When Ray went out to the battle again, he realized he was raging a little inside. Frustration with the incident with Derrick and the Sylvan commander was affecting his thoughts, which wasn’t ideal at all. But he needed to do this.

Even if Ray hadn’t managed to kill Derrick, what he had done was defeat the leader of the Wild Tides. Derrick had been so injured that his Sylvan buddy had been forced to intervene. Kredevel, who was still keeping watch on proceedings, had informed Ray that Derrick had been taken away by Lastiel.

In other words, the Wild Tides no longer had their leader on the battlefield.

That was what Ray, and the Insurge Faction as well, had to take advantage of.

It was rather impressive just how well the battle had gone so far. Ray saw the dead all over the area, but a large majority had red bands around their arm. Maya and her sub-commanders had done well.

Still. There were pockets where they needed more force. Places where Ray could be of use.

Ray: Maya. Hope I’m not distracting, but I need directions. Do you know any spots where people need help?

He could have tried to look by himself, but that would be more time consuming. This was, hopefully, going to be much faster.

Maya: Were you able to confirm their leader’s state?

Ray: I haven’t heard anything further from Kredevel, so he has to be gone for good.

Maya: That’s good news. We’ve been spreading word of Orden’s defeat, and I think it’s slowly working. We’ve got a few surrenders here and there, spots where people have run away.

Ray: But it’s not over yet. Let me know where you need help most.

Maya proceeded to detail a few locations across the battlefield. Ray took note, then immediately got to work.

The first one wasn’t far off. He just had to fly for a minute with Soaring Wings before he came upon a group of Insurge Faction members being hunted by a larger number of spear-wielding Wild Tides. The ground was flat and open, providing them little cover. Their calls for help thus far hadn’t been answered since everyone else had been busy elsewhere.

Till Ray had arrived.

He took out a couple of the Wild Tides from distance. True Enhancement on the Windbane Maw crafted a spectral, draconic head in place of his hand. Then the compressed chaotic energy beam killed two of his enemies in one blow.

A third was taken out by the construct he had summoned before True Enhancement. As they were all distracted by him, the flying Maw came in and roasted another man.

That left three more for Ray to fight directly.

They were good, especially when Ray chose to engage them together. If he tried to attack one, another would attempt to take advantage and poke at Ray. When he dodged a slicing attack from one man, another tried to slip past his guard and land a fatal blow on his back. They were annoyingly good at working together.

Worse, they weren’t dismayed that their comrades had just died. If anything, it seemed to have enraged them, like they wanted vengeance against him.

In the end, they were still grunts compared to Derrick. Ray managed to weave and dodge while distracting them with his construct before he had them lined up just so. Then, with True Enhancement still active on the Greater Windbane Maw, Ray blasted them together.

Two died, leaving one badly injured. That one was killed by his construct in short order.

[Enemy Defeated—Human]

Spearman [Tier 1] Human: [Level 8] x3

Spearman [Tier 1] Human: [Level 9] x3

Mana Restored: 510

Essence: +2,550

Knowledge: +18

Essence to Level 17: 10,130/14,200

[Reputation Threshold Crossed]

For reaching the 400-point threshold, your Knowledge has raised your Intellect by 40.

Knowledge to next Threshold: 409/500

Lifeblood Crucible didn’t activate since he hadn’t used Chaos Chymify. No matter. It wasn’t like these people had anything worth taking.

“Thanks for the assist,” a relieved woman said. The Insurge Faction members he had helped had begun returning as soon as they saw their enemies had been engaged. They had arrived just as Ray finished dealing with the last one.

“All good,” Ray said. “Why are you even out of the keep?”

As far as Ray was aware of Maya’s battle plan, their main idea had been to use the Base as a defensive structure to ward off the Wild Tides’ greater numbers. Though, even as Ray asked, he realized it was likely Maya had sent out contingents to reinforce their new allies. A sortie, of sorts.

“We were out of the keep to begin with,” said the woman. “Our whole role was to stay back until the allies arrived, then join them with the counterattack from outside of the… I don’t know what you call it.”

“Perimeter?”

“I guess?”

“I see the plan now.” Ray turned to leave. “Stay safe. Oh, and if you’re rejoining the fight, make sure to tell everyone that Derrick Orden has been defeated.”

Then he was off to the next location.

Maya directed him to a spot where she hadn’t heard from a few members for a while. The fear she’d held turned out to be true. They had all been killed.

For whatever reason, the culprits were looting the dead bodies. Several of the dead had been stripped naked already. It made Ray sick to the stomach. As if killing hadn’t been enough, they had to desecrate the corpses too.

His whole body felt cold. Rigid. These were the kinds of people Ray had first warned Maya, Randall, and Dory about ending up with in their search for other humans.

If they could have sensed Ray when he arrived, he never gave them a chance. These crooks weren’t worth his direct attention. So, he summoned a True Mana version of the Greater Windbane Maw and blasted them from afar with the laser version of the maw’s chaotic breath. It was nice to see that he could redirect the head’s aim even as it fired off the energy.

[Enemy Defeated—Human]

Illusionist [Tier 2] Human: [Level 10] x1

Mage [Tier 1] Human: [Level 8] x1

Warrior [Tier 1] Human: [Level 8] x3

Stalker [Tier 1] Human: [Level 9] x1

Mana Restored: 510

Essence: +3,050

Knowledge: +18

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Essence to Level 17: 13,180/14,200

Knowledge to next Threshold: 427/500

When he arrived at the next location Maya indicated, Ray found that the situation had already been taken care of. By just one member of the Ascenders who had subdued almost twenty of the Wild Tides on her own.

“Are you…?”

The woman, dressed in a white robe with her blonde hair pinned to a tight bun, nodded shortly. “I’m Felds. Mary Felds. You must be Raymond.”

“Ray. Nice to meet you.”

She looked around with a sceptical eye. “Nice, you say?”

Ray felt a minor urge to laugh, but what came out was a grimace. “Could be nicer, I suppose.”

They didn’t talk much. Maya informed him that the battle really was slowing down. They were nearing a victory. But pockets of resistance were still active all over the battlefield.

Ray immediately got moving when he learned that Randall was caught up in one of those pockets.

He went north, near the edge of Sector 52. When Ray neared the area where the battle had been reported, what he found just left him grim. Blood and bodies everywhere, and a lot of the corpses weren’t from the Wild Tides.

Swallowing, Ray quickly checked the bodies. A few were too disfigured after suffering horrible attack, but he found no sign of Randall there.

Ray: Randall? You there?

He had hoped to get some confirmation of Randall’s whereabouts from the guy himself, but he got no answer. Which meant he was either dead or unconscious.

Heart pumping faster, Ray followed the trail of blood. He called up the Scouring Eye to look into the distance with greater focus. It located his targets not far away. Ray shot in as quickly as he could. His suspicions had been correct. For whatever reason, these Wild Tides members were carrying off the ones they had defeated.

Ray was stuck. How the hell was he going to free Randall and anyone else who had been captured from a bind like that?

No. No panicking. Ray was the one in control of his thoughts, not the chaotic situation he was in. After all, wasn’t he the one controlling the chaos now? Fuck if he was going to let his thoughts get thrown into disarray.

He couldn’t attack directly. No doubt those Wild Tides would start using the captured Insurge Faction members as hostages. That would be bad.

Ray considered attacking from a distance to distract them before swooping in to rescue the captives. But no. There were too many hostages in the grasp of his enemies. He couldn’t free them all quickly enough, Even if he grabbed some, the others would end up as casualties.

Fuck.

No. No letting it get to him.

The only recourse arrived in Ray’s mind moments later. Hostages. That was the issue here. Maybe what he needed was a hostage of his own.

After a while, as he maintained his distance from his adversaries, Ray settled on how to procure said hostage. The first part involved sending out a Lifeblood Construct of the Greater Windbane Maw to distract the Wild Tides members.

As he had moved, he used True Enhancement on Soaring Wings, the True Mana cost taken care of by his Hallowed Reputation. He continued condensing regular Mana into True Mana, though, crushing a crystal to replenish his stores. Just as the maw reached his foes, Ray pushed out his wings, used Occultic Apparition, and rushed forward.

The world blurred as he moved blisteringly fast. He hadn’t realized just how much he was sped up with the True Mana version of his wings instead of regular ones.

They didn’t see him coming. Oh, Presence of the Primordial warned him that he had been detected. But by the time the warning appeared, Ray had already reached his target.

He shot through the midst of the Wild Tides group, carrying the unfortunate man he had grabbed with him. His captive shrieked out but was otherwise too shocked to react. Especially because Ray had his hand around the man’s neck.

“Let them go,” he said, facing the rest of the Wild Tides as they all came to a halt. Ray had already told his construct to leave them be for now. “And I won’t kill this guy.”

Ray kept his face clear and cold, but his heart hammered in his chest. He noted the people in the Wild Tides’ grip. All of them were unconscious. Presence of the Primordial confirmed they weren’t dead, though. That was good. Ray found Randall in the middle, carried on the shoulder of a burly man with a pug-like face.

The Wild Tides members were all staring at him. Most were shocked, though the man at the head of the group was quickly recovering, his surprise giving way to an evil sneer.

“I know you,” he said. His grungy face took on a darker cast. “You’re the bastard who killed Holt. The one who the boss wanted dead. Why’d you run from your real fight? Too cowardly to beat Derrick Orden?”

“Derrick Orden is dead,” Ray said. “Or near enough to not matter either way.”

“Impossible,” someone yelled from the back.

The others muttered their agreement, staring at Ray in growing anger. They refused to believe their oh so vaunted cultist of a leader could ever be beaten.

“It’d be in your best interest to surrender.” Ray’s grip on his captive tightened. “Let the ones you captured go, and I’ll spare your lives.”

The man—clearly the leader of this little group—laughed raucously. “Hear that. He’s going to let us go. Get a load of this shithead.”

His cohort was beginning to adopt his behaviour. They had been uncertain at first, probably wondering if there was some truth to Ray’s statement. After all, he couldn’t be here if he was supposed to have been dealt with by Derrick.

But it didn’t matter. Because their leader was more interested in showing the superiority of the Wild Tides than making a rational, logical decision about their chances of survival against Ray.

The leader turned to Ray with the same sneer still on his face. “You know what? Turnabout is fair play. Why don’t you give up before we make you, you winged freak?”

“Really? That’s the best you can do?”

Light as he kept his voice, Ray’s thoughts were running far too fast to be described as calm. The reverse hostage idea wasn’t working. While his captive was choking in his grip, his comrades didn’t seem to care, not even bothering to consider that he existed.

If this ploy failed, then what the hell was Ray going to do?

“Sounds like we’re at an impasse,” Ray said. “If you’re not going to—”

“Impasse? No, bitch, we’re the ones with the advantage.”

He snapped his fingers. One of the men at the back grabbed his captive’s neck hard.

Ray’s eyes widened. “No, wait.”

With a jerk, the grinning member of the Wild Tides twisted the throat in his grip. His burden fell to the ground, dead.

Ray stared.

“See what happens when you mess with the Wild Tides?” the leader said. “If you’re not with us, then this is what’s going to happen to each and every one of you. Got it?”

Ray’s mind raced. What could he do? He was alone here. They were too far away for anyone else to arrive on time and Maya believed that he had it in hand on his own, like he’d had every other situation he had been in. Ray wanted to scream. Fuck.

“What do you want?” Ray asked.

The man in front made a show of thinking it over. He rubbed his chin and screwed his eyes. “I can’t think of anything right now. But one thing does come to mind. Maybe you’re not really lying. Maybe something did happen to the boss.” His eyes sharpened. “Because of you.”

Ray didn’t react. “And what about it?”

“Well then, as true and loyal members of the Wild Tides, it’s our duty to avenge our boss, isn’t it?”

“Just get to your fucking point.”

The man turned his back to Ray. “See, I can tell these people mean something to you. You came here to rescue them, not kill us.” He turned his grin as wide as a scarecrow’s, “See where I’m going with this?”

Ray looked the man straight in the eye. “You should know where not to go with this.”

“Oooh, scary. But I think you don’t get the point.” He paused, almost like he was building the suspense on purpose. “Kill ‘em all, boys.”

The Wild Tides didn’t waste a second carrying out the order. Ray shouted, but the bastards were too fast. Too brutally vicious. Wet snaps and thuds blanketed the area.

A breath or two later, every single captive lay limp and unmoving on the ground.

Including Randall.

Ray didn’t know when he was moving. He had been condensing and creating True Mana this whole time. It had become something instinctive now. But he didn’t know when he began using it.

Black-and-white energy coalesced into a gigantic arm coming off his shoulder. True Enhancement Shatterclaw.

Eyes widening, the Wild Tides members began backing off. Some even began running, realizing that they weren’t going to survive against Ray. They didn’t get far.

Something had snapped. Some inner barrier that Ray couldn’t even begin to fathom broke just then. His enhanced Shatterclaw arm began transforming. The enormous limb of pure, chaotic energy turned scaly. The claws of its hand coalesced to form a draconic maw the size of a small car. A roar ripped out of the enormous, spectral head of the Grater Windbane.

Then it lunged.

[Warning!]

Your Mana Core has responded to your innate desire and performed Mana Imbuing on a spectral extension of your body, formed from a spell. This Mana Imbuing will only last as long as the spell but will not return the imbued Mana.

Ray didn’t know what part of his mind was using the spell because he hadn’t even thought to use it in the way. He wasn’t thinking even then. It was as though his mind had split, much the way his vision did with the eyeball construct, and that split had taken a part of him with it. His whole head throbbed with the pain of the separating sensation.

All he did, as the draconic head began to tear and burn through the Wild Tides members, was walk to the only corpse he recognized.

He knelt next to Randall. Trembling fingers felt for a pulse at his neck, for a beat beneath his chest, for some hint of a breath through his nostrils. There was nothing.

A man screamed nearby. With a roar, the draconic maw of pure energy bit through him, separating his body into two sections. The flesh, blood, and innards twisted with a life of their own, carrying the screaming man’s body parts away from each other as they streamed with chaotic life.

Ray felt his face grow cold. Cold as Randall’s skin was to his touch.

Someone else shrieked as flames overtook her. She didn’t simply burn. The fires imbued her body with chaotic life and caused pieces of her flesh and bones to leap off her form while her living vessels constricted the life out of her.

Ray got to his feet, picking up Randall’s lifeless body with him. So light. Did death make a person weigh less?

Chaotic flames burned around him. They wouldn’t have caught on the peaty, lifeless grounds, but there was ample fuel for them. Pieces of bodies, the blood strewn everywhere.

With a final roar, the maw of burning, back-and-white energy dissipated.

“You monster!”

The scream came from the man Ray had first caught. The one Wild Tide member still alive, ironically the one who had been taken reverse hostage by Ray.

“You’re a fucking freak who should have been killed!” he shouted.

When he realized Ray wasn’t coming in to kill him, the man got to his feet, eyes wide and face flushed. Then, spitting one last curse at Ray, he turned and ran.

[Enemy Defeated—Human]

Marshal [Tier 2] Human: [Level 10] x1

Mercenary [Tier 2] Human: [Level 9] x1

Mage [Tier 1] Human: [Level 8] x2

Warrior [Tier 1] Human: [Level 8] x2

Stalker [Tier 1] Human: [Level 9] x2

Mana Restored: +690

Essence: +4,400

Knowledge: +24

[Level Up!]

Reward

* +3 Intellect, +3 Spirit, +2 Vitality, +4 allocatable free stats.

* 1 New Talisman

Essence to Level 18: 3,380/16,500

Knowledge to next Threshold: 451/500

[New Personal Achievement—Battle Winner!]

Your actions have turned the tides of a major battle! With you against them, your foes will be hard pressed to beat any Faction you are a part of.

Reward

* 1 Tier point

* Reputation: +15 Tenacious, +15 Ruthlessness, +15 Chaotic