Runeblade
B3? Chapter 275: Flight, pt. 2

B3? Chapter 275: Flight, pt. 2

Kaius cursed the goddess Ellantyr for her scornful hoarding of luck.

All across the battlements, warning cries spilled forth from desperate defenders—those not immediately fighting for their life pointing in their direction. The only blessed advantage they had was that the chaos of the melee had spawned a fog of war — few had the freedom to notice yet another call spilling across the field, and fewer still had the wherewithal to look in their direction.

With hundreds of men, that still left dozens.

Their well dressed fop of a leader, and his hunter amongst that number.

Kaius saw his eyes widen for a fraction of a second, simple disbelief and confusion almost getting the man killed as a cat-like creature lunged for his throat—only for the hunter by his side to vanquish the threat with a quick flick of one of his machetes.

That broke the leader out of his fugue, his features scrunching tight as lacking understanding turned into horror and anger at their escape.

Kaius cursed the lady of luck again, and moved.

His team close at his back, he took the lead — subsuming his brother's position as the vanguard. The crowd was loose and messy, and his mobility would serve them well in cutting a path. That, and in a situation like this, Ianmus and Kenva stood no chance without Porkchop’s protection.

Flicking back to make sure they were keeping pace, Kaius saw his brother had pulled in close to the right side of the remaining members of their team—shielding them utterly with his body. His Autonomous Greatshield slid silently through the air, creating another barrier to their left, the lip of its door sized bulk low enough that they would be able to attack from its cover.

Reaching the waist high wall that closely hugged the central manor they had just left, Kaius kicked off the ground — clearing it with silent ease.

He set his jaw tight, focused on their destination as his senses sharpened and an intoxicating thrill rose. Bloodlust and steel, oh how he’d missed it.

The closest defenders were a bare dozen long-strides away, aware of their presence but too busy fending off a trio of ape-like beasts working in conjunction with a hissing lizard the size of a donkey.

Unfortunately for both man and beast, they stood between his team and their freedom.

He fell into his bond, the strength of their newly empowered connection seamlessly feeding him his brother’s every impulse and instinct, and sharing his in kind.

Behind him, Porkchop let out a savage roar—the sound blurring into indistinct meaninglessness as it joined the general clamour. It wasn’t his Challenge, their enemies were exactly where they wanted them—fragmented and disorganised.

Taking a lurching step forward, Porkchop shoved his weight into one forepaw—plunging claws harder than steel deep into the earth.

Cobble cracked beneath his brother’s weight, an echo following close behind as a wide pillar of green crystal erupted from the courtyard directly infront of Kaius.

Stone growled as it shattered before the advance of the Prismatic Shardwall, the skill racing ahead of Kaius as it shot directly for the mobbed group of defenders.

The beasts, in their strange and unnatural fervour, didn’t react. The men, however, scrambled—desperately trying to disengage as they hastily smashed and stabbed at their attackers.

They were too slow, the wall of crystal smashing into them with bone cracking force. Shoved back and sent sprawling, the wall continued unhindered as it tore them a path through the massed crowd.

Men screamed as they lay with their limbs twisted at odd angles, forcibly tangled into a pile of bodies. Their terror only heightened when an ape-beast that had been thrown on top of them reached out—massive hands caving in an unlucky guard's rib cage as it howled and beat on them with weighty fists.

It was a sudden frenzy neither defender nor rabid monster was prepared for—Kaius decided to add to it.

A bare four members of the squad had managed to avoid going down in the crush, more by dint of having good enough luck to be positioned at the edge of the formation than anything approaching skillful evasion.

That same luck left them a perfect conduit for Kaius’s ire. He charged forwards, approaching them like a smiling incarnation of Nuldyr—a promise of bloodshed framed with bone and shaped with flesh.

Tapping into his Glyph of Drakthar, Kaius destabilised one of the precious packets of mana he had bound into the working.

A heavy shower of orange mana exploded from his gauntlet as he dropped his hand free from his blade.

Blue washed over the courtyard—a burning effigy of his captor’s foolishness, joined by a booming declaration of Kaius’s own intent. The storm writhed in his hands, and he swung.

Lightning bound the leading guard—an unfortunate soul whose warded chain only served to burn his flesh further as the rings that turned claw and blade grew white hot. R̃а𝐍Ọ𐌱Ęș

Flesh blackened and wept as muscles seized, storm mana scouring the guard from within. Potent reverberations wracked their body, spine curving precipitously before snapping with a terrible crack.

They fell limp and smoking, two of the guard’s allies dropping with similar finality as the branching paths of Stormlash sought their lives with equal prejudice.

**Ding! level 81 Human - Heated Warrior slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

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**Ding! level 78 Human - Blackguard slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

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**Ding! level 74 Human - Thug slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

Their deaths brought no satisfaction, only more frustration and disgust as he saw their weakness, and felt the loss of human life settle on his shoulders.

The spell had been a waste. These men? They barely warranted being called chaff.

His blade would be enough for this work, and no matter how his actions this eve might weigh on him, he would not stay his hand in mercy.

They’d already cast their lot, now there were only bitter consequences to reap.

Warmth splashed across his back from behind, the sun's vigour seeping into his bones and filling his body with the strength that fed old growth.

**Ding! You have been Enhanced - Sundrenched Strength!**

Kaius descended on the final remnant—ignoring the scrambling mass of still breathing dead men who desperately tried to rally to their right.

The guard's face was pale, his eyes wide as he tightened his grip on the long haft of his halberd. He stepped forwards.

Kaius was already there, kicking off the ground into a bursting advance as he sailed through the air—blade sweeping into a high guard that would let him capitalise on his momentum.

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The guard flinched, cutting towards him with a hurried chop.

Kaius flicked his wrists—treated oak splintering as the edge of his sword cut deep into the weapon’s haft.

His opponent fumbled.

Twisting through his parry, he threw his weight onto his front leg, smoothly pushing the force of their confrontation into a weighty thrust.

Blood splattered Kaius’s chest, the guard dropping with a new mouth in their forehead.

**Ding! level 80 Human - Quickened Fighter slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

Resetting his stance without slowing his pace, Kaius sprinted straight over the body as he pushed on. Fully in tune with his surroundings, his Glass Mind processed and catalogued a thousand impressions, fed by the acuity of his eyes and the whispered warnings of his Skills.

A stag cleared the wall at an odd angle—likely to charge directly at a group of defenders closer to the walls at his front-left, but possibly rallying to make an attempt at him.

Another group of guards to his front-right tussled with a pack of lanky creatures with uncomfortably spindly limbs tipped by thick claws—some of the beasts at the back were beginning to look his way, and the guards behind them stared with undisguised anger and fear in their eyes.

The leader of the compound desperately kept the pressure off the main battalion defending the gate, his eyes flicking in Kaius’s direction every second—readying to make a move.

A mage, on the battlements directly to his right, snarled at him with clenched teeth—an impressive volume of mana swirling. Stone affinity, by the looks of it.

Kaius flew into his bond.

The stag hit the ground and lurched towards him—an arrow jutting from the back of its neck thanks to the efforts of a defending archer.

With the perfect unity available to him, he pushed his needs to his brother—sharing the location of the mage with the speed and perfect clarity of beast-speak. Pure knowledge, without the shackled limitations of language.

The message passed on, and the deep basey twang of Kenva’s overlarge longbow resounded behind him as an arrow split the air faster than he could track.

It buried itself deep in the casting mage’s eye—the partially complete spell he had been working detonating uncontrollably in a deadly hail of shrapnel.

All around the mage, fellow defenders screamed in pain and terror from the sudden assault—two losing their footing and falling to the courtyard below.

They died with a sudden crunch.

Arriving with braying madness on its lips, the stag dipped its head and charged.

Kaius danced to the side as the tip of his sword dipped close to the ground, Stamina flooding his blade. Burning with the light of his Bladerite, Kaius swung up to catch the stag's throat in a drawcut.

It fell, life blood pumping free.

He kept running, feeling its skull shatter beneath his brother's paw a moment later.

The crush grew more dense the closer they got to the walls—most defenders massing to stop the encroaching beasts where they leapt over the walls.

Kaius smashed aside a blade, flickering arcane screaming as his Rend shattered a guard's ribs—caustic energy eating away at the delicate organs beneath.

Ignoring the man's screams, he moved on, a flowing dance of cuts and ripostes that left cripples and corpses in his wake.

A howling pair of wolves descended upon him. The cracking explosions of his Rend were empowered by his Bladerite as he blew out the backs of their skulls in a pair of chained stabs. Chimes sounded in his mind, deaths acknowledged as he fought on.

Ripping his blade free of wolven flesh, a lance of burning light shot over his shoulder—dropping a guard who had charged at Kaius with a war cry on his lips, brains seeping from a newly blackened hole bored through their nose.

He stepped in, smashing aside a guard's waraxe before he spun on his lead foot and cut clean through the neck of a beast he had no name for.

**Ding! level 87 Human - Swashbuckler slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

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**Ding! level 64 Cluthan Hound - Shade Hunter slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

The resonant call of Kenva’s bow called out behind him, and the guard with the waraxe died before he could end them himself.

Despite his speed, they were still slowing—the press of bodies too great to cut through quickly, no matter how much he might have his opponents trounced on every level.

Porkchop heard his needs, another wall of jade erupting from the earth to rip them a path closer to the stairs.

Flung to the side in shattered heaps, screams of agony rang out as guards desperately tried to rally a defense.

Kaius’s blade cut in shining arcs as he took throats and limbs, the dying and crippled left where they fell.

Another strange ape-like beast leapt for him from the wall, seemingly enraged by their progress as it crushed the life from a screaming archer caught in its grip.

Blowing out the back of its skull with a Hateful Nail, Kaius moved on.

**Ding! level 67 Vineswinger - Hearty Grappler slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

Every stride they advanced furthered a realisation that was percolating through him. He was strong—a lion amongst lambs—but strength alone wasn’t enough. Hitting harder, and heavy glyph-bound bombardment wouldn’t quicken the pace they so desperately needed.

And every second they spent was another that the compound leader and his allied hunter could head their way.

No, he needed efficiency—needed every hairsbreadth of movement to be trimmed of fat. Curated, until every impulse dealt death.

His steps grew measured, his body taut with tension as he snapped from enemy to enemy, A Father’s Gift stained a deep crimson red.

Power ruled the world, but those who wielded it most effectively held control in an iron grip.

Within his soul, a pillar saw his mastery and crooned.

A dull ache flared in his ribs as an arrow burning with mana punched through his armour, sinking into his right side.

In a single smooth motion, he lunged forwards into a fencer’s thrust—off hand reaching up and behind to rip the projectile free. Blood welled, gathering at the wound as the flesh sealed itself whole.

Trusting Kenva to have dealt with the threat, Kaius moved on with his slaughter.

Anger, so present since his escape, started to flow free—leaving only the calm precision of flowing motion as the screams of his enemies fell on numb ears.

He’d been overcomplicating things.

Strength wasn’t in the weight of his convictions, or the force of his Bloodsong.

Nor in his strength of arm, or the potency of his mysticism.

It came from his ability to observe, understand, and execute.

The heat and energy had its place, but they were only a tool to be used. Even his plans—all of the brilliant developments of his Pillar Mentis and Glass Mind—were useless without something basal to drive them forwards.

Capability, mastery—of the self, of his movements, of the battlefield, all of it. It all came down to that in the end.

With every step, he grew tighter; more cutting. A dervish of clean lines, and succinct promises of a quick demise fulfilled in short order.

Men and beast fell alike, whether by blade, claw, arrow, or solar lance.

**Ding! level 74 Human - Back Alley Blade slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

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**Ding! level 45 Ashen Stag - Protector of the Herd slain - Experience Gained! Reduced Experience for slaying a foe of Insignificant Strength!**

It was a responsibility he had taken upon himself. A path he had started to walk.

He already knew he would not shirk from what was required to reach his goals. To reach the pinnacle. That was an old revelation.

Now, he knew he had everything he needed to pick the right steps, the right route. The path was clear, defined by the lessons of the past and his envisioning of the future. He just needed to push himself to his limits—force himself to grow to widen his options, so that even the most difficult of routes was viable.

More slaughter, blood coating him as he spun back to assist his brother with a small squad of men who pushed in hard from the courtyard's centre to harass their backline—holding a false belief that their death was the key to their salvation.

As he caved in the first man’s skull, understanding continued to bloom.

His first revelation had been that he needed to learn—that was only a small part of it. He needed to change, to grow. To build upon every step with further achievements.

Even for the simple farmer — mastery was a thing of beauty. Planting the next crop just a little better, the development of new planting techniques.

Stagnation was death, for everyone, and he refused to succumb to it. Not just on the battlefield, but in life.

He would grow, and improve, in any way he could.

Corporus smouldered, growing closer to ignition.

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