Serpentlord (Rise To Omniscience Book 9), page 15
Morgan looked to the soldiers who were almost all recovered, then to the wall. The light in the sky was fading fast, which meant their attack needed to start soon.
“I’ll give you the short version for now,” Morgan said. “I believe the continent is going to collapse. I’ve asked Le’vine to send her ships to the Arcane Kingdom as a hedge against that. If worst comes to worst, we can save as many as we can and bring them to the Five Kingdoms. We have plenty of room, especially after what the Pinnacle Kings did.”
“I’ll want more details later,” Katherine said. “But that’s good enough for now.”
She turned to her troops, giving the order to form. The plan was already laid out. Morgan, Sarah, and Katherine would fly to the wall, where the latter would be dropped on the other side.
Katherine would then open a portal behind enemy lines while Morgan and Sarah took on the wall guards. They were expecting an attack from the outside, so all their weapons were pointed that way, and when the soldiers came through, they would climb the walls from the inside and help take out the enemy.
Unfortunately, Morgan wouldn’t be able to help with the transportation, as his version of travel made the unprepared violently ill, and having sick soldiers behind enemy lines wasn’t exactly ideal. They’d need to come through Katherine’s portal, one at a time. It might be slow, but it was the best way to avoid the field of buried explosives spread out before them.
“Remember,” Katherine called as she ascended into the sky, carried by Morgan. “The portal will open right where I’ve marked the ground. Strongest fighters in first, and make sure to remain orderly!”
There was an answering salute as Garrison Blue slammed fists to their chest. The others, the dwarves, elves, and beastmen, just nodded or grunted in agreement. They all knew why they were here. This was a dangerous mission, and they were prepared for what lay ahead.
“Hold on tight,” Morgan said.
He had a tight grip on Katherine’s forearm and she on his, but he felt her fingers tighten even more as he gave her the warning. Sarah, who clung to his back, gave the woman a weak smile. There was a reason Morgan was holding her the way he was, and it had nothing to do with snubbing her. Still, it was awkward for them both.
“Here we go,” Morgan said as he reached a height of four hundred feet.
He felt Katherine’s fingers tighten just a bit more before he rapidly accelerated, launching forward as though shot from a cannon. With how crucial the first stage of this mission was, Morgan didn’t want to risk teleporting in, and since Katherine had never been to the other side of the wall, she couldn’t simply open a portal.
Wind tore at their bodies with Katherine whipping out to the side, the pressure forcing her upward. Morgan streaked through the darkening sky, rapidly covering the distance between him and the wall. He could see the streaks of color hovering in the sky, marking the outlines of numerous wards and scripts.
They would have been child’s play to break, but that would alert the enemy to their presence and undermine the initial attack. Instead, Morgan reached out with his Perfect Aura Control, nudging a few things out of place and slipping through the wards instead of breaking them.
It took him less than a minute to reach the wall, and he quickly rotated in place, releasing his grip on Katherine’s arm. She let go at the same time, streaking out and down to the ground below. While they were still pretty high up, a four-hundred-foot fall would do little to someone as powerful as Katherine. Morgan didn’t even bother checking if she was alright, instead tucking his arms to his sides and diving straight down to the wall below.
The guards clustered around the point of impact didn’t even know what hit them. One moment, they were staring out at the empty landscape in obvious boredom. The next, they were dead, crushed beneath a massive force traveling at over two-hundred miles per hour. Morgan had to start paying extra RP as he sped up past the base speed of one-hundred-and-thirty-six miles per hour, but the cost was negligible compared to his massive RP pool.
The wall buckled under the impact, a massive, V-shaped chunk being torn from the solid stone nearly halfway down. Morgan rose from amid the twisted wreckage of mana cannons and bloody chunks of troll, then ran up one side of the V. Sarah leaped from his back, running in the opposite direction.
Morgan reached the topmost portion of the wall, vaulting over the lip of bunched stone and dashing toward the first mana cannon. Dozens of soldiers were already running to his position, having gotten over their shock. He reached the first mana cannon in ten seconds, kicking the troll trying to turn it from the wall and killing him with one of their own explosives.
Grabbing the cannon, Morgan twisted it around to face the oncoming horde and flooded it with his reiki. Unfortunately, the cannons were meant to handle mana, and the construct exploded after Morgan poured just 3,000 RP into it, sending burning shrapnel everywhere.
Several trolls went down with screams of agony while others avoided being burned due to their higher Constitution.
Morgan leaped back, reaching into a pocket dimension and drawing forth the gleaming, silver spear. Although he had a ton of RP, this was the time to keep it in reserve. If he could fight without using too much of it, he would. He settled into a familiar stance, spear haft tucked into his armpit and tip pointed slightly down.
The first troll attacked him, swinging a glowing red mace down in a massive arc. Morgan’s Perfect Aura Control told him this creature was at rank 48 with a Strength attribute of 588. Impressive, to be sure, but compared to his 1,750, it was a complete joke.
Morgan’s spear flashed in an arc, easily deflecting the crushing mace to one side. In the same motion, he twisted the haft up, cracking the beefy man across the face, shattering his jaw and rattling his brain around inside his skull so badly, that if he weren’t dead when he hit the ground, he would be a vegetable.
He swept the spear out in an arc, shattering the knees of the next, then twisted and impaled a third through the gut. He wrenched the weapon free, spinning it in a half-circle and slicing through another’s belly, leaving him to try and pull his guts back in while Morgan kicked him in the head.
Bodies went sailing from the top of the wall, falling to both sides and either exploding or perishing. Morgan barely noticed when several more soldiers came to join him, but he did notice when one of them gave him a shove.
He turned, glaring at the offending dwarf who shooed him on.
“You’re taking up too much room! Either move on and clear a different section or get out of the way!”
Morgan debated launching the dwarf into space, then shrugged and teleported away, appearing next to another mana cannon. Unfortunately for him, the cannon was fully charged.
“Oh shit,” Morgan muttered as the beam of blue energy slammed into him.
It drove him back along the wall, his clothes burning away in an instant and his skin beginning to smoke. At the same time, he dug both his feet and the haft of his spear into the ground, tearing furrows in the stone as the force of the cannon pushed him back. His momentum was arrested as the wall curved, pressing him up against a massive stone block.
Morgan winced as the powerful beam began to hurt and quickly teleported over to the group of mages powering it. The stone block he’d been pressed against shattered as soon as he disappeared and the trolls cheered, thinking they’d managed to kill him. It was short-lived, ending abruptly when Morgan started ripping their heads off one by one.
One of them, a total idiot by the look on his face, tried to turn the cannon to shoot him, inadvertently shearing through dozens of his own comrades.
Morgan watched in fascination as their bodies were shorn in two, the powerful beam of the cannon ripping through the weaker trolls as though they weren’t even there.
“Thanks for that,” Morgan said, then swung his spear, launching the troll off the wall.
His body landed about fifty feet away, blowing to pieces as it set off one of the explosives. He then ripped the cannon from its moorings and tossed it off after him. Looking down to his chest, Morgan could see the burn mark, standing out with an angry red on his chest. He could already feel his healing getting to work, but this was a clear warning of what could happen if he weren’t careful around these cannons.
If they could damage him and shear through Rank 40s like they were nothing, they posed a serious threat. After feeling the power of these cannons, Morgan now had a new mission: destroy or capture every single one of them.
22
The battle on the wall seemed to be going well, considering how badly outnumbered they were. Worse, despite them expecting a weakened troll force, there were still thousands of them. Additionally, reinforcements were coming from a nearby camp, forcing the soldiers to split their focus between holding them down below and fighting them off on the walls.
Katherine had to remain on the ground even after the final soldier had come through, meaning that Morgan and Sarah had an increased burden placed on them to clear the walls.
Morgan shot forward, spearing six trolls in a single strike and tossing their corpses off the wall. He spun, slicing through another one, and kicked out, shattering a third’s knee. The trolls collapsed with howls of agony, but their numbers seemed endless.
It wasn’t just a single section of wall they were trying to clear but miles upon miles. This meant that the farther he and Sarah traveled along the wall – in opposite directions – the more they would be cut off from reinforcements. According to the intelligence gathered the day before, Morgan’s wall would end when he reached a mountainous region.
By that point, an enemy force would have to go so far out of the way that it would take months to get back to civilization, especially considering the natural obstacle of the mountains themselves. Sarah would reach the end of her section of the wall when she made it to one of the few rivers dotting Faeland.
The river flowed for some sixteen miles before it reached the ocean, but building the wall up to it ensured they had yet another natural obstacle, one they couldn’t cross without ships. Seeing how Faeland didn’t seem to own that many, it wasn’t likely they’d be crossing that way.
For some reason, they hadn’t taken into consideration that the river could be frozen or that they could raise bridges over it. Perhaps they had, as Morgan hadn’t had a lot of time to check at length. Either way, they would be entering the quickest way, through the wall, and to do that, their force would have to make sure it was completely clear before the main bulk of their armies reached them.
Of course, if Morgan did his job right, the entire Brutal Bayou would be under their control when they reached the walls, but for now, clearing them was the only thing on his mind.
He swept his spear up, cutting a troll and the mana cannon behind him in two. He leaped back as the overloaded cannon exploded, tearing a massive chunk from the wall and tossing over a dozen trolls over the side. He continued advancing, pushing through group after group and killing troll after troll.
It didn’t take him long to reach the next guardhouse, kicking in and shattering the door.
Morgan paused as he saw a dozen cages, all keeping slavering beasts which appeared to be a mix of bear and some sort of quilled animal. Their hides gleamed with a metallic sheen, and the rattling of their quills was audible, even above the din of battle. These beasts were in pain, a great deal of it.
Before Morgan could look further, a troll came barreling in from the opposite door. He looked to Morgan, who was covered in blood and wielding a gleaming spear, then to the caged beasts. Morgan flashed forward, driving a kick into the troll’s chest even as he reached up, snagging a hanging rope.
While Morgan’s kick sent him through the door, shattering the wood to splinters along with his ribcage, the force of the kick yanked the rope taught.
Morgan whirled as the doors of all the cages were ripped open, leaving the beasts free to attack. He got a good look at one of their statuses before they did but didn’t have time to examine them all.
Name: Dire Supersteel Quill-Bear
Rank - 58
Ability Type - Super
Morgan leaped back as the first beast pounced on him, driving him from the guardhouse and onto his back. The beast snapped down at his face, its massive jaws halted as he shoved the haft of his spear upward, keeping them from closing.
The beast was dense and heavy, but Morgan was strong. He got his feet under the beast’s belly and shoved, tossing the beast off him before leaping back to his feet. Before he had a chance to recover, four more mobbed him, leaping over one another, drool falling from their jaws and their faces fixed in snarls.
His first instinct was to kill them, but he had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right here. Ever since his encounter with the wolf beasts, he’d realized that a lot of them were far more intelligent than they let on. These beasts were obviously in the Advanced stage, which meant they had a good deal of intelligence.
Normally, they’d be able to see the difference in their strength and would likely go after weaker prey, but they were in a great deal of pain. He could see that from how tense they were, even as he stepped quickly, neatly sidestepping and dodging their vicious swings.
Their claws tore huge chunks of stone from the walls, sending them tumbling to the ground below. Morgan used his spear to deflect incoming blows, redirect lunges, and drive them back when they got too close. There were seven in total, all acting much in the same way. He noticed their quills beginning to rattle as he continued to avoid them, the spines rising all along their backs as though preparing to eject them.
He flashed back to his first visit to the East Kingdom, where he and Sarah had run across a quilled beast. Of course, things had been very different back then. The battle had nearly done them both in. This time, Morgan very much doubted that these beasts, powerful as they were, could do him much harm.
However, as the quills on the closest beast rose fully, making them appear to almost double in size, he noticed something odd, a small circular device, glowing a bright blue, attached to the base of its neck. Small crackles of electricity continually flowed from the device, surging into the beast.
With bodies that densely packed with metal, it must have been pure agony.
Morgan didn’t even think twice, sidestepping the lunging beast and lashing out with the butt of his spear. The device shattered, the force of his blow tossing the beast to the side and rolling along the wall. Now that he knew what was wrong, it was easy to hit the rest of his targets as the beasts continued to attack.
In less than a minute, he’d shattered all of the controlling devices, freeing the beasts of whoever had been controlling them.
He paused for a moment as the beasts lie there, looking down the wall in both directions. Behind, he could see the fighting as soldiers pushed back the tide of trolls and tried to work their way toward him. On the other, he could see more trolls, though these were remaining at a healthy distance for fear of being caught up in the beast attacks.
He looked down as one of the beasts began to rise, its eyes looking a lot less savage now. Pressing a hand to the center of the beast’s brow, Morgan got a sense of… gratitude? He looked deep into the beast’s eyes, the gleaming pools of emerald green seeming to have a depth to them, one he’d previously only associated with intelligent beings.
The beast then did something very unexpected. It lowered its head, touching its nose to his feet. The sense of gratitude intensified. Then, the beast pulled away, letting out a snuffling roar. The other beasts, who were slowly coming to their feet, were galvanized by the cry and shook off what remained of their lethargy.
As one, they turned away from him and faced the pack of trolls. Morgan looked between the snarling beasts and the enemy and gave them a wide, shit-eating grin.
“Oh, you guys are in so much trouble!”
As though that were the signal, the beasts shot forward, their roars shaking the stones down to their foundations. Several of the trolls in the front tried to turn and run – there was something about a pack of charging beasts that just elicited a primal terror – but were summarily halted by those behind.
It was a massacre as the beasts, spines extended, plowed into the line of trolls. The screams of pain were horrendous, as they ripped and shredded flesh and bone, cracked skulls, eviscerated stomachs and chests, and shattered legs. The pack of beasts didn’t stop, continuing to charge down the walls with Morgan following behind at an almost leisurely pace.
The trolls were running down, some leaping from the walls and others continuing farther down, likely trying to reach what mana cannons remained. Morgan didn’t even bother finishing the ones who’d been caught. They lay in screaming and bloody piles, unable to move due to broken limbs and the extent of their injuries.
The truly lucky were those who’d died right away. The unfortunates were the ones who’d received the most painful wounds, those with Supersteel quills poking from their stomachs and legs and those whose bodies were covered in slash marks, either from said quills or the beasts’ powerful claws.
Morgan saw one group reach a mana cannon and teleported over, kicking it upward just before the beam went off. A blue light streaked into the sky, even as he killed the trolls by kicking them off the wall and into the minefield. The beasts ran right past him, continuing on their bloody rampage until…
He stopped as they reached the natural stone of the first mountain, where it peeled away from them, rising higher and higher in peaked slopes and creating the perfect barrier.
The beasts halted briefly, milling about for a few moments before they seemed to calm and began leaping off the wall inside the Brutal Bayou. The last one turned right before it jumped and dipped its head to him, then followed the rest.
Morgan watched them go for a couple of minutes, wondering what had just happened. Was he becoming more sympathetic to beasts because of the presence of the Beast King, or was it something else entirely? In the past, most beasts had simply attacked out of hand, but he was beginning to suspect more every day that it had had more to do with his intent to kill than their own.
