THIRTY-ONE
“I thought you said there were E-grade rifts over that way?” Alexandra asked as they marched toward where he could feel the energy signatures. It wouldn’t take long, they had been skirting the edges of the zone for a while, the fight with the scaled monsters having driven them further south than had been advisable.
“There are. Plenty of them too,” Kon said. Mathis looked back at him with a frown, but he didn’t say anything. Of all the new recruits only Mathis really understood how far he’d come. They had both been part of Titan’s Resolve and he’d seen Kon on the planet and had seen him on the dreadnought afterward. The massive jumps in strength he’d had since then was obvious enough that Mathis could believe in the method.
Nobody else had seen him before this training method. They didn’t truly understand the power that was being offered to them. Kon hoped a quick demonstration would be more than enough to convince them.
“Why? Is this because of Beto? He’s a hot-head, but if you let him breathe he’ll apologize for that. He was just scared, all of us are scared. We’re risking everything on something unproven and he snapped,” Alexandra explained.
“I know and I understand. But he asked a good question mixed in there with the screaming and I’m going to answer it. Now, be ready, we’re getting close.” Kon’s warning was enough to get the group to pull together as they all prepared their weapons for battle. Without the necessary runes or cultivation they wouldn’t be able to stack up against E-grade monsters though. They were too fast and strong for how their group was armed.
In regular power armor or even full suits of Squire grade armor they could have stood a chance. Out in the monster’s habitat with only basic armor and archaic weapons they were little more than walking meals. Kon’s presence was subdued enough that the first of the monsters were already approaching, something fast, from above.
Kon looked up to see the beast come wheeling toward them, wings folded and talons outstretched as if to pluck Mathis up and take him away. The knife spun twice before sinking into the beast’s skull, driving through it with ease. It fell and landed before them, large leathery wings bent at strange angles as its hollow bones broke on contact with the ground.
“Damn. Was aiming for its chest.” Kon kept that thought to himself as he reached down and plucked the knife free of its triangular head. Butchering it and pulling the core free was the work of a few moments, the low E-grade flesh parting under treasure-alloy steel without a sound. Kon made a mental note to thank Ignacio for his work as he put the E-grade core in his own collection bag.
“Keep alert and stay low,” Kon told the others who were looking a bit pale as they realized how close they’d come to death. None of them had even noticed the monster as it came toward them.
“What are we doing here?” Mathis whispered under his breath, his eyes locked on Kon’s.
“Be patient and I’ll explain in a moment.” Kon hoped it would work, because he didn’t have any other idea of how to get them to buy in. They’d stay of course regardless if they bought in, there was nowhere else for most of them to go if they abandoned the project. There was a difference between people working with something they believed in and just showing up to do the bare minimum.
“Little over a year ago I didn’t have a single node, had no knowledge of runes, and my best fighting ability was running away and finding a constable,” Kon said, keeping his voice low but loud enough for all of them to hear.
“You’ve all heard how our ship crashed due to being attacked and my survival on the planet. Mathis experienced some of that himself on Crucible. It was there when we were tested beyond our ability to survive, when out of blind dumb ignorance, I did what should have been impossible.” Kon spoke as he walked, pushing through grass and arrived on the edge of a wide clearing.
A rift floated there, power rippled out of it while more of the winged beasts floated on updrafts, eyes tracking them as they began to wheel about. Kon could feel it all, the strength of the rift hardly noticeable where before it would have been borderline suffocating.
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He pulled on his runes, not the greater one, but the lesser ones. Specifically he began to pull heat in from around him. There hadn’t been as much practice with his absorption rune as he would have liked, but as ice crystals started to form around him, heat baked his skin as he looked at the monsters that had started their attack.
“Benny believes in it. The oldest living human, our guardian, believes that this power that I accidentally stumbled into, will make us stronger. That could be what gives us the means to return home.” Kon used one of the most basic formula he had memorized, runes formed from the energy he’d absorbed from around him. They lacked the punch of using rift energy, but as a gout of flame launched in the air to turn the dive bombing monsters into overcooked birds.
Kon cut off the runes the moment he found his gathered energy running low. It wasn’t as powerful as what he’d done by accident when he’d first tried it, but he still braced for the backlash of channeling energy through himself.
A hint of it flashed by him, nearly unnoticeable as he felt the energy absorbed by his bones, the heat of it hardly bothering the steel body he was forging. Kon smiled and looked back at two shocked mages and two not-understanding former squires.
“No backlash,” Alexandra whispered as she ran her eyes over Kon.
“You did that without a rig. Just pulled energy straight from the environment…but…” Beto’s mouth flopped back and forth as he tried to figure out what to say. There was something small and petty inside of Kon that found the boy not knowing what to say to be pleasing.
“For you two, watch,” Kon ordered and Mathis and Mufasa both nodded as Kon turned and leapt. The ground exploded beneath his feet as he flew across the ground, landing by the rift just in time to see another of the birds emerge. Kon punched it. Just a simple straight punch where he put his considerable strength behind the blow.
E-grade flesh caved in and Kon snatched the monster core from its chest before the monster could even open its razor sharp beak. He pushed the monster back into the rift with one hand as he looked back at the group. Kon stepped into the rift, keeping his back to the portal out as he looked over the wide cliffs and flying monster.
Kon cut loose. Compress formed a cone in front of him, the air itself growing too thick for the birds to fly through, tumbling to crash to the ground as Kon raced forward. Beasts died as he ran directly to the anchor, eyes alert for when the rift guardian would eventually make its presence known to him.
At the center of the rift was a shrub that exuded energy, growing straight from the stone outcropping as bird monsters hopped in and out of the caves all around it. Kon raced to it, climbing with ease as he approached the shrub.
The rift guardian attacked as he climbed, a huge furry paw coming out to swat at him as he passed by close to the anchor. Compress turned the paw into nothing but blood and bone, the beast’s roar of pain shook the area even as Kon grabbed the anchor and pulled it free of the stone with one hand.
The upper E-grade beast barreled out of the cave on two legs, holding its ruined arm close to its body as it snarled and snapped with the beaked head of one of the bird monsters. Kon cut Compress away and pulled his knife, dodged to the side of a wild swing, and gutted the monster in a fast swipe. As it gave it last, desperate breaths, Kon tore its core out. Escaping the rift was a matter of moments, leaping most of the way as he reveled in his newfound strength which he hadn’t had the true ability to test out before.
Kon left the rift and felt it collapse behind him. Smoke rose off the fried monsters as his small squad stared at him with newfound…Kon wasn’t sure what it was. Respect maybe, a hint of fear, some longing too.
“Beto asked why are you doing this? Why bleed and kill like primitives on some mud ball nobody has heard of? Answer is we don’t know how I came to be, so we’re going to replicate the steps the best we can. In under a year of training and fighting I’m able to clear out E-grade rifts without armor or anything more than my belt knife. That’s what we want to see for humanity. A new generation of powerful warriors who you all will be at the forefront of. To do that requires sacrifice.” Kon stopped and looked them over as all four sets of eyes were locked on to him.
“Is this working? I really hope this is working.” The self doubt ate at him, but he forced down the negative thoughts as he continued to stare at his team.
“Would you like the chance for this strength?” Kon asked them. Silence filled the space between them before Mathis stepped forward.
“I’ll bleed for this power,” the slightly older man said. Mufasa was right behind him, Alexandra a half step behind him until only Beto remained. Pride and shame warred on his face, but naked avarice pushed him forward as he stood next to the others.
“Good. Now harvest the birds and we’ll get back to your hunting,” Kon ordered and all four of them got to it.
“I’m not Benny or Alice. I don’t have the years of experience or credentials to back up my authority. I do have just pure, naked, strength and that’ll have to be enough for now.”