Thomas notched an arrow and raised his bow — but he wasn’t aiming at the ichor drippers.
Alarmed, Victor stepped forward, placing himself between Thomas and his approaching adoptive sister. “She’s fine!” Gripping his mace with white knuckles, Victor began to channel magic through it.
Chloe sprinted past them, and Victor spared a glance back. Thomas remained frozen in confusion. “Run!” Victor barked at him, snapping the other boy to attention. “And protect her, she doesn’t have a Class!”
Returning his attention to the rapidly approaching mob flowing towards him, Victor licked his lips and squared his shoulders — not bothering to try to relieve his immense tension. It wasn’t going to be a fun way to go.
But the important thing was that he might be able to buy enough time for the other two to figure out their own plan. They were probably going to die too — Thomas’s arrows were completely ineffective and Chloe didn’t even have a Class — but either way, Victor was going to die as well.
He could at least give them a slightly improved chance.
The oozing black monsters literally piled on top of each other as they squirmed forwards, giving the impression of a single slimy mass. What could have possibly caused them to clump together like this?
As soon as he thought it, Victor realized the answer. With no real way to fight them, Chloe had probably been on the run from them for some time, and by now they had accumulated together into one single pack.
The mass was now just several paces away. Narrowing his eyes and crouching slightly, Victor prepared to run backwards. It was going to be difficult — running at all would be with how slick the floor was — but there was no other choice.
He needed to slow them as much as he could. That meant that he needed to stay alive for as long as he could continue to cover them in frost, and he couldn’t attack them with his back to them.
He swung his first swing as he took his first step backwards. The blast of ice did nothing to slow their motions, although the closest ones grew a thin layer of frost over their exposed outer surfaces.
But as more squirmed over them, Victor realized that it wouldn’t be enough to even slow them down. Just the natural body heat of the whole mass would probably undo what he had just done by the time the original monsters circled back to the top.
I need to put more power into it.
Most of his attention was devoted to keeping himself from slipping, as a single fall would be immediately fatal — but nevertheless, Victor channeled his will into increasing the amount of arcane energy in the mace by an entire order of magnitude.
The weapon resisted him. It didn’t want to wield that much magic, and it was screaming back at him that it couldn’t.
Victor pushed even harder anyway.
The mace strained against him, but it finally yielded, and Victor took another swing. This time, the wave of frost was about twice as large — and far, far more chilling. The entire front of the squirming black mass froze solid — and for a moment, the entire horde seemed to stop. But a second later, the wall began to crack as the momentum behind it pushed through anyway.
Victor cursed. He had hoped for a moment that maybe he actually would survive — but now it was very uncertain. The hope actually made it all the more painful — but on the upside, it increased his desperate motivation.
All the while, Victor didn’t stop running backwards. The mass of ichor drippers was moving forward with speed once more, their tentacles twisting and tangling with each other as they reached out in attempts to snag his legs.
Victor overloaded the mace again. It was just slightly easier this time, though the weapon still resisted — crying out in his mind almost painfully.
Another wave of frost achieved a similar result. So Victor swung again, and again, and again. On the fifth overloaded swing, Victor sensed a strange crackle in the air, making his hair stand on end.
Something was different with the blast of ice as well. It was more chaotic and less well formed — and when it struck the mass of ichor drippers, something screeched.
It didn’t sound like a cry of pain from a monster, and Victor didn’t even think ichor drippers could make sounds. No, it sounded more like someone scraping a knife blade across a clay tablet — only painfully loud.
It immediately gave Victor a headache.
Soul harvested!
Harvested souls: 205
Victor blinked. One of the monsters had obviously died — but how?
I don’t have time for this. Whatever it was that did it, I just need to keep doing it.
Overloading the mace for the sixth time, Victor swung again. There was another screech — slightly louder this time — but no prompt floating within his mind. Fuck. Guess it was a one time anomaly.
Victor was now almost out of arcane energy. The overloaded attacks consumed far, far more arcane energy than the weapon did ordinarily, and unfortunately, they didn’t seem nearly as efficient.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
They were stronger, but proportionally weaker.
Victor consumed all of his stored souls.
The rush of arcane power was truly exhilarating. Over two hundred souls, all dissolved into raw power. It was a high like no other. But Victor needed to concentrate, both on attacking the monsters and keeping his own footing.
The monsters, on their part, had definitely taken significant damage. Chunks of frozen flesh stuck to their slimy bodies, and corrosive, sickly yellow ichor seeped between the cracks — undoubtedly from where the creatures had broken from moving while partially frozen.
On the seventh swing, something cracked.
The mace was fine, physically speaking. But Victor knew instantly that something was wrong — the blast of ice was accompanied by a strange teal glow that made his eyes water and caused an ache behind the bridge of his nose. The screech was louder than a thunderclap.
Souls harvested!
Harvested souls: 3
Victor consumed them immediately.
Warning: Crab Claw Mace of Shattering Frost (Rank E) is in critical condition!
Victor didn’t really need to read the text hovering within his consciousness — he could feel it. The link between his own spirit and the weapon was fraying like an old, worn rope, and the weapon itself felt delicate — like he was just barely keeping it mashed together.
It wasn’t going to last.
But it didn’t need to.
Victor shoved nearly the entirety of his reservoir of arcane energy into the mace. The fraction that remained was rapidly consumed as he battled with all of his mental might to keep the enchantment from blowing itself apart.
It felt like trying to hold water in his hands — desperately trying to prevent it from leaking away — but in this case, the water was also violently raging against his grip. It was a losing battle — but it wasn’t one he ultimately needed to win.
Victor threw the mace. Arcing through the air, it impacted the writhing mass of monsters squarely in the center — admittedly, it would have been difficult to miss. The collective black ooze enveloped the enchanted weapon nearly instantly, smothering it completely.
Finally, Victor turned his back on the monsters and sprinted — though he maintained his failing spiritual grip on the enchantment as best as he could.
And then he let go.
47 souls harvested!
Harvested souls: 47
The last thing Victor saw was a painfully bright flash of teal light.
----------------------------------------
Victor awoke in agony.
The first thing he noticed was the ache in his body and the burning sensation across his skin. The latter was far more alarming — it felt like he was covered in a sensitive rash.
The second thing he noticed was that he was moving. Not only could he feel rough vibrations coursing through the cool metallic surface beneath him, irritating his damaged skin — he was also being jostled about roughly and randomly, sending spikes of pain through the parts of his body where he ached worse.
As awareness of his surroundings gradually filtered in, Victor realized that it was quite loud as well. The vibrations corresponding to roaring metallic rumblings, and the jerky motions were accompanied by echoing bangs.
A particularly bad bump caused Victor to inhale sharply — an instinctive response which he immediately regretted, as it felt like his lungs were on fire. He began to cough, which only made it worse — leading to even more coughing.
The pain spiked, and his breath came short. Am I dying?
Someone shook him. “Are you awake?” It was Chloe’s voice. Victor couldn’t see much in the darkness, and she sounded slightly muffled — wait, was he under his cloak?
Feebly reaching out, Victor pulled back the folds of the cloak and stared into her brilliant blue eyes. In fact, her entire face was blue — just barely illuminated by an eerie, unnatural glow.
“Yes,” he wheezed. His voice was thin and raspy. It hurt his throat to talk.
“Can you summon your familiar?”
Victor didn’t actually have a familiar, but he took her meaning immediately. With what felt like a monumental exertion of his spirit, he unraveled one of the ichor dripper souls he felt nestled within his own — and then conjured his summon to life.
As Scarlet blossomed into existence overhead, illuminating the space with her crimson glow, Victor saw the roof of a rough stone tunnel racing by overhead — interrupted here and there by small stalactites.
Chloe was no longer looking down at him, instead gripping the rim of the cramped, rusty mining cart they appeared to be riding in and peering off into the distance ahead.
Victor sat up with a pained groan, and Chloe’s gaze snapped back to him as she whipped her head around.
“Where are we?” He asked.
Returning her attention to the track ahead, Chloe remained silent for a moment. “Another area. When we found you, you were unconscious, and we had to carry you through the rest of the section.”
Victor looked behind him to the rear, where Thomas peered into the darkness in the opposite direction, bow raised. “What happened back there?” The other boy asked, never taking his eyes away from the darkness.
“I blew up my own enchantment,” Victor croaked. “Used all of my arcane energy.”
Thomas whistled. “Fuck.”
“So what’s the deal with this area?”
“It’s mostly just different kinds of bats that try to swarm us,” Chloe explained, “but Thomas mostly has them handled.”
Victor choked. Fucking hell. “…hate bats.” He paused. “I feel like I’ve been burned all over.” Looking down at his hands, he observed that they appeared red and raw — but perhaps that was just because of Scarlet’s lighting.
“You kind of vaporized the majority of the ichor drippers,” Chloe stated dryly, “which I suspect created a toxic and corrosive cloud. By the time we found you, it just smelled awful, though.” She chuckled darkly. “Does it hurt to breathe?”
“…Yes.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I expected that.” Her shoulders slumped. “If you survive... without proper treatment, you’ll probably be short of breath for the rest of your life.
“…fuck.”
Chloe glanced back at him. “Also…” she trailed off for a moment before continuing. “Does your entire body ache like you just got sucker punched in the gut?”
Victor nodded. He decided that it hurt too much to speak.
Chloe sighed. “We need to get out of here as soon as we can then. The next exit we find, we take. No rest either.”
Victor frowned. “…why?”
Obviously, they weren’t equipped to continue. Victor had no decent weapon anymore, Chloe didn’t even have a class, and…
Well, he would only slow them down.
Thomas fired a shot into the distance, and something squealed — distracting Victor from his momentary lapse into introspection. “And, I’m out of arcane energy,” Thomas stated in a matter of fact tone.
Victor sighed, but it was more of a wheeze. Just another reason they needed to get out. But why not allow themselves any rest in the safe areas?
“Look at me.”
Obeying Chloe’s command, Victor met her gaze. “You said you blew up an enchantment. I don’t know how you know how to even make enchantments, but…” she bit her lip. “That, as well as the fact that you’re aching all over…”
“It probably means you’ve taken a fatal dose of chaos exposure.” She shook her head and averted her eyes. “If we don’t get you help in time…”
She met his eyes again. “Well, I don’t think I could treat you by myself.”
Victor stared blankly. It wasn’t his imminent death that bewildered him — no, he had already confronted death again and again over the past few days. No, what confounded him was the very last thing she said.
“What do you mean, you couldn’t treat me? And how do you know all of this?”
His adoptive sister bit her lip. “I never told you… but I’m a fleshcrafter.”