’s back as the final broken one joined the fray with unexpected speed, a flurry of explosive kicks detonated against The Shadow Lord’s chest and skull.
The Shadow Lord leaned back slightly under the combined assault but then it moved between the sluggish broken like lightning through the clouds. Their reaction speeds were far better than their lesser states would normally allow for but all that allowed for was glancing blows and blocks.
Leo was thrown over a hundred feet into a tumble that would have shattered most corpses, his jaw swinging loosely from his skull but he rose and charged back across the intervening distance spinning into a series of slashes each hurling columns and waves of fire.
The one-armed corpse rolled forward sacrificing a leg at the knee but drove its fist into the ground making it fall out beneath them in a sudden rush of screaming demons and collapsing stone.
Blood sprayed from the third’s mouth as he took a glancing strike across the chest shattering his ribs and shoulder but his off-hand wrapped around the demon’s hammer and his kicks continued directly into its face.
Throw completely off balance by the collapsing ground the Shadow Lord threw its arm out wide with power sending the third into a nearby stone wall. The Slayer activated Wrath Incarnate in short instantaneous bursts as he moved to take advantage of the demon’s lack of leverage The Slayer’s Nimble Boots of the Blood Stalker kept his step supernaturally sure as he stepped to between falling stones bringing his blade down on the Shadow Lord’s skull.
For the first time, the Shadow Lord groaned in pain as additional cracks spread across its skull but its movements remained swift and deadly. Before the falling stone slammed to the new ground it re-orientated itself and a lance of shadow tore The Slayer’s hip.
They landed and the remaining debris settled at the bottom of a cavern that glowed orange as if it had been recently superheated.
The Slayer’s leg buckled as it burst through the now missing socket but before the next more lethal strike came fiery destruction rained down from above in the form of over a dozen spheres of white-hot light.
The cavern detonated as each of the spheres exploded at once. The Slayer’s fire resistance allowed him to ignore the majority of the damage but even so, the fiery souled Leo’s fire had managed to redden his skin. The sudden blinding light of Leo’s skill made the Shadow Lord’s strike went wide and The Slayer took the opportunity to throw himself away with another burst of Wrath Incarnate.
Health:
2465/5850
Stamina:
6324/8630
Wrath:
3546
Due to the attrition of his wrath even with the mental stress and the killing achieved by Exterminator’s Regards, his wrath was barely remaining even. Regeneration was an irritating necessity now however, a broken shell could not perform the step.
The one-armed broken slammed his fist into the ground again this time causing a pillar of stone to burst from the ground beneath the Shadow Lord’s feet just as it came to rest on the cavern’s floor. Its legs buckled as its feet hit the ground early just in time for Leo’s burning sword to flare across its skull and Exterminator’s Regards to carve up its chest and jaw.
The flames burned away the shadows cloaking its head and it hissed in irritation bringing its hammer up to meet Leo’s chest. The fiery souled corpse tumbled away into a heap with a crunch but only a portion of the demon’s strength was put into the blow as it was forced to reorient itself again from the one-armed corpse’s ploy.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Health:
2855/5850
Stamina:
6169/8630
Wrath:
2376
The Slayer’s leg extended as his muscles forced the bone straight while the bone of his hip tried to regenerate. The third broken pulled itself from the wall hopping on a twisted leg but his working arm pulsed white as he slammed it forward. Eye’s of the Slayer highlighted translucent shapes of will as they surged through the air to slam into the Shadow Lord unseen. Each strike on its own was insignificant but with each strike, the time between them decreased, soon a barrage of blows rained into the demon’s face and chest, more like a wave of force than a series of strikes.
The Shadow Lord hissed turned away from The Slayer and stepped into the wave of force. Its feet sank slightly into the softened stone. The shadows surrounding thickened and expanded before hardening into over a dozen spears of darkness. The wave of force continued to pummel the Shadow Lord even as the spears shot through the air.
The third threw himself to the side avoiding the first six but his crippled legs hampered his movement and the rest tore him apart. Shadow met flesh and bone but the third didn’t flinch as his remaining arm vanished in a spray of blood or when his lower half disappeared, pulped but mana made physical.
The Slayer ignored the corpse and moved to strike the Shadow Lord from behind his swing around to strike from the front. The deaths of the corpses above were increasing the fall of his wrath but at the same time, his mental load slowly lessened.
Another ear-burst detonation lurched both The Slayer and the Shadow Lord upward as the ground rose beneath them once more. The Shadow Lord had expected it this time and wasn’t knocked off balance in the least but this time the pillar brought back to the surface and the brutal slaughter above.
Leo surged up from below but his sword remained behind as his torso was still hunched over grotesquely from the hammer blow and his arms hung uselessly by his sides. The Slayer’s Flesh of Iron empowered fist cracked against the demon’s skull causing several more cracks to appear as his sword hit it from the opposite side. The Shadow Lord hissed and threw back its head shattering The Slayer’s arm before pivoting and caving in his chest with the shaft of its hammer.
The Slayer immediately activated Wrathful Regeneration as several vital organs ruptured under strike and ribs burst from his sides. Still, his legs caught him as he hit the ground, clearing the collapsed terrain.
The temptation to abandon this fight and slaughter the corrupted and broken nearby was there but their lives were now required to activate Wrath Incarnate.
Health:
1932/5850
Stamina:
4213/8630
Wrath:
1632
He judged he would only get a handful more activations of Wrath Incarnate before his lesser self regained control and would promptly die from either the inability to heal or by the hand of the Shadow Lord.
The fight had been a useful way to determine the function of the different skill channels pulsing through the body of the Shadow Lord. At first, they had been hard to distinguish due to the focus on shadow mana which by nature was hard to inspect, translating to obfuscated threads.
However, now. The Slayer had his mark.
Leo landed twenty feet to The Slayer’s left and despite his lack of working arms he turned back the Shadow Lord and his eyes ignited into blinding white embers and a column raging carved across the terrain toward the demon.
The Shadow Lord swung its hammer down to intercept the column and the flames detonated, throwing the surrounding terrain into a storm of bright orange flame. The Shadow Lord’s hammer came away from the column wreathed in shadow and flame but The Slayer didn’t see that, what he saw was the alignment of his target.
The Slayer surged across the broken terrain, and through the wall of flame, Exterminator’s Regards in hand as he cleared the gap and ignored the snapping of his bones. His blade flared with white-marbled crimson as Wrath Incarnate exploded through his shell bringing the might of his soul and shell together upon a tiny thread of shadow stretching from the demon’s core and into its wrist.
The dome of orange flame from the column of fire was utterly overwhelmed with the blinding light of clashing will and shadow. The world screamed alongside the agonized hiss of the Shadow Lord but The Slayer wasn’t done. Exterminator’s Regards continued arcing upward toward his primary goal. A single thread of darkness formed a halo around the Shadow Lord's skull and like the first, it fell to the power of his will.
Another detonation of brilliant light and dark tore through the air around them and the world screamed once more. The Shadow Lord lashed out with a mighty blow even as its hammer fell from its hand and its skills crumbled. The Slayer’s body broke before it and soared across the battlefield shattering trees and stone with his broken body but all the while the strange expression had returned to his face as above all the chaos of the fighting and explosion he could hear the demon screaming in agony.
Health:
12/5850
Stamina:
213/8630
Wrath:
498
Through the debris of his tumble through the forest, he could see the form of the Shadow Lord bent over clawing at its now shadowless skull that had suddenly burst into radiant flame as the sun began to bleach its skull from black to white. The shadows that had extended overhead to empower the army of demons had collapsed the first skill channel and now the corrupted floundered in fear as their power abandoned them and the broken carved through them like wolves among sheep. No movement wasted, no corrupted left alive.
The Shadow Lord ran toward the anchor carving its way through its own kind in desperate thrashing and clawing before throwing itself through. The legion of corrupted broke at the same moment and died as they should.
Health:
10/5850
Stamina:
213/8630
Wrath:
0
Kal moaned as the pains of his broken body suddenly became all too real but his mind lurched to replay the things he had done.
“What have I done?...”
His consciousness flickered and began to fade as the screams of the suddenly awakened men and women he had used for his own purpose reached him but the sound of a foot landing just by his head kept him awake.
Something cold snapped into place around his wrists.
“Lord Paladin! The Six will not be necessary…”
Warning: Your mana has been sealed.