King Gold roared as he dove into the lines of drak, and the quivering creatures were further intimidated by the answering roars behind him.
The berserkers came to the aid of their king, and slammed into the drak lines in a murderous frenzy. Nothing was going to stop them on the charge, and blood of the Lion fought against the blood of dragons with murderous enthusiasm.
---
King Grey was anywhere and everywhere he was needed, protecting and fighting for his pack, just another set of jaws and eyes, ripping drak off their feet to set them up for a hacking Axe or plunging Spear, or tearing out a throat to finish a pinned drak. He moved like a ghost, shifting to where he was needed with incredible speed, and eating and drinking his fill of drak as he had never imagined he might.
Rather liked the taste, too...
---
Elder Arg threw a crok through the air, over ten tons of lizard used like a club, smashing into and sweeping away two wyverns who thought themselves dangerous. Before they could recover, the great Ape was upon them, fists smashing, and they didn’t manage to stab him with their poisoned tails even once. His mailed paws came down on the crok’s belly after crushing the skulls of the two wyverns, massive hands reached down, bent, and twisted, and were rewarded with a loud crack.
There were always more targets. He bounded towards the next one, opening a path for the chakon and champa-ka to exploit, and leaping apes followed him into the path he made, wrapping up the drak and bringing them down to be killed by the following Rockborn and Ironblood.
------
Hag Princesses on dragons were falling from the sky. Void Brothers were sweeping in like hunting hawks, garbed in swirls of magic-flensing colors, gathering on their prey.
The Elephant she had chained and bound and stolen power from was back, fighting the Wyrm she had taken for her latest mate, while he writhed under the continued impact of shining Bolts punching through his scales like they weren’t there. One of the Void Brothers, his Helix a grim whorl of great bloody stripes, was closing on the Wyrm, his Glaive already a Brilliant arc of moonlight.
And so Hagmom turned and ran.
I had to admit, she had good instincts. Without hesitation, I took off after her, as a hunting horn rang out loud and low in my head.
---
The haror had claimed the sky. The spellcasters who could be a threat to them were basically gone. Without missing a beat, they drew their Bows from the Quivers on their backs, One More Arrows materialized on the strings, and they remained just outside the no-fly zone as they began a withering and brutal rain of fire down upon the drak below, especially those who looked like they might want to come up into the air.
The Company turned and worked in that direction, even as other drak were milling in confusion, running this way and that, some trying to help out the other drak, others running to the aid of the downed Hags. It was confusing, the line of command was all broken, and the reformed Company took full advantage of it, breaking out from the Stillflight area so the haror could glide in closer and support more easily. Silver flashes and grim steel were delivered with unerring power and teamwork, and the drak died in rage and confusion in mass numbers, but die they did.
---
Heavenbound reunited with Griffons, and together went to beat on dragons and drak. Wrath sliced and blazed with The Light, working with all the other powers here to strike and to slay, and working particularly well with the haror gliding like angels of starry death above.
------------
There was no doubt Hagmom was fast.
She had a base move of 50, tripled with Exemplar status, and even invoked a spell of Motion to add another 30.
Which was pretty cool for sheer brute physical speed. My base was 60, add 15 for Dash, add +10 for Nog, double all that for Flowing Waters lightfoot, and then add +20 for Swift Soul while running, and x5 move running instead of x4 via Fleet.
There was no way she could outrun me.
My Arakne Arms were out, Fall’s trigger was held down, and Sparky was shooting away. Both could operate completely independent of my scampering along at 90 mph, and all her preternatural agility and stolen favor from Time and Chance weren’t helping her. I was punching holes in her fine robes as her skinny legs covered a lot of ground, the swamp erupting with the force of her every step, and Health Qi was venting in little spurts of red.
She couldn’t run away from me, and she couldn’t evade me. Spikes and rays of light girt in banefire matched with continuous Bolts of force, and were eating her Health Qi away. I had veered in and was keeping her away from the ley line canyon blasted through the ground, meaning if she wanted to get closer to it, we were going to go fisticuffs. Whole rivers and lakes were being drained into the thing, resulting in the awesome sight of waterfalls miles and miles long plunging into the darkness below.
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Maybe they’d fill it up, maybe not. It wouldn’t matter in the end. I did get some nice eye candy pictures I could relay out to everyone to oooh and aaaah over, lots of water rainbows reaching right to the horizon. /Markchatvistas was a thing.
Quaver and Tremble were in my hands, but I couldn’t use them while running this fast, even skate-stepping as I was. Having Wayfair along would have helped, but she was having much too much fun raining death from above back there... and she really had absolutely no desire to mess with a Hag Empress who could rip her apart basically as soon as she was grabbed.
I didn’t say anything, I didn’t taunt, I didn’t do much of anything other than ghost her and fill her full of 100-200 points of damage every six seconds, whittling down her Health Qi continuously.
She slid to a halt with physics-defying power, ripping open the soil of the bank upon which she was stopping. A hundred yards away, water poured into the new canyon with a roar that shook the very air, continuing as it did right to the horizon. Good luck filling that anytime soon...
She turned to face me, clawed feet holding her in place firmly. Her eyes were like black stars, bright and powerful, but there was an asymmetry to her features, above and beyond the Cursed nature of her appearance. Yeah, the long hook-like nose, the skin the color of a black eye, the chin like an ice pick, scraggly teeth like adamant nails, claws that could rend steel in bad need of a clipping, and overly long arms and legs with tendons like cables, moving with tremendous power...
The Mankillers of the Hags, and she was a perfect Annis, a stolen Exemplar.
“You gonna bring out the tentacles or not?” More importantly, I didn’t stop shooting, although I didn’t bother to focus on her face, since anywhere I hit was fine enough to vent Health Qi. She was healing, why would I stop shooting?
Her dark eyes narrowed. There was a shuffle and bulge behind her, as concealing magic gave way. An eye popped up on her waist, skin peeled back and oozed acidic goo, exposing organs that were far from natural beneath; her bones shifted and bent in ways evolution would never cause... and the four tentacles of her Pseudonatural State ripped themselves out wetly from inside her.
“Who are you?” she rasped, and the grating fingernails-on-chalkboard voice had that extra reverb that comes from originating from something infected with matter from Outside space-time. “You seem familiar...” She ignored the continued missile fire as if it were gnats, eyes traveling to my Swords, which were droning a Song in dire harmony that could unsettle even her. Their seething hate and long expectation was coming out in tonals of dread joy.
“Your memory must be going.” Her physiology was completely warped, so not surprising. “Not unexpected. Don’t you know that artificially endowed supernatural Templates don’t stack?”
i.e. the massive Stat bonuses from the two Templates didn’t stack, nor did any Luck and Insight bonuses, if they affected the same thing. However, it was remarkable how little overlap there actually was.
The big things off the Pseudonatural Template she got were a greater strength buff and a massive natural armor bonus, plus the tentacles. For a combat-happy Annis clawing for power, those were some pretty nice benefits.
Quaver and Tremble already looked like solid light. Brilliant, the enchantment for dragon-killing, ignored Natural Armor, which effectively tanked her AC by 40 points. Too bad, so sad.
Her Strength score was probably about 60, given some of the stuff she was wearing. I definitely couldn’t match that... although in Might, I was actually higher with the bars of my Philosopher’s Might glowing hot white.
Her Luck and Insight bonuses weren’t even going to slow me down, I was Beyond them. She could go looking for possibilities all day and effectively find none. The massive Health boost... was a non-issue. The only thing I was concerned with was her pool of Health Qi, and how long it would take to bring it down.
And Hells, since she was sitting still, no reason not to start Sharding her.
My arms began to butterfly, and cuts, stabs, stars, and scythes of shining energy began to join the shots from Tail and Arms. They didn’t get my Sage bonus, but everything else came though, and she staggered as they hit, because of my operational Strength.
I had Nogged my Strength to base 18. Levels and Masteries had given me a +14 to it, leaving me at a 32. My Girdle of Jotun Power was upgraded... it could either raise me to 31, or give me a +5 bonus, with a x4 lifting capacity, as if I was four times my size. Those stacked with my Gauntlets’ boost of +4, since my Sword was my Hammer.
I had taken my Hag Levels after I completed my Human ones. As an Annis-blood, the primary benefit was the +10 Strength bonus, up from the Human +2, and the Nat Armor. Skin like iron, after all. With no Curse corrupting it, it was actually not the slightest bit unsightly, and it only tinged if I wanted it to.
Upgraded Strength Mark added +4, up from +2, and Warshifter added +5.
Yeah, I had a working 56 Strength right now. My Might was actually at 76, which she was gonna find out if things got close.
With my Girdle, that meant right now I could surge-bench 1600 tons, give or take. I could tote around about a hundred tons.
She didn’t have the x4 benchpress of my Girdle, but 65 was about Hulk-level Strength, as I understood it... before the green-skinned comic character went berserk or something, of course. So, we were both up there in superhero range, and definitely not alone, as Mah Fuzzy was proving back there. He was a couple miles away, and I was pretty sure I could hear the impacts of Endure with my own ears, if not through Marktell.
So, she was functionally probably about twice as Powerful as me, which translated to +2 or +3. A 60 Strength meant +25 to hit... normal armor functionally didn’t exist at this level of power, and even enchanted armor would be overwhelmed. It would barely slow down a blow at all, without something to back it.
Her head snapped up abruptly as I was reviewing my AC and to-hit numbers versus hers. “You! From the dream! That accursed soul that wouldn’t die!” All five of the eyes I could see on her were fixed on Tremble, who was ringing with our Song.
Ho, she actually knew it? I laughed at her, and began to advance. “I’ve killed you three times, Hagmother! Let’s make it a fourth, shall we?”
All those misplaced eyes fixed on my face, and now there was recognition, I was de-lighted to see!
Not of me. Of who I resembled. Of the girl that she had used to be, all those millennia ago, before she became a Hag. With a scream, she inflated in size, doubling her eight feet of bent-over height to sixteen, arms reaching out with fingers like cleaver blades.
It was on!