Chapter 18
Princess Sabela was watching her beloved reach a crescendo as the climax hit, the forest animals were elated by his voice as he sang of the beauty she held. The blue sparrows dove in arks at the magnificent as she prepared to join in the duet. Buck’s and Doe’s alike pranced around them as other furry animals joined the two lovers in their serenade of love.
She fucking hated it.
The first inline for the succession and the oldest princess of the elven region was forced into this farce all for her mother, Queen Floria, to gain another kingdom. The stupid human in front of her didn’t realize the impact of what he was doing, allowing her to ascend the throne as his queen would let her keep it long after he was dead. She was sure his father king Ravago would reject them seeing each other secretly, but he just turned his head the other way.
As her part was about to begin, the princess froze as a man appeared out of nowhere dressed in only what she could identify some type of drake hide. He was tall, taller than the prince. He stood at somewhere of 6ft 7in, the near invisible silhouette of his face held nothing in his eyes but madness. Chains dangled off of his wrist as he grabbed ahold of prince Bashtins’ head, then twisted.
The notes of music stayed caught in her throat at seeing the murder of the first prince, all around the animals stopped and scattered from the noise that came from broken bone. The body fell slumped over with a rather huge deformity in his neck, spine she thought.
Taken a step back she regarded the thing in front of her, she felt no danger from him as he stared at her with interest. The murk of mist cleared from his eyes as he watched her, then in a flash of mist, he was gone. Incantations and spells were mostly thought now with no words needed to be said but for the much larger ones. As she casted a quick search spell for the thing, it came back with nothing but a low-level human in the woods. The man in the bushes was probably one of Bashtins servants too frighten to come out after witnessing what he saw.
Princess Sabela looked around trying to find any trace of the man as something crashed behind her knocking her to the ground.
Jiminy called out, “You were doing so well” the exhaustion was clear in his voice as Zayne popped back to the world. Foulness told him to give a try to his new ability killers presents. It was a passive skill, something Jiminy told him once didn’t need for him to do anything but activate. As the skill kicked on, the elf lady got a status effect over her head with the squiggly line. Zayne didn’t notice a difference so opted to just be done with it.
Sabela was on the ground from some unknow attack, as she turned to fire off an incinerating spell, her heart started to beat loudly. It was on a level with which she couldn’t place it, all she could hear was the sound of her own heart hammering to her mouth. She started to sweet, tears blossomed, and she relived herself. In her frighten stupor, she sent out dozens of incinerating bolts putting as much mana as she could.
Zayne saw the spells come rushing towards him, all lighting up the forest to the point it was painful to watch. Side stepping out of the way, they followed him splashing against his chest, scorch marks could be seen across his body as they kept coming. “Holy fuck!” Jiminy cried out.
He stepped back into the mist disappearing from sight, the skill caused mist and fog to swirl as it congealed with the lake. He stayed there for a time, his health took a hit, at 87% he had to rethink his strategy. “You don’t have one! You’re a fucking killer, go out there and ice that bitch.”
The few things that Zayne had killed since he had appeared in this world have been for a better word, weak. “That was a surprise.” He took a moment to collect himself as he waited.
It wasn’t something he was used to, well, if one didn’t count the mages that were on the wall but none were at this level of competence. Those fire balls fucking packed a punch. He looked over that the strange man as he sat in the bushes, watching the mad elf spray fire into the night. Zayne didn’t believe that he would be of much help.
Ghosting back in behind the she bitch; Zayne took ahold of her head twisting it around but was met with some resistance. The strength in the elf was giving out of her as he fought, as he got a quarter of the way while fighting her to twist her neck flames busted out of the elf engulfing him and pushing Zayne back. His clothing were fine but lost some durability as he stood alight, small plumes of flame licked the night air as fire bolts began to fall onto Zayne.
Out of the corner of Zayne’s eye he saw the stranger hefted something in his arms, blue light began to shine as a strobe of it was shot out knocking the wind out of the princess. Zayne capitalized on the opening whipping his chains at her but before he could do so another blue light struck her before the chains could even reach. The attack the man did hit something solid splashing against what Jiminy called her force shield. The mad elf broke out laughing hysterically as lighting raced across her fingertips. “You! You fucking fool, arrogant little shit. Do you know who I am? And you! Your nothing but a weak little human. I’ll kill all of you, leave nothing left but the burnt bones as I smash them beneath my feet.”
“Yep, I think you finally broke her.” Jiminy called out hiding somewhere in Zayne’s head.
Runes danced across her skin, lighting up in shades of purple and pink. She moved then, spanning across 15 ft in less than a second sending Zayne into a tree. That tree broke as did the next one and the one after that, finally after too many trees he hit the forest floor. He got up as though nothing happen looking at the direction he was sent at searching for the elf. He didn’t have to look far.
He stepped into mist as another fist caught him in the mask, sending Zayne spiraling through the fog reaching forest. Before her fist broke contact, the princess was brought over, giving her an unusual view of the surroundings. That didn’t deter her as she moved back onto Zayne, taking great strides as she did. “Use one of your skills!” Jiminy cried.
“Which ones” Zayne asked while he was too focus on defending himself as blows rocked him across the mist cover woods. The increase of speed had caught Zayne off guard opening him up to a rain of attacks as he danced backwards.
“Eat her!” Foulness called out. Zayne contemplated on that, as a kick landed cracking a few ribs. His healing ability was covering most of the damage but couldn’t keep up as she got faster. Eat her kept turning in his mind as his intelligence fought to catch up to the statement. Not knowing what foulness meant. Did he mean with his mouth? She wouldn’t fit there. Fuck it, better to taste then not to taste at all.
As the next fist landed popping his arm out of joint, Zayne lifted his mask exposing only his mouth. He took the next fist and all as her arm got to the elbow in his mouth. With one sickening crunch, Zayne took her arm down his gullet. Blood sprayed out as the elf screamed, the woodland shook as fire exploded out of her. He was knocked again against a tree as fire danced around the mad elf. The heat coming from the center evaporated the mist, exposing gray grass and dirt beneath her feet. She began to chant as lighting brighten the cloud cover over head as she stared daggers at the lowly human.
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Zayne slowly got up; his spine was still healing after that last attack. He fumbled with his chains trying to untangle them from the rest of his body, only failing to do so before lightning arced from the sky smashing down on him with a mighty boom. His armor lost all durability, breaking under the raging attack as he caught on fire. His skin started to melt exposing bone and muscle; the chains super-heated falling off him like liquid poured from a cup. The only thing holding him up was his unceasing healing factor and the enormous pool of stamina.
He lost his sight along with his hearing, only able to rely on them returning soon. The princess came strolling towards him taking her sweat time as she did so, kicking out fires along the way. He slumped to the ground on all fours, the heat never leaving his body. When she reached him, she spat out causing the spit to bubbling off of him. Her unkept anger still stirred within her as she looked down on the poor excuse of a human.
“This is the difference between us, a human could never realistically go against his betters. Its just how the world works.” She held back laughter as she spoke.
Zayne’s eyes reformed giving him colors of gray, he looked down at himself finding his new master crafted clothing were burnt to ash. Finally having enough, Zayne thought It’s go time. He pushed off from his now crispy legs sending the women stumbling back, his hand smacking across her face sending teeth and blood across the forest floor. The hit had thrown the elf back a considerable amount but not nearly far enough to get away from her pursuer. Mist streaked behind the killer as he rushed forward to swat her again on her umptieth bounce. Throwing a downward kick sent the now bloody princess to the ground creating a sizable crater hole. He stood over it as ghost like chains formed out of his now gaping stomach mouth. There were hundreds latching on to her, winding around her arms and legs. Flames still flickered off of his body, his ribs showing as intestines fought to spill out.
The flames that shrouded him had lost their intensity. The rushing thought of his clothing turned to ash filled his mouth with bile, the only thing left was the bag and the machete he had tucked in his once duster now super-heated to his thigh. Upon seeing the still shiny weapon, Jiminy, Foulness and Zayne all mentally smacked themselves in the face. “Why didn’t we use the sword again.” Foulness asked sorrowfully.
“Because, we forgot he even had it.” Jiminy intoned.
Without much thought, Zayne grabbed the machete clumsily ripping his own skin away as the she bitch continued to give some monologue about this and that out of fear. In one not so fluid motion, he took her other hand. Fire blazed out of her as the machete swung down, spitting her head right in the middle. He let go of his machete as the body fell to the ground, mist swirled around him as euphoria lanced through his entire body. It didn’t stop the fire that was still consuming him, he misted stepped to the lake plunging in the cold water as he fizzled. Vapor rolled off his body as he made his way to shore, skin and bone knitting itself together again giving Chris an uncomfortable sight.
Zayne looked at the strange man before him, he held some type of stick that gave off blue light. It pulsed every now and again giving Zayne one hell of a head ache. The pain in his head reminded him of his machete, that was still on the other side of the mist. Well, better go get it, Zayne thought.
He stepped back through coming to the still warm body, his machete still stuck between her eyes. Eye, that’s wired. Thought there was two, Zayne wasn’t wrong.
“Of course there were two, it would be screwy if there were only one. Achlys, I thought Jiminy helped you gain some points in your intelligence.” Foulness uttered. He took a closer look finding that where once her left eye was, now skin covered the slit.
Not feeling any particular reason to waste time, Zayne bent over to pick up his baby cradling it in his arms as he made his way back to the other side. He found Chris there, the not so helpful human. But he was too tired to go through any games at the second and just wanted to head back to his cave. The stranger called out to him.
“Wait, don’t you want to loot the bodies?” Zayne would have sighed if he could, fucking buff.
Turning back around he only went to the man rummaging through his pockets. A slip of paper was the only thing he found, nothing else. Being pissed that he wasted his time for something so stupid, he dashed through the woods leaving the stranger to find his own way back to the cave. Once there, Zayne in his state of healing, went to the cubs to fry up something to help his recovery. The head of the dragon was still there, rats and insects had gotten ahold of it but it was still intact for the most part. Zayne slammed his machete in the head moving to his next meal.
A little later, the Chris had finally made his way back. The trip, uneventful. Nothing so exiting as the to people that were murdered in the woods a few hours prior. He found the killer, his sorta friend, busily cooking something over the fire he had going. It smelt some what rotten but he didn’t want to end up like the other two people in the woods. The whole experience was nothing he would have expected waking up in another world but beggars’ cant be choosers. Still better than life on the front lines.
He inspected the man before him,
Zayne, the man in chains. Level 20. Nothing else. He had gained 30 lv’s to his only skill, inspection but that was all it would give him. Chris had jumped from level 13 all the way to 15, another stain marking his pants for the occasion. He didn’t get anywhere with his levels because every time he was about to check, something would happen forcing him to focus on that then what his level ups meant.
Chris went over his gains, with every level up he had gotten 2 skill points giving him the grand total of 30. He quickly went over his skills tab looking at what they pertained, the first was null magic. It had 3 branching paths, each one just as useful as the last. The only problem was he could only pick one path in each branch. The next was copy cat, allowing him to mimic any spell. This too had three different paths. The last was for his weapon Alexandria, it was unusual with its paths but were more useful to him.
He mauled it over, taking great care to become the best that he could be. He dumped all of his points into his new gun, the Hexanjager.
Zayne was seething as he took great bites out of the bear meat, the master craft cloths he had were now gone, the dragon was still back at that farmers land so...he would probably draw the ire of those knights. His chains that he became so reliant on were gone or at least the physical ones, now he had nothing but this big idiot that kept following him around. What was the point of keeping him, Zayne asked.
“Because if Sara ever finds you, all you have to do is throw him at the crazy bitch then mist step away like hell. That or use him as bait for anything we come across.” Foulness intoned, barely paying any attention.
The bitch of a man decided then to start a conversation, “So, uh… did you place any of your skill points? I only ask because…” Zayne just stared at the man as he considered killing him during mealtime. It would be so easy too, he thought.
Jiminy spoke with excitement, “NO, no listen to him. He said something about skills. Damn it!, this is why I said to forget the buff and just ask him.” Jiminy wasn’t making much sense to him at the moment. He continued to eat till he heard a particular word come out of the man as Jiminy went through his tabs.
“-kill better.” Zayne stayed his hand from the large portion of burnt grizzled meat to return staring at the now beautiful man. The sudden change of mood made Chris stop speaking as he waited for the killer to turn on him. As both of them waited for the other to say something, Zayne became inpatient and motioned his hand that wasn’t holding the stick to continue.
Chris picking up on the fact that the nude man in front of him wanted him to continue where he left off. “What I was saying was if you could tell me the options of your paths, I might be able to help you to make a decision so the party doesn’t become to focus.” He enunciated each word as if Zayne was slow. In fairness, his intelligence was pretty low.
This was a dilemma for Zayne, he could speak but the cost was something he didn’t want to give up. He thought a moment then shook his head side to side. The stranger not knowing what he meant asked the obvious question.
“No, you don’t want to tell me?” at this Zayne shook his head even harder.
“No, you cant tell me?” again the same response. “How the hell am I supposed to know what you mean!” Zayne losing it tore his blade from the dragon’s head and dabbed a finger into the now congealing blood. He then proceeded to write on the wall in what Chris could only tell was barely legible words. It said-How!
Looking blankly at the killer in front of Chris, he tried to piece together how something that could kill a lv 150 dragon didn’t know what the hell a skill point was. The thought cause a minor mental damage to him taking 5 hp away from his pool.
“The hell you mean you don’t know what that is? Are you fucking retar-” he didn’t get to finish his sentence because a huge hand came baring down on him knocking him off from the small rock he was sitting on. He lost conciseness before he could even reach the dirt.
“What the hell Zayne! You could have killed him!” Jiminy was screaming inside of his head. Zayne didn’t think so, he had purposefully softened the blow before it connected. All he did was knock his ass out, wasn’t that big of a deal. Besides, he and Foulness both knew Zayne hated that word.