Rune Seeker

The party scattered as soon as the first beams cut through where they’d been standing. With the levels they’d all gained, along with the dungeon gear and achievement abilities, everybody had impressive physical potential and managed to evade the first salvo.

“Plan, boss?” Yanily asked, ducking under a pair of beams and lashing out with a Chain Lightning+ in response.

While the first bolt of lightning zapped past the dodging sphere, the two echoed bolts from his gear managed to catch the flying weapon, arcing electricity across its surface. Sputtering and jerking uncontrollably in the air, the sphere hadn’t taken enough damage to be outright destroyed—though Yanily’s follow-up thrust corrected that problem.

“Hiral, what are these things?” Seena asked in response, her own flames lashing out to counter.

“Not entirely sure. Never seen them before.” Hiral flipped over a pair of beams and deflected a third. “Some kind of island defense measures, though, is my guess. Probably stored somewhere deep in the island like the floors that vanish.”

“And they’re defending the island from us?” Seeyela asked, Bamf’ing behind a sphere to drive her daggers into it. While her Ghost-Web Venom didn’t seem particularly effective against the sphere, her teleporting sure did.

Another quick dodge, and Hiral focused on the sphere in front of him to use his View ability.

(Construct) Mobile Artillery Sphere – Beam Type – C-Rank

Oh, this is what a construct is?

Hiral flashed past the construct at the thought, whipping out a braided combination of Expansion, Gravity, and Increase as he went. The sudden increase in weight dragged the sphere to the ground, and Hiral smashed it to pieces with a swing of his sword to send its fragments scattering in the rain. While the things weren’t tough once he caught up to them, they were shockingly fast and maneuverable.

And numerous.

With his Domain down to seconds left in its remaining duration, he felt another dozen of the things materialize around the party.

“More coming,” Hiral said into the party chat.

“There has to be a limit to how many he can summon out,” Right said as he caught up to one of the spheres. The thing practically disintegrated when his flaming fist swatted it out of the air.

“Probably a very high limit we won’t see if we don’t do something,” Hiral responded.

“Even if you do something, it won’t change anything,” Vorinal said, his voice again right beside Hiral’s ear.

“Nothing to do but try, then,” Yanily said, jumping into a tight spin with this spear out.

Two closing spheres blew apart at the contact with his weapon, and as soon as he landed, he twirled the spear around and thrust it out. Powerful bolts of Chain Lightning+scarred the darkness and reflected off the infinite drops of falling rain as it blasted towards the Fallen at the top of the tower. A wide mouth spread at the head of the lightning bolt, charged fangs hungry to close around the spearman’s enemy, while wings formed along a serpentine body. Behind the first, miniature version of a storm dragon, two more followed.

Even a Fallen would have to take damage from such an attack!

Except the three bolts of lightning slammed into a previously invisible wall in front of Vorinal. Electricity crawled across the shield as if searching for a way in—a way to reach the Fallen—but it merely completed a circuit of the sphere before fading into nothing.

The Fallen just laughed, his voice echoing across the island in time with the rain. In the clouds above, the battle between the storm dragon and the Enemy continued, though a quick look in the distance showed more large shapes flowing through the rain. Reinforcements were coming. Hiral turned to the Shapers and found them getting overwhelmed by nearly a hundred of the spherical constructs. The beams couldn’t hurt the C- and B-Rank Shapers very much individually, but with that many blasts, even the tanky Makers were beginning to fall.

“Seeyela!” Seena called, and Hiral’s eyes went back to the top of the tower, knowing exactly what the two sisters were thinking.

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Bamf, Seeyela vanished, then appeared with a second bamf fifteen feet above the Fallen. Not even dropping, her feet seemed to settle on the same invisible shield that’d stopped Yanily’s Chain Lightning+. A flight of the constructs immediately zeroed in on her location, and she was forced to teleport away again as dozens of cutting beams pierced the air where she’d been.

“I can’t teleport inside the shield,” she said, appearing on the ground briefly before renewing her assault on the spheres.

“Can’t get in, can’t get through,” Yanily said. “Ideas?”

“Maybe we can keep hitting it until it breaks,” Seena said, dodging a pair of beams to hurl five fireballs up at the Fallen’s location. The cacophonous explosions lit the night and blasted away the rain. A pair of unfortunate spheres even got caught in the blast, but the fire vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.

The shield—and the Fallen within—remained untouched.

“Did that do anything?” she asked.

Cutting down another sphere, Hiral darted in between Left and Right to let them cover his flanks, then looked at the Fallen. “No,” he said a few seconds later. “If anything, he’s getting stronger.”

The emaciated body was slowly bulking up—barely noticeable if not for Hiral’s high Atn, but it was unmistakable. Vorinal was at least a few percent stronger than he had been when he’d awoken. Which meant things would only get worse as time went on.

Maybethe tower itself. Hiral started ahead, only for a tremendous light to brighten the night above him. Feeling the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stand on end, Hiral aborted his assault on the tower and darted hard to the side on a burst of Rejection. Not a second too soon, either, as a column of raw energy washed over where he’d just been and blackened the ground.

Eyes tracing the trajectory of the attack, he followed it back to Vorinal’s extended hand.

“Tsk,” the Fallen said, obviously disappointed he hadn’t completely eradicated Hiral with the surprise attack.

He’s not just relying on the constructs to do his dirty work.

Still, more than twenty of the small spheres moved up to circle the Fallen’s position—then all opened fire on Hiral. Rejection-powered steps kept him out of harm’s way, but they also kept him away from the tower. Every time he tried to move a little closer, a veritable cage of the beams would cut him off. He might be able to swing around out wide and behind—the tower was right on the edge of the island, after all—and attack from the open sky. With his runes, he could practically treat the air as land, at least in the short term.

But looking at the defensive array of spheres, they wouldn’t have any problem with the open air either. Only one real choice, then. With a pulse of solar energy, Hiral drew his arm—and the greatsword—back sideways, then snapped it forward at the same time he activated the Rune of Gravity. Tethered like it was to the tower, and weighing almost fifty times its usual weight, he hurled the sword with all his strength.

Around and around the blade whipped, so fast it almost looked like a disc of solid energy. Beams from the circling spheres did nothing to slow or stop the blade and quickly went back to trying to cut Hiral apart. That was fine with him, and he kept an eye on the flying sword as he continued to dodge the attacks.

Not even a second later, the Emperor’s Greatsword crashed into the base of the tower… then bounced off without even leaving a scratch on its white surface. Worse, the contact with the tower seemed to syphon off some of the sword’s solar energy. Now without its Gravity enchantment tying it to the tower, the blade spun off into the distance and over the edge of the island.

A quick thread of energy into his Rune of Attraction hauled on the connection he’d long ago made with the weapon, and he felt it jerk to his senses. Schwaaaa! Stone and dirt shattered as the sword burst back through the edge of the island, cleaving a section five feet deep off it before soaring back to slap into his open hand.

The Fallen was surrounded by a powerful shield they probably wouldn’t be able to breach, as he was only growing stronger with every passing minute. The tower itself was practically indestructible, and Vorinal had taken control of the islands’ numerous, previously unknown defense constructs. And that wasn’t even taking into account the occasional rumbling of the ground. If he wanted to, Vorinal could probably drop the whole island out of the sky.

It didn’t seem like they could kill him, but there was no way they could leave him connected to the tower.

Hiral’s eyes went to the scar left behind by his Emperor’s Greatsword.

No, his previous thought wasn’t exactly true.

Could that work? Maybe!

“I’ve got an idea,” he said into the party chat.

“What is it?” Seeyela asked.

“Don’t tell us,” Seena interrupted. “He can hear.”

“I know, but I am going to need your help,” Hiral said cryptically.

“Don’t bother with details,” Yanily said. “Whatever you need, we’ll back you up.”

Dodging another salvo of sphere-blasts, Hiral looked back at the party fighting for their lives. For their families. For the islands. They’d gone through so much together—lost and gained so much—and now it all came down to his. His plan was iffy at best, but watching them, having them support him, he’d find a way to make it work.

Even if it was kind of reckless.

And involved explosions.

Nivian would be so proud.

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