Cooper hated what he was about to do.
The Dread Paladin did not.
Cooper tried to focus on the greater good.
It was simple. These young men and women couldn’t be allowed to go beyond this cavern for two reasons. They meant to kill the Bat People and Cooper owed them for the Dread Paladin’s massacre all those years ago. They could be used by the worms to carry the parasitic infection out to the surface.
Death.
Through every path it lay waiting at the end.
The Dread Paladin focused on the greater good.
His purpose.
Spread and harvest.
The subjects didn’t matter.
Humans.
Worm-controlled trogs.
Make them dread him and become stronger.
Thus, he spoke when Cooper would rather remain silent and complete the task as quickly and cleanly as possible.
“Dread it.”
The big man with the small woman riding on his back sprinted across the level floor with superhuman speed.
He took that in.
He saw the magic in the small woman. It was strong in her and in the bloody armor covering her entire body. It was even stronger in the small clay jug in her hand. The crude thing looked like it had been made by a person after their fourth or fifth clay sculpting lesson. That is to say, it was rough and asymmetrical.
He saw the magic shield surrounding the two people.
He didn’t see magic in the big man.
A superhuman body then.
More came running out of the tunnel.
Powerful magic and powerful equipment.
They were more wary than scared.
Cooper would’ve struck from the shadows.
Draw out their spells.
Weaken them slowly.
The Dread Paladin sat astride his massive demonic-looking steed.
He was clad in dark gray plate that seemed to kill all the light in the world. The only color was the sickening glow from the twin orbs burning through the slits of his full-faced helm.
His steed pawed the floor.
Her dark skin seemed to writhe as if it were the shadows.
An equine face opened a mouth too wide to reveal sharp teeth unlike any normal horse.
Red tendrils glistened in the dim lit as a handful erupted from the clay jug and lanced out at him like a terrible monster’s talons.
A sudden shield out of the shadows blocked some, while a blade cut the rest.
He didn’t need to give commands to his steed.
She spun of her own accord and kicked with both powerful hind legs.
The big man took booth hooves to the chest and went flying into the distant darkness.
Spell and gun fire came for them next.
His steed knew his thoughts.
She took off faster than any earthly horse, weaving in and out of the shadows and through the stalagmites and stalactites like a needle through cloth.
Bullets whistled past his head, followed by the cracks a split-second after.
The thumping sound told him that he had been hit before he registered the impact.
Dark gray plate deformed, but held.
He fixed it with a thought.
A large stalagmite loomed straight ahead.
He dismissed his blade so he could grip the pommel on his saddle.
“Holy shit!”
The words chased him along with all the firepower the invaders could muster.
“That horse thing can run straight up walls!”
“Shut up and shoot them!”
Stone and earth shattered in their wake.
His steed growled and tossed her head in protest as she took a few glancing shots.
He had to dismiss his shield so he could reach back and pull the arrow out of her rear.
The arrow head glowed green beneath her dark blood.
A glance at the wound showed it sizzling as it healed.
They continued their run up to the ceiling.
“Fuck this shit! Now they’re running on the roof!”
They stuck to the darkness where the light from the crystals didn’t reach.
The invaders didn’t lose them completely because such things weren’t insurmountable obstacles to those with higher levels.
There were plenty of Skills and spells that allowed people to deal with mundane darkness.
Like the bright spotlight from the dark-skinned young man maintaining the mana shield over the rest of his team.
The Dread Paladin drew a javelin out of the writhing shadows and hurled it in one smooth motion. His strength lent it the speed of a missile.
An archer shot three arrows in quick succession.
The first exploded into hundreds of small, twinkling shards that the javelin blew through.
The second exploded into a thick sphere of water that also failed to stop it.
The third hit it tip to tip and exploded.
Shadowy shards that were already fading back into nothing struck the mana shield like a light drizzle.
All eyes were on him, waiting for his next attack.
A young woman wearing perhaps the strangest helmet he had ever seen leveled a high tech-looking rifle in his direction. The large eye in the middle of her faceplate stared at him. It seemed alive.
Best not let her get another shot off.
“Attack,” he rasped.
Smarter dreadlings, the ones that copied his mental image of soldiers with their guns, grenades and tactics, opened up from several murder bunkers hidden in the stalagmites and stalactites or in the floor and ceiling and walls.
The barrage forced the dark-skinned young man with the bright magic flaring from the middle of his back to extend his mana shield all around his team.
Crucially, he had left gaps open for their attacks.
Gaps that let the Dread Paladin’s shadows reach inside the sphere of protection.
Savage dreadlings emerged.
Simple creatures, they attacked with tooth and claw like rabid animals.
The archer aborted his shot, forced to use his bow as shield and his arrow as a poor spear.
The gunner with the weird helmet cried out for help as she ripped her long rifle in half, somehow turning it into two short submachine guns spitting bullets.
“Taunting!”
A young man with an open-faced helmet smiled as he danced through the melee, thrusting lightly with a rapier. The thin blade glinted as it drank of the dreadlings’ dark blood.
They turned from the others to focus on him.
His dance carried him all over the space within the mana shield.
Despite the tight quarters he somehow managed to avoid bumping into any of the many moving individuals.
The dreadlings swarmed him, yet managed to land nothing.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Any day now! I don’t want to test these things out on these mobs!”
“Karna!” the dark-skinned young mage said.
“You sure?” The young woman also wore an open-faced helm, revealing fair skin and eyes that burned just like the fancy lighter she had been clicking the entire time.
The Dread Paladin saw the powerful magic contained within it.
He commanded his dreadlings to return to whence they came just as the dark-skinned mage gave the affirmative.
Karna sparked the lighter.
A thin stream of flame shot out. It slithered through the air faster than the normal human eye could follow. Like a hunger serpent, it struck at the dreadlings in quick succession. What it touched turned to ash in an instant.
All the while the mana shield continued to tank the fire from his entrenched dreadlings and the young Golden Eagle.
The Dread Paladin used his ability to speak directly to those that feared him despite distance or physical barriers between them.
“Use the grenade launcher,” he rasped.
The pot-bellied weapon thumped in quick succession from the stalagmite closest to the invading team.
Frag and smoke grenades alternated.
As he expected the mana shield held firm against the shrapnel while the smoke billowed out to cover it like a thick, white blanket.
That young mage sure had a deep mana pool if he was confident in using a mana shield to tank everything it had so far.
They dropped on the invaders like a meteorite.
Any normal animal and some magical ones the size of his steed would’ve broken bones landing from such a great height.
She cracked a few bones and twisted an ankle, but an expenditure of power healed them instantly.
Cracks spider-webbed across the glowing blue surface of the shield.
They stared down at the wide open eyes of the dark-skinned mage.
His mouth worked like a fish out of water.
The fire serpent slithered through the openings toward them while a stream of arrows curved out of another.
“Uh… do I taunt him?” the rapier-wielder bounced lightly on his toes. “Cause that’s, like, last resort… right?”
The Dread Paladin bored into their eyes with his glowing orbs.
They had managed their fear well.
Anyone over Level 40 in a combat class would’ve faced plenty of terrifying foes and monsters.
It was time to show them that there were levels to fear.
He called forth the dreadlings once more.
They clawed and bit at armored feet and legs as they climbed out of the many writhing shadows.
The fire burned, but he kept them coming.
They sank into shadow and climbed out of it a second later.
This time in the midst of the invading team.
First target was the tank.
Most tanks he had faced where the type with heavy armor and durability Skills.
Agile dodgers were rare, at least in his experience.
He raised his hand and swept it down.
A dark gray blade formed in full within the motion.
He cut into the rapier-wielder’s chest.
Light armor was like paper to his blade.
Even mundane steel plate wouldn’t have saved the agile tank.
It bit deep into flesh.
He felt it part armor and flesh, saw the blood spr—
Sudden searing pain carved down his own chest.
He glanced down at the cut through his own dark gray plate.
It certainly wasn’t mundane.
Dark blood leaked.
The agile tank cried out and cursed.
The silvery band around his left wrist glowed white hot for a moment before dimming and becoming dull.
The Dread Paladin thought and his steed responded.
She rose and stamped down, but the smirking young man nimbly dance out of the way.
He felt at his chest.
The cut in the plate and his chest remained.
They healed slower than he expected.
Perhaps it was because he had inflicted the wound with his own weapon.
His steed snorted as she whirled, kicking, stamping and biting as the invading team tried to scatter.
He felt her disdain for him, as if she was telling him to get his shit together… the middle of the fight wasn’t the place to ponder such things.
He formed a shield on his left arm to block a searing stream of concentrated fire.
The heat rose with startling speed.
“Flashing!” the dark-skinned mage said as he raised a hand.
The Dread Paladin closed his eyes a beat before the other invaders, so the bright flash didn’t catch him off guard.
His steed didn’t.
She had a bad habit of holding every other human besides him in contempt.
More than once she had paid for it.
The light seared her eyes, turning them into burned sockets that wept a mixture of dark blood and gooey liquid.
Unfortunately for the invaders blindness wasn’t crippling for her and now she was really angry.
“Christ! We can’t fight them in here!” the rapier-wielder said.
“We drop the shield, we get shot!” the young woman with the one-eyed helmet said.
The dark-skinned mage placed a hand over his ear.
The Dread Paladin couldn’t quite hear the soft voice coming in through the small magic gem.
“Hollis is almost done. We just need to hold on just a bit longer,” the dark-skinned mage said.
Something struck the Dread Paladin’s thoughts.
He hadn’t noticed it, still struggled to notice it.
The dreadlings tended to speak their gibbering thoughts into his head so long as they were within his considerable range.
The tactical dreadlings were a lot quieter than the basic, savage ones, so he couldn’t be faulted for not realizing until now that the former were being destroyed.
The fight in the mana shield had taken less than a minute, but he was down almost all of his tactical dreadlings.
The savage ones weren’t doing much better.
He could generate hundreds, but the fire mage burned them to ash as quickly as they climbed out of the shadows.
Summon Black Fog.
It was a fitting contrast to the white smoke blanketing the mana shield.
“What is this shit! None of this shit was in the report!” the rapier-wielder said as he thrust and swept his weapon ineffectually into the encroaching blackness.
“It is death,” the Dread Paladin rasped. They didn’t truly fear him. Not yet. “Surrender and live. Don’t and die… eventually,” he said directly into their ears.
He went for the leader first.
A blast of dark, shadowy magic from his hand was blocked by a standard mage shield.
It cracked and broke, but dissipated the dark energy before it could get close to the dark-skinned mage.
“That thing in your back is giving you strength beyond yourself. I will take it from you corpse.”
“I’ve heard stories about you,” the dark-skinned mage grinned with wide eyes. “We’re going to kill you for all the people you’ve murdered.”
The Dread Paladin reached out.
Large hands emerged from the writhing shadows.
They grasped each of the invaders with one exception.
The rapier-wielder slipped free, but was forced to continue dodging for his life by the dark, demonic-looking steed.
The rest struggled as the Dread Paladin approached the dark-skinned mage.
“Deon!” the young woman with the one-eyed helmet cried out as he raised his dark gray blade.
They hadn’t been truly afraid until now.
He drew it in.
Grew stronger.
The wound on his chest began to close along with the cut in his armor.
“You had your chance,” he rasped, bringing his blade down.
It suddenly stopped a hand’s width from the dark-skinned mage’s neck.
Red tendrils bound the entirety of the Dread Paladin’s armored hand and arm.
The looked slick and dripped red, but were as taut and strong as thick steel cables.
He opened his hand, releasing his blade. Only to re-form it in his other hand.
He struck like a serpent.
“Taunting!”
The blade went from the dark-skinned mage’s neck to the rapier-wielder, who parried it with a loud clang.
The agile young man cursed as the silvery band on his other wrist glowed a little hotter.
The Dread Paladin felt pain in his own wrist a moment later as his bones cracked and his tendons partially tore.
He glanced back.
His steed had been pierced and bound by the same red tendrils.
All emerging from the clay jug in a small young woman’s hands.
That wasn’t enough to deter him.
He struck again.
Third time was the charm after all.
He had heard that once.
“Fuck you!”
A strong hand caught his wrist and held it.
He strained, but found himself stuck.
Not just strong. Superstrong. Stronger than even him.
But not that much stronger.
He twisted his wrist free and slammed the hard pommel in the side of the big man’s thick helmet, sending the big man staggering away.
The steel rang like a gong.
Fourth ti—
Searing pain in his left eye tore through his concentration.
“Ha! Take that fuckhole!” the rapier-wielder had lunged in with a picture perfect thrust, sending the tip of his blade through the thin eye slit.
Such precision, such damage.
Skills had to have been used.
Unfortunately, he still had one eye.
Dark blade gave way to dark crossbow.
Bolts flew.
The rapier-wielder dodged.
More Skills.
He looked like he could’ve dodged through rain drops.
But Skills ran out and the bolts flew without end.
A bolt struck center mass.
The silver band glowed.
Bullets bounced off the Dread Paladin’s back, accompanied by a desperate warning from the young woman with the weird helmet and fancy guns.
Her fear fed him the most, but the rapier-wielder was quickly catching up.
Shadow Grasp tripped the latter up.
A barrage of bolts burned his remaining silver band, turning it dull and lifeless like the first one.
The Dread Paladin felt the leaking wounds in his chest, the holes in his plate, but they healed, if slowly.
“An eye for an eye,” he rasped as he sent the rest of dreadlings at the others. They’d die quick, but they needed to be dealt with and if the invaders were busy with that they couldn’t help their teammate.
Cooper disappeared completely. The air was too thick with fear, with dread. It had been too long since he had faced other humans. Monsters didn’t experience the emotions he fed on the same way. The trogs could’ve been like the humans and the Bat People if not for the worms.
The Vow fed, strengthened.
The techniques he had learned and practiced with dozens of therapists and Cal fell away, forgotten.
The last bolt ripped into the rapier-wielder’s eye.
One down, six to go.