Eric’s heart pounded as he raced through the ruins of a city filled with fog, flashes of blaster fire, and the howl of monsters. His guts roiled with desperate anxiety as he dashed toward the final fallen soldier whose piteous groans were broadcast for anyone with the reception or hearing to triangulate.
Then he blinked, seeing not the mercenary buried under rubble that he had expected, but a pack of vicious feral wolves tearing through the man’s polymerized carbon fiber and exotic tungsten alloyed armor like rice paper.
A helmet was torn free. Eyes wild with panic and pain locked onto Eric’s own for a split second before his head was torn off his skull by a massive wolf with bipedal limbs and claws radiating the essence of Sharpness.
As one, the pack of Bronze-tier killers flared their nostrils before turning to face the creature whose scent they had caught.
A momentary confusion flickered across several of their maws, as if able to taste the scent of existential dread from their prey… but nothing like the raw, primal terror the being rapidly approaching them should feel.
Two had time to exchange confused looks as the pack instinctively clustered, their predatory glares turning to looks of surprise when their prey howled and rammed into them with nothing more than their naked fist.
“Charge of the Prismatic Light Brigade, motherfuckers!”
Words screamed in hyper-speak too fast for any of the wolves to register, save in the results, as multiple modifiers came into play when a fist radiating the essence of Cold itself struck a massive werewolf whose bones had been reforged in savagery’s cauldron over decades, far stronger than tungsten carbide, or any Terran alloy.
Bones that nonetheless shattered like glass when the massive Bronze Beast went flying, 400 Strength and Vitality utterly unable to resist the furious assailant now in their midst.
Yet when the rest of the furious pack roared and charged for the interloper as one, their alloy-shredding claws meant nothing but air, their ears ringing with the crack of one pack member after another being sent flying with desperate howls or gurgling grunts and the thrumming boom of bodies hitting reinforced concrete walls like artillery fire, one warehouse collapsing after another and then there was only one wolf remaining, the largest of the pack, spinning around with wild, furious eyes only to blink in surprise before the fey looking half-blood daring to glare at the alpha as if he were the prey.
Arsinus roared. He didn’t know what trickery this fool had used, but he had locked onto his prey, and now there could be only one ending.
“Die, wretched elf!” He roared in hyperspeak as he embraced Both his Berserker Class feat and deadly essence in a single blow.
Piercing Strike enhanced by the essence of Sharpness successfully strikes you foe!
Arsinus flashed a feral grin, reveling in the feel of his claws slicing cleanly through his foe’s heart—he blinked in confusion when massive claws that should cleave through anything short of Imperial grade dreadnought plating slammed against a breastplate that stopped it cold, knocking his target a single foot back with the force of his blow.
His prey stared at Arsinus for a timeless second before flashing a feral grin wider than Arsinus’s entire gaping maw.
Only then did the wolf step back, claws throbbing, feeling suddenly uncertain.
The elf mocked him with his grin. “Good. Good! Teach me not to be an utterly overconfident fuck! You’re Quickness is what, 400? 500 at most? Because you assholes like to balance yours stats for point boons, am I right? Some 10% hidden modifier natives aren’t allowed to be told about, maybe? Whatever. Anyway, do it again. This time, no armor.”
Arsinus’s eyes widened in surprise and a sudden burst of urgency when the odd elf’s armaments vanished, and he was wearing no armor at all.
The werewolf’s lips curled in a fierce grin. “You wish to play with me? Then we will play, elf! Play with your death!” He didn’t hesitate, a tiny part of his still sane mind realizing that this was his best and perhaps only chance to bring this abomination down, while he was trying to hone his killing edge against his better and MOCKING Arsinus! An offense he would NEVER forg—”
Death Bite FAILS to connect with your prey!
Doom Swipe countered by shin check! Doom Swipe successfully parried.
You have inflicted 1 Medium Wound!
You have torn open your foe’s forearm!
Arsinus’s bloodthirst flared at the scent of Sylvan blood, richer and darker than any he had ever smelled before. Until the final message that froze his battle-lust, and for the first time in a very, very long time, he began to feel the cold claws of dread caress his spine.
Your Doom Swipe FAILS to shatter the bones of your foe!
Arsinus leaped back, snarling at his smirking foe who didn’t seem to mind the blood spurting from his forearm a bit.
Then the blood trickled to a complete stop… before flowing back up the elf’s arm and reentering the open wound of its own accord!
Arsinus’s anxious caution flared to something suspiciously like dismay.
“NO!” He snarled through his oversized maw. “No, you’re no Master. No Silver! I don’t even sense your Core! You should be disemboweled or dead already! What trickery is—”
His words were cut off when his foe was suddenly right in front of him! Which meant he had either teleported… or had triple Arsinus’s own absurdly high Quickness of 500, a number that made an absolute joke out of the slow and clumsy mercenaries that couldn’t have been over Rank 10 Bronze… fools that actually thought themselves worthy opponents!
He shook his head. “Trickery, not speed. I felt no flow of air!”
Arsinus bared his fangs in furious, desperate vindication. “A trick, all a trick! You somehow feed on my fear. Well I have no fear now! Now I will—”
His words were cut off when a shocking explosion of pain speared into his solar plexus with such force that he was suddenly rocketing through the air, his interface flaring with messages as he slammed into multiple reinforced concrete walls that rather abruptly broke his flight.
You have been struck by Doom Fist!
This Rank 8 combined essence attack (Rank 4 Cold / Rank 4 Dominion ) has shattered parrying claws enhanced by a single rank of Sharpness!
Your foe has temporarily claimed a portion of your Vitality!
Your foe has temporarily claimed a portion of your Quickness, reserves, and body heat!
You have been weakened! You have been slowed!
You have struck steel-reinforced concrete support beams of Sloan & Sloan Savings & Loan. Multiple ribs have been shattered! Your shoulders have been dislocated! You’re suffering internal bleeding!
You are temporarily stunned and unable to move!
Arsinus took a wheezing breath, tasting the ripe odors of mold and damp concrete in what his bleary eyes made out to be the gloomy interior of an abandoned Terran wealth repository.
For long moments he just lay there, too agonized to move, wondering why his regeneration wasn’t kicking in.
Rank 4 Dominion essence-enhanced blows are currently suppressing all resilience and recovery checks. Rank 7 Lupine Regeneration FAILS to counter!
Arsinus choked down a whimper. Even a single rank of an essence skill was more than enough to suppress and overwhelm the abilities of all but the most gifted or trained in any sort of contest. Just one of the reasons why the elites did everything in their power to gift their progeny with the boon of an essence best suited to their natures. One that would serve as the foundation of an armamentarium of profoundly deadly skills, spells, and abilities that would become their progeny’s key to unlocking a truly powerful class that would enhance their essence abilities all the more before ascending the ranks of Bronze, perhaps even breaking through to Silver.
Indeed, it was the motivating factor for so many of Mord’s chosen to swear themselves to the Contender and accept the curse that had manifested such glorious power. Not simply for the boons of an incredibly enhanced physique, even if their appetites had skyrocketed and their savagery as well. It was ultimately for the boon of an essence, allowing them to shatter any opponent’s blade or spear or blaster, or pierce and rend any foe’s armor, even the most elite paladin’s shield that had been blessed and reinforced by his class, or the strongest tungsten-alloyed materials to be found on any battlemech suit to be encountered anywhere, save in imperial battle squads.
The essence of Sharpness was beyond priceless, even if most of Mord’s chosen could only manifest a single rank with claws and teeth, and only in their transformed form.
It had been enough to rise a desperate guild of classers from their basic white-tier origins to the glories of Bronze.
Yet all that meant nothing before the challenger he had dared to cross his claws and fangs against. A ruthless Contender whose breastplate was somehow stronger than Arsinus’s claws, and whose very flesh seemed to resist at least a portion of his most fearsome attack.
As just a single punch had revealed.
Eight. That too innocent-looking monster it had been so easy to underestimate had eight essence ranks from two different elements that he had somehow combined in an attack so profoundly deadly as to be utterly absurd. Long before Arsinus had accepted Mord’s gift, he had studied and trained under multiple scholars, desperate to unlock the secrets of his own ascension. And if there was one bit of truth he had achieved from scholarly pursuits he now wished he had never left, it was that no one, not even Silvers, had more than a handful of ranks in a sacred essence, and those essences would eventually shape their entire being. The only exceptions were elite rulers of entire worlds, whose essence rank might actually approach, even if never actually achieve, double digits.
Yet all that aside, no one could actually stack essences for a combined total. Those that had been so blessed as to have two different essences used them to compliment their abilities to truly deadly effect. But actually combining them in a single attack? He had never heard of such a thing. Which could just as easily be thanks to the elites never seeing fit to share any such profound truth in any of the tomes he had ever gotten his hands on, but the result was the same.
He was utterly and completely outmatched. In speed, power, even in the very quality and potency of his deadliest attack.
Compared to his opponent, Arsinus was a wayward pup about to be put in his place in the most savage way imaginable.
He whimpered at the very thought. The alpha pride and confidence that he had worn like a cloak for so long that it had seemed an extension of his fur… overweening pride so great that he had been just a season away from challenging Mord’s inner circle for the right to hunt by his side… was torn free with a single crippling blow.
He did his best to choke down his dog-like whimpers when he heard the panicked howls of his packmates as that inhuman monster finished them off… or dragged them away? He wasn’t certain, and he didn’t dare move from where he lay, a crumpled ball of whimpering pain half buried in rubble, forced to accept just how weak and powerless he was compared to what he faced, what he had dared to take lightly, as his mind tormented him with the psychic screams of his closest brethren being claimed by that hideous beast he would happily flee from the city to avoid… if only he wasn’t so injured that he could barely move.
That damn elf that had seemed such a tempting prize to ravish and devour hadn’t been prey at all.
He had been a treacherous alpha wearing sheep’s clothing hunting a different sort of—
“Here... wolfie, wolfie, wolfie!”
Arsinus froze, lupine heart pounding with raw primal terror.
His ears wilted at the sound of gravel crunching under feet as the too cheerful hum of a young half-blood tormented his ears. He could only prey that—
He howled as his tormentor grabbed a massive fistful of his scruff and yanked him out of the rubble.
As if his 400 Strength meant absolutely nothing.
“There you are!” Said his tormentor with a bright-eyed manic grin. “Let’s shake off some of that dust. Don’t want it to taint that JUICY blood of yours,” the redheaded youth declared. And before Arsinus could even think of a response to that, the pair of them were already racing out of the building and into the sky.
“What madness is this?”
His captor snorted. “It’s called flight.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Arsinus could only gasp, before spluttering when he was drenched by a sudden surge of water.
“You’re drowning me!”
This earned a snort. “Why would I do that? I need you alive. Now quit wining like a zero level bitch from a basic water summoning spell. There. All dusted is washed off. Now you’re ready for the best part!”
Arsinus whimpered. “My surrender?”
His painfully handsome captor flashed a too bright smile. “Too late!”
Before Arsinus could respond, his world became a whirlwind of pain as artillery blasted into each of his limbs in the blink of an eye.
Your foe has successfully shattered left and right femur!
Your foe has shattered left and right radius, ulna, and multiple wrist bones!
Your foe has ruptured both shoulder sockets!
Rank 4 Dominion enhanced blows are currently suppressing all resilience and recovery checks! Rank 7 Lupine Regeneration FAILS to counter!
Your foe has thrown you at Warp Gate!
You are unable to avoid Warp Gate!
Arsinus howled as he tumbled toward his doom, catching sight of his captor standing in the air and waving at him with a smile as heaven and earth traded places, all the buildings spinning up and around as he crashed into blackness and his world became a hideous cacophony of screams and pain before he howled out in fresh agony as he slammed into the center of a grassy field covered in desiccated corpses.
The corpses of Song’s most valued mercenaries.
And the remains of his desiccated brethren as well.
Arsinus’s eyes widened in horror as he took in the familiar starry night sky, and the lich standing solemnly before him.
“I recognize you! You stood by that succubus’s side! You’ve broken covenant! This is our home! You would dare to do this in our—NO!”
His outraged roar became a shriek of panic as pools of inky darkness and crimson wrath swarmed all over his form.
Glaring eyes filled with fire pinned him where he lay as teeth that could tear through anything latched upon his jugular and began to feed.
“No covenant has been broken. Certainly not by me, for I made no oath to your master,” the lich calmly said as Arsinus squealed and howled as every last drop of his power, potency, and lifeblood was torn from his frame.
“You but make amends for your own transgressions and we deem your sacrifice… worthy. Though not enough, sadly.” The awful lich sighed. “Not enough by far.”
***
Congratulations! You have successfully bested Lesser Werewolf enhanced by Contender boons and Essence of Sharpness!
Congratulations! You have successfully bested multiple Lesser Werewolves enhanced by Contender boons and Essence of Sharpness!
Eve approves of these battles and awards you 2 Cultivation levels.
NOTE! Werewolf attack patterns are uniform and you have gleaned all the insight and growth you can from singular battles and pack swarms. You may continue to accrue core-saturating potency and mastery over your martial skills, but no further Cultivation levels can be earned from defeating members of this particular pack!
Save for their master, a fellow Contender, whose secrets you’re so very eager to claim!
Eric flashed a bleak smile as he gained altitude, the sheer joy he felt at so utterly mastering monsters that would have utterly terrified him not that long ago muted by the dire peril he knew his friends were still in.
Peril he would do anything to avert, not needing Grim to explain the particulars to sense that both Alice and Morlekai were only hanging on to their natures, their souls, and themselves by the tiniest of threads that were so close to snapping.
If Eric couldn’t pull off a miracle with so much fresh blood…
He choked back a whimper, hot eyes glaring at the world with bitter resolve. “It doesn’t matter what it takes, or who I have to take out. I’m rescuing my friends and if that makes me the monster? So be it. I’ll atone with the next fucking territory I take. No matter how many assholes I have to kill in this one.”
Even the fresh messages flickering across his interface brought him scant comfort, though one in particular demanded his immediate attention, transcendent skill evolutions refusing to be denied. And when he sensed the perilous power and sweetest potential flowing through his body and mind, he knew the choice he would make, the choice he had been destined to make all along.
Congratulations! Maximum potency to skill rank conversion and honing yourselves against packs of Bronze-Tier melee specialists has paid off!
Because with all your abilities, you still chose to take them on with your fists.
Super Punch man would be proud!
Your right hook is now legendary, you can juke and weave past claws that could sheer through mithril alloys, and your kidney punch something even werewolves fear!
Unarmed Combat is now Rank 32!
You have embraced the use of a transcendent attack! The phoenix reveals his talons, freezing solid all his prey! Absorbing the fires of their fury and passion so that his own glorious wings may flare to life!
Congratulations! Doom Strike is now Rank 10!
Doom Strike taps into higher order concepts of COLD, embracing both Consumption and Dominion as you TAKE the heat, vitality, speed, and reserves of your opponent and leaving nothing but bitter cold in your wake! No defenses lacking appropriate higher order concepts or essence infusion can counter this attack!
Damage is baseline Unarmed combat with all boons and modifiers in play.
Doom Strike is now ready to ascend!
You may choose one of the following skill evolutions.
Pristine efficiency! Your dedicated mastery of the martial arts and steady ascension upon the most perilous of cultivation ladders, the Path of Peril, has truly paid off!
You have transformed your Doom Strike into an attack that has zero cost! In addition to the sweet surge of Vitality, Mana, Qi, and Quickness you claim, your blows themselves will cost no inherent Qi or Soul Reserves at all!
Your fearsome intent is all that’s needed for your will to be made manifest, without any cost at all! Even should you be reduced to shockingly low Qi reserves, this attack will always be available for you to tear free all the heat, fire, and fury from your foes that you need to both survive and thrive!
Eric winced. For as much as it might seem a low priority perk since Doom Strike, itself an enhancement over his original Doom Fist, now allowed him not just to numb and slow but to take the fires of health and heat and potency reserves right from his foes… few if any had much in the way of Qi to claim. And considering how perilous his ascension was becoming with the bittersweet bane of maximizing Cultivator’s Resilience at all times, the very real possibility that his Qi Pool might hit shockingly low levels was a bitter truth that he had to face and accept. Which meant that the merits of a cost-free Essence infused attack that could recoup some of what he lost was something he had to seriously consider.
Yet when he mentally scrolled down to the next skill evolution, he knew at that moment what he would be getting. What he absolutely had to get. What, considering his future role as a delve-clearing Contender, he all but HAD to claim.
Note! Your experience surrendering your blood to your vampiric friend and your seed to a succubus queen has had unexpected benefits beyond those that take a year to blossom! You now understand the intricacies of Consumption and Dominion like never before. You may now enhance your coldest blow with Winter’s Kiss!
Winter’s Kiss! Embrace the power of the gentlest of feeds. Though your fists, shins, and feet may strike with bone shattering force, Winter’s tendrils will drink down your foe’s Vitality, Quickness, heat, Mana and Qi so gently that, should you prolong your feed, your foe might not even be aware the terrible tole he or she pays until she is left dazed and stumbling while you enjoy a temporary boon to the fires of your existence!
Even better, you may tear free your foe’s boons as fast as ever dared before without any restrictions at all! No Inquisitor or shaman will ever be able to detect your transcendent attack that you may freely use in any delve or even the most fragile bubble of regio or reality, such as the five-fold realm that New York has become!
Eric chuckled softly to himself, ruefully shaking his head. “Of course I’m going to take that perk. It’s fucking perfect! Blows that slow and freeze my foe, drain their potency pools and perk up my own reserves and leave me embracing Battletime more clearly than ever? Only now I can use it in any level of New York, in any shadow realm or delve, while giving the middle finger to any Inquisitor trying to ruin my day? Hell yeah!”
Yet before he clicked accept, of course he would read the final option. Just so he could pat himself on the back for not being an idiot even if the choice was obvi— “Oh shit, that’s actually pretty good!”
He blinked, swallowing his suddenly dry throat as he mentally reviewed the third evolution one more time.
Synergism with Enhanced and Evolved Fire Fist Detected!
Blow of the Winter Gale. - Why should your blows be limited to a single target? Now, your transcendent understanding of higher order concepts (far beyond mortal physics) allows you to understand and manipulate negative temperatures as well as positive! Just as your Fire Fist has evolved to do absolutely catastrophic damage in a considerable area around you that you (and your familiar and revenants) are immune to, so too you may evolve Doom Strike in a similar manner!
Blow of the Winter Gale is the icy inverse of Power Strike!
For double standard potency cost, (20 Qi & 4 Soul Reserves) you may now infuse your icy blows with added consumptive power! You do additional damage equal to your Strength in terms of raw percentage and Increased Cold Consumption Radius!
With the right perks in play with future skill evolutions, who knows just how devastating Doom Strike might become?
Eric’s heart began to pound when he forced himself to take a moment to appreciate just how significant boon that would be.
He spent long seconds he really couldn’t afford to waste rapidly going over the pros and cons.
“I have over 1500 strength. If this will truly mirror Fire Fist boosted by Power Strike, that’s a 15-fold damage modifier. A thirty-fold damage multiplier if I use Burst of Strength. Multiplied by my damage bonus to all essence melee attacks which, with my Golden Phoenix class, cultivation class, and unarmed combat total comes to a 4-fold multiplier basically, with 50% more damage with my Cultivator’s Fury perk, 30% more damage with my Death’s Disciple perk boosting all that by effectively 130%, and 60% more of everything with Greater Reaver II since its a melee attack…” He swallowed, gazing at the fog-covered city with plasma flares still going off in the distance. “And an additional 1.6 multiplier for a solid minute after bum-rushing my foes, since that counts as a Charge. Shit... And even if I’m not multiplying it all an additional 8-fold with my Cold and Dominion essences, they still come into their own by draining the Health, Mana, Qi, and Quickness of my foes, everyone in my explosion radius… should I say absorption radius? Is transformed into a temporary boost for me. But even if that’s capped, they’re still drained. I’ll be piercing all their resistances and slowing them the fuck down which means that that attack…”
“Is abso-fucking-lutely incredible, Fearless Leader! Now get whatever perk suits your fancy and grab me some fresh blood, because Morlekai and Alice are fading quick!”
He flinched before his familiar’s desperate plea, his thoughts racing as Eric darted over a warehouse district that had definitely seen better days toward the sound of roars and blaster fire lighting up the billowing fog.
Eric then grit his teeth and made the best choice that he could in the split second of endless potential that blossomed into what his ability had always been destined to be.
He did his best to shake away lingering misgivings, because the gift now blossoming in his soul had been what it had always been destined to be. His job was to make the absolute most of it and prove his instincts correct. Honing and perfecting his abilities and seeing just how far he could push them… before shaking away his brooding thoughts and focusing on the only thing that mattered. Embracing this moment, overcoming the perilous odds before him as he burst into a clearing comprised of flattened buildings and fallen figures, nothing but shttered rubble and smoking craters where numerous buildings had once stood, as a contingent of elite mercenaries in powered armor unleashed streaks of white-hot plasma at the handful of massive ape-like wolves that were darting through the wreckage at the other side of the clearing.
Wolves moving so fast that only a single yelp could be heard over dozens of bursts of deadly fire.
And the too focused mercenaries were paying far too little attention to their rear… or their heads.
“You broke covenant, Song!” Roared the largest of the werewolf pack in hyperspeak, a massive and fully transformed Mord whose massive wolflike skull atop a body that looked as much barrel-chested ape as wolf, despite his massive shredding claws, pointing a taloned digit right at the hawk-nosed countenance of none other than Lord Song himself, whose imperious, sneering features struck a dark cord in Eric’s psyche, recalling the man’s absolute contempt for Elly and her companions in the final moments of their lives before they were consumed by absolute torment.
Eric’s lips curled in a furious snarl. Heart hammering, plan changing in the blink of an eye as he felt nothing but HATE for the man crackling with multiple overlapping Silver-tier wards over shimmering robes of Elementium, mithril, and silk, lip curling as he glared disdainfully at the massive ten foot werewolf, both of them unleashing their full killing-aura. Enough to set the werewolves howling and the mercs flinching and cursing.
“I did no such thing, filthy cur! It is you who broke covenant, attack me without cause and provocation! Interfering with my operations and kidnapping multiple employees! Are you really that foolish, thinking you can twist my hand that easily?”
Song flashed a contemptuous smirk. “Though I must give you credit, you feral mutt. Had your foolish pawns not been so eager to claim patent secrets that will never be their right, I would still be ignorant of the precious treasures you had thought to swindle from me so cheaply!” His lips curled in an outright sneer as he crossed his arms. “Treasures which enhance me now. Treasures which I will never surrender!”
Mord’s blazing yellow irises crackled with ire. “You bonded with the key. MY key! That you would DARE!” He roared in hyperspeak that came out as a single mournful howl.
By way of answer, Song unsheathed a shimmering Elementium force blade that crackled to into three feet of solid void, radiating such awful peril that even the wolves stalking his band from behind froze.
Song’s lips curled in a sneer when all the wolves suddenly stiffened as the air rang with sonorous chants, dozens of light reds suddenly blinking on Eric’s interface as he took in the whole scene playing out in fractions of a second, thoughts racing as he was forced to reevaluate everything as the wolves stumbled, Song’s grin turned feral as he roared orders…
And Mord moved.
Moved so shockingly fast that alarm bells rang in Eric’s head even as Bunbun screamed in his head. “Eric, help!”
He choked back a scream of growing dread and fury and despair as Mord moved like a creature whose Quickness was the farthest thing from the 400 of his men.
2000 was Eric’s wild guess as he weaved and darted under multiple streams of plasma fire released by Mark III Deathblazes, tearing out the throat of two hapless mercenaries before slamming right into a roaring Song, a massive feral claw glittering with death about to rip Song’s throat when the air rang with multiple cracking booms.
A flare of eye-scorching silver erupted from Lord Song, forcing a howling Mord back, now covered in blazing Silver fire from either curse, enchantment, or extremely high tech defensive electromana ward as Song and his henchmen simultaneously took to the air, their powered armor vibrating as they slowly ascended up into the sky.
The perfect moment for Eric to dart down and claimed his target, his foe having time for no more than a single yelp before Eric’s fist slammed into the base of the wolf’s now shattered spine, and he was already racing away at full speed, just as a massive crimson ward crackled to life over the entire block as the air rang with Song’s contemptuous laughter.
“Thought you could ambush and take me so easily, fool? We’ve been three steps ahead of you the whole time. And now I bid you farewell, Mord. May you die like the dog that you are.”
The air rang with the crack and boom of multiple cannons contrasted by the confused barks and furious roars.
Of course Eric was no fool. He knew he was giving up a shockingly rich boon as he left a disadvantage Mord behind. A fight he might find outright deadly if he was forced to take the werewolf at his best… assuming he could beat him at all.
“Eric, please!”
“I’m coming!”
But he had fucking priorities. And those priorities were the lives of his friends.
