They’re not stupid, they wouldn’t walk into an obvious trap without going back for their armor, or would they? And I was right. Through the portal, I could see them return ten minutes later, but fully geared. They could see me too, waiting for them on the other side. I had also seen the girls sneak out of the house through the window with the help from another orphan.
All the while, I had feared they’d take some villagers hostage, start fires, or do some other cowardly thing. They must have felt confident not to resort to such lowly tactics, and I was glad for that at least.
As they neared, I [Leaped] up to stand atop the tower beside the gate, ready to close the portal. Bob’s suggestion was simple: divide and conquer.
Instead, they did something unexpected. They burst right through the portal together and at once, not giving me the chance to close it after one or two of them had entered. Still, I closed all the portals, trapping the four of them with me and Darya in the Nexus.
I had tried to convince her to leave as she was likely to end up as a liability in a fight, but she wouldn’t budge, saying she felt safer with me. And in a way I was happy to have her around as she was deadly with a bow. I had dimmed the light in the Nexus further still, and she hid out of sight in the shadows behind me.
Amelia returned to watch over the children. It would have been nice to have her healing, though I didn’t know how much good they would do if a single strike from Edward’s mace was likely to kill me in an instant.
Nevertheless, I felt confident. These raiders were in my territory now - a formidable fortress. I had the higher ground, a thick wall, powerful turrets, and other tricks up my sleeve. Now, I just needed to figure out what to do with them? Disarm and jail them?
Or kill them?
[Keen Eye] had them a notch higher than before, probably because they were wearing gear and had buffs that increased their attributes. They had gone from mostly ‘Green’ to solid ‘White,’ and I didn’t like that one bit. Something like that wouldn’t be an issue if only it was midnight already. They didn’t seem drunk either, maybe it was something their healer took care of?
They wore plate and chain armor over tunics of deep red and vibrant purple. It contrasted their white cloaks with the Raider emblem. A helmet with wings over crossed swords.
I stepped forward and shouted down from the wall. “You come into my village and kidnap children?”
Edward looked up. “Those filthy brats?” He laughed. “Who gives a crap about them?”
“I do.”
“Ha! I was going to do them a great favor really. Where’s the Old Dog? What’d you do to him?” He looked from side to side. “Is he here?”
The look on his companions was one of puzzlement. The Nexus must have been a new place for them unlike what they had seen before. They were looking around, pointing, and whispering among themselves.
“Don’t worry about him, he’s fine without you.”
Edward’s eyes grew dark. He pointed his finger at me. “It was you, wasn’t it? You killed my brother, didn’t ya?” he shouted.
I crossed my arms at the chest. “I had to. Him and his friends killed the chief, and I just couldn’t let that go.”
His upper lip curled, trembled in rage. “Do you have any idea what you've done boy? I will fucking destroy you.” He gripped his mace with both hands, lifting it off the ground. “So why don’t you be a good boy and come down here? Make it fast and easy on yourself.”
He was really pissing me off. What the hell was this guy thinking? I’m not coming down, and not without a fight. It went without saying that this world had a different outlook on those with power and those without. They viewed these villagers like cattle, and children even more so.
I chuckled. “Or .. or, and hear me out on this one, how about you come up here instead and .. suck my dick?” I cleared my throat, remembering that Darya was hiding in the shadows by the gate tower. However, she didn’t voice any complaints at what I said.
Edward took a step forward, his face red in anger. “I’m going to rip your guts out and feed them to you!” He shouted, enraged. “After that I’m going to burn this fucking place to the ground and bury you in it!”
“Yeah? We’ll see about that.”
The talking was over. Edward surged forward at incredible speed, raising his mace up high. He bridged the distance from the portal to the gate in an instant. With a resounding crash, he pummeled the portcullis. It rang out like a bell struck. The ground underneath my feet shuddered from the impact.
He struck fast, again and again, creating unbearable noise. The more he hit, the faster and stronger the impacts came. Dust sprinkled down inside the gate passage. Cracks started to form, and the gate was slowly bending inward. I wasn’t going to just stand and wait.
I had [Clashing Span] in siege mode, so firing from my position, just 40 feet from him wouldn’t do any damage. Neither would it help to switch to the point blank mode as I wasn’t close enough. Not without upgrading the passive anyway.
This gave me a chance to try out my flame lance and freezing turrets for real. To save time, I simply [Leaped] up to the top of the gate tower with the flame lance turret. It stood tall, looming over the parapets. The turret was forged from dark, burnished metal, intricately engraved with runes that pulsed with a fiery glow. Its base was a rotating platform, allowing it to swivel in a full circle.
It resembled a massive spear, but with a hollow core designed to channel and project searing flames. It was mounted on a sturdy, jointed arm that extended from the turret, capable of angling up and down. Its tip was crowned with a dragon-like maw. It activated in a similar fashion to a wand.
Gripping the metal handle with both hands, I swung the lance down, aiming at the menace trying to break through. Edward’s comrades had seen me approach the turret and were shouting a warning to him, but it was too late.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The runes along the turret flared to life, and the maw roared with an infernal blaze. A concentrated beam of flame streaked down like a comet with a whoosh. Flames and smoke rose up where I hit the ground, obscuring the view. Heat radiated from the turret, and the surroundings were lit up in bright red and orange.
After a thorough burst of fire, I stopped to see the damage. Acrid smell of burning oil floated up. As the smoke cleared, I saw him fleeing from the gate just as quickly as he had advanced on it, maybe faster.
Smoke was rising up from his shoulder. I must have nicked him after all. He dumped his cloak on the ground in a hurry, and they stomped on it to put out the fire.
A smile broadened on my face. What did this fool think was going to happen here? The four of them were trapped with me on this thin slice of land. The Void on one side, and the walls with me on the other.
Something rumbled above me and my smile vanished. A threatening storm cloud had formed high above me. I knew what was coming, and had come prepared. Around the perimeter of the Nexus, some thirty yards above the ground, three square platforms floated in silence in a circular pattern I had set them on. The fourth platform was stationary less than eighty yards up from the center, high above the barracks. This sniper’s roost provided just the sort of range that I needed to use Siege Mode and double the damage and area of effect of my wand attacks.
At three yards across, these platforms were made of strange material that seemed like neither stone or metal. Intricate patterns of runes were carved on all sides, glowing with molten light. I had considered using these platforms to crush opponents, but unfortunately, they moved much too slow -- no faster than the speed of a brisk walk.
I selected the closest platform and altered its path. It zoomed over to float a few feet above me, providing cover from potential lightning. Down below, Joris pointed and complained to others, unhappy about my sudden counter to him.
“Drop your weapons and armor,” I shouted down at them. “Everything down to your breaches.”
They responded by yelling profanities and laughing at me.
I raised the maw of the flame lance to point down at them and unleashed a fiery torrent in their direction. They scattered like cockroaches, running, tripping over themselves. I continued on, leaving scorching marks chasing after them.
My fun went on until Arend flung something to Edward on the run, and I only realized it was a spell tome when a beam of light meant that he learned a new skill, but which? It had to come at a cost though, he had to unlearn another skill to free up the skill slots.
Edward took out a flask and downed the contents, frothy brew spilling down his chin. With a sudden burst of speed, he leapt, flew up toward me at a neck breaking speed. I had just a split second to roll out of the way before he came bounding through.
He wasn’t aiming directly for me, but the flame lance. With a single wallop, pieces of the turret went flying, scattering all across the Nexus.
Edward landed on the opposite side of the tower, turned in my direction. “Ya thought you were safe, did ya boy?” He laughed harshly. “You and I gonna have us some fun ‘ere.”
I didn’t expect this turn of events, but I wasn’t out of options. He rushed forward and I leapt to the other gate tower. I had just enough time to grasp the handle of the freezing turret and swing the turret about in his direction before he leapt across after me.
Mid-air, the freezing torrent hit him dead on, but it didn’t stop him from making it across. He landed before the turret, taking the brunt of the icy blast, moving slow. He swung his mace and it connected with a heavy clunk, bending the lance of the freezing turret in a single blow. Even with frost covering him from head to toe, he didn’t seem to have taken any serious damage.
“Ya think that bit of cold would stop me? I have lived through winters colder than this.” He raised his mace up for another attack, and then briefly looked up.
In all the chaos, I hadn’t paid attention to where the storm cloud had moved to. Lightning struck from above with blinding light and deafening roar. Searing pain enveloped my [Iron-Weave Hide.] Electricity traveled on the outside, or so I heard. It didn’t spare me from the burns, but it did protect my muscles from spasming. To lure him in closer, I pretended to convulse and waited for him to approach. It was time for my backup plan.
While I failed to track the storm cloud’s movements, he didn’t pay careful attention to the ground where he stepped. He paused at the sudden metallic click of my [Steel traps]. Two jaws latched onto his legs, anchoring him to the ground with steel chains.
I sprung up to my feet, using the opportunity to conjure up a [Boiling Tar Bomb] and fling the clay canister, covering him in sticky gunk. Frost turned to steam, rising up from him. I would have loved to see the look of surprise on his face, if it wasn't for the helmet he was wearing. Still, I heard him groan in pain. Some of the boiling tar must have gotten through the cracks.
He brought his mace down on the steel traps’ anchors embedded in the ground, smashing them to bits, leaving a crater. The traps vanished, freeing him. I wasn’t about to stick around and go toe to toe with him in a melee fight -- not yet anyway.
I leaped into the courtyard before the barracks, feeling the burns from the lightning spell with every move. I walked on top of the anti-gravity circle spanning some five yards across. Its black, circular lines merged seamless with the dark ground in the Nexus, much like wrought iron inlays in stone. I activated the circle and its lines lit up bright.
In an instant, I felt weightless. I jumped up and felt the air rush past me as I ascended to the limit of its effect, fifty yards above the ground. It couldn’t take me all the way up, but that wasn’t a problem for me. I lowered the sniper’s roost platform in my direction and [Leaped] the rest of the way to it. Before attacking, I moved another platform to use as cover against lightning spells.
Down below, Edward had followed, but stopped short of stepping inside the lit up circle. I picked up the petrified wand that I had left on the platform. Unlike my other wands, it was too long to fit in the wand holster.
Not wasting time, I started blasting. The whine of its charge-up was but a tiny blip of sound compared to the booming sound of [Infernal Barrage] that followed.
The three balls of fire expanded out in size as they flew from the maximum distance of the wand's eighty yards. They struck, pounding the ground like rocket artillery, leaving the area engulfed in flames, and black smoke billowing.
Edward barely escaped the explosions. Two seconds later, I fired again, and again, moving the platforms to chase after him.
The shots tore through the air, closing the eighty-yard gap in an instant. But he timed his leaps, dodging just in time to avoid being obliterated. Based on my calculations, each blast dealt just under two thousand damage. If one of those hit me, I’d be done in a couple of shots. I figured his armor would absorb some of the impact—but how much could it really reduce?
The next shot wasn’t a direct hit, but close enough that the flames ignited the tar covering the side of his armor. The fire spread. He tried to beat it out with his hands, and I could see the panic in his movements.
“Is that hot enough for you?” I yelled down to him. “You bloody bastard.”
I shot at him again, but he leaped toward the barracks just in time, bolted inside. I feared he’d set the place on fire. I decided to wait him out and follow after him inside the building. Instead, I checked on Darya and found her hiding among the planting beds, taking pot shots in the direction of the wall. That’s when I spotted three figures on top. They must have climbed all the way up somehow. Finn failed to mention that they could do that.
To help Darya, I moved to attack the three, floating the platform in their direction. Before I got close, the bastards jumped off the wall, landing safely among the planting beds. This made me pause -- I wasn’t about to burn all the crops trying to kill them with [Infernal Barrage.] I switched to using [Power Shot] instead. At eighty yards however, my aim was all over the place, doing more damage to the planting beds than anything else.
Things weren’t going well, but at least it was getting very close to midnight. I glanced back at the barracks, but there was no light coming from the windows. Edward must have managed to put out his fire.
But where was he now?