I burst out of the ground, spearing a champion in the back. We’d been on the run for days and I’d barely had an hour of sleep. I and my other elites had to constantly harry and attack the pursuing army to keep them from catching up with us. The champion had skin like silver with hair that waved like the strands of some coral plant. I hadn’t even analyzed them for their name as they screamed and thrashed on my spear.

I removed his head and the screaming stopped.

Ability Gained! Rampage: (Rank 1); Chaos incarnate on the battlefield, wild and unpredictable. You let loose a roar that sends out a soundwave in a 30ft radius around you, increasing you and your allies damage against enemies hit by the soundwave by a Minor amount for the next 10 seconds.

Casting Time:

Instantaneous

Mana Cost:

35 mana

Rank up this ability to increase the strength of your roar and its damage bonus and duration. Each rank increases your Power attribute by 1.

I dismissed the notification and tossed the limp corpse over my back as I rushed into the ranks of soldiers around me.

Pandemonium occurred as the army turned around, panicking at the sudden death and attack in their midst. I released a scream like an Aztec death whistle as I used Helheim’s Scream, further increasing the fear and confusion. Exar’kun dropped out of the clouds above, torching the back ranks of the army before rising back into the air out of the reach of their abilities and weapons.

Guinevere burst out of the ground, her sword ripping through the back of a soldier's neck. A specter rose from their corpse striking at another soldier as Guinevere began cutting through surprised and panicked men and women. Despite the momentary advantage, we couldn’t stick around. Heavy footsteps approached as Arthur in his titanic armor appeared It was echoed by more heavy footsteps as more of the Atlas armor charged towards our location.

I summoned a horn to my lips and blew, activating Wild Hunt and summoning my hounds to savage and cause more chaos. Guinevere and I took off running, disappearing into the undergrowth of the forest once again. We kept running, heading parallel to where my vassals were fleeing.

We skidded to stop beside a waterfall, collapsing. I panted heavily and Guinevere leaned against me, removing her helmet.

“We can’t keep this up,” Guinevere said.

There were no bags under her eyes, her ethereal beauty untouched by her exhaustion and the days of constant fighting.

“I know,” I sighed. “But we have no choice. Do you regret coming with me?”

She took my hand. “Never, even if we lose, we have to fight for a place for our baby. We can’t accept this as the world we give to our children.”

“I got another ability that fight,” I said.

I had already upgraded the last ability I’d gotten to max rank.

Sacrificial Tree (Rank 20, Max Rank): Nature and bloodshed have been linked since the first humanoid walked upon the land. Those who shed blood are revered by those less powerful. You plant up to 100 seedlings which grow into trees. When watered with the blood of a sacrifice, the tree grows, empowering you with some of the energy gathered from the tree. You gain a +2 bonus to each attribute for every creature sacrificed to water your sapling. This bonus to attributes is removed if the tree is cut down.

When fully grown, provides a Severe damage reduction bonus to you and all your followers within 30 miles of it.

The fruit of the sacrificial tree provides healing depending on the blood it has been most recently fed. The stronger the blood, the greater the healing, even able to bring back a creature from wounds that would be impossible by any other method to heal if the creature from who the blood was gathered is powerful enough.

Fertility, prosperity, and health require sacrifice. Crops grow 3x faster in the vicinity of the Sacrificial Tree, Livestock matures 3x faster, Illnesses, Diseases and sicknesses cannot be contracted within the radius of impact of the Sacrificial Tree.

The bark of the tree peels and can be used and ground into a spice. When consumed, the user’s attributes are doubled for five minutes (experiences backlash when duration ends).

Max Rank Bonus: Sacrificial Trees adapt and can grow in any environment regardless of the climate, lack of soil or water. Only the blood and souls of sacrifices are needed to continue.

Cast Time

1 hour*

Mana Cost

3000 per seedling

Rank up this ability to increase the powers granted by the sacrificial tree. Each upgrade increases your Might, Speed, Toughness, Endurance, Mind, Spirit, Perception, and Power attributes by 1.

This ability could prove one of my most powerful if I had time to properly implement it. That was the problem, I didn’t have time to even sleep right now. I planned on upgrading the ability I had just gotten, but I still had a new ability I’d gained the other day that was on the back burner for being upgraded.

Lunging Strike: (Rank 1); You flash forwards twelve feet dealing x1.2 damage to the following attack.

Upgrade this ability to increase the range of your lunge and the damage of the attack. Each upgrade increases your Speed Attribute by 1.

Cost:

8 stamina

Casting Time:

Instantaneous

It was an interesting little ability and a fairly common variety based on what I’d seen when fighting other gifted. I didn’t have time to waste on it just now so I’d have to upgrade it some other day when the lives of so many other people didn’t depend on me.

I’d gotten another ability as well

Golem’s Eye: (Rank 1); Sometimes abilities and old magic are not so far apart. Your use of enchanting and runes has been noted. You can infuse stolen life force into a stone. When implanted into a humanoid shape made of clay, it will awaken into a Golem. The Golem has the ability to gain Ranks, abilities and even titles, but its will is subservient to yours. The Golem is born with 5 in each Attribute and has a natural additional +10 to its mana and stamina regen rate.

Upgrade this ability to increase the base Attributes and regen rate of the Golem. Each rank up of this ability increases your Perception by 2.

Cost:

500 mana

Casting Time:

1 hour

The System had given me the option to merge this ability with Living Stone, but I’d decided to keep them separate. I wasn’t even sure if creating something that was implied had its own sentience but was enslaved to my will was moral. I recognized the hypocrisy given my ability Dominion, but it was still something to think about.

“System, raise Rampage to rank twenty,” I said.

I dismissed the usual notifications until I got to my options.

Congratulations. You have raised an ability to rank five; please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.

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· Your speed and might is doubled while Rampage is active (suffer backlash when effect ends).

· Your roar removes buffs affecting your enemies.

· Your allies and your weapons gain the Impact status for the duration of Rampage.

Looking over the abilities, I picked the second. Backlash was bad, as while I might be able to take it, all my vassals suffering it would be a problem. I didn’t know what Impact would do and would rather weaken my enemies than give my own side some unknown buff.

Rampage (Rank 5): Chaos incarnate on the battlefield, wild and unpredictable. You let loose a roar that sends out a soundwave in a 30ft radius around you increasing you and your allies damage against enemies hit by the soundwave by a Moderate amount for the next 10 seconds.

Enemies caught in the sound wave have up to 1 random buff removed.

Casting Time:

Instantaneous

Mana Cost:

45 mana

Rank up this ability to increase the strength of your roar and its damage bonus and duration. Each rank increases your Power attribute by 1.

I dismissed the ability upgrade and the following ones until I got to the next section.

Congratulations. You have raised an ability to rank ten; please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.

· Your allies gain damage reduction equal to the damage you are currently suffering.

· Enemies hit by the roar have their speed reduced.

· You reduce the damage resistances of your enemies in [insert size here] radius.

The first ability would require me to stay wounded. This was both something to be avoided because it would result in me being close to death and was something that didn’t happen too much thanks to my regeneration, and it would be useful, but I noticed the speed was lowercase, not uppercase implying it wouldn’t be lowering their Speed attribute but just their movement speed. That left the third option, which was good for both me and my vassals since all our attacks would hit harder.

Rampage (Rank 10): Chaos incarnate on the battlefield, wild and unpredictable. You let loose a roar that sends out a soundwave in a 30ft radius around you increasing you and your allies damage against enemies hit by the soundwave by a Major amount for the next 10 seconds.

Enemies caught in the sound wave have up to 2 random buffs removed.

Damage resistances of enemies caught in the radius are reduced by 10% for the duration of this ability.

Casting Time:

Instantaneous

Mana Cost:

55 mana

Rank up this ability to increase the strength of your roar and its damage bonus and duration. Each rank increases your Power attribute by 1.

Dismissing the notification, I moved on through the following notifications until I got the next upgrade section.

Congratulations. You have raised an ability to rank fifteen; please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.

· You heal for every kill you make while Ramage is active.

· You acquire a crit chance while Rampage is active.

· You gain the Enraged buff while Ramage is active.

I already had many effective ways of healing, and I didn’t want to focus down even more on my rage as I’d already pushed back on walking more down that path. I took the crit chance since it seemed the safest and most generically useful of the options.

Rampage (Rank 15): Chaos incarnate on the battlefield, wild and unpredictable. You let loose a roar that sends out a soundwave in a 30ft radius around you increasing you and your allies damage against enemies hit by the soundwave by a Severe amount for the next 10 seconds.

Enemies caught in the sound wave have up to 2 random buffs removed.

Damage resistances of enemies caught in the blast radius is reduced by 10% for the duration of this ability.

Your attacks have a 20% chance to deal double damage while this effect is active.

Cost:

Instantaneous

Mana Cost:

65 mana

Rank up this ability to increase the strength of your roar and its damage bonus and duration. Each rank increases your Power attribute by 1.

Glancing over the upgraded ability, I dismissed it and moved on.

Congratulations. You have raised an ability to rank twenty; please pick from one of the three additional effects for your ability from the list below.

· You gain a damage charge for every kill while rampage is active.

· Rampage inflicts the Maddened condition on enemies in the radius.

· Kills made while rampage is active gain you Momentum.

I wasn’t sure what a damage charge was, so I dismissed that option. The same was for the second option, because I didn’t know what Maddened would do. Momentum was fairly self-explanatory, so I picked the third option.

Rampage (Rank 20, Max Rank): Chaos incarnate on the battlefield, wild and unpredictable. You let loose a roar that sends out a soundwave in a 30ft radius around you increasing you and your allies damage against enemies hit by the soundwave by a Severe amount for the next 10 seconds.

Enemies caught in the sound wave have up to 2 random buffs removed.

Damage resistances of enemies caught in the blast radius is reduced by 10% for the duration of this ability.

Your attacks have a 20% chance to deal double damage while this effect is active.

While this ability is active, for each kill you make you gain a stack of Momentum*.

*Momentum: Increases your Speed attribute by 5 for the next thirty seconds.

Max Rank Bonus: While Rampage is active, every fifth attack deals extra Extreme damage.

Casting Time:

Instantaneous

Mana Cost:

75 mana

Rank up this ability to increase the strength of your roar and its damage bonus and duration. Each rank increases your Power attribute by 1.

I stood up, feeling the increase of mana through my veins.

“Ready to go?” Guinevere asked me.

“Yeah,” I sighed.

The upgrade hadn’t even been a real break, but we didn’t have the time for that. Every minute we let Arthur’s army move uncontested, the closer they got to my vassals. We started running again. We skirted around some cliffs and up a ridge. Ducking down, we crawled forwards until I could see the tree’s moving as the hundreds of thousands of troops made their way through them.

I compressed dozen of boulders and inscribed a quick and dirty enchantment on them. The enchantment was unstable and would explode in a few seconds, but that was plenty of time for me. I launched them with Telekinesis and the enchantments activated. Sonic booms shook the air as they sped up even faster than I could launch them. Trees shattered and toppled as the magical artillery hit the army. Moments later they exploded spraying stone shrapnel shards out.

The bombardment continued and moved through the tree line to confuse them about where the attacks were coming from. When some foolish soldiers charged me and got within range, I blasted them with lightning which chained through them. They were strong enough not to be killed outright by the lightning, but Guinevere dashed through their midst, the burning halo of her Cursed Crown ability hanging above her head as specters rose from the bodies of the men and women she had killed. The specters rushed towards the army, but it was doubtful they would kill more than a handful of others before they were destroyed. In our battle of attrition though, every kill counted.

More and more boulders hit the main body of the army and I got another notification from the System.

Flame Elemental: (Rank 1); From the magma fires of your hearts comes a new flame. You draw the spirit of flame out of a burning fire within ten feet of you creating a Flame Elemental. The Flame Elemental can withstand Moderate Damage and will deal Minor Fire damage with all of its attacks.

Upgrade this ability to increase the number of elementals and the damage they can take and deal. Each rank of this ability increases your Endurance Attribute by 1.

Cost:

15 stamina

Casting Time:

1 minute

The ability would increase my capability, but I already had one summon ability that was better than this, so I didn’t see myself using this much. It was yet another ability to add to the upgrade later pile.

Heavy armored figures in the Atlas armor move out of the debris clouds. The sounds of thunder echoed as magical cannons and spells were unleashed on our position. Guinevere and I were already running. I’d only taken a shot from one of those cannons once and it had almost ripped my body in half; it wasn’t an experience I wanted to relive anytime soon.

Guinevere and I hid in a cave. After half-an-hour of brief rest, we headed out again. I never repeated the exact same attack twice; they were always prepared if I tried copying old tricks. Luckily, I wasn’t limited to just my abilities like most champions. I had magic and a tome that could invent more spells than this world even knew.

I started making new enchantments, burying them through the forest as we moved ahead of the army. After an hour I heard the first explosion. The enchantments wouldn’t kill many, but they would slow them down as they were forced to look for the traps. Right now, just slowing them down was a victory, buying valuable time.

We were in full retreat for the most part. I wasn’t even sure what or if we had a plan. Sometimes survival is the only plan or goal there is. A fox running from a pack of hounds doesn’t have a plan. It may try to outsmart them but the only thing it’s focused on is survival. That’s how I felt right now, like a fox being pursued by a pack of dogs.

I didn’t like the feeling. My every instinct screamed at me to rush headlong into that army and not stop fighting till one of us was dead. That was the old me though. I wasn’t ruled by my desire to prove myself or my thirst for blood anymore. What separates a man from an animal is his ability to ignore his instincts. I had to survive, not for my sake, but Guinevere and our baby's. For now, that just meant running.