Serpentlord (Rise To Omniscience Book 9), page 5
“Screw you!” the bearded man sputtered.
Morgan didn’t bother retorting. He simply flexed his fingers, crushing the gnome’s throat and dropping his lifeless corpse to the ground. He did notice something interesting, as the winding serpent tattoo that covered his left bicep dissolved into motes of light. He followed the trail with his senses, realizing in an instant that the power was returning to Strangler.
Was there perhaps a way to stop it? If the World Beast were busy battling the others of its kind and lost a good portion of her strength, would she fall?
A loud scream of pain snapped Morgan from his thoughts, and he turned to see another group of cultists charging them. Two of the five had been impaled on a frozen lance of blood-red ice and were toppling to the ground. Even as he watched, another lance, this one a bright blue, formed in the air next to Sarah and streaked away, slamming into another cultist. This was her Freezing Lance skill. Neither of them had any idea why some came out blue and some the color of blood. It seemed randomized, though the two acted differently.
The ice lance would punch into an enemy and immediately begin to spread the cold. The blood lance did the opposite, beginning to boil and bubble.
Morgan watched the first two gnomes thrash as the red lance burned them from within, while the third gnome’s skin took on a blueish tinge. They all stopped moving after just a few seconds, one frozen stiff, while the other corpses steamed.
The two remaining cultists tried to turn and run, only for them to freeze in place, their bodies going rigid. A moment later, icy red spines exploded out from them, their blood turned into the weapons of their demise. This was Sarah’s new Bloodbath skill, the ability to call on the blood in an enemy’s body and turn it against them.
There were limits to what it could do, of course, and if someone were strong enough, they could resist. But these cultists were clearly not at that level.
“Leave one alive next time,” Morgan said as Sarah turned back to him. “We need to get some answers.”
Sarah nodded, turning her attention to the palace gates as they began to swing open.
“Took them long enough,” she said as the royal guards poured from the opening.
Katherine and Beatrice’s soldiers followed right after, breaking into smaller squads to go after the attacking cultists.
“It was a surprise attack,” Morgan said. “Though they should have prepared for something like this.”
He looked around the courtyard, which was now littered with those fighting, dead, and dying. Dozens lay unmoving, while more still fought.
“We need to figure out how they got in,” he finally said, turning to the least-populated area of the courtyard, the one where the on-call palace staff would rest between shifts.
There had to be a couple hundred at the very least, none of them fighters. Morgan could sense more blanks spots in that direction, and seeing as the royal guards had yet to make it here, it would mean certain death for all of them.
“Come on,” he said, breaking into a run and snagging Sarah by her arm.
She was quick enough to keep up with him at this speed, but after just a second, Morgan realized he didn’t need to run. The world warped around them, and an instant later, they stood before the small cluster of undefended buildings.
“Well,” Morgan said, staring at the series of glowing green tears in space. “I guess we know how they got in.”
6
Dozens of cultists, a mix of gnomes, trolls, and the odd elf began pouring from the open portals. If they were surprised to see two fighters standing in their way, none of them showed it, all charging without a moment of hesitation.
Morgan had no idea how they’d managed to get portals open in the palace grounds like this. It should have been impossible. There were supposed to be wards to guard against outside intrusion, though judging by how the portal edges were hissing and spitting, this also had something to do with Strangler.
That World Beast was becoming a serious nuisance.
“Can you hold them alone?” Morgan asked. “I want to try and close those portals.”
Sarah nodded, her power flaring and eyes beginning to glow. The same pair of arms she’d used to fight Octagon appeared, only this time, they didn’t come alone. A mix of freezing blue and crimson red ice flowed around her legs, her body hovering a good two feet off the ground as the constructs rolled around her.
A single plate of glowing blue extended over her chest, and another, this one red, covered her back. None of them actually touched her skin, seeming to grow less substantial as they reached her body and solidifying further out. This made it seem like she was floating inside the blocky ice construct.
Finally, a mask appeared, half red and half blue, emitting a terrifying aura. Unlike the rest of the construct, this directly covered her face. It was blank except for the eye sockets, which glowed with an inner light.
Morgan flashed around to the rear of the portals as Sarah began to fight, the construct charging right into the middle of the pack of cultists and beginning to wreak havoc.
He stared at one of the portals for several seconds, trying to examine its structure. It was made of strange energy, not mana or chi. The way it interacted with the world made it appear to be reiki, but that didn’t seem quite right either. It repelled the energy of the world, which resulted in that blank sensation he got when he tried to examine them from afar.
He reached out a hand, placing it directly on one of the edges, and felt how it lashed out, trying to burn and cut him. Luckily for him, his skin was tough enough to repel the energy. However, as soon as he touched it, the cultists pouring through became aware of him and turned to face him instead of Sarah.
“Damn,” he muttered, as all eyes turned on him.
Before the attackers could charge, several of them froze. Then, to the utter shock of those standing around them, they turned to attack their allies. Morgan’s eyes flicked to Sarah, and he saw the telltale signs of a bloody red mist hanging around her body. This was another unique skill of hers. Blood Essence allowed her to manipulate those in her immediate vicinity like puppets.
Just as with her Bloodbath skill, there were some limitations, but it was, without a doubt, an extremely useful skill.
Not knowing whom to trust, the cultists kept attacking one another even after the bloody mist around Sarah disappeared. As others began coming through the portals, they were inevitably dragged in as well. Morgan knew this wouldn’t last very long, but it would give him more time to try and destroy these portals.
He reached out once more, grabbing the portal’s edge and trying to physically rip it apart. As he suspected, the portal simply flexed and stretched in his grip, not shattering. He pulled his left hand back, a blade of pure black with sparkling motes of white light appearing in his hand.
Black lightning crackled across the Starforged blade as Morgan swung it, slicing cleanly through the warping line of power. There was a massive explosion that tossed him back, green acidic liquid splattering against his skin and trying to burn him. Morgan felt some heat from the acid as it burned through his shirt.
He landed, rolling back over his shoulder and springing to his feet.
The area around the portal was scorched and blackened, and several corpses littered the area. A cultist’s torso lay there, cut off at the waist and horribly burned. The gnome – who’d been coming through when Morgan sliced the portal – was screaming in agony, still very much alive.
An icy-blue lance slammed into his skull a moment later, silencing the cultist and putting him out of his misery.
The exploding portal did have an adverse effect, as the remaining cultists banded together, realizing that none of them were under Sarah’s control.
One of them began shouting orders, sending several gnomes to guard the portals as the rest split up to take both him and Sarah down.
Morgan let out an annoyed huff as blasts of burning green energy lanced toward him. A Starforged shield appeared before him, stopping the attacks dead in their tracks. Several of the cultists seemed surprised, while others continued charging, trying to cut him off.
The shield dropped as they approached, and Morgan stepped forward, swinging the glittering sword faster than any of them could follow. He bisected the first cultist, slicing down from shoulder to hip. He stepped forward, pulling the sword in a backhand slash and cutting another’s head off at eye-level.
He stepped in, catching a burning green lance with his bare hand, and rammed the sword through the gnome’s eye. Morgan sliced outward, cutting halfway through another’s chest, then kicked the first gnome, driving him back into another.
He cut through a dozen gnomes in this fashion, their bodies falling to the ground in pieces. Blood sprayed in the air as a troll tried to punch him while his back was turned. The cultist stared at his missing stump of a hand dumbly before the world turned upside down. The creature’s confused brain tried to make sense of what was happening even as its body slumped to the ground, its head falling neatly onto its chest.
Morgan reached the second portal, launching the guard away with a single, bone-shattering punch and sliced through the outer edge, causing another explosion. This time, a shield appeared, preventing him from being tossed back and limiting the damage to the enemy.
A troll’s corpse went sailing past him, and he turned to see Sarah being mobbed by a mix of gnome and troll fighters. For a moment, he was worried, and then a pair of short lances appeared in the oversized ice hands and began punching holes in her attackers.
Blood coated her strange armor, not a drop of it touching her. Sarah fought calmly, her attacks precise and as deadly as could be. The Rank 40 and 50 supers and mages could do nothing to damage her, and no matter how many attacked at once, her Construct skill was there to protect her.
“You filthy bastard!” a gnome yelled, leaping into the air and swinging a club at his head.
Morgan didn’t even bother turning, using his control over the earth to form a shield of spikes upon which the gnome kindly proceeded to impale herself. He moved on to the next portal, slicing through it and the cultist guarding it in a single swing.
At this point, he started to sense some of the royal guards heading their way and knew that the attack was over. His suspicions were confirmed a moment later when several of the cultists began to break away from Sarah and made a mad dash to one of the two remaining portals.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Morgan muttered, using his Rift to appear next to the first and slice it in half.
The cultist guarding it attacked but hit only empty air as Morgan vanished, appearing at the last one. His glittering Starforged blade cut cleanly through the last ring, cutting off the arm of the troll who was swinging at him at the shoulder.
His shield appeared before him, blocking the force of the explosion and killing the screaming troll, but Morgan was deep in thought. Had his movements been so predictable that a random cultist had been able to guess where he would appear? He shook himself as the remaining cultists skidded to a halt, finding their escape cut off.
It only then seemed to dawn on them that the ground was littered with dozens of corpses, all belonging to their allies.
They looked between Morgan and Sarah, obviously trying to decide who posed the bigger threat and who they might be able to overwhelm. When the soldiers appeared, charging in from behind Sarah, their minds were made up. As one, they turned to face him and charged…
“How did you manage to open a portal into the palace grounds?”
“Go to hell!”
The cultist gurgled as Morgan crushed her throat, tossing her corpse to the side before moving on to the next.
The battle was well and truly over, the last of the cultists having been killed off. Well, all except for the group who’d decided they could get past him. He’d easily corralled them with his Earth Mastery skill, pulling metals from the ground and locking them in a cage.
He was in the process of trying to get information, but seeing as this was the fourth cultist who’d chosen to die rather than giving anything up, he wasn’t confident in getting anything out of them.
Sarah stood to his left, her strange armor now gone, and several royal guards stood guarding the perimeter – supposedly to protect them in case of an attack. Morgan suspected they wanted to stick close to them for their own protection, but he could hardly blame them. Several sported burn marks along their arms, legs, and chests, the acidic green power having burned straight through their armor as though it didn’t exist.
These guards were around the same ranks as the attackers, so it was miraculous that none of them had died. Then again, seeing as there had been dozens of dead around the palace where they’d exited, Morgan had a feeling that the death toll from tonight’s attack would be in the hundreds.
The metal warped out of the way, and though the next cultist tried to dodge, Morgan easily dragged him from the cage. He tried to attack, but the beam of green energy was blocked as Morgan encased his hand with an oversized Starforged gauntlet, causing the gnome’s attack to backfire and burn it off.
“How did you open the portals into the palace grounds?” Morgan asked as the gnome screamed in agony.
“Screw you!” the gnome sobbed.
Morgan sighed, then drove a fist into the gnome’s face, blowing his head to pieces.
“We’re getting nowhere with these fanatics,” he growled, looking to the remaining five cultists still trapped in his cage.
“Do any of you feel like talking, or should I just crush you all now and save myself the trouble?”
The cultists sneered at him, giving Morgan his answer.
“Fine,” he said, extending his hand and causing the cage to begin contracting.
It would continue shrinking until they were all crushed to death. Not the most pleasant way to go, but he really didn’t feel like torturing them.
“Morgan!”
Morgan stopped as the voice sounded both out loud and in his mind. He looked and saw Lumia, in her hybrid form, come plummeting out of the sky. He could immediately sense that something was wrong, a feeling of foreboding settling over him.
“What is it?” he asked as the drake landed next to him.
“It’s Grace,” Lumia said, her voice betraying both rage and fear.
Morgan felt his heart skip a beat when he heard that.
“Is she…?” he began.
“Not dead,” Lumia said, her voice grim. “Taken by the enemy.”
Morgan’s first instinct was to go after her, but seeing as he had no idea where she was, that was out of the question. He spread his senses wide, trying to find her, trying to find the enemy force, any sign at all. He got nothing.
He felt his hands tighten into fists as he turned back to the caged cultists. He was quickly starting to rethink his ideas on torture.
7
“Damn fanatics,” Morgan cursed, whirling and kicking the broken and bloodied troll corpse.
The power of the kick blasted the body to bloody chunks, sending various pieces spinning away into the night. He had tried getting the cultists to talk, but no matter what he’d done to them, they refused to give up anything.
He growled, turning to see Sarah and Lumia watching him worriedly. His eyes flicked to the east, to where he knew the Arcane Kingdom lie. He could go there right now. It was the obvious place to take her. His body began drifting off the ground, but Sarah grabbed his arm, halting his progress.
“Where are you going, Morgan?” she asked when he looked down at her.
“Going after her,” he said, feeling his anger boiling beneath the surface. “There’s only one place they could have taken her, so I’m going there.”
“And what are you going to do when you get there?” Sarah asked. “You said it yourself. You can’t sense her. The World Beast’s power is interfering.”
“I’ll go to the Arcane Kingdom and destroy it,” Morgan said.
“With Grace potentially in the city?” Sarah asked.
Morgan hesitated at that, and Sarah jumped on the opening.
“Are you going to abandon the war effort for a single person? You’re needed here, Morgan. The elves just suffered a bad defeat, even if they managed to drive the enemy away. We’re going to have to counterattack, and they’re going to need your strength to do so.”
“So, what do I do then?” he asked, “Leave her to her fate? Ignore the fact that she’s been taken? How the hell did they get to her in the first place?!”
“I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” Lumia said, cutting into their conversation. “I should have been with her, but I was asleep. We don’t know the full story, but apparently, she left the palace. The last person to see her was Ragnar’s son, but she disappeared in the fray. We knew Strangler was after her for some reason, but I didn’t think they would go through all this trouble just to grab her.”
Morgan ground his teeth together, then cast his senses toward the battling World Beasts. He briefly wondered if he should go there and try to help the others kill the snake. With her gone, all of this would end. Common sense won out, and he remained where he was. He had no way of knowing how the World Beasts would react to his presence. They might see him as a foreign invader and gang up on him.
Additionally, the last time he’d isolated himself in such a manner, he’d been ambushed by a group of gods and very nearly killed. Though he was stronger now than before, three vengeful gods were still more than he could handle on his own.
“What do we do then?” he asked, looking to Sarah and Lumia for answers.
“I’ll go after her,” Lumia said. “We might have lost her reiki trail, but I might be able to find her by scent. We also know that there are only a few places she could have been taken. From what I understand, this wasn’t the only place where portals opened up. Another set was opened on the opposite side through which the retreating group presumably escaped.”
“You can’t go alone,” Sarah said. “Someone needs to go with you.”
