Chapter 67 Intoxicating.
The team was still running at full speed when they came upon a group of Ori-Masa blocking the path. The fish-men’s backs were to them which was a good sign. “Lenna, brace. I’m cutting power.” He told her and vanished.
Lenna almost tripped when Isaac’s power left her. Suddenly going back to normal was like the difference from having just woken up to being awake in the middle of the day only in reverse. She slowed her pace to an easy jog as she reacclimated to working under normal conditions. She drew her sword and gripped it with her offhand on the blade just past the crossguard. With the blade pointing backwards she could hold it and run easily without having to worry about drawing it from the scabbard once she was in combat.
Isaac appeared in the middle of the group of fish-men like a demon. His sword in one hand and shadows turning his offhand into razor sharp claws. He tore through them sending blood and bodies flying. The supreme act of primal violence surprised even Lenna. There was no hint of the usual joy of combat that Isaac had. He was a monster, a predator, and the Ori-Masa were insects to be squashed. He didn’t even give them the respect a predator gives to prey. To him, they were just weeds to be pulled, ants to be stepped on, dirt to be washed off. His face was a mask of seriousness with a tinge of fury. A dozen bodies had piled up before Lenna and Wo Lu even arrived. The final few fell quickly after.
Just past the carnage, of Isaac acting more like an angry dragon than even Kahtesh could, a cavern opened up. The group came from the southeastern side of the cavern and on the southwestern side there was another opening. At said opening was a barricade of men and wagons. The lead wagon had been positioned to be used as a makeshift wall to hold back the Ori-Masa. A few men with spears were standing in it with their weapons low and shields high. Below them another group of men with weapons and shields low and tucked in close to them were jabbing at any Ori-Masa that got too close.
The little ‘gill-faced bastards’ were throwing rocks and occasionally makeshift spears at the men but they seemed to mostly just be taunting them. A few dozen Ori-Masa bodies were scattered around with scorch marks strewn about. There were still around seventy Ori-Masa remaining. It took Isaac a moment because he had been so focused on getting there as quickly as possible but he realized that they may have gotten more than they bargained for. The amount of wheat only served to dull the scythe's edge but the real problem was the vague sense of wrongness surrounding them. To Isaac it felt like a severely muted version of the mushroomancer powers. All of the little monster men felt fuzzy to Isaac in a way that only his Polarity Sense could understand.
“Fireball.” Isaac told Lenna and summoned Kahtesh to help.
“Understood.” Lenna replied and raised her hand. “Come forth, ember of a dying star!” She called and a massive explosion rang out. She did so two more times before stopping. By the time her third had gone off Kahtesh had started his own assault. As soon as the Fireballs stopped the lightning began. Dozens of Ori-Masa were cut down in moments. Isaac decided that this battlefield would be the perfect place to test something he had wanted to test on himself for a while. The only reason he hadn’t yet was because his mana pathways in his toes were still weak from being converted but they had been slowly healing for the past few hours now. He had finally hit the point where his death flames were healing his mana pathways so they were almost back to one hundred percent. That was good enough for Isaac.
Power flowed through Isaac with ramping intensity. First double and then triple what he had been running through himself. When he hit four times what he had been using to sustain himself the entire cavern turned to see him. To those present it felt like a god of death had ascended to greet them. The feeling carried with it something almost akin to an aura. Everything in it felt like the world itself was whispering one word, die. The darkness around Isaac dimmed from the dark mana being sucked out of it faster than it could be replaced. Most of the cavern remained dark as it was only lit by a handful of torches but he was clearly visible regardless of the distance. Isaac felt… Immortal.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Isaac moved his mana out into his muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments, and nerves. He breathed deeply and felt the mana in the air leave without any dark mana left in it. He couldn’t keep the manic grin from his face at the intoxicating power. He tossed his sword to the side, not even bothering to put it in his Inventory, and clenched his fists. He could feel every living and dead thing within a hundred feet of him and he knew which was dark and which wasn’t. This, this was the power that he had traded his memories for. This wasn’t the power to kill an entire room of people with a snap of his fingers. No. This was the power to manhandle a giant. To punch a dragon to death. To fight a demigod and win. And this was only level ten.
Isaac felt his reserves dropping at a steady rate. He knew that he could only maintain the amount of power drain for around a minute but that was fine. He doubted that he would even need a minute. His death flames wanted to move with his muscles. They wanted to harden his bones. They wanted to move where he wanted to go. Time itself seemed to slow as Isaac walked toward the surviving Ori-Masa. He realized that the power flowing through his nervous system was causing his brain to work faster than normal thus making it look like time had slowed.
Each step he took felt odd as if gravity was affecting him less but in reality it was just due to his hastened perceptions. His walk turned into a slow run and then a fast one as he darted from Ori-Masa to Ori-Masa spraying blood and gore across the cavern with each punch or kick he landed. To the onlookers it looked like a blur of death and carnage. His walk looked like a run and his run was hard to track in the darkness even with the darkness around him being lessened. Bodies flew and everyone save for Kahtesh had stopped attacking and just let Isaac tear through the enemy like the arbiter of a vengeful god.
“By all that is…” Wo Lu whispered next to Lenna. “What is he?”
“A demigod.” Lenna answered with awe. She had no doubt that he could tear her apart if he came at her like that. His only problem was that every time he hit something he would get tossed backwards slightly from the impact. He simply wasn’t heavy enough to counteract the force of his own punches hitting another object. Slick surfaces would be his biggest nightmare and Lenna was confident enough in being able to make Isaac impale himself on her sword if they fought. The problem for her was that even in that event she would still lose. He would be completely healed in a matter of moments once her blade had been removed. There was no winning against him. Not in her mind at least.
Lenna was sure that it would take an army of wizards or the mythical Wish spell to take him down. Everything was vulnerable to being disintegrated or having a meteor dropped on them but actually hitting Isaac was something that only reality warping magic would allow. Either that or some very clever placement and planning. Isaac appeared before her and she felt the power start winding down. Soon there was only an echo of death left and she knew that he was still running a very small amount of death flames through his system to keep himself wide awake and alert.
“Have fun?” She asked.
Isaac had burned through almost his entire reserves during his killing spree. He had to wipe blood and guts off of his face on multiple occasions just so he could see. He hadn’t initially accounted for his own punches tossing him around but after a dozen exchanges he had managed to adapt to it. Mostly he would just use it as a sort of automatic disengage from each enemy. Or at least he would have if anything had survived for more than one hit. He was covered from head to toe in the guts and blood of others. He felt sticky and gross but it had been a rush beyond anything he had ever felt. Enough of a rush to make all the headaches from his missing memories worth it. Something still felt off though, even after all the Ori-Masa were supposedly dead.
“Isaac?” Lenna asked again to get his attention.
“Huh?” He blinked and his eyes snapped to hers. “Uh, yeah. It was… intoxicating.” He confessed. He looked around at the carnage left in his wake. “Something still doesn’t feel right though.” He whispered just loud enough for her to hear.
Wo Lu’s lips curled up in a snarl. “I feel it too.” He agreed. “At first I thought it was you.”
Isaac shook his head slightly from side to side. “It’s like there is something sleeping inside the corpses. It was there when they were still alive and it’s still there. “ Isaac explained his feeling.
Lenna handed Isaac his discarded sword. “You might need this.” She told him. “Also, stop leaving your weapons around.” She chastised the man who had just shown the power of a demigod without even being twentieth level.
Isaac nodded absently and took the sword before storing it in his Inventory. He felt tension start to build but he wasn’t sure if it was just his own imagination or not. Wo Lu dipped low like he was prepared to shift into his wolf form and that was all Isaac needed to be sure that it wasn’t all in his head. “Something’s coming.” Isaac said ominously.
“What?” Lenna asked.
Isaac shook his head. “I don’t know.”