Serpentlord (Rise To Omniscience Book 9), page 18
Sarah’s eyes finally flicked open, a small flash of gold moving over them both. She let out a long breath, her shoulders relaxing and a smile coming to her lips.
“One step closer to being all-powerful,” she joked.
Sarah was now at rank 69, the energy he’d collected enough to push her a full three ranks and into the fourth. Morgan cracked a smile at that – it was hard to remain somber when she smiled at him like that.
“I thought I heard Katherine, or was I imagining it?”
“No, she stopped by,” Morgan said, explaining what he’d been told.
“Do we have any idea what it could be?” Sarah asked.
“No,” Morgan replied. “But seeing as we’re attacking the single largest city in the Brutal Bayou, it’s hardly a surprise. We’re going to have to be extra vigilant, is all.”
Morgan looked up to the towering city walls. These, unlike those at the border, were not new. The stone blocks were weathered, covered in moss, and projected a field of power that kept the mists at bay.
While he’d been affected by them when last here, they no longer seemed to do anything to him, and apparently, Sarah didn’t feel their effects either. Some of the other soldiers were bothered by it, but they’d managed to fight off the effects – at least temporarily – as they prepared for battle.
Even now, Morgan could see trolls swarming the walls and sense the hundreds of thousands within. He very much doubted they were all soldiers, though. A city this large had to be mostly made up of civilians.
It was hard to imagine how a force of just under a thousand would be able to take this massive city, but this was their last obstacle. They believed that if the troll’s capital fell, the heart of their force would be shattered, and they would no longer have the will to fight. Morgan would have proven that they deserved respect and deference, and the allied forces would be allowed through the Brutal Bayou uncontested.
This would assure that when they reached the borders of the Arcane Kingdom, they would be fresh and ready for a serious showdown. They still estimated that roughly thirty to forty percent of the troll forces would be with them – the lack of troops here just didn’t add up at all – so they would still need to fight against trolls, but without the obstacle of their entire nation in their way, the battle should be easier to win.
Sarah reached out, poking him in the forehead and getting his attention.
“What?” Morgan asked, snapped from his thoughts.
“Were you even listening to what I was saying?” she asked.
Morgan smiled sheepishly but shook his head.
“I was saying that my breakthrough didn’t unlock any new skills,” she said, sounding a bit exasperated.
“Well, we don’t really know how your new ability works just yet,” Morgan said. “All of your attributes seem to have gone up by a fair bit, though. Should give you a nice edge in battle.”
It seemed that even though her ability had changed, the breakthrough ranks were still very much a thing. This was why she hadn’t been able to advance more than three ranks despite the massive amount of energy collected.
“You know,” Sarah said, “the energy you gave me would have been enough to boost you a rank or two.”
“You need it more than I do,” he replied.
“But what about the World Beast?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you think you can win as you are now.”
Morgan shook his head.
“I doubt that very much. However, you’re forgetting that she’s occupied with tearing her way across the continent, fighting against the other World Beasts. Additionally, she’s busy lending massive chunks of her power to her cultists. So, if we kill them, it should weaken her as well.”
“But didn’t you tell me that you saw streams of power leaving their bodies and moving to the west whenever a cultist died?” Sarah asked.
Morgan pursed his lips but nodded.
“The power does go back to rejoin her. Whether it actually reaches her or not is another story.”
“How can we find out?” she asked.
Before Morgan could answer, a loud blast of a horn sounded, echoing through the silence.
“I guess this conversation will have to wait for another time,” he said, rising to his feet and holding a hand out to help her up.
“Guess so,” she said as he pulled her upright. “But in this battle, I want you to concentrate less on gathering energy for me and more on absorbing it yourself. And I don’t want to hear any arguments. You’re strong, but you could be stronger. Our forces would benefit more from you gaining strength, not me.”
“I care about you more than I do them,” Morgan said, looking her in the eye.
“And while I think that’s very sweet, I care about you more than I care about myself. So, if you won’t take the energy for your sake, do it for mine. I don’t think I’d be able to go on if you were to die.”
Morgan pursed his lips but finally acquiesced.
Sarah gave him a smile, then leaned in to kiss him. It was brief, but Morgan could feel her love through their contact before she pulled back, massive, icy wings bursting from her shoulders.
“Be careful,” he called as she flapped her wings downward, sending up a gust of wind.
“You, too!” she yelled back, her wings beating down again and taking her higher.
Morgan watched as she twisted in the air then, angling to the north and her position on the wall.
This attack, unlike the last ones, wasn’t designed to destroy a city or the walls. He and Sarah were going to clear the walls alone – which meant taking on a lot of the fighting – while Katherine transported their forces inside the walls. As soon as they were in, she would come up to join them.
The bulk of the remaining troll forces seemed to be up on their walls, which spanned miles in length as it stretched around their capital city. Still, Morgan felt like they were pretty good at clearing walls by now, so he wasn’t too worried.
A sensation of weightlessness overcame him as he drifted upward, already seeing the flashes of mana cannons as the trolls aimed and fired. The attack had begun in earnest. It was time to take the city and strike the final blow against the troll nation.
***
Elyssa stood at the center of her army, listening to reports as they came in.
“As far as we can see, there’s nothing wrong.”
Elyssa nodded. This was the fourth of the scout patrols to give her the same answer, but despite that, despite all evidence to the contrary, she couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong.
She crossed her arms, tapping an index finger on the inside of her forearm as she thought. If she were the enemy, how would she go about setting up an ambush? She tried to think, but the talking scout was distracting her. Finally, she just held up a hand to forestall him.
“Thank you for your report,” she said, trying to hide the annoyance in her voice.
“Ma’am?” Gilderon asked.
“I need a few minutes to think,” she said, shooing everyone back, then reaching for her power.
Liquid Stone flowed up around her, encasing her in a dome of darkness. Sound and light vanished as she cut herself off from the outside world, not even leaving so much as a pinhole to allow fresh air in. She would only be in here for a few minutes, so she’d be fine.
Elyssa sat in the small confines of her dome, folding up her legs before her and placing her hands, palm down, on her knees. She closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and calming her racing thoughts.
In her mind’s eye, she could see the gorge – it was a perfect place for an ambush, after all. She could see them passing through it, as well as the towering silica walls, brittle and easily broken. At a certain point, more than half their force would be passing through at once and with how tightly the gorge walls would squeeze in, it would leave them quite vulnerable to attack from above.
She could send forces to march on top, try and keep them safe, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t be enough. With the way the enemy could open portals, they could send dozens, if not hundreds, of powerful fighters through to attack from above.
Perhaps even collapse the silica shelves and drop them…
Elyssa’s eyes snapped open, the walls flowing down and back into the ground. Sound came back in a rush, in the form of her bickering commanders and the rulers of the other races.
“I think I know what’s going to happen,” she said as everyone turned to look at her. “And I think I might have a way to turn the enemy’s attack against them!”
27
The air tore at Morgan’s clothes as he streaked along the wall, his oversized sword – extended to over twenty feet – slashing through trolls and cannons alike. In any other situation, a blade like this would be unwieldy, even for someone as strong as him. Sure, he’d be able to swing it around, but it was so wildly impractical that it would remove one of his greatest advantages: speed.
Now though, as he flew along the wall, the sword was perfect, slicing through trolls and their constructs without him having to land to fight. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done it this way before. It was far more efficient.
He blocked out the screams of pain, ignoring the heavy feeling against the blade as it cut through body after body. The trolls could try to escape by diving or jumping over, but it would do them no good. Spines shot from the blade anytime they did, the black Starforged blade looking like a living thing, rippling, widening, and extending various parts of itself in response to the trolls’ movements.
This was accomplished through a combination of his Perfect Aura Control, insane perception speed, and reaction time. He’d sense which way a troll would go and tweak the blade to strike when they did. While it may not have looked all that impressive, Morgan had to split his focus many ways to ensure he got everyone.
The only trolls who actually made it were the ones who threw themselves from the wall instead of trying to fight. Pretty much all were strong enough to survive the fall. Their military seemed quite strong, after all, with the median rank seeming to be around 35. However, most still opted to try and avoid the sword.
Mana cannons were continually aimed at him, beams of blue flashing through the air and slamming into his Starforged shield. They didn’t even slow him down. The beams were deflected by his construct, preventing anyone from hitting him.
Morgan was still tuning out the horrific sounds of death when the voices finally began to reach him.
“Stop!”
“We give up!”
“We surrender!”
Morgan slowed to a halt, the blade stopping its deadly work, and turned to examine the wall. There, hundreds of trolls were kneeling, their hands held behind their heads and screaming their surrender. He didn’t dismiss the sword just yet, looking down the wall to where several more mana cannons were aimed squarely at him.
Even as he watched, the cannons were lowered, their barrels now aimed at the ground below. With a small effort of will, the sword shrank, flowing back over his arm and forming a glittering black gauntlet. The massive shield that had been guarding him did the same, sliding over his fist and covering halfway up to his forearm.
He drifted forward, alighting on the wall and looking down to the first troll there.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked.
The troll, looking both broken and extremely relieved, looked up to him with a mix of fear and anger.
“The walls are split into sections. Hagar was in charge of this section. Now she’s dead.”
“Who is in charge now, then?” Morgan asked.
The troll opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment, Morgan felt a flash of something from behind him. He whirled in place, his right gauntlet already morphing into a lance, but he was just a hair too slow.
The figure that had thrown itself at him through the open, green-edged portal grinned widely, glowing green lines appearing beneath his skin and the serpent tattoo around his face glowing the same color.
“Damn,” Morgan muttered. Then the cultist exploded.
***
Sarah wasn’t having a difficult time clearing her section of the wall. In the distance, she could see flashes of black lancing into the sky, signaling Morgan’s fight. Below, inside the confines of the city, she could see soldiers running through the empty streets, making for the massive compound at the city’s center.
According to Morgan, the civilians were all hiding in bunkers or beneath their own homes. The soldiers had been ordered not to enter or attack any of them. It was their job to secure the city while the walls were cleared. Once the trolls were beaten, it would be theirs, and from the massive compound, the order would go out to all of the troll cities to surrender.
A troll came running at her, howling with rage, but with a simple flick of the oversized, icy fist, he was sent hurling into thin air, blood streaming in his wake. Like Morgan, it gave her no pleasure to kill these trolls. Yes, they were strong by the standards of most people, but to her, they were woefully inadequate.
She spun in place, her gauntlets extending farther out as they whirled in a circle of death, finally reaching their maximum range twenty-five feet from her shoulders. She pulled them back in, the gauntlets streaking through the air and coming to rest back in place once more.
A massive explosion went off from the direction in which Morgan was fighting, causing her to jump and whirl in place, wondering if something had gone wrong. Even as she turned, she sensed something was wrong.
Sarah whirled, finding herself facing a manic-looking elf, his upper body already sticking halfway through a portal. Instinctively, she threw her gauntlets up before her just as the cultist exploded.
***
Katherine stood down in the city, holding a portal open and letting soldiers stream in. From her vantage point, she could see neither Morgan nor Sarah, but from the sounds and occasional corpses that tumbled into the city, she had to assume the attack was going quite well. Still, she was on edge.
Things had been going smoothly since the attack had started nearly a half-hour ago, and unlike Morgan and Sarah, who were distracted with their battle, she was on high alert. Despite that, she kept a mental count as the soldiers came through, one by one.
They were nearly all inside by then, spreading out in small groups and sweeping the streets for soldiers as they made their way to the centermost point of the city.
It was due to her vigilance that Katherine saw what happened. Unlike Morgan and Sarah, who’d both been facing away from the portal when it opened, Katherine was looking right at the glowing bastard as he started to come through. His entire body was lit up from within by a series of green lines, and the expression of pure glee on his face was extremely off-putting.
“Die!” the gnome screeched as he reached for her.
Katherine reacted so fast that the gnome didn’t know what hit him. Her hand flashed out, pulling her mace from a pocket dimension, and in the same motion, it slammed into the gnome’s head, killing him instantly and sending him flying back through the portal.
The shockwave from the explosion that went off radiated out through the portal, tossing Katherine off her feet. However, due to the distance, the blast was greatly reduced, not causing any damage to her at all.
However, even as she got to her feet, the sounds of more explosions going off reached her, and Katherine knew that this was what Elyssa had warned her about. The portal she’d been holding open snapped shut, locking the last hundred or so soldiers out of the city. With the explosions that were going off, they were better off out there.
Katherine watched in horror as a massive, green flash went off in the distance, and several dozen buildings disappeared in a blazing inferno of emerald flames. Several portals opened at once, one just feet away. Without hesitation, she summoned her Reality Blade and slashed, sending a streak of rainbow-colored light at the portal.
A troll that had stuck her head through was tossed back, the force of the explosion exiting through the portal and shattering a dozen windows. But for the one suicidal cultist she’d managed to stop, four more made it through. She watched as they fell from the sky at various points, their bodies beginning to glow.
She yelled, her Reality Blade slicing into the air as she tried to hit them. She managed to hit two of them, causing them to rupture early. The explosions were still massive, but they hadn’t gone off on the ground, which meant that they only damaged the tops of the buildings they’d been aiming for.
Two more went off on the ground, wiping out three entire city blocks. The screams of civilians reached her, and she watched in horror as trolls began running from the scenes of the explosions, their bodies burning with the green flames. She saw a little boy, no older than four or five, stumble a few steps, his body covered in burns and skin melting from his bones. He collapsed within a few seconds, his small body lying still as it was consumed by the acidic flames.
She felt her anger growing as more portals opened, cultists diving down to the city below. Explosions went off on the walls and more went off farther inside the city. Their soldiers were dying, of that, she was sure, but so were thousands upon thousands of innocents.
It seemed that the gnomes were willing to sacrifice an entire city if it meant stopping their advance.
Katherine felt her blood beginning to boil, seeing the emerald-green flames towering high into the sky. A portal opened before her, and she stepped in, skipping past the flames and farther into the city. She began to run, ignoring the screams and cries of pain from the dying and burning trolls all around her.
She knew they were lost. As she ran, she saw blackened uniforms, those belonging to the fighters who’d followed her there. Rationally, she knew that death was inevitable in war, but the fact that they’d died so horribly and while doing their best to protect the civilians made her that much angrier.
Katherine heard a screech as she stepped from yet another portal, finally entering a cleared part of the city. Looking up, she was just in time to see an elf woman, her eyes wide and manic and her skin glowing with green lines, as she fell toward her.
