THIRTY
“STEADY!” Mathis barked as his spear bent under the weight of the snapping monster. The F-grade’s teeth gnashed inches from his throat as the muscular squire struggled to hold the beast at bay. All around them the beasts swarmed, scales and conical teeth on display as they leapt from the thick grass at the group as they struggled to stay alive.
Blood watered the ground as they fought and Kon’s heart was lodged firmly in his throat as he watched them fight for their lives. The dark blue scales of the monsters were dull, close enough in color to blend in with the grass. Each of them were about four feet long, sinuous muscle with yellow eyes that glared with rage as they lunged on six legs to get to the cadets.
Alexandra had run out of arrows quickly enough, only a handful having found their marks, forced to fight with only the short sword she was spattered in blood while her face was pale beneath her natural color as blood drained from her body in steady flow, a long gash along her thigh.
Beto was a terror with the long sword, each blow killing one of the F-grade beasts, but he had been too aggressive, pulled out of position and wasn’t able to support Alexandra as she fought to keep Mathis and Mustafa from being flanked.
Kon could see how this was going to go, outnumbered and outpositioned, all four of them would die in the long grass as they were brought down by greater numbers. He licked the inside of his lips and wondered when he should hop in. They could last a bit longer, but the more damage they took now would mean having to retreat back to Alice for healing.
“Just a little pressure off the edges.” The thought was a good one and with a single step backward he disappeared from their view into the tall grass. Cries of panic rose up from the group, but it was quickly swallowed by snarls and curses. Kon tried to ignore it as he ran the edges of the fight, crushing and shattering any of the F-grade beasts that came toward him. It was almost pathetically easy how quickly the beasts died under his boots or fists, vermin exterminated with no effort as he looped the battlefield.
It didn’t take long for the thinning pressure to allow the four cadets to reform, yelling as they regrouped, Kon used his superior senses to keep track of the battle even if he couldn’t see them. Every sound was like a stroke of a paint brush, slowly forming a painting for him to see. The smell of their blood could be picked out from the monster’s, the heady scent growing thinner as more of the beasts died.
He finished his loop having killed fourteen of the F-grade monsters and finding the rift not far away. Kon was tempted to walk over to it and extinguish it, but he had to check in on the cadets before he could let loose. When he pulled the thick strands back he saw that Mustafa had fallen into the team medic role, bandaging Alexandra’s wound while Beto and Mathis had begun to harvest the dead, both of their weapons close to hand.
“There he is,” Alexandra said, looking up from her own wounds to glare at Kon. Mustafa didn’t bother to look up from his duties and Mathis was too disciplined to say anything, but Beto wasn’t. The man had already acted with a chip on his shoulder, a snarky comment on his tongue from the moment they had met.
“Surprised we’re all alive after you left us to die?” Beto snarled and Kon suppressed a wince. He remembered those feelings he’d had on Crucible when Alice had let him bleed on rocks as he fought the first waves of rift beasts.
“I wonder if she felt as conflicted as I do?” Kon immediately dismissed that thought; Alice wasn’t one to let something like a little disembowelment to ruin her mood.
“You’re not dead, are you?” Kon asked as he looked over the battlefield. They’d managed to control it within minutes of him starting his own slaughter of the monsters and had finished them in good order.
“No thanks to you,” Beto said, turning his head to look at the guts he was busy rifling through before he pulled his hands out in disgust and rose up, a full head of steam propelled him forward and Kon got ready if Beto was foolish enough to get violent.
“I am a mage, millenia of knowledge concentrated into my schooling, my education. We are some of the last practitioners amongst humanity and here we are, bleeding in the mud like any dumb grunt can do. Alexandros had let his favoritism blind him to the very real threat that this is the end of the mages, here on some dumb rock, bleeding out on monster talons. AND WHY?” Beto screamed the last word, face mottled with rage and fear as everyone else looked at the mage with wide eyes surprise.
NovelBin is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
“Because some uneducated colonist has been lucky enough to not have killed himself and Lord Lorgairi has decided that’s enough to change everything?” Beto was breathing hard as he looked over the group and Kon knew Beto realized he had made a mistake with the confrontation.
Over half of his audience were the dirty, uneducated grunts he’d been railing about who had no clue about what it was he ranted about. Even worse was he’d unintentionally insulted Benny to a girl who worshipped the old man. Beto’s rage faltered and it was like his strings had been cut, the energy fled him and his knees buckled as he sank to his knees, silent as Kon stared down at him.
“Now that that’s over, start your harvest and collect the cores from the beasts you’ve killed. Do not absorb or use them. Bandage up your wounds and get ready to push forward. I’m going to go scout,” Kon said as he looked them over. All four of them looked embarrassed and partially ashamed, but Kon didn’t know what to do with them.
“I could chew him out, dress him down in front of the others, but what would that get me? Would it make them respect me? Make them invest in our path forward? What made me invested in this?” Kon mulled it over as he treaded back out into the grasses, his energy senses reaching out to scout for him. F-grade beasts prowled the area, but after the fight they’d backed up a bit, the scent of death piercing even the bestial rage that drove them.
“Alice’s fight in the halls invested me. When she stood in front of those who would kill me and bled to protect me. Her strength, her honor, that was what invested me. She loves the Knights, respects them and it rubbed off on me. Benny won me over with his love of his home, of the power he wields and the sacrifices he’s obviously made for us. Benny promised me vengeance for Alice’s and Knight Bosch’s deaths, but Alice was never really dead. But by then I was already sold on Benny’s dream of returning home. That and the power this offers me, the strength it gives me to bring justice to those who betrayed all of humanity for their own greed.” Kon hadn’t stopped to really think about why he was on his path before.
He had been swept up, captured by events launched by others and had grabbed on to the closest things he could find to prevent himself from being dragged away. Kon got to the F-grade rift and slipped inside without thought.
Marsh lands sucked in his boots, but he jumped and grabbed thick brambles, the long thorns failing to pierce through his hand. A roar shook the rift as something came toward him through the marshlands, wet bog rose and fell like a wave as the rift guardian came hurtling toward him.
With a thought Condense formed around him, brought into reality with a thought as Kon looked at the view in front of him. Power was drawn from him, deep from his solid steel bones and the runes that hummed with energy in their constant feedback loop. It was the first time Kon had used the greater rune and it came as naturally as breathing as he felt power warp around him.
The sky above him began to buckle, cracks appearing as the rift shuddered under his strength. Kon focused on where the beast was, its movements apparent and the earth around it slammed together, bloody water ejected in sprays as the entire area condensed down. The rift guardian, a peak F-grade monster, hadn’t even had time to try to fight before its death had arrived.
Kon let himself fall to the ground as he turned his attention to the ground at his feet, trying to be more gentle as the muddy earth tightened together to give Kon a stable platform. Sweat beaded along his head as he walked, his greater rune pulled hard on his reserves, but he was topped up and could go for days. Retrieving the anchor was the work of moments, a chunk of crystal that radiated power. Tossing it from hand to hand, Kon left the rift and walked back out into the swaying grass. The ground around him flattened and balled up, grass turned to paste and then liquid in a moment.
“Shit,” Kon muttered as he let the power go and Condense faded back away. Momentary weakness wafted over him, knees shook as he grew lightheaded, but it faded nearly instantly. Using the great rune took a significant chunk of power, but as Kon carefully observed his internal energy stores saw that he could have kept going. His body cultivation was a massive store of power while his network continued to cycle power without pause.
It was like two highways with the Condense in the middle, a merger point that fed from both while supplying both with power at the same time. Kon knew he needed to sit down and go over it more, figure it out to see how the next greater rune would fit, but there had been so much on his to-do list lately that he had been delaying it.
“I respected Alice because she fought and bled for me. I respect Benny for his ideals and service. Shit, I don’t have either of those for these guys to lean on,” Kon talked to himself as he walked back to the quartet who hadn’t moved in the few minutes it had taken him to clear the rift.
Kon had an idea take form and immediately wanted to reject it. It was dangerous and stupid, but it could work. He grimaced as he pushed aside the tall grass and came back to stare over the morose group as they started to get back to their feet. Alexandra had managed to gather the majority of her arrows and all of them had bloody cloth bags on their belts, filled with F-grade cores.
“Alright. I’ve been thinking and I know where the next hunting ground is. We’re heading south.”