Guinevere gathered Helen and the other Champions in the command tent. One way or another this might be the last meeting where they were all together. Chritor stepped into the tent sweat glistening on his metallic bronze skin as his four arms carried a massive chest. Hefting it onto the table he flashed a bright white smile at everyone.
“I finally finished them!” he exclaimed.
“That’s great,” Jamis said hesitantly. “Finished what?”
Chritor deflated somewhat. “I have been thinking about how to counter the Warlord’s greatest power.”
“His ability to dominate others?” Helen asked.
“He’s probably already ranked it to forty,” Felecia said shuddering at the thought.
“What is it you created?” Helen asked, bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand.
Chritor opened the chest and handed an amulet from the chest to everyone in the room. Holding it up they all examined it and read the prompt the system gave them.
Amulet of Mind Shielding: Type: Jewelry (Neck), Rarity: Rare, Hardness: 10. While wearing this amulet you are immune to all mind control, domination, enslavement and suggestion abilities and spells.
Made by a protégé in both smithing and enchanting.
Durability: 25-25.
The description was short but evocative the value of these amulets could not be expressed by a mere description.
“Are all these amulets the same?” Felrick asked as he placed the necklace around his neck.
“Yes,” Chritor said a look of weariness on his face. “I’ve been working at it nonstop since we learned for sure it was the Warlord we were fighting. I’m all out materials but I have enough for every member of our army.”
“It’s not perfect,” Helen said putting on the amulet and tucking it under her armor. “They could be stolen by some Thief ability or removed if we fall unconscious.”
“But it will prevent the Warlord from dominating large groups of our army if we encounter him,” Ishtor said.
“You are truly one of the greatest craftsmen of this age,” Artel complemented.
“It is a magnificent gift and contribution to our fight,” Guinevere agreed placing her amulet back in the chest.
Everyone turned to her.
“You aren’t going to put it on?” Mira asked concerned.
“I’ve never had to worry about the Warlord’s domination,” Guinevere said. “He had a master enchanter engrave an almost identical enchantment onto my collar bone when I was thirteen.”
“Enchanting flesh!” Helen exclaimed. “But that’s forbidden! It is the heresy of the Magi.”
“My father is the Merlin,” Guinevere said. “He has immunity of the law when it comes to practicing and studying magic.”
Felrick frowned. “it’s still not ethical even if it legal. That kind of surgery and procedure is agony, I can’t imagine what kind of monster would do that to a child.”
“The kind who wished to forge a weapon,” Guinevere snapped. “You will refrain from impugning my father’s character again in my presence. Of all of us here I am the readiest for this fight, I have been prepared since I was ten to fight Champions.”
“Don’t you mean Chaos Spawn?” Torvin asked.
“No,” Guinevere said flatly. “I was raised to be able to defeat any Champion that might threaten my kingdom, and I will no matter who they are.”
“We should distribute these amulets,” Helen said breaking in before anyone could get testy with Guinevere. The champions broke up to distribute the mind shielding amulets and to prepare for the battle.
----
My eyes snapped open as the gates to the temple opened the entrance pure white as blinding sunlight flooded the darkness. I stood my shield on my left arm and the wyvern bone spear in my right. I strode towards the entrance.
“Bestial Senses,” I muttered quietly. I didn’t put it past Astrel to try an ambush and kill me before the duel. Exiting the temple, I entered the massive city square outside. People had gathered around. They stood on the streets and sat atop the nearby rooftops to get a view of the spectacle. In the daylight I could see that there were actually a few warriors around. Most of the people were women or craftsmen, the rest of the warriors must have been part of the army that was attacking my vassals.
Slamming my spear down I waited.
Priestess and soldiers kept the crowd back. Astrel stood across from me on the other side of the square, his appearance was unchanged other than wearing a helmet with a visage of a dragon engraved on its visor. An energy dome appeared over us, it was about three hundred feet in diameter and half that in height. Readying myself I waited for the fight to be announced.
Remara stepped forward, her attire was more flamboyant and ceremonial than what she had worn the night before. “The Warlord has challenged the leader of our Clan to single combat for the right to lead us. As the law of strength says we serve the most powerful in our Clan or the champion of Kelesa!” she said to the assembly. “Witness now the battle and swear your allegiance to the one that war smiles upon.”
Before her last sentence was even over Astrel was charging me. His footfalls cracked the stone paving stones. A blast of fire exploded from the soles of his feet sending him skyward like rocket propellent. Dragon wings appeared from his back spreading wide as he approached me like a comment.
Teleporting to the side he struck the ground where I’d been. My spear was already going for his neck, suddenly he disappeared a glowing rune left on the ground. I felt him appear behind me but before I could turn the rune exploded launching me backwards. Somersaulting I twisted around the slash and jab of Astrel’s spear. Using my pauldrons and boots to deflect and block the strikes where I could given their indestructible nature. I was mostly doing a series of acrobatics instead of fighting. I spent the forty mana to activate my ring of Stone Skin, increasing my skin’s hardness by six and reducing the physical damage I would take by half.
Teleporting ten feet back I managed to get my feet steady under me. Astrel leaned forward and his mouth opened, I dropped down behind my shield as a cone of green flames surrounded me. Sweat ran down my skin but the shield blocked the main force of the flames and Fire Resistance III reduced the damage of the flames that hit the parts of my legs not protected by my boots.
I charged forward straight through the flames and lunged forward. The flames ended just as my spearpoint was an inch from Astrel’s neck. It hit but as the spear tip pushed into flesh it was repelled as thick dragon scales formed completely negating the attack. A violet, malignant aura pulsed out from Astrel and hit me.
You are in the effect of a Curse Aura, all damage you take will be increased by three stages.
Astrel stabbed forward and I barely twisted to the side the spearhead skidding over my skin; it didn’t cut but purple flames did burst into light along my abdomen. He twisted the spear in his hand, the opposite end coming up like a scorpion stinger over the top of my shield. I headbutted the spear, it wasn’t the greatest plan, but it knocked the strike from hitting me in the chest.
Suddenly a tail swept around wrapping around my legs, the tail was as thick as my forearm and as agile as a python covered in thick black scales with glowing red rim, a line of spines extending up the tail which led around to Astrel’s rear. The tail began to squeeze, and my bones and flesh protested. Astrel raised his spear to finish me off as his tail kept me down on the ground.
Phantom Form resisted activation; it never liked it when I was in contact with another being. It ended up costing six times its normal cost, but the spear passed through my chest. Purple flames burned my spirit, but I rolled out from it and jumped back turning physical again. The act of changing back to my physical state again put out the curse flames but I still felt the ache in my spirit from the damage they’d been able to do.
Astrel lunged forward again, the tip of his spear brightening with some ability.
Look out! Karnen warned as my Foresight went ballistic.
His body blurred even to my enhanced perception as one strike turned into hundreds. There was no way I could dodge them all my Foresight just couldn’t handle the sheer quantity of possible angles and attacks coming my way. Falling back on instinct I used my shield to block the majority of the attacks and my spear to ward off the ones going for the parts of my body not covered by it or armor. A massive strike hit my shield and my entire arm went numb. Another equally powerful attack hit, Astrel was muttering the command phrase for one of his abilities under his breath as he spammed the ability over and over.
My shield arm began to hang limp as all the feeling was driven from it and the force of the strikes reverberating through the shield began to actually cause damage, fracturing my forearm and turning the muscles there to mush. Falling back, I teleported to the edge of the dome and dropped my shield. I couldn’t use it properly and I needed a free hand. Raising my still shaky left hand I pointed it at Astrel who was charging me again blasting forward with his own teleportation ability. The ground exploded where he disappeared from as he closed the distance in a few heartbeats.
“Chain Lighting!” I said.
Blue bands of electricity snapped out all arcing towards Astrel, now only a dozen feet away from me.
“Mage Bane,” Astrel said, and a barrier appeared around him the Lighting striking into it and running off grounding harmlessly into the ground.
Astrel held his spear one handed and lunged at me with a burst of speed, the dragon wings appearing on his back again to give him the extra boost. I twisted dodging the deadly cursed spear-tip but Astrel’s other attack made it through. I saw it at the last second it my Foresight but there was nothing I could do prevent it at that point. Astrel grabbed my spear from my hand and ripped it from my grasp. Planting one end against the ground, he brought up his knee and broke my spear in two and flicked his wrist. My own spear rammed into my chest and Astrel spun kicking ramming it through my armored skin and through my ribs into my left heart.
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Staggering backwards I teleported away. Grabbing the shaft, I ripped out the bloody spear-tip spraying blood out across the ground. It hissed as it touched the stone, dropping the broken haft I downed a healing potion from my belt. The potion and Troll Hide began closing the wound, but Astrel was already charging me again. Astrel teleported again, I was ready for an attack from behind or either side but instead Astrel appeared a hundred feet above.
“Falling Star!” Astrel snarled.
Fast as a beam of light Astrel hit me square in the chest sending me backwards and skidding along the ground on my back. Astrel charged me again.
“Petrifying Gaze,” he said his eyes meeting mine.
Everything slowed down for me, and it felt like I was moving through molasses. I pulled my club from my belt and forced myself to my feet and to move past the petrifying effect as I broke eye contact with Astrel. Stone dust flaked off my skin. Astrel swung and stabbed with his double ended spear at me. I blocked and did my best to parry but Astrel had boosted his Might and it was a struggle to not stagger down to my knees with each strike.
My club couldn’t be broken thanks to being made from nemean bone, however that wasn’t the same as damage and I watched as the bone began to twist and warp. Every hit I blocked as Astrel powered forward warped the weapon in my hands. In less than a minute my weapon had been bent into a U shape. Astrel’s tail whipped out and I was too slow to avoid it. Knocked to the ground again Astrel raised his spear to try and finish me off again.
Instead of turning incorporeal I rolled to the side as the spear slammed down beside me. Reaching out I grabbed at the spearhead.
“Compress Earth,” I said. I fed mana to my Spirit Cannon, and it swiveled on my shoulder focusing on Astrel’s face and letting off a beam of silver light.
Stone flowed up the spear shaft and the dirt and stone for twenty feet compressed into one solid mass. I wouldn’t have been able to do this before but my practice with the ability was paying off. Astrel yanked up straining before jumping back to avoid the beam of Soul Damage from my spirit cannon. Able to use his distraction to finish the job I successfully trapped Astrel’s spear into the ground. He wasn’t getting his spear out unless he had a similar ability to mine or a magical bulldozer.
Abandoning his spear Astrel splayed his fingers. “Dragon Claws,” he snarled as his nails grew and thickened into eight-inch-long black claws.
“Hell’s Talon’s,” I said in response my own claws growing from my fingers.
Astrel lunged forward and I blocked pushing his attack to the side. Astrel had been much better than me with his spear compared to my skill with spears and clubs combined, however when it came to direct hand to hand combat it turned out I was the better fighter. It was only a slight advantage, and I could tell I was losing, we’d both gone through pretty much every active ability we had and he was able to counter or withstand pretty much everything I had.
I needed to overwhelm him quickly before he could adapt. I hadn’t wanted to do it, but this was a literal do or die moment. I activated the speed boost on my boots and the size increase from my helm. Astrel’s eyes widened as I swelled in size towering over him. He slashed out at me with his claws, I was a much bigger target, but I was also much faster. I brought up my leg blocking his claws against the scales of my boots; then I kicked him like a soccer ball. My increase in stats was impressive but I only sent Astrel flying a dozen yards before his wings snapped out and he alighted on the ground.
It wasn’t over yet thought and tackled him my shoulder hitting his chest as I was almost parallel to the ground. His back slammed up against the barrier and I rammed my claws into his abdomen. The dragon scales formed blunting my attack, but I still managed to stab them three inches into his stomach. Purple flames burst from his wounds as the curse damage took hold.
Astrel’s own claws were stabbing and raking across my body, but I was letting my rage loose and barely felt anything as I tore into him. My claws stabbed in over and over and slashed across his arms as he raised them to defend himself. The curse damage was doing the lion’s share of the damage the wounds rapidly closing but the burning purple flames remaining. Astrel lunged forwards tackling me backwards, he drove his claws into my chest but had as much trouble penetrating my skin as I had his.
Rolling across the ground we each tried to pin the other and rip their chest open. The short duration of our claws made us keep having to activate them. In the end I won because of Storm Soul, Astrel was a much higher rank than me, but his mana pool was still nowhere close to mine. He was beating against me with his bare fist. I closed my massive, enlarged hands around his neck, my talons ripping through the scales and skin into his neck. I strangled and tore into his throat, eventually ripping out his trachea.
Astrel died instantly, higher rank or no you just couldn’t survive without certain parts of your body. I fell backwards sitting back. The boost to my speed ended and I shrank back down. The backlash from both effects hit me the same time I received the notifications from the systems. I could barely see from the exhaustion and wanted nothing more than to pass out.
Blood and Souls (Repeatable): Kill 10,240 monsters or humanoids. Current Progress 348 out of 10,240. When you complete this quest, you will gain 2,048 Rank Points, and the next quest will require double the amount to be completed but will award double the rank points.
You have completed a hidden objective and earned a title. Objective kill a high tier Hero Gifted while still only in Veteran rank.
Reward: Challenger.
*Challenger: You have proven yourself multiple times in combat against creatures vastly more powerful than you and not only survived but triumphed. You do one more damage stage and receive one less damage stage against higher Tier Gifted than you.
Something flew out of a pouch at Astrel’s side and slammed into my chest melting and flowing through the wounds of my skin.
You have absorbed the bone of an adult fire dragon which has bonded to your Spirit Attribute and will fuel and guide your soul’s mutation when you pass the Hero limit for your Spirit Attribute.
The notification vanished to be replaced by another.
Bone Merge: (Rank 1); You can infuse your weapons with the nonmagical remains of your enemies, the flora of your environment or the corpses of animals and beasts. Your weapons gain different properties bases on the nature of the materials and their hardness is increased by 1.
Cost: 1 mana per square-foot
Upgrade this ability to determine what types of materials from your enemies can be merged into your weapons, to gain exotic effects and increase to their hardness. Each upgrade to this Ability increases your Spirit Attribute by 1.
Again, the ability disappeared as soon as I read it to be replaced again by another system prompt.
Your abilities, Compress Earth and Bone Merge, have synergy with each other. Would you like to sacrifice these abilities to combine them into the ability Hell Dragon’s Armory? Ability will be a more powerful combination of both abilities but will only get the standard amount of additional effects.
Yes / No
I was so addled by the fight and the backlash from using both of my boosting items I just mentally selected yes.
No, you idiot! Karnen screamed in my head. Your spirit is already at the maximum for Hero Rank!
Oh, shit.
There was a pain I couldn’t describe. It hit me so hard I hadn’t even been able to activate Wrathful Meditation. I was lost in the agony as my Spirit went up twenty attribute ranks from one-hundred-and-twenty-one to one-hundred-and-forty-one. The maximum attribute for Hero was one-twenty-five so I was well and truly over it. Pushing past the pain I was able to activate Wrathful Meditation. Amazingly I could still feel the pain although it was diminished severely.
“Why can I still feel pain?” I asked Karnen through gritted teeth.
Your soul is literally on fire! Karnen shouted at me mentally. This has nothing to do with your physical being, the fact that a title can block any of this is a miracle!
You sure panic a lot, Voidra said.
Our host is literally dying for real this time! Karnen yelled at her.
Oh, Voidra said coming off her post battle high. We should probably stop that.
I finally got the prompt as my abilities merged.
Hell-Dragon’s Armory: (Rank 20) (Max Rank); You can infuse both earth, stone & metal with organic materials to create unique more durable and heavier materials that can be shaped by your world. You can fuse a 524,288 square-foot section of earth, stone, metal, or organic materials. Your earth-organic alloys have a hardness rating of 15, your compressed common earth has a hardness rating of 12. The detail you can sculpt with is based on your Mind, Spirit & Perception attributes.
You can use common, uncommon, rare, magical, and enchanted, earth, stone, metal and organic materials. Your creations have different properties and effects based on the materials used.
Final Rank Bonus: The weapons and armor made with this skill are empowered with Hell and Draconic Energies dealing a moderate amount of fire and/or curse damage or granting a moderate amount of resistance to fire and/or curse damage when worn.
Upgrade this ability to increase the hardness and uses of this ability. Each rank up increases your Spirit and Mind by 1.
Cost: 2 mana per square foot.
I’d barely read through the new ability before its description was replaced with another notification.
Congratulations! You have raised one of your Attributes beyond 125 the Veteran limit. Your body will now physiologically change to adjust to this increase to keep your Attribute from killing you.
Warning! You have raised one of your attributes to Exarch Rank while still only in Veteran Rank. Your survival is doubtful, do your best to survive. Balancing your attributes has the best chance of increasing your survival.
Spend your attribute points directly on your Attributes, Karnen said.
“No,” I grunted.
No? Karnen asked flabbergasted. Your soul is literally about to burn into nothingness, now is not the time to hoard rank points.
I sat cross legged on the ground. “If I’m going to win this game, I’m going to do it the right way.”
Your spirit has mutated to allow the spirits inhabiting it to absorb the life energies of the creatures you’ve slain to strengthen themselves and by extension you, increasing theirs and your soul’s resiliency and resistance to being damaged.
Instantly I could sense energies slowly flowing off of Astrel’s corpse. Karnen and Voidra reached out with invisible tendrils and pulled the energy into me draining his corpse of it. The agony I was in lessened somewhat but it was nowhere close to being gone. I looked down at my torso and saw something very different.
“Why am I glowing like a nightlight?” I asked.
All my scars were shining white like I was tin can covered with holes and shoved over a lightbulb.
Your spirit is too powerful for your body to contain properly, Karnen said.
It’s actually a little uncomfortable, Voidra said. Like being inside an oven.
“So sorry to inconvenience you,” I said dryly.
I stood shakily looking out over the assembly of the Dragon Clan.
“I hope someone doesn’t try to challenge me now, I don’t think I can fight even a house cat right now,” I said.
The dome came down and the assembly of the Dragon Clan fell to their knees.
“Hail the Warlord!” they shouted.
Remara brought out a throne and I did my best to not stumble as I made my way over to it and sat down.
----
Guinevere looked out over the fields around the fortified town. It was dawn and they were ready to attack. With the addition of the Dragon Clan, they now numbered nine-thousand strong, giving them four to one against those occupying the fortress.
There was a thick tension in the air and soldiers were gathering on the wall opposite everyone able to tell that this was a day that would be marked in history. The Army would attack in three prongs rather than try to merge the three different factions and mess with the complications and restructuring that would require.
Atrel was in charge of the Dragon Clan, they had few ranged specialists among them and were mostly front-line fighters. Their advantage was that over three-quarters of them had flight abilities so could rapidly reach the top or fly over the wall.
The Lunarens were primarily archer and ranged focus so they would fire on the walls and the ground inside the walls. Once a spot on the wall or gate opened was clear they would advance but until then they would remain at a distance.
The force of Camelot was a mixture of heavy infantry and cavalry, they didn’t have any mounts aside from the few bears Jamis had managed to rear in the time they had. Given their lack of mounts they would assault the walls and gate with a ladder and a ram.
Helen stepped forward raising her staff. “Soldiers of Lunara!” She called out. “Attack!”