Warbreaker's Risk: A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure (The Connected System Book 2), page 26
The attacks from Piper’s wand were getting weaker. She’d never done that many in a row so rapidly.
The Gaunt started pushing through the attacks, no longer staggered. It wouldn’t take long for it to cross the short distance, swatting Cerie aside, that sword swinging toward Piper.
Loch didn’t hesitate. He ran forward, foot stepping down as Windstep pushed him to the Gaunt. Onyx was already swinging on the first step. The axe swung down as Loch appeared next to the Gaunt. The axe bit deep into the Gaunt’s chest, and the weapon’s momentum added to Loch’s, pushing the monster to the side. Onyx ripped out, creating a bigger wound as the Gaunt fell.
Stepping down hard, stopping his run, Loch spun to the side, following the path of the Gaunt.
He stepped forward, reversing Onyx. The Gaunt landed on the ground, head bouncing off the pavement next to a raised section. The hammerhead of Onyx swung down, Bash Activated, slamming into the side of the Gaunt’s head, the broken road giving it nowhere to go. The neck cracked and skull caved-in.
Breathing heavily, Spirit Reserves nearly gone, Loch shifted to look at how the others were doing.
Piper’s Inkbird dove and swooped between two of the Gaunts, keeping them occupied and away from Brian and Jenny. The bird wasn’t as dark, losing some of its inky blackness as the magic keeping it summoned was fading. The bird was fast, avoiding the counter-attacks from the two Gaunts.
With the extra two Gaunts somewhat occupied, it allowed Brian and Jenny to face just one. Which was good. Without Classes, the two were having a hard time with the single Gaunt each was fighting.
Jenny was having the harder fight. She was fast, moving and dodging, scoring a couple hits with her sword. The Gaunt had gotten a solid hit on her at one point, blood running down her shoulder. She was slowing down.
Brian held his Gaunt at bay. The club kept the monster back, slapping the sword away. He wasn’t making contact with the Gaunt itself, but just keeping it away, not letting it hit him either. The monster was growing frustrated, somehow, Brian was able to match its strength. They moved around each other, not standing still. Brian was big, not that agile. He didn’t dance or duck and weave. He shifted his whole body, turning at angles to avoid the stabbing sword. Against the Gaunt, who wasn’t fast either, it was working.
Both were staying within range of Loch’s Aura of Attack, letting the buff aid them.
Activating Windstep, Loch appeared in front of the Gaunt attacking Jenny. Startled, it raised the sword to block Onyx—a weak attempt at an awkward angle. Onyx slammed onto the blade, pushing it down, the Gaunt growling in pain. The growl rose in pitch, becoming a scream, as Jenny’s blade pierced its chest, the tip bursting out the monster's back.
“Down,” Loch ordered.
Jenny ducked.
Loch swung Onyx horizontally, the sharp edge glowing orange slicing through the Gaunt’s neck. The head fell to the ground, bouncing across the pavement, the body falling a couple of seconds after, the blade making a clattering noise as it fell from a lifeless hand, hitting the hard asphalt.
Jenny fell back, wiping sweat off her brow.
“You good?”
She gave Loch a weak thumbs up.
Good enough for now.
He turned to the next fight.
Brian was at an angle to him, able to barely see Loch. He didn’t reveal anything, focused on the Gaunt in front of him, holding its attention. He stepped to the left, rotating around, disengaging from the Gaunt. The monster smiled, thinking it had an opening, raising its sword for a strike.
Onyx slammed into its back, lightning crackling around the wound, wrapping around the Gaunt’s body. His spine arched in pain. There was a loud crack a second later as Loch, Onyx, back in hand and returned to full size, cut into the Gaunt’s back. The monster fell forward, right into the path of Brian’s club.
Skull broken and brain smashed, the Gaunt fell to the ground.
“Look out!” Brian yelled.
Loch twisted and dove forward. A blade slid down his arm, scraping against his armor and cutting into his unprotected forearm. He grimaced, cursing as he hit the ground. The Gaunt, face and chest a mess of torn flesh, raised its sword to swing. A blast of silver energy slammed into it, causing the Gaunt to turn to the new threat.
Before Loch could get up, a large shadow fell over him. Brian’s club swung through the air, whistling, slamming into the Gaunt’s head. The neck snapped to the side, not breaking but staggering the Gaunt. It shook its head, trying to fight unconsciousness. A globe of silver light struck its chest, pushing it back. Another slam from the club brought it to its knees. Onyx swung up, cutting deep into the monster's side, almost slicing off the arm. The Gaunt fell to the side, Brian’s club falling to finish it off.
Loch stood up, looking around for the last Gaunt. It wasn’t attacking Piper or Jenny. He couldn’t see it, then heard the noise. A shuffling, something dragging across the pavement. A blood trail led to the Gaunt as it tried to walk away. It couldn’t run with one leg useless, dragging behind it as it staggered and limped. One arm, a bloody mess of heavily bleeding torn meat, hung at its side, barely attached to the body. It didn’t look back but just kept trying to get away.
Onyx flew end over end, hitting it in the other shoulder, knocking the Gaunt to the ground. Brian strode over to it, looking down at the monster that still tried to drag itself away.
Was it trying to save its life or run to whoever ordered the ambush? Loch didn’t know and didn’t care.
Notifications flashed across Loch’s vision as Brian put it out of its misery.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Loch dismissed the floating blocks of text, just more kill notifications. He was too tired and hurt. The wound on his arm was healing slowly, fighting against the damage over time bleeding debuff. Luckily there hadn’t been anything magical about the sword, no other debuff.
He walked over to Piper and Jenny, the two sitting next to each other. Piper wasn’t hurt, just exhausted, her wand across her knees. Jenny leaned against a chunk of upturned pavement, working to get her breathing under control. She had numerous lesser wounds, not small by any means but not directly worrisome. The biggest did have Loch worried. A gash across her stomach, bleeding heavily.
He wished he’d insisted on bringing one of the healers from the camp, but they were too valuable to risk.
“How are you doing?” he asked, crouching down in front of Jenny.
“Just great,” she muttered. “Aside from the hole in my stomach.”
Loch knew stomach wounds were painful.
And deadly.
One of his squadmates had gotten shot in the stomach. He’d almost bled out before the medics had gotten him into trauma. He’d survived and been immediately shipped back to the States. They’d gotten a message that he was alive and well or would be once kicked out of the hospital. The man had been screaming, losing so much blood.
Loch didn’t have too many dreams or nightmares from his Army days, but that soldier screaming was one of them.
Jenny was starting to look a little better. There was less blood coming from the wound. Her natural regeneration starting. It didn’t appear to be as good as his. Loch didn’t know what stat controlled the regeneration if even a stat did. It could be a passive Skill, just always there and turned on. There could be a lot of variables that went into it.
Another thing to put on Cerie’s list.
“Are you okay, Dad?” Piper asked with a little worry in her voice, pointing at his arm.
He held it up, seeing the bloody gash starting to scab over. It was strange, watching something that normally took minutes or hours happening in seconds.
“Yeah,” Loch said, smiling. “‘Tis but a scratch.”
Piper groaned, rolling her eyes.
“Brian?”
“Good,” the big man said, holding his club off to the side.
He started shaking it, drops of blood flying off. The wood, already a rusty color from dried blood, was growing darker.
“More of these things,” he muttered. “Where are they coming from?”
“Good question,” Cerie said from where she sat on a piece of broken road, eyes glowing green. “I do not think these are natural creatures.”
“Natural?” Loch asked.
“Born and evolved, like the elves or you humans or even the hobs.”
“You’re saying someone created these Gaunts?”
“They are not golems or anything like that,” Cerie said. “There are some aspects of the Undead to them. They aren’t fully undead, though, and not fully living.”
“That’s more than you knew before,” Jenny grumbled, taking her hand away from her stomach.
The blood had dried, and the wound appeared to be closed. She grimaced as she tried moving.
“Before, I had only seen one. Now I had eight to study and scan.”
Loch wondered what she meant by scan. He started to ask but was interrupted by Brian’s excited yell.
“Hey, I hit Level Five,” he said, a huge smile across his face.
“Congrats. What did you get for Class options?”
“Three. One Common, one Uncommon, and one Rare,” Brian replied, his smile even larger. “Armsman, Berserker, and Soldier. Huh, that one is the Rare Class. Wouldn’t Soldier be more Common? It’s a pretty generic name. And what’s an Armsman?”
“A melee Class that specializes in bashing weapons,” Cerie explained, pointing to Brian’s club. “It is a very Common Class along with Swordsman, Spearman, and such. A Class that is purely offensive and reliant on a specific type of weapon. The Abilities revolve around that weapon.”
“Are there any differences between those types of Classes,” Loch asked, having a feeling that those were going to be what the majority of the people at the Camp ended up getting. “Like is one better than the other?”
“No. The weapon is really personal preference. Much like how your Soul Weapon has a high attack Ability for the axe head and an equivalent for the hammerhead. An Armsman will have high attack Abilities using a bashing-type weapon. A Swordsman will have equivalent Abilities but for a sword. These types of Classes form the backbone of a Clan’s army.”
“I could live with that,” Brian said. “Don’t want Berserker. At least if it’s anything like games.”
“It is,” Cerie confirmed. “It is a high-damage Class but with great risk, replacing defense with more offense. There is also a Rage aspect.”
“No thanks. I like being in control of my own head.”
“And Soldier,” Loch asked Cerie.
“A more elite damage-dealing Class. It will have some defensive Abilities. A Soldier is meant to be a Captain in a Clan’s Army. A fighter able to take on stronger foes by themselves. The Silver Bark Clan had a couple of Connected with the Soldier Class.” Her eyes lit up as she accessed her internal databases. “They were fearsome opponents, oftentimes at the front lines of the battles, taking on the Elite monsters or Elite Classers of the enemy.”
“I like that sound of that,” Brian said, eyes unfocusing.
His body shook, arms spreading out wide, head leaning back, as he accepted the Class. A second later, he relaxed.
“Wow, that was crazy,” he said, eyes still unfocused as he read over his new Status.
Loch motioned to Brian, pointing to the other end of the large trees across the road. The newly Classed Soldier nodded, hefting his club. He had one of the Gaunts’ swords hanging from his belt. More comfortable with the club, his new Class gave him limited proficiency in all weapon types. He’d never be as good with the sword as someone with the Common Swordsman Class, but he’d still be able to do damage with it and use some of his Class Abilities.
The Soldier Class seemed like a less powerful Warbreaker, just without the equal amount and power of defensive Abilities. As Cerie had described it, the Soldier did seem like it was meant to be a commander on the battlefield, aiding the army, but also meant to be one of the powerhouses, taking on the tougher foes.
Brian hadn’t really spent any time practicing his new Abilities. Loch didn’t want to waste too much time and felt exposed on the road. It was a safe assumption that the Gaunts had come from further west, with the branches of the fallen trees blocking the view in that direction.
Before they kept moving, they had to make sure the trees weren’t trapped.
Loch crept around to the left, walking off the road onto the grass, the strip between road and tree line. The tree had grown right at the edge, an older one that spanned the entire width of the road. About three feet in diameter, pieces of bark and wood pulp around the jagged stump. It had been hacked at, not clearly, Loch picturing the Gaunts using their swords.
Crouching down, Loch looked under the tree trunk, all around the stump. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Would there be physical traps or magical ones? What would a magical trap even look like? Cerie had already said she couldn’t detect traps. Loch had hoped. She unhelpfully said that there were plenty of Classes available that could detect traps.
He didn’t see anything that could possibly be a trigger.
With a shrug, Loch walked around the stump.
He could see Route 4 stretching off to the west, a hill blocking his view of the restaurants and brewery, with the hardware store a half mile or so past those. What used to be a half mile or so. It could be longer now.
Brian came around the far end, the two walking toward each other. Loch kept most of his focus on the ground, moving further from the trunk to avoid the broken and still living branches that had spread out. He glanced to the west every couple of steps, making sure it was still clear.
His eyes spotted it first.
A mound in the branches. Not branches and leaves from underneath pushing up the ones on top, this was more rounded. Not natural. Raising a hand, he motioned for Brian to stop. The newly minted Soldier did, turning to look down the road.
Onyx in hand, Loch slowly approached the mound. From the sides, it had been fully covered in leaves, but the front was more open, revealing what the Gaunts had hidden. Or hadn’t tried to hide, just buried. Maybe they had been there when the trees had fallen?
Loch didn’t know, but seeing it made him angry.
If the Gaunts were still alive, he would have killed them.
The leafy canopy covered a pile of bodies. Mangled and bloodied with flies buzzing around in a thick cloud. Men and women. A half dozen of them. Loch tried to pretend he didn’t see the two children.
Two was more than there ever should have been.
All had been brutally killed. Bodies so bloodied and torn that Loch couldn’t make anything of their faces. No way to tell if he knew them. In a way, he was glad he couldn’t see who they were. If he had known them, finding out the family had been murdered by the Gaunts, horrifically brutalized, it would have been horrible. That they were strangers, still horrible, but slightly less so.
Only four of the bodies were humans. The other two were elves. Just enough of their ears remained.
The humans wore clothing, jeans and T-shirts, khaki pants, and sneakers. The elves wore leather armor, much like the one that Loch had killed so long ago. Loch was tempted to pull the bodies out and take the armor. Some of it was in bad shape, but parts were salvageable. Any armor was better than no armor, especially since most of the camp’s survivors had nothing beyond clothes. But to get at the elves' bodies, he’d have to pull at the kids and humans.
Loch wasn’t going to do that.
He didn’t want to leave the bodies for the scavengers, but they didn’t have the time it would take to dig the graves. Setting the bodies on fire was an option, but that would release a cloud of smoke into the air, visible for miles. It would be obvious they were there. Anyone further west would be on high alert. Anyone to the north or south would be alerted as well, maybe even come and investigate.
As much as he hated it, Loch knew they had to leave the bodies there.
“Damnit,” Brian growled, walking closer, able to see the grisly scene. “Are those…” he stopped, cursing loudly for a long time.
Loch felt sick to his stomach. How could the Gaunts have done this? Animals? He could see animals ravaging their kills like this. What the Gaunts had done, worse than animals.
They would have done the same to Piper if he had died.
He felt a rage building, red tinting his vision. His Core of Spirit started to pump, pushing energy into his body through his nerves. Loch wanted to destroy something.
Preferably Gaunts.
Taking a deep breath, Loch pushed the rage back down, releasing the energy building up.
That wouldn’t do anyone any good.
“We can’t bury them,” Brian said, Loch thankful for the man’s pragmatic side. He’d probably been in a similar situation during his tours in the middle east. Maybe not children, but seeing bodies that he couldn’t do anything about. “Can’t burn them.”
He walked a couple of feet back up the tree trunk, pulling at some branches. Grasping a thick one, long with a lot of green leaves on smaller branches along its length, Brian bent and twisted. There was a snap, the limb breaking off.
Bending the smaller branches, somewhat weaving them together, he laid it over the front of the mound, further hiding the bodies.
“It won’t be perfect, but…” He trailed off, moving down the trail to grab another set of branches.
Loch moved down the trees on the other side, hanging Onyx from his belt and taking out the utility knife. He unfolded the serrated blade, seeing that the edges needed to be sharpened, dried blood covering the tool turned weapon. Harper hadn’t done a great job cleaning it before getting her bladed tonfas. The saw had served her and Piper well. Now it would be used for its intended purpose, cutting wood instead of monsters.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
