CHAPTER 352 – JUST DESSERTS

Everlyn looked at Michael uncertainly. “What’s the best way to get back safely? Honestly, I don’t believe there is one. I think we return cautiously and keep our eyes open. If I was Jenny, I could set up remote sensors to stop us from evading them. I seriously doubt that there’s a trick out there we can use to avoid her.”

“How about if we go out and then run around the outside?” Clare suggested. “She might not have sensors there.”

Everlyn shook her head. “She knows that’s a possibility, and we were stuck listening to the giant for too long. There’s no doubt in my mind that she’s had enough time to prepare for anything we might try. My guess is that she’ll be waiting at the entrance area to our sleeping quarters.”

“We could put a warning into the auction house,” Keikain suggested. “Get the others involved. Maybe catch her in a pincher movement between our two forces.

Michael shook his head. “Everlyn is that possible? I’m not aware of any protocol that could help.”

“We’ve got back channels with Vidja that could be utilised help but it’s three am and no one’s going to be monitoring.” Then her face blossomed into a wicked smile. “But Jenny doesn’t know that. While I doubt we can make effective contact, there is no reason we can’t pretend. Put in warning notes with a credit cost of fifty thousand each.” They were walking slowly down the corridor and getting further away from the giant. “She’ll have to buy them to stop the others from acquiring the information. If we’re lucky, we can bleed her dry and then when Thor wakes up we can coordinate a proper response. In the meantime, if we locate a nearby internally locking door to bunker down behind they won’t be able to touch us.”

Keikain laughed in delight. “I love it. Let’s do that.”

Everlyn pulled out a pen and paper and a moment later it was consumed by the flickering flames as it was moved to the auction house.

“I also love the idea of hiding until morning. All we need is an empty room to sleep in.” Keikain said. “We’ll try the next lesser off shoot.” He pointed. There was the familiar slightly discoloured wall about a kilometre away.

Animation briefly fled Everlyn before returning. Her face burst out into a bright smile. “She bought it.”

“Her or Thor? Can we tell?” Keikain asked.

“Thor would have sent an instant response, so I don’t think it is him. If she’s buying, we might as well make it painful for her. I’ll price the next one at a hundred thousand.” She had pen and paper that she scribbled down some instructions on. It vanished like before, and they kept walking, preserving their energy in case there was an unexpected ambush.

Everlyn checked a minute later. “As I thought not Thor. There is nothing under the search term of the cipher that I sent.” Gleefully she started scribbling again. “This is going to cost her so much.”

“Or not…” Jenny’s cold voice was amplified a massive amount to reach them. Everlyn and most of the others already had their weapons out. Straight ahead of them, less than a hundred metres away at the off shoot tunnel they had been targeting she and the wador stood waiting for them.

Belatedly, he produced his spear and strode to the front of their group. Internally, he groaned. So much for their plan to avoid the confrontation.

As expected, ten enemies faced them, five humans and the wador.

“Why are you here?” Harry asked, sounding generally confused. “If we went the other way like, we almost did we would have avoided you.”

Jenny laughed. A woman who sounded delighted to have outsmarted her opponents. Selena had said that her failure at the tile zone had annoyed her, so now she had successfully closed the trap she was extraordinarily happy. “You guys are so naïve. You only have basic defences against precognition abilities. What is it? Tier five? Maybe six? Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered if it was stronger. In the right circumstances, continuously blocking skills are easy enough to circumvent. A limited, long cool down tier four ability has an effective strength equivalent of a tier seven skill. It’s amazing how simple skills effective strength gets boosted by such limiters. And for everyone in this trial, it’s cheap. Just knowing you were vulnerable was all that was needed to time when to use our abilities. We burnt them all at once to make sure we could do this.” She was grinning. “I beat you.”

“If we’d already walked into the trap, why did you spend a hundred and fifty thousand.” Everlyn said in disbelief. “That’s wasteful.”

“Did I? From where I’m standing, I’m about to get it all back, plus interest. And it was worth it to see your faces, when you thought you had tricked me and then discovered that you were nothing more than flies already caught in my web.”

“Why are you doing this, Jenny?” Tom asked.

She looked at him seriously. Then snorted. “Don’t look so aggrieved. It’s not personal. I asked very specific questions and me being here maximises our species’ ranking points.”

“Specifically, about robbing me?”

“No, how would I have known about you? But this situation… Yes, absolutely. I’m a healer. It was always about my allies versus everyone else. Including before you ask allies of convenience. I was very thorough with my questions. Like, as I understand it, so were you.”

Tom frowned. He wondered if he appeared that evangelical when he talked about his plans. She seemed almost unhinged, and he hoped he didn’t come across like that. “You do comprehend the fact that none of us has credits. Everlyn’s windfall from you excluded.”

She shrugged, unconcerned. “Thor probably has them. I’ll take you guys as a hostage, and he’ll give them up quickly enough.”

“No, that’s not okay,” Michael interrupted. “Those credits are reserved for buying a precognition blocker for the giant’s spear. If you waste them on yourself, we’ll all die.”

“And I’ll reserve them for that and then after we’ve bought it I’ll distribute the remainder to my team.”

“What’s your deal with the wador?” Michael asked. “Anything you give them is selling out humanity. It’s a net loss for us, and I can’t imagine how you think otherwise.”

Jenny smiled. “No, they help me with this and then we work on trades that are worthwhile for both of us. Their auction house has stuff we can use, and ours possess items they want. It will be a trade of equal value.”

Tom focused on the wador leader. “So, your support of Jenny is a destabilization ploy rather than for a more tangible benefit? That seems short sighted by you guys.”

“What we will receive is worth our time. Plus, this path may allow us to maim or kill some humans which I think is in my species interest.”

“Our agreement bars that.” Jenny snapped.

“We will not try to maim or kill, but in a fight of people of our rank such an outcome might be unavoidable.” The wador leader said coldly. “You agreed and accepted that risk. We have a right to defend ourselves.”

Jenny nodded almost reluctantly and then focused on them. “It is ten versus six. We also have the advantage of ranks. Resistance is useless. Surrender now. This does not need to result in violence. Don’t risk it. If there is a fight, we gamble with outcomes that none of us want.”

“Guys, what do you think?” Michael asked quietly.

“Counteroffer.” Everlyn called out. “Why don’t you join us and we can humble the wador and rob them.”

All five faces of the wador distorted in amusement.

“Shit, that won’t work,” she whispered loud enough for them all to hear. “My skills tell me they’ve signed a contract. They can’t betray each other. I suspected that was the case, but I needed to make sure.”

“We are not that naïve,” the wador leader eventually said. “And our allies are that foolish to betray their own. They can’t back out and until this resolved, we are firm allies enforced by an unbreakable contract.”

“Just surrender, Everlyn,” Jenny urged. “This is not worth risking your life over.”

She looked so smug it made Tom’s blood boil.

“I have you beat. Accept it. There is no need to risk death and permanent injury.”

“I don’t see a way out of this,” Michael said over party chat.

“If we can kill one of the wador,” Everlyn muttered. “It would be worth losing all of our credits.”

“Are you seriously suggesting we don’t fight to win, but to kill one of them?” Michael asked. “Because that sounds more than acceptable, especially if their contract prevents them from killing us back. I can definitely support such a ploy.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. We can’t eliminate all of them, but one should be achievable.”

“They started this. We’re not yielding without a fight.” Keikain said angrily.

“I think we’re all in agreement.” Michael said. “The question is which one do we kill.”

“After Tom’s giant conversation, not either of the main two that’s for sure,” Everlyn said. “Harry, which one is needed for your teleports.”

“The one with the yellow green stripe. But we could kill him out of principal because they’re not going to help us,anyway.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Let’s leave that bridge unburned. We’ll target the smaller one next to it. The individual with the white dot on the chest.” They could all hear the excitement in her voice.

“So, will you surrender?” Jenny called out. “Or should we do this the hard way?”

“Everyone spend all their fate on that outcome. We let them attack and after the initial couple of seconds we hit that one with everything we have and try to overwhelm whatever defenses it has in play.”

“So, what’s your answer?”

Tom couldn’t fault the logic. He wondered what would happen if they killed one of them. What would be their response but a large part of him didn’t care. The wador was hopeful this ambush would let them kill one of the humans Tom was happy to reverse that outcome. Even if it meant losing all their remaining credits afterwards, it would be worth it.

He strode forward, giving an answer with his actions.

His spear was ready and the image of the single wador dying was all he wanted. All of his fate vanished. Around a quarter gathered around him, presumably to keep him alive long enough to make the final attack and the rest dissipated into the ether in order to fulfil its task. A flood of similar fate gushed out from his companions as they threw their power at the same mission.

“We won’t surrender,” he told them. “And Jenny we’re going to kill you.” It was deliberate misdirection and hopefully it would work.

The other woman laughed. “You are welcome to try, but we’re all on the same side. Killing each other is counterproductive. It’s your ridiculous stubbornness that’s the problem.”

“That’s bullshit.” Everlyn shouted at her.

The wador attacked without warning.

Tom was first in line, and he applied his healing taunt spell. A magic shield blocked two of the attacks, but the skill took hold on the other three. Their fur and skin warped and was torn off them, but not in as large an area as he was used to.

The wador leader blurred toward him and its claws filled his vision.

He rolled backward to avoid it. Then leapt up and teleported as those claws each of which glowed white tried to dissect him. Alarms screamed at him, time slowed dramatically, and his enhanced speed let him outdistance the attacks. The enemy, despite their similar stats and the fact it was attacking with six legs and a mouth still could not physically get near him. He was too fast for it and was able to weave between the strikes with the exception of the black dodge penalty that meant it left the occasional shallow cut.

It was a hectic opening two seconds.

The others joined the confrontation against him. Spells were launched and Crystallised Moment bought him an instant to think. Six chunks of his anti magic projectiles were shot off and the last, a spear of freezing coldness was intercepted by his Channelled Damage Mirror.

A teleport took him the eight centimetres he needed to evade the residual that pierced the mirror. Only a third of the energy was reflected, but it caused the shields of the wador with a white speck to flair up. Hopefully that would soften it for their barrage later.

Chaos bolts were flung impotently through the air. Most missing their targets all together and the few that connected had effects so weak they might have been illusionary. Clare intercepted a wador that had gone for Keikain.

Shards of rock exploded from the ground to force the wador back. Jenny’s team was attacking but were not using chaos bolts. Their attacks were frustrating, but he was able to intercept most of them.

There were frequent cracks as Everlyn unleashed a barrage of arrows. None of which did more than scratch them.

A paw strike sent Clare flying. Some type of air missile struck Keikain and caused him to double up, gasping for air. Everlyn had to use a transformation to leap a few metres to the right as the area she had been standing was turned into an inferno as an attack from the sky crashed down like the vengeful judgement of a god.

The amount of fate expended was impressive. Three seconds had passed and none of them were out of the fight even with their half engagement due to them conserving mana.

“NOW!” Everlyn commanded through party chat.

Tom dropped everything to focus on landing the attack on the white dot. First, he triggered Crystallised Moment to buy him time. He cast Chaotic Aura and felt fate influence it as it expanded, crackling with energy and taking a larger chunk of mana than he had expected. The surrounding air turned, for enemies at least, into the equivalent of dense water, and it was a potent aura that would be difficult to break. A single chaos bolt left his fingers while the rest of his mana was funnelled through his domain to create two spears of stone that shot up from the floor.

The frozen time ran out.

The aura clicked fully into place and their target that had been sprinting past only metres away from him as it targeted Harry got caught and brought to an abrupt halt. As did the wador leader who was on his other side at the very edge of where his aura reached. That was unfortunate, as the second presence would drain the aura faster, but it didn’t matter. For this ploy, the difference between four or eight seconds might not have existed. It would probably be over within two.

An arrow the colour of refined adamite moving at greater than the speed of sound shot from Everlyn’s bow straight at its chest. From Michael’s hand, an axe flew lazily through the air toward the suddenly immobile target. A stream of Chaos Bolts blasted from Clare’s and Harry’s hands and extra spears of stone shot up from under the ground courtesy of Keikain.

The arrow struck first.

Tom was still under attack from ranged magic, so time was slowed to its maximum potential. He was able to perceive details that should be beyond his notice, but things were still happening as fast as a blink of an eye.

He registered the arrow firing and then it was over. A magical artefact activated and the projectile, despite being more powerful than any other he had ever seen Everlyn fire, crumpled against an invisible shield. Then one of Harry’s chaos bolts that had been unnaturally upgraded to become a high tiered super fast air distortion hit half a moment behind the arrow in the same spot.

This time some sort of communal magic distributed the force over all the wador. Deep but not fatal gashes opened up on all of them.

His earth spikes landed at the same time as Keikain’s spears. The same method of dispersing the energy caught the attacks. Every single wador staggered like they had crashed into a wall, but the combined attacks only opened up dozens of shallow cuts on each of them.

Then his eyes, and possibly the eyes of everyone present focused on Clare’s chaos bolt. It must have upgraded itself to tier ten or something like that. The brutal absolution of spatial rents shone throughout it. It was obliteration, death incarnate, and there was no doubt about its lethality.

The target’s eyes widened, and he was sure he heard a keening from the other wador. Tom was almost smiling as it struck.

The collective damage distribution skill activated and simultaneously broke as it was overloaded. There was a glow of artefacts triggering across all the wador and disappointingly no cuts opened up on any of them. He had expected carnage and instead somehow their defences had negated it. It was that skill Tom was sure that made the wador believe that they could survive versus the dragon’s attacks.

His smile changed to his mouth, opening in confusion. Then they snapped back to the wador with the white spot on its chest. The axe, which was by far the slowest of the attacks was still spinning through the air on target to strike the frozen adversary. That small throwing weapon was already massive. It was the size of a car door.

The wador tried to launch itself away. Tom could feel how its physical thrashing stressed his aura. Another wador spotted the problem as well. It teleported next to the victim and attempted to knock it aside. Extra pressure was placed on his aura, but it rose to the occasion and held this third enemy still too.

Their target tried to move, its friend desperately attempted to knock it clear, but it all failed. The energy in the aura faded alarmingly, but Tom didn’t care. It was going to last long enough.

The impossibly sharp and large axe struck the wador dead centre on its chest. There was a spray of blood, guts and chipped bone as it burst through what had been a person. Both head and torso were split in half and the two chunks of what had been a body were sent spinning. They slid almost two metres before coming to a halt. They left pooled red liquid behind them.

For a moment, stunned silence filled the room.

The entire battle stopped.

The wador stared in shock at their deceased companion. Jenny’s faced darkened like she wanted to kill him. Tom and his friends swayed on the spot, having all exhausted their mana and fate pools to land that singular blow.

Tom smiled.

The wador leader looked at his dead pack mate and then at Tom. “You, this was you.” It growled.

Time slowed.

Alarm bells screamed in his head.

The attack was coming from everywhere.

There was nowhere to run.

Boom!

Lightning exploded around him.

He stumbled momentarily and attempted to get his bearing.

Time dilated once more.

He was twenty metres away from his companions. His feet were luckily on the ground but he had no mana to protect him. There would be no throwing anti magic stone projectiles to negate the incoming missiles.

More alarms were screaming.

A wave of attacks was descending on him. Different ones than before, but still deadly.

He tried to flip sideways and teleport to avoid them, but the spells were adjusting and more were being added.

Boom!

Lightning blinded him once more.

This time he was ten metres up in the air and plunging toward the ground.

“We surrender.” Everlyn bellowed.

There were the sounds of weapons hitting the ground.

Time slowed dramatically.

This time, the wall of magic that was striking him was not absolute. There were vectors where survival was possible.

Not many but some. He forced himself to move, even as gravity pulled him downward.

“We surrender,” she screamed again.

Flaming bars of energy struck him and there was no Living Rock that he could manifest to reduce the impact.

Fourth degree burns cris crossed his legs and torso. Despite his magic pants, a large section of his calf was turned to ash.

He hit the ground. His arms only partially breaking the fall but his enhanced vitality prevented too much damage from occurring.

Time slowed, but he was too battered to do anything.

A foot smashed into his side. A rib broke, and he was lifted from his hands and knees to land on his back.

Jenny was above him her eyes were furious. “You’re a fucking stubborn idiot.” She punched him in his mouth. His head ricocheted into the hard floor under him.

He could see dancing white lights.

What was happening? His thoughts were slow, mulish, distant.

“You couldn’t just accept your fate. You had to spoil everything didn’t you.”

He recalled the moments before his plunge. Their counter ambush, the massive spells that had been blocked and then the final attack. The axe, the blood, and the wador split in two.

Tom smiled, blood on his teeth. “We killed it.”

“You short sighted idiot. Now four of you are doomed.” She screeched. Her fist struck him again. He felt a tooth crack and his eyelids shut instinctively to protect himself.

Four, what was she talking about. He opened his eyes and saw her still on top of him. She was beyond angry… why wasn’t she elated she had been the one to talk about sacrifice to gain ranking points. She had to see that them killing a wador could only be a positive.

Her fist had drawn back as far as it could and it was coming down at him again. The alarms ringing were not that disturbing. The blow was aimed at knocking him out, and his traits told him that it was going to be successful. He knew he should dodge, but everything hurt too much. Maybe he would phase himself out for a moment and let her hit the granite he lay upon.

That would be funny.

BANG!

Time dilation returned abruptly to normal.

Tom stared blankly up. He could see the distant ceiling.

Jenny was gone.

What was happening? It hurt to move, but his domain was always active, and that made the answer clear. He could feel the weight of the giant just five meters from him.

What? How? When had he arrived?

“You mis-swing your club. He is mine! You do not threaten what is mine!”

Distantly, from far away, there was the sound of a wet splat as Jenny’s body thumped limply against a distant wall. Macabrely Tom’s mind imagined that scene. Her deformed body arcing for over eighty metres. Possibly there was a blood trail left by the blood leaking out of the puncture wounds where bones had broken the skin. Eighty metres of flight. It was kind of unbelievable, but he could remember when the giant had struck him. That force had been incredible, but maybe not that type of distance worth in power. The giant Tom realised had probably held back a little during that test.

Stars were still spinning around Tom’s head, so it took him a moment to realise what had happened. The giant was here? And Jenny was dead?

“Why do you threaten what is mine?” The giant questioned. “Why shouldn’t I kill you, all. I think crushing you for the temerity to touch one of mine will send the right message.”

Tom remembered the answer to the questions that the giant had asked him. Surely, he would not ruin everything by killing them. His mouth was dry, but he had to get up and speak but his body was unresponsive. There was a tick of mana, and he started mending his lungs.

He had to stop the giant from slaughtering the wador and dooming them all as a consequence.

In some ways, this was a birthday present. Jenny was dead and one of the wador. That was worth celebrating, but first he needed to intercede. Any more deaths would be problematic.

“Wait…” his chest screamed as he forced it to move. “Please wait.”