Shards of glass shot across the room at lightspeed, bursting out like pellets from a shotgun’s barrel. One ripped into Stenol’s chest, and another tore through his bicep.
Had it been any other person—a regular human—Jace was certain they would’ve disintegrated into a red mist. But it only flung Stenol away. The Whistling Blade ripped out of his hands, and his staff flew the other direction, unharmed by the blast. He skidded along the floor on his back and came to a rest against the wall.
Jace snatched up his Whistling Blade. He gripped the hilt tight, no matter how painfully his hands protested. Blood beaded between his fingers and gathered beneath his fingernails.
By now, Lessa and Kinfild had dealt with the officers and guards. They had locked all of the doors and sealed the room, and now, they converged on Stenol with Jace.
“It’s over, Elder,” Kinfild said. “We have you beaten. Surrender.”
“Kinfild,” Stenol spat, rising to his feet. “You are many things and have many faces, but I do not trust you to be merciful.”
“You were my teacher!” Kinfild snapped. “My master, and my friend! You are the first person I would show mercy to! What has happened to you?”
Lessa approached Stenol from the other side. She loaded another two loose shots into her rifle, and kept the bayonet level and aimed at Stenol.
Jace staggered towards the Elder, holding his sword ahead of him. But, a half-room away from Stenol, there was nothing he could do. Stenol’s face still glimmered with pride. Kinfild and Lessa couldn’t let him get up. He was still too—
A red light built in the palm of Stenol’s hand. “Lessa!” Jace shouted, but it was too late to warn her. Stenol thrust his arm outwards and struck her in the thigh. Her leg snapped backwards and she stumbled. She let off a shot from her rifle, but Stenol dispelled it with a twirl of his staff.
Kinfild swung his own staff at the Elder’s head, and Lessa jabbed at him with her bayonet. Stenol dodged and deflected, proud and unyielding. He struck Kinfild’s shoulder and thigh with two blows from his staff. He blocked Lessa’s swipe effortlessly, then struck her in the gut.
She shouted, “He has high Potency and Strength! Kinfild, use the Hollow Dragon’s Bite!”
Stenol struck Lessa in the gut again, but much harder. She flew across the room and fell unmoving against the wall.
While Stenol’s back was turned, Kinfild activated his Hollow Dragon’s Bite card. A bar of flame blasted into Stenol’s back. It left a searing burn across the man’s shoulder, and a net of orange flame-Aes circled around him, looking for a point to enter.
For the moment, a Curse, limiting his potency.
In a split second, Stenol activated a card. It shimmered with golden wiring and magenta sparks, but Jace only glimpsed it for a split second.
It had to be his mythic card.
A dragon of red flame wound up around the staff, encircling and protecting it, and searing brighter than any other fortification technique Jace had seen. Then, with a screech, it slid into the staff and absorbed into the wood, leaving only a draconic head at the tip—like a mace or spear.
Stenol whirled around and struck Kinfild in the head with the tip of his staff. Kinfild stumbled back, then sprawled limply across a control panel.
“No!” Jace hissed. They couldn’t lose like this. He tightened his grip on the Whistling Blade. The tips of his fingers felt alive with static, and they began to shiver.
There was no time to ponder what he was about to do. He lunged towards Stenol and stabbed downwards. Their weapons collided. The Whistling Blade tried to hum. It tried to sing a melody, but Jace’s swipes weren’t consistent. Every time the weapons met, sparks erupted from point of contact.
The orange flame curse still circled around Stenol’s upper body. Stenol had once had a higher Potency attribute than Kinfild, and much higher than Jace, but the Hollow Dragon’s Bite limited it.
Jace didn’t know exactly how their attributes matched up now, but when Stenol swiped back at Jace, Jace widened his stance and locked his elbows. His stance didn’t break and his elbows didn’t buckle.
Kinfild had evened the field, if only slightly.
Jace retaliated. Each precise but forceful strike loosened Stenol’s grip on his staff, but the Elder did not break. He still had some strength left. Jace panted, and his heart beat so loud that he couldn’t hear the dissonant shrieks of the Whistling Blade.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Stenol spun away from Jace, his cloak fluttering. “You are no match for a Wielder of the Crimson Table, boy. And if you refuse to join me, you never will be an equal.” Stenol twirled his staff, building power for a killing blow. It left burning red trails in the air behind it.
Jace interrupted him with a thrust, but Stenol struck him in the chest with an open palm, sending him skidding back along the floor.
Jace needed to use everything. He needed his techniques, he needed to focus on the sword’s song. It had a rhythm, no matter how obscure, and its crescendos and decrescendos mirrored his own effort. The harder he swung, the more intense. The more cautious he was, the lighter the melody.
“If you’re so powerful,” Jace grunted, “then why am I not dead?”
Stenol sprinted towards him, but the hyperdash was off cooldown again. Jace used the card and phased through the Elder. In a flash, he ended up on the other side of the room. He unsocketed the hyperdash and swapped in his Cleanse card.
Stenol ran across the room toward him. Jace activated the Cleanse card, then ejected it and swapped back to the hyperdash. Everything was ready. Everything was in place.
Growling, Stenol batted Jace’s blade up, then delivered a strike towards his abdomen—it struck his flank, but Jace tensed his core and held his ground. His Vital rating had vastly improved since they had last fought, and a strike that might have crushed his organs a few days ago now only winded him. His Resistance kept him on his feet.
Jace retaliated with a set of staccato slices. Then came a verse of shrieks when he blocked Stenol’s counterattacks. One slipped through and struck his thigh, and it took all his concentration and strength not to fall over.
As Stenol moved to swipe his legs out from under him, Jace heard his opening—a gap in the melody. He delivered a slash that pierced through Stenol’s hauberk from clavicle to sternum—not deep enough to kill, but enough to make the Elder reel. Jace launched himself to the other side of Stenol with a hyperdash.
Stenol whirled around just in time to block Jace’s next attack, but the Elder reeled. Jace kept attacking. Arbiter’s melody twisted into a climax. Jace drove Stenol towards a control panel on the far wall. He didn’t have a pattern or a strategy, but he had to try. Stenol held up his staff each time to block the strike. Jace pushed the weapon into the panel, and his sword followed it, carving a scar of molten steel in the metal. The holographic windows behind the control panel deactivated.
No matter how hard Jace pounded Stenol’s staff, the Elder’s fingers didn’t budge. Jace needed something stronger.
As he pressed Stenol’s staff against the control panel, he reached. A soldier’s body was slumped against the wall beside him, bayonet in-hand. Jace reached for the weapon. His fingers brushed the barrel. Just a little bit further! A little bit…
His fingers wrapped around the bayonet’s hilt. Jace pressed his knee against Stenol’s staff, trying to keep it pinned down. The red flame technique scalded him, but Stenol wouldn’t budge, either. Jace wrapped his fingers around the grip of his bayonet as tight as he could.
He activated the Wanderer’s Banishment one last time. For a moment, he could hear the metal creaking and bending beneath his fingers. His Aes swirled in concordance with the technique card, and the bayonet flashed out of his grip. It passed into hyperspace, disappearing into nothingness.
For a moment, everything seemed quiet. Then, a loud boom ripped through the air. A shockwave pushed Jace back. Stenol’s staff exploded, shattered by a bayonet moving at lightspeed. Shards of gilded wood flew across the room.
Jace lunged in and laid his blade just millimeters beside Stenol’s neck.
The Wielder looked up slightly, then looked Jace in the eyes. “War will reforge the galaxy. My master will not yield. Celacor will burn! We will galvanize the star-nations, and your precious Starrealm will be replaced by a single empire capable of protecting all!”
Stenol turned his hand to a fist. The tips of his fingers glowed. Even now, he wouldn’t give up.
Jace pressed the Arbiter down, then slashed it across the Elder’s neck, cleaving his head from his body.
Panting, he staggered back. Golden dust and sparks poured out of the empty air, swirling around his chest and scalding his flesh. His knees buckled, but the Aes kept flowing into his body. He barely registered falling back onto the ground.
Maybe it was only a second, and maybe it was an hour. He didn’t know. He blinked as fast as he could, and slowly, the fog began to clear. His thoughts straightened out into a uniform line, and he could see for more than a few inches in front of his nose.
Lessa and Kinfild stood beside him. He pushed himself up. The heat in his chest had faded, and a simple sheet hovered in front of him: [Quest complete: Kill Byseg Stenol. Reward claimed: 150 Standard Aes Units]
[Subquest upgraded: “Destroy Kobold Queen-Core” is now a DESTINED quest. Reward improved: 150 Standard Aes Units]
Sighing, Jace stood up. His bruised muscles and bleeding arms protested, but he’d live. He looked at Lessa, then at Kinfild. “Are you guys alright?”
“I’m good,” Lessa said.
“I am still alive.” Kinfild leaned against his staff.
Jace nodded. He picked up Arbiter and tucked it back into his sheath. “We…we still have a job to do. We have a star system to save, yeah?”
Turning forwards, he looked past the holographic windows at the front of the control room.
The control room overlooked a massive hall carved into the earth. At one end, a waterfall poured over an arched exit, and along the edges, there were enormous shelves—each hosting a starfighter, engines dark and cold. The floor sloped down to the center, where a hundred-meter-long starship waited—that was probably the corvette.
“Looks like they’re bringing all their prisoners here,” Lessa said, peering through the same windows.
The ground swarmed with kobolds and Koedor-Terginian soldiers. They surrounded clumps of unarmed palace guards and yellowcoats, as well as men in beige cruiser-crew uniforms and pilots in brown flight suits.
“We found the starships,” Jace muttered. He stepped back from the ledge. There was no time to waste—they had to get those starships off the ground. They had to get Kinfild out of here, and they had to destroy the queen-core.