44.

  “Right on time,” Santi whispered to Yessenia as they watched the squad of Duncan’s fighters racing through the edges of the town, a horde of cursed warriors behind them. It was like watching hares running from rabid dogs. The vanguard of Mercy’s horde were nearly frothing at the mouth as they ran with reckless abandon toward the ambush.

  “Alright, time for you and your golem to go hide,” Santi said as he turned toward the dozens of people racing towards them. Yessenia grunted in affirmative as she went down the half burned down house’s stairs and toward the root cellar she had found and reinforced over night.

  Santi leapt out of the second story and landed lightly and jogged toward the main road where Duncan’s people would be coming down soon. If he timed it right he would appear right as Duncan’s people passed him and Mercy’s people turned the corner. From here it would be a straight shot down toward the park and to the awaiting dryad.

  He turned the corner just as the last of Duncan’s people raced by and Santi stood in the middle of the road. Duncan’s team turned a corner and disappeared into the ruins of some of the other buildings while Santi stood by himself as the first of Mercy’s people turned the corner.

  She was a tall, white, middle aged woman. Her auburn hair had streaks of gray and was dirty and matted. Her face was gaunt and drawn as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, while her green-blue eyes were feverish, a red blush spread across her face and throat. Her clothes were dirty rags that hung off of her, several sizes too large.

  Cursed Hunter lvl. 26

  Low-level Acolyte that he could destroy in a moment without trying. Santi smelled the dry blood on her, the caked on death and despair that she wallowed in as she raced toward him with a crude metal spear in her hand. Her body had a bloody bruise colored aura that clung to herself, spilling around herself and forming around her spear as she lunged at him without a second thought.

  Santi sidestepped as her lunge slashed the space where he had been occupying moments before. He kicked her in the side and she bent in half as air whooshed out of her body. Santi kept his eyes focused on where she had come from just as another wave of high Initiate and low Acolyte cursed came rounding the corner.

  If this was the best that was in the vanguard he doubted they’d be enough to harm the dryad enough that he could kill it. He was hoping for a few mid-level thirties that would come pounding down the lane, but he could make do for now. Santi spun around and jogged, keeping ahead of the mob by a few dozen feet. [Air Shield] was more than enough to keep ahead of the few attacks he couldn’t dodge.

  He kept his eyes on the turn of the street and he couldn’t repress his smile as a trio rounded the corner, moving languidly as if it was just a Sunday stroll. All three of them wore fine, if ill-fitting, clothes. Furs and silks and suede, all mixed together in an eclectic clash, gold and silver jewelry dangling as they followed after the horde of lower level trash.

  Cursed Berserker lvl. 32

  Cursed Looter lvl. 33

  Cursed Brawler lvl. 32

  “They’ll do,” Santi muttered and then turned and ran away instantly. It was like spilling chum into shark infested waters. They took after him without hesitation, hooting and laughing, madness racing in their voices as they ran.

  Santi saw the tree within seconds and raced past the first line of the markings he and Yessenia had made and then into the second field. He spun around as he met the first of his pursuers. It was the same hunter he had kicked and he dispatched her with a single slash of long knife and then slamming her body toward the roots of the tree, her life blood pumping into the roots of the tree.

  Two more Initiate level fighters were killed in a blitz of strikes that they couldn’t keep up with, Santi killing them before they could even register his strikes. Their red blood soaked into the parched earth and the inner circle began to glow, so faint that it was hardly visible in the daylight.

  The spilling blood enraged the cursed as what little sense they had was abandoned. They raced forward and Santi kept cutting, his considerable willpower used to try to keep his curse in check even as his heart began to hammer with excitement, adrenaline surging in his veins.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The glow of the light increased as he cut down three Initiates in a burst of violence, their bodies stacking rapidly as Santi ran the circumference of the tree as he was quickly becoming surrounded. More and more of the cursed came out of the town and raced into the park. Enough bodies that Santi started to worry that there were too many of them. It was beginning to look like Duncan’s people had managed to gather up all of the vanguard and not just some of it.

  The inner circle was white light now, gleaming powerfully as red blood turned the dry dirt to mud. Santi leapt straight up with a burst of [Wind Step], cast a horizontal [Air Shield] and landed light on it to spring off of it with another [Wind Step] to clear the crowd and land outside of the encirclement. The crowd spun around quickly with others streaming around the side of the hill as they sprinted towards him.

  It meant they all missed the dryad waking up. It shuddered as it clawed itself out of its tree in silence as the inner circle dissolved in a flash of light. It towered above the field as it stood on its small hill, its tree seeming to have shrunk as the now corporeal spirit began to move toward the cursed warriors.

  Santi smiled and started killing, making sure to keep the dead inside of the primary circle. He ducked, bobbed, cut, and slashed, a veritable whirlwind of death as he piled up corpses. The sticky residue of the curse clung to the air, a rising tide of rage and bloodlust that clung to his nostrils with every breath.

  The dryad hit the back of the horde like an avalanche. Bodies disintegrated into bloody sprays as it crushed people beneath its legs created of woven roots. It looked quite similar to the ent Santi had killed in the rift at the very beginning of the initialization.

  With a wide sweep of its arm it killed a half dozen peak Initiates and that finally broke through the haze of bloodlust as the crowd began to turn. Others leapt at it, slashing and hacking at its thick bark armor to little effect. The three Acolytes he had seen earlier all jumped into attacking the dryad, dancing around and laughing as their fellows were obliterated, the crowded disappearing quickly under the brutality of the dryad.

  The outer circle was building quickly, heat starting to build inside until it quickly passed the heat of a normal summer day and started to enter furnace range. More and more were dying, blood flowing like a river only to begin to evaporate under the mounting magical heat. Santi backed up a bit as the heat continued to skyrocket.

  The few remaining Initiates were drenched in sweat and beginning to panic as the crushing heat broke through their bloodlust and they began to look for a way out. They were stuck between a rock and shard place, Santi dancing along like a dervish on the outside of the magical circle and the dryad crushing and killing behind them.

  They tried to rush Santi. He stacked their corpses with the rest.

  It took only a few minutes for Santi and the dryad to slaughter all the Initiates and soon there were only six cursed left, panic beginning to set in as they realized the trap they were in. The heat was crushing now, the bark of the dryad beginning to have wisps of smoke trail off of it while the leaves were smoldering.

  An Acolyte fell, crushed under a foot. The leaves ignited in bursts of flame, wreathing the dryad with a crown of fire.

  Santi dodged a hammer wreathed in blue skills and gutted one and then beheaded a second Acolyte in two rapid fire strikes. The dryad picked up a third Acolyte and pulled her apart with ease.

  Its bark was smoking now and the heat was enough that Santi was forced back from the line as the poor magic circle was breaking apart. The remaining Acolytes were dying, skin bubbling and hair igniting. Jewelry was beginning to droop while furs and silks ignited. The last Acolytes died quickly, all three of them bursting apart in sprays of blood that evaporated moments laters. The dryad was a pillar of smoke as the grass in the field had lit on fire.

  [Gust] was gentle and caused the smoking bark to burst into an inferno as oxygen reached the smoldering embers inside of the thick bark. The dryad shook as its entire body was now on fire and Santi backed away. He kept the cast going, fueling the raging fire until the entire dryad was completely consumed. The high level monster ran out of the circle in a panic, crashing into the side of a partially destroyed house and blowing through it. It lost its footing and thrashed about, spreading its fire until the house was burning as well.

  It got free and staggered about, crashing into homes or cars, crushing and lighting everything on fire as it flailed. Santi stalked after it, hands trembling as the thrum of his blood filled his hearing. Everything screamed to him to attack, to keep attacking and not stop.

  He forced that down, forced the desire to lunge at the walking bonfire and turn it to kindling. Because fighting a bonfire was a bad idea. He had to repeat that simple thought in his head over and over again as he waited for the dryads natural defenses to smother the fire.

  Santi moved further away from the bloody field and kept casting [Gust] to keep the dryad burning bright. It didn’t last much longer. Slowly at first and then with rapid speed the fire went out, sputtering away to leave the smoking dryad standing in a broken house.

  It turned slowly towards him and Santi waited for it as it started to walk towards him slowly. Its branches had burned away leaving only the trunk and the thickest limbs left, woven together to form crude simulacrums of arms. Its trunk was nothing more than charcoal, bark having burned off to leave a bare and charred wood.

  Its root legs were weak and cracked, every step splitting apart pieces of the root system but it continued toward him with grim determination. Santi finally let his waning willpower collapse and he was launching himself forward [Windstep] rocketing him toward the dryad as his morph blade turned into an axe