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The Goblin Boss staggers forward, seeming almost drunk — yet with a certain underlying speed. Its form is bloated, covered in sores and layers of filth — large enough to tower over the lesser goblins.
Blood-stained rags lie under makeshift armour; no doubt scavenged from the various people it has killed and slapped together with iron and bone.
Its shoulders are covered with two rib-cages, and that isn’t the only use of bone; for across its chest lies a few massive bones connected together with rope, pressing into the goblin’s fat.
It holds an axe that looks to be carved from a femur, and edged with his fellow goblin’s teeth — sharp and pointed.
A roar sounds like a warhorn, and heavy footsteps smash into the stone as it approaches the guardians, raising the femur-axe high above it’s snotty nose.
It [ Lunges ] forward, swinging the grotesque weapon for Onyx’s head.
The guardian reacts swiftly, the stone body shifting to bring up his pickaxe and deflect the blow; taking no damage but being shoved back out of range to counter.
Quartz is behind the goblin boss, lifting his pickaxe up to stab the creature from behind only for it to swivel on a dime and bring down the axe in one fluid motion; cutting a deep groove into the floor.
I was wondering if that weapon could even cut stone. I got my answer.
Onyx scrambles forth, using his last use of the ability to charge forth with unexpected speed; digging the pickaxe deep into the bone-iron plate of the bosses back.
It reels back from the impact, stumbling on itself as it throws a indirect swing to gain space.
It lets out a deep growl of rage, then lets its grip slip down the axe and unleashes a flurry of vicious strikes; so fast that they’re impossible for the heavy stone creatures to dodge.
Onyx and Quartz both stand together, readying their pickaxes to deflect the blows.
Stone chips, and teeth shatter under the assault; they’re pushed back into a wall, cracking Onyx’s stone.
Quartz’ pickaxe breaks in two and he stands in front of Onyx, taking another blow that digs halfway through his body and throws him to the ground.
Onyx’s stone rumbles, and he dashes forward, using his second daily charge of Lunge, heavy stone frame smacking into the goblin’s face, strong stone hands gripping onto its face and staying attached even as the creature tries to pry him off.
Onyx puts a stone foot in the maw; pressing it down the throat, then connects his hands together and unleashes blows that could only be described as a hammer smashing into an anvil.
Protective bone turns to powder, flesh turns to paste and brain matter is compacted and pulverised.
Almost as if someone had turned off a light inside, the goblin goes limp, falling backwards like a boulder rolling down a hill.
Onyx does not falter even as he is thrown from the maw, bringing the hammer-blows down over and over until there is little left of the goblin’s brain than mush.
It is dead beyond dead.
Quartz shambles over, nearly cut in half — but alive. Onyx’s surface has deep fractures running across it; fragments of his stone-flesh littering the battlefield like glass bottles after happy hour.
Quartz fares no better, his massive frame visibly weakened. Their joints creak as they move, gashes have made a home in their flesh, but they can move. Caau releases his breath.
Well… that was great! Well done Quartz, Onyx! Don’t go any further; come back and rest within the sanctuary.
They seem almost grateful as they turn away from the direction they were headed — further into the Expedition route.
Their injuries… I hope they can be healed. It would be pretty dumb if not.
They will naturally heal; so long as they are within the radius of the sanctuary.
Whats with you telling me things without me asking?
You should seek to be charitable to the mentally challenged, in order to be a good person.
Oh fuck you.
Their pace is much slower, and Caau begins to worry.
The guardians strides seem almost measured, and have returned to their unclassed rigidity, much slower and more mechanical; stiffness in their not-bones. Onyx puts his hand out and holds Quartz steady; the massive gash in the white-eyed guardian causing him to rock back and forth. Each step makes Caau worry that they won’t come back… and that they won’t heal.
His worries were unfounded, fortunately, and the crude stone wall he’d had them built is in sight…
[ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ]
Onyx, Quartz, get moving. I don’t know what a horde is, specifically, but I can get the memo.
[ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ]
[ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ]
More? How many hordes can there be at once?
Hmm. This isn’t good.
As the Guardians eyes fixate on the walls; the ground begins to rumble and a sound like a million bare feet slapping stone reaches like a spear through the dark. The horde is coming, announcing its presence like a storm on the horizon. The guardians… panic.
Onyx turned to Quartz, taking his pickaxe and finishing what the goblin boss started; cleaving the other guardian in half.
What the fuck are you doing!?
Onyx then places the upper half on top of his shoulders and keeps moving, keeps pushing. With each step, fragments of Onyx fall from his body, clattering on the stone.
Onyx shakes with the effort. The goblins, a writhing mass of flesh, appear behind them and they are swept up like sand in the face of a tsunami; forced forwards.
Quartz reaches out for the side of the stone, hands made for crushing stone gripping into it and pulling them to the side; but it’s too much to hold on. As Quartz tries, the stone gives way, the horde pulling them along.
No! You fucking stay! You fucking stay alive!
The mass of goblins smashes into the makeshift walls they had built outside the sanctuary, easily plowing through both of the sides; a months work reduced to nothing in seconds.
Onyx shoves his own grip into the stone, and their combined strength stops them from flowing like water. They move, bodies pressed to the wall like they are climbing rather than walking.
A goblin gets under Onyx’s chest and is forced to take the full weight of both of their bodies; being turned to mulch as they fight to keep themselves against the wall.
The goblins don’t seem to care about the guardian. Just stay still! Survive!
We. Get. There.
Caau immediately shuts up.
Onyx takes Quartz’ arm, gripping it so tight the stone starts to crack underneath, and activates both [ Lunge ] and [ Scramble ], charging through the mass of goblins like a blender; an unstoppable force meeting immovable object. Goblinflesh becomes goblinsmoothie and he throws Quartz towards the shimmering portal on Caau's face. A second later, Quartz drops into the void-space; followed a second after by Onyx.
[ Expedition Aborted ]
Yes! Yes yes yes yes! Well done, you beautiful bastards!
[ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ]
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
[ REALM WAR HAS BEGUN ]
[ MORTAL PLANE VS IMMORTAL PLANE ]
[ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ] [ WARNING: MAJOR HORDE DETECTED ]
Well, that’s just not good.
—
Arden stares at the message.
[ REALM WAR HAS BEGUN ]
[ MORTAL PLANE VS IMMORTAL PLANE ]
The Mortal plane is… here. He looks out over the fields of grass, the sky of deepest gold and the sun blazing in the sky. The Immortal plane is those… creatures.
Gorakhin, Bragok, Trovok, Gorgar, Ektar and all the other inhuman things. Mother made him learn all the proper names, even if nobody uses them.
He looks over the village, then back to his little domain. Over the last few months, he’d built some small huts; simple closed-off areas and not much else.
Good enough for the beggars of the village, though, and now he roasts meat over a fire — a bear he had wrestled that had managed to scratch his flesh, but little else.
Everybody waits for the food, smelling it. Eliza, along with another boy he had saved from falling from a cliff, sat on a log, chatting as they waited.
It is… a safe place. Nobody here is a paragon; nobody judges — or if they do, they keep it to themselves. The minor hordes have been getting more common, and the villagers were desperate.
As such, he’d been allowed to help out, gaining some abilities from the goblins he’d killed.
The way their flesh surrendered to his fists… the way he was an untouchable force of retribution in the centre of carnage… it made him feel so alive.
Now… he watches as a torrent of monstrous beings emerge from the underworld; driven up by massive creatures that tunnel through the world, eating stone as they go.
Ogres, towering and brutish, climb over the stone walls of the village, reaching down to pick up small morsels of human to snap into their jaws as wraiths hover over the sky, drafting in spectral dances and throwing lances of ethereal light down to impale people into the stone.
Trolls batter down the gates, charging forward; their clubs rotating around and around until they hit something, be it stone, wood — or flesh.
Kobolds skitter under their feet, reptilian features twisted with malice as they dart from building to building; resultant explosions gleaming in their large eyes.
Dancing with the wraiths, Harpies shriek, destroying the minds of those who flee no matter how far they run.
Gorgons shed their skin into the river — poisoning it for miles. Even the Orcs sally into the world despite their seclusion.
Arden watches this… and he sees the world burn. Then he charges forth, sprinting at a breakneck speed so fast down the hill that he trips, his massive frame smashing into trees, rocks, the ground and anything else that gets in his way until he lands in a crater below and stands, shaking off the pieces of stone and bark before charging again.
He reaches the village in only a few minutes and jumps onto an orc, pressing his hand into it’s skull and bringing down onto the ground over and over until red blood leaks from the back and the thing goes limp.
He stops. Fear runs through him.
[ Infernal-blooded’s Champion nearby. ]
Every instinct tells him to run… but he does not; diving into the carnage with as much courage as he can muster. There’s a young woman in the street, running. He rushes forward to save—
—
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“I AM GORROK THE RAMPAGE. I AM THE EMBODIMENT OF CARNAGE!” Gorrok screams as he jumps from the highest tower, having spotted his target.
A small human women runs through the middle of a garden, and he plummets like a stone, bringing his boulder-hammer down to pulverise her sweet, innocent flesh in a single, [ Earth-shattering Slam II ].
He roars out into the world, celebrating the kill… then stops.
[ Celestial-blooded’s Champion nearby ]
He turns. “YOU?” he shouts, then gives a wicked smile full of sharp teeth. The large human boy takes a stance, defensive, ready.
Gorrok rushes forward, bring the hammer down full-force onto the boy’s arms — only to find the ground give before the taught muscle-steel of the human does.
Gorrok roars forward — if the hammer is not up to the job, then his teeth will be!
The boy shoves a fist out, striking Gorrok in the chest. Dense muscle absorbs it as though it did not exist, and Gorrok’s teeth close around an arm; rending human flesh and sucking the delicious, delicious life-force.
The boy staggers back, throwing punch after punch into Gorrok’s face, flailing hopelessly as the bone underneath is crushed.
The boy’s skin is like iron; but Gorrok’s teeth are a Mutation granted to him by his master. They are sharper and stronger than any weapon.
Something comes.
Gorrok releases the boy and looks up, jumping back with [ Retreat III ] just before a blade stabs down from the golden sky above, unleashing a wave of golden light that immediately disintegrates a thousand Immortals and sears the flesh from Gorrok’s exposed arms.
The wounds on the boy’s arms seal up as though reversed in time.
He smiles, cruelly.
The Celestials have come to play. He raises his hammer high, and screams out towards the sword.
A figure lands; resplendent in golden armour with wings of metal that shift until the feathers are a hundred blades facing outwards, shimmering with golden runes.
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“I AM GORROK, EMBODIMENT OF CARNAGE! WHO DO I FACE?”
The golden creature raises the long blade high, and it shimmers with a radiant light.
“I owe no introduction to you, monster.”
Gorrok screams, activating all of his skills then jumping, the Infernal-given Mutations flowing through his body and making his veins grow large with blood.
His entire being shoves down in one motion, bringing the hammer down with enough force to crack the figure open like an egg.
Gorrok doesn’t live long.
His body hits the ground with a dull thud; his head a second later. The Celestial turns to the boy.
“You are one of our chosen’s Embodiments… take as many mortals as you can and retreat to the Sanctuaries. I fear that the Mortal plane will soon be no more.”
The golden creature is in the air; its wings growing larger and large until it releases a radiance of celestial energy, positively bathing the mortal village in it.
Where it touches Immortal flesh, it begins to eat away at them.
Harpies fall from the sky as their feathers burn, wraiths dissipate into the world and ogres and trolls cease their rampage to take shelter — only to find it does not help.
Gorrok, Embodiment of Carnage, brings his hammer down on the Celestial’s spine.
The armour of golden metal shatters into a thousand pieces and the Celestial is plummeted into the mortal plane before Gorrok makes himself weigh a thousand more times and plummets alongside, his knee driven into the Celestial’s throat only to be stopped by a golden hand
Another smacks across his flesh, leaving a burning, disintegrating wound.
The celestial flies out, shoving its hand out to grab Gorrok’s throat and fly with him — dragging him along the grass, leaving a fracture in the very world as he does so, then spins and throws him into the water so fast the water might as well be stone.
Gorrok’s body breaks into a thousand pieces, shattered bone and pulverised skin pulling themselves together under the water.
“Do not attempt to fight me further, creature. I am a Celestial; you are nothing.”
Gorrok rises, spitting teeth from his mouth, then starts to growl before it builds and builds in intensity, a distant thunderstorm getting ever closer.
The air begins to quiver as Infernal energy gathers around him, and a roar claws its way out of his throat so full of energy that it vaporises the steam and gives him a clear view of the Celestial.
“I AM CARNAGE! YOU ARE NOTHING!”
A spear of pure golden light appears in the Celestial’s hand; then ignites with Solar Energy.
"Your screams of rage will become mere echoes in the annals of forgotten history, monster. Have as much destructive fury as you desire. It will not save you."
The Celestial descends with an ethereal grace, radiant form leaving a trail of shimmering fire; weapon blazing with light and seeking Gorrok’s heart.
The Embodiment of Carnage propels himself into the air in a way that defies all laws, his legs brimming with the strength of earthquakes to close the distance in an instant.
A collision of divine power and all of the fury of the world connects; ripping apart the world underneath them in a cataclysmic shockwave.