Chapter 27

Kill Stealing to Greatness.

Davina didn’t wait for clarification. She snatched Celest off the ground so fast that the whiplash would’ve killed her if she hadn’t taken the kingmaker distribution. Luke did the same for his sister as Angelica leapt onto her dracolich’s saddle, shouting instructions. The five of them were ready to fly before I finished my sentence.

The aura of the approaching monster made Gorgath’s feel small. No spell was designed to confront that much mass or momentum, so I threw out deathlock barriers, bunching them together to make a wall. The appearance of the first barrier showed Angelica and Davina that the threat was coming behind them.

Angelica continued to shout commands, turning the dracolich’s head towards me before making her crouch in preparation for springing into the air. Davina kept her gaze locked over her shoulder with her hand raised, conjuring additional barriers beside the ones I’d created. The dracolich then leapt towards me, rising fifteen feet high and crossing the gap between us.

Wind from their passage ruffled my hair as the tip of her nose passed above my head, and a sixty-foot-wide python with scales resembling cracked rock exploded through the death void behind them. The behemoth ignored my master-tier spell like it wasn’t even there before crashing through all our expert-tier barriers. The barriers barely slowed the creature as its size and momentum easily overwhelmed our spells.

Above my head, the dracolich was beating her wings twice as fast as she previously could, throwing her passengers skyward with impressive speed. But it wasn’t fast enough, and we all knew it. The python was gaining on them.

As the others threw out spells to slow it down, Celest’s hand darted into her storage pouch and emerged, holding a greater barrier scroll case.

Celest locked her gaze onto me, and her hand shot in my direction. “Catch!”

Due to her new strength and agility, the wooden tub cracked as it left her fingers and shattered as I caught it. Shards of wood bounced off my coat as I unrolled the scroll and lifted it towards the dracolich, feeding mana through the activation sequence. The power trapped inside the scroll exploded from the parchment, forming an expanding magical bubble above me and below the fleeing dracolich.

Celest probably thought I could use the greater barrier to stop the python, but, after seeing it blow through my barriers, I wasn’t sure that even a greater barrier could stop it. I also wasn’t willing to risk it not working when I knew the barrier could be used to throw the dracolich and her passengers out of harm's way.

The expanding barrier caught the dracolich’s feet, violently throwing them skyward with explosive force right before the other side of the barrier collided with the top of my head. The barrier had gone from the size of my fist to eighty feet across in the blink of an eye, so I didn’t have time to get out of the way before it crushed me like an empty beer can.

***

Between the barrier pulverising me into the tunnel floor, the sixty-foot-wide python then smearing me across that exact same floor, and whatever else squashed me while I was mush, I was out of the fight for over a minute. A minute is a long time when you're on the fourth floor of the Abyss.

I came back to myself only after the mind-numbing pain of being pulverised was replaced by the simple agony of having every muscle and bone in your body broken. But I wasn’t concerned about anything until my ability to sense my familiars returned. They were over a mile away from me. That told me two things: my children were safe, but only as long as the dracolich kept ahead of whatever was chasing her. There was no other reason for her to have gone so far back the way we came, which meant they needed help, and they needed help fast.

The massive python slithering over me had squeezed me out of my equipment like human toothpaste, so I was naked, unarmed, and lying on the ground in the middle of a monster stampede. It was not the best place to be, but Slaughter and my Day Walker set were scattered around me, waiting to be picked up.

The changes I’d recently made to my soul stopped experiencing what it felt like to be hamburger meat from being a problem. My body had also somehow healed my mana network and core. Now wasn’t the time to work out how that had happened. I’d do that when my kids were safe.

Before I could finish healing, another gigantic monster stepped on my legs, returning them to a meaty goo. I ignored the pain as I drew in the ambient mana and pushed it into my empty core. The raw mana then passed through my mana network and exploded from my hand as a sphere of destruction. I placed the spell below my feet, in the path of the stampede, giving my body the few seconds it needed to reform.

My extensive injuries had drained me of lifeforce, and for the first time in months, hunger clawed at the back of my throat. I leapt to my feet, drawing in more mana, before blurring through the mass of bodies towards Slaughter. I scoped up my kilij, drew it from its sheath, and decapitated the nearest monster, feeding on its lifeforce. The creature crumbled to dust as lifeforce rushed into me, satiating the worst of my hunger.

I threw out spells and decapitated other monsters as I retrieved the rest of my equipment. In only a few moments, I was armed, equipped, and ready to save my children.

I took off, racing through the tunnel, sidestepping monsters, or cutting them down with magic whichever was faster. After thirty seconds, I approached a bend in the tunnel where I could sense the fourth-floor bosses.

They’d reached each other.

The only reason they caught my attention was that I’d have to bring my children back through their fight. Depending on their abilities, that could be impossible. I dashed around the corner and leapt onto the back of a large nearby monster to get a better view.

Dead and injured pythons, like the one that had crushed me, filled the tunnel as dozens of others fought something that looked like a plesiosaur with spider legs. The beast filled the three-hundred-foot-tall tunnel, towering over its opponents as it slammed its pointed feet through their stone scales with impressive precision.

A magical barrier surrounded the plesiosaur, protecting it from the crushing strength of the pythons wrapped around its body, neck, and legs. Both sides seemed to rely on defence, which was all the information I could gather in the time it took me to pass them.

It took me another two minutes to catch up with my children, and by then, the dracolich had travelled a few more miles in the wrong direction. The reason for fleeing was immediately obvious.

The dracolich was being chased by a murder of gigantic three-eyed crows. Hundreds of these dragon-sized crows flew in a tight formation, blocking the tunnel, and stopped the dracolich from being able to return the way it had come. They weren’t faster or stronger than the dracolich, but there were enough of them that being mobbed was the only outcome for trying to fight your way through.

If the crows were the only threat they had to deal with, they would have overcome it, but the need to flee kept pushing them towards other monsters, forcing Davina and Angelica to focus on the threat in front of them. Luke was standing on the dracolich’s back with his sword drawn, cutting down swordflies while Kathrine and Celest threw out barriers and dodged.

My familiars sensed my approach and were ready when I arrived. The dracolich finished her dive and beat her wings, beginning a loop de loop. When she was upside down, she flipped her body right way up. This left her facing the opposite direction and the murder of crows.

I snapped my fingers, disintegrating the nearest crow's head with a destruction spell. Davina unleashed her own destruction spell on the next closest. I took out the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth.

The human body wasn’t built to harness magic the way I could. Davina's spells were stronger than mine, but she wasn’t as fast at casting, and she never would be. When one mistake meant certain death, you weren’t willing to make mistakes.

Davina took out the seventh crow as I opened a path for their escape. Headless crows fell from the air, drawing attention. Crows began descending on their dead allies, ignoring the dracolich. By the time they were through the murder, we’d left enough fresh meat behind them that they weren’t being followed.

The easy part was done.

Now, I had to get them past the fourth-floor bosses.

***

Davina watched the ongoing battle between the fourth-floor bosses from atop a dead monster. We were a quarter mile from the main battle, and you couldn’t find anything stronger than a first-floor boss nearby. Those were the sort of threats Angelica, Davina, Luke and the dracolich could deal with, and the four of them were easily holding the line.

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All the python corpses had drawn the stronger monsters away like moths to a flame. They were tearing each other apart for a chance to feed on the third-floor bosses.

“You could try repeatedly casting the weaken spell on it,” Davina suggested as she disintegrated a monster that had come too close. “It should shorten the battle.”

I shot a finger of destruction through a nearby monster. “Without significant injuries, I doubt my spells will affect a fourth-floor boss.”

Third-floor bosses could resist my magic. I was almost certain fourth-floor bosses could shrug it off. In the distance, the number of dead and injured pythons continued to increase without the battle slowing. There were now more pythons wrapped around the gigantic plesiosaur, restricting its range of movement and stopping it from being able to bite.

It was throwing its body against the tunnel walls to break them off. Its speed and strength made trying to pass it too dangerous. If the dracolich got caught between them and a wall, she would be turned to powder, and my children would become flesh smears.

“So, we’re stuck here until they stop fighting,” Luke said.

“Or until the way they fight changes,” I said.

“How long will that take?” Angelica asked.

“Too long to stand here doing nothing,” I said, looking towards the fight.

The first time I ran through, a python caught my attention. It had been impaled near the top of its spine, leaving the creature completely helpless. Its current state offered a unique opportunity.

“Stay here,” I said before blurring through the battlefield.

As I passed a dead python, I fired a finger of destruction. The beam burned through the corpse with surprising ease.

I kept going.

When I reached the dying one that had caught my attention, I fired a second finger of destruction to test its defences. The beam fizzled along its stone scales, burning away the material, but much slower than when I used it on the corpse.

It was the same as the bosses I’d encountered on the third floor. Offensive magic worked, but it would take time. Time was something I didn’t have, but the severity of its injuries meant I had one more option to try.

I blurred to the beast’s exposed spinal cord and jammed my hand into the spinal fluids, casting a powerful death spell.

Weaken was a debuff spell developed for fighting large monsters resistant to magic or armies. It corrupted flesh instead of destroying it, slowing down healthy opponents and speeding up the death of injured ones. The only reason it wasn’t lethal was that necromancers rarely had the mana necessary to cast it enough times to kill something.

Green and black magic flowed from my fingers into the spinal cord, causing the fluids to take on a sickly pale tone as the spell spread through the body. With each additional casting, the python's flesh withered, weakening its body further. It took more than a dozen casts to make a noticeable difference, but once it did, the effects became obvious.

Despite being impaled and subject to dozens of master-tier spells, the python still took half a minute to die. Third-floor bosses were something humans were supposed to be able to fight.

The moment it died, I leapt out of its wound and sent a telepathic message to Kathrine as I blurred to my next target. “Kill something and signal me with fire when you level. Flash once for each level you gain.”

I found another torn-in-half python and blurred to its wound. It was almost dead when there was a huge burst of fire from the back of the dracolich. I wasn’t sure how effective finishing off these bosses would be. The floor boss had done most of the damage to them, and I didn’t know how the experience would be shared. It turned out I didn’t have to worry.

Kathrine released eleven flashes.

She’d gained eleven levels.

As the second python died, there were ten more flashes. I blurred to my next target and the next, finishing six more off as I worked my way down the list of the most injured. There was a fundamental shift in how effective my weaken spell was when I reached my eighth target, and after casting the spell a dozen times, I knew it would take me ten minutes to kill the creature.

There were better uses of my time.

I headed back to my children, blurring through the fighting monsters. This time, when I got close, my instincts warned me I was approaching dire threats. Based on what I felt, my familiars were over level two hundred, and my children were well beyond that.

My instincts said that in a real fight, I only stood a chance against Celest and Kathrine. They didn’t feel like a threat, but they also didn’t feel like prey. My instincts said I’d never catch them.

I ignored my instincts as I ran past Luke and stopped beside the dracolich. Her head whipped towards me, and she held out her front foot, offering her claws. I pushed her foot away as I cast a finger of destruction on the monster she was fighting.

The dracolich glanced at the dead monster before backing away from the front line and turning to Angelica. “Angie, make the evil vampire give me another manicure.”

Angelica glanced in my direction as she fought. I saw the calculations going on behind her eyes. She knew she was stronger and was trying to figure out if she could take me. Fear ultimately won. “You just had a manicure.”

“And it was amazing. It changed my life. I need another one.”

“Let him finish enhancing you first.”

The dracolich turned to me. “You didn’t finish?”

Luke snickered.

“I’ve still got your legs and ribs to do.”

“But I’m so much faster.”

“Imagine how fast you will be when I’m done.”

She pouted. “Fine. Enhancement first. Manicure second.”

I got to work.

“Any chance we’ll see more levels?” Luke shouted.

I continued enhancing the dracolich’s rib as I replied. “Not unless it leaves another python at death's door.”

“If that’s the case, we should hang around when we get to the other side.”

It was easy to see how he came to that conclusion. “We can’t. Each additional minute we take increases Angelica and Davina’s chances of succumbing to mana sickness before we get the survivors to safety. They can safely survive three hours on the fourth floor and twelve hours on the third floor before getting sick, but this shortcut requires us to be on the fourth floor for an hour to and from the dungeon.”

“So, what you’re saying is that if you see a few injured ones when we pass, you’ll double back and kill them, but if you don’t see anything, we’re moving on as fast as we can.”

I finished enhancing the dracolich’s ribs and moved on to her legs. “Precisely. Now, pay a little more attention to what you’re doing. I can tell that your timing is off, and I shouldn’t be able to do that.”

Luke and Kathrine were past being Old Monsters and well into Dragon territory. If they had earned their levels, they would have been incredibly dangerous, but they hadn’t. I put Luke’s capabilities somewhere in the middle of the two titles despite him having significantly more attributes than a typical Dragon. Kathrine was only slightly more dangerous than an Old Monster.

Luke gave another ill-timed slash. “I’m sorry, but some of us can’t adapt to gaining fifty levels in a few minutes.”

“And yet you still want more levels.”

Luke laughed.

Our conversation ended as hundreds of lightning-fast scavengers rushed through the chaos. Luke and Angelica peeled off to engage them before they threatened Celest or Kathrine.

In the distance, past the sea of fighting monsters, the plesiosaur thrashed its body from side to side, stopping any chance of getting by. I kept working. The changes I was making to the dracolich were less important than the ones I’d already made but would give her more strength and endurance.

While I was working, Kathrine approached me from behind and absently evaluated what she’d done with her attributes.

Today’s events had frightened her into action.

She’d doubled down on speed and precision and now had more agility than her brother. She didn’t have his strength or constitution, but she was more dexterous with higher mana regeneration and endurance.

She was reacting out of fear, but her choices weren’t wrong. If you were afraid of being caught, it was wise to invest in agility and dexterity. Confidence was key in combat. Fear would cripple you, leaving you useless. You needed advantages that made you feel safe, and for Kathrine, that was being untouchable.

She stopped behind me. “Can we talk?”

“Always.”

“You sure you’re not busy?”

I glanced over my shoulder and smiled. “Not with anything important.”

The dracolich turned and glared at me while I enhanced her leg. “Rude.”

I ignored her. “What did you want to talk about?”

Kathrine didn’t reply at first. Then, in a small voice, she whispered, “I saw the barrier crush you.”

“I’m sorry if that upset you.”

I could smell her shock. It had been a traumatic experience for her.

“You’re what?”

“I’m sorry that upset you, but it was the best way to ensure you and Luke survived.”

This was the first time she’d ever seen me seriously injured if you didn’t count the day that she summoned me. Understanding I was nearly indestructible and seeing it for yourself was different.

Luke coped with it by making jokes.

“Did it hurt?”

“Do you know a painless way of becoming minced meat?”

My joke fell flat, but she pushed forward with her thoughts. “Why didn’t you hesitate?”

“Why would I hesitate?”

“Everyone would hesitate. You experienced what it’s like to die.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“I’d hesitate.”

“You think you would, but you wouldn’t.”

“I froze when that vampire kicked in my door. I could hear the screams, and I thought I was ready to stop it, but the moment it came through my door, I froze.”

“I’m sure you did, but it's not the same. You think it is, but it isn’t.”

“How’s it different.”

“I can’t explain it to you, but one day, when you have kids, you’ll understand that pain isn’t something that makes you hesitate when your children’s safety is involved. You’ll happily march through fire for them without ever requiring a word of thanks. It’s what being a parent means, and the last time I checked, you were still my daughter. So there was no reason for me to hesitate.”

She dropped her gaze. “Most days, I don’t know how I feel about you, but seeing you crushed to a pulp hurt me. It wasn’t the pain of losing you. I knew you were coming back. It was the sort of pain you feel when someone you care about is in pain.” She lifted her gaze and smiled at me. “Apparently, you’re someone I care about.”

She turned and walked back to Celest.

A single happy tear rolled down my cheek.