Rune Seeker

Chapter 81: No Holding Back

Hiral burst forward with a Rune of Rejection-enhanced step, already pushing energy into the Rune of Gravity in the Emperor’s Greatsword as he went. Sword met spear, and Hiral went flying to the side, still not enough weight to his weapon, but kept his attention on his own feet. He couldn’t afford to be on the defensive the whole time. The moment he landed, he pushed himself back, muscles straining and joints threatening to pop at the sudden change of direction, but change he did.

The Troblin Lord’slipless mouth twitched as Hiral came right back at it before it could even step forward. Hiral brought his sword across, and again their weapons met. And again, Hiral was thrown aside, but he was already charging back in.

Horizontal strike, parry, fly, rebound, horizontal strike, parry, fly, rebound. Hiral refused to slow down as he poured energy into his feet and used his Rune of Rejection to increase his speed. Ten seconds of the countdown passed within his fury of strikes, and in the eleventh second, Hiral changed his horizontal slash to a vertical uppercut, energy blade carving through the wood floor like a hot knife through butter.

No stranger to battle, the Lord had no problem adapting to the alteration, and instead brought its spear across to once again hurl Hiral away. Except the uppercut was a feint, and Hiral pulsed energy into his feet, flipping himself up and over the spear even as it swept in to strike the sword. A hand-numbing vibration shot up the blade, but Hiral managed to keep hold of the weapon as he completed his flip. The force of the Lord’s strike actually helped Hiral’s blade arc up and over.

Without the resistance of the previous exchanges, the Lord’s weapon swept out further than anticipated, and Hiral twisted around, pouring energy into the sword’s Rune of Gravity at the same time.

The sword swung like headman’s axe with the weight of an entire building behind it—WHOOSH —and completely missed, the Lord deftly hopping forward.

“Damnit,” Hiral swore, but a blue notification sprang up in front of him.

Dynamic Quest: Update

That was almost impressive. Almost.

Continue to grow to entertain the Lord.

Forty-five seconds remain until spectator involvement.

Hiral didn’t even swear at the notification window as he closed it and charged ahead, running out of time to keep Cal out of danger. The sword became a blur in his hands as he kept on the attack, dancing and leaping around the Troblin Lord with his Rune of Rejection. The occasional pushes midair to change his direction quickly became second nature, and the Lord’s eyes narrowed as he pressed it harder and harder.

A flip over, a spin around, then a duck under, and Hiral’s sword finally slipped past the Lord’s whirling spear—doing little more than scratching the Lord’s muscular chest.

A vicious backhand in that moment of almost-triumph threw Hiral back, though he’d gotten his sword up to block the strike, and the Lord looked down at the wound. When it looked back up at him, a wave of disappointment rolled out.

Was that the best Hiral could do? All that effort for… a scratch?

The countdown hit thirty seconds, and the Lord’s eyes went to Cal.

Hiral’s hands clenched around the hilt of his sword, but he didn’t charge right back in. His speed gave him an opening, but he needed a heartbeat longer to change the weight of the weapon. An opening. If he had a party with him…

Hiral almost punched himself. He’d been so focused on the sword and runes that he’d completely forgotten about his greatest assets. Left and Right hadn’t been able to keep up with the fight, so he’d ignored them. That was his mistake.

“I hope you’re ready,” he shouted, twenty-five seconds left on the timer, and rushed forward.

Just like last time, Hiral built up speed as his weapon met the Lord’s, the energy blade practically tracing lines in the air as the two danced around each other. Both relied heavily on their mobility for protection—even though Hiral’s successful attack had barely wounded the Lord—but it also made for a chaotic fight. The two large weapons often obscured their views of each other, and it was more a sense from Hiral’s high Atn that kept him aware of where the Lord was than just his eyes.

He kept the weapon’s weight low, letting the Lord get used to how heavy his strikes were, and attacked in a fast-paced one-high-vertical, two-low-left, three-high-right-arc pattern, battering at the Lord’s defenses. Once, twice, three times he repeated the pattern, and then started on the fourth, only ten seconds left now.

High-vertical, and the Lord parried, its eyes going ahead to where Hiral’s sword moved predictably next to the low-left. Wham. Their weapons met, but the impact was different, the Lord only putting enough force into it to deflect Hiral’s attack. Its eyes and spear were already powered in the other direction, predicting Hiral’s third attack and aiming to blast him away in the process.

Hiral cancelled and activated Foundational Split in a heartbeat, Right peeling off him and swinging his glowing fist in to meet the oncoming spear while Hiral slipped off to the side and activated Foundational Split a second time. WHAM. Right’s Meridian-enhanced fist exploded in a column of purple flame, completely consuming the double and washing over the Troblin Lord.

More out of surprise than pain, the Lord stepped back, head swivelling. It must’ve spotted movement out of the corner of its eye, because its spear came down like lightning.

Left took the spear through his chest in exchange for sweeping up and across the Lord with his Wing of Anella, a wide swath of ice creeping over and around the Lord’s lead arm, along with most of its chest and face.

Which left it wide open for Hiral, standing behind it, as he poured energy into the sword’s Rune of Gravity and swept it around. The timer ticked down to two seconds as the energy-blade ripped through the Troblin Lord’swaist, cleaving the monster in two. A thick line of blood splashed through the air in its trail.

Hiral staggered two steps away from the weight of the blow, and a notification window sprang to life in front of him. He’d done it!

Dynamic Quest: Update

Congratulations. Achievement Unlocked: This isn’t even my final form!

You have entertained the Troblin Lord enough to get serious.

Please access a Dungeon Interface to unlock class-specific reward.

Prepare yourself.

“Seriously? I cut him in two!” Hiral shouted at the notification.

He activated Foundational Split, then spun back around to find the Lord clearly not in two pieces. Worse, as Hiral watched, green bands of energy began to wrap around its arms, legs, and chest.

Flexing its muscles, the Troblin Lord seemed to expand its body until its skin met the glowing bands of energy with a sizzle. One second, two, and the bands vanished, replaced with what looked eerily like tattoos or Meridian Lines on its skin.

“Son of a…” Hiral started, but then the Troblin Lord was right in front of him, spear swinging for his neck.

Pure instinct—or maybe it was his high Atn—brought his sword up to block, barely, as the Lord’s spear became a blur of motion. Faster and faster it spun, straining the limit of what Hiral could keep up with, creeping ever closer to his flesh. It didn’t take long for the first blow to get through, forming a searing line along Hiral’s left bicep as the blade nicked him. He took a second hit across his thigh, and a third painful slash across his abdomen.

A fourth would’ve taken his head clean off, but Right and Left came in at the Lord from both sides, forcing its spear to intercept and giving Hiral the breather he needed to launch himself backwards. He could almost see and keep up with the Lord’s enhanced attacks, but not quite. Gritting his teeth against the nagging pain of the minor wounds, Hiral popped open his status window and distributed the 18 points he’d been holding on to, 9 in Dex and 9 in Atn. Part of him winced at the unbalanced attributes, but he needed to play to his strengths.

That done, he slammed the window shut, his body feeling lighter and his senses razor sharp. Ahead of him, Left and Right fell back from the Lord’s assault, so Hiral wasted no time racing forward. At under twenty percent solar energy, he couldn’t afford to drag this out much longer.

Even after having been waylaid by the doubles, the Lord still got his weapon up perfectly to block Hiral’s strike, but the added weight provided by the Rune of Gravity prevented a quick counter. Using the forward momentum, Hiral continued past the Troblin after the clash of blades, diving into a roll to avoid the delayed counterattack, then sprang to his feet and sprinted out in a wide arc. Step, step, pull, and his RHC was in his hand. The bolt of Impact zipped back and slapped the Lord square in the face.

Wincing from the bolt, the Troblin Lord didn’t immediately give chase, and Hiral continued his run, firing every second as the weapon’s cooldown allowed. He even scored another annoying hit before the Lord got its spear up and spinning to deflect the third and fourth shots. As soon as the fifth also got parried aside, Hiral cut hard toward the Lord, his turn and dash powered by his Rune of Rejection. He dropped his RHC to take his sword in both hands.

Hiral’s arms screamed at him as he kept the weight of his weapon well above what he had during their previous exchanges, and he swung it around to slam into the Lord’s parrying spear. Then, as soon as the weapons collided, Hiral released his grip on the hilt—the sword rebounded wildly away—and twisted down and inside the Lord’s guard.

With a clench of his fist, he quickly cancelled and activated Foundational Split, Right peeling off his back and then flying forward to slam a Meridian-enhanced punch into the Lord’s nose at the same time Hiral’s Impact-enhanced fist hit its gut. The twinned assault blew the Lord backwards, quick-stepping to try to catch its balance—and right into Left’s contribution.

The Dagger of Sath traced in the air ahead of a long stream of hanging water, and then stabbed into the Lord’s back, the trail rushing forward to blow a hole out the Troblin Lord’s stomach. Green blood spewed across the ground almost all the way to Hiral, and while the Lord staggered, it didn’t fall.

Cutting it in two didn’t finish it off—no way this is enough. And the Lord’s red health bar agreed, nowhere even close to being empty.

Hiral and Right charged in as Left slashed low across the back of the Lord’s knees with his Wing of Anella, freezing the legs at the joints. A hand out to the side summoned his sword back to him as he and Right crisscrossed in front of the Lord, and he swung the weapon for the Lord’s neck.

Up came to the spear to block, though the movement wasn’t as sharp. Hiral slid around the side while Right hammered a punch home directly against the Lord’s wounded stomach. A gasp of pain escaped its lipless mouth, but it ignored Right’s follow-up attack in favor of keeping its spear in front of Hiral. Again and again, it managed to parry, Hiral darting in with the blade spinning and slashing, high, low, overhead, low again, then twisting around the other way and infusing his sword with as much weight as he could manage.

The spear still snapped up in a perfect line, but this time, it was the Lord who got thrown back by the weight of the blow. Its feet dragged across the floor as it skidded back, the worst of the ice shattering from around its knees, and Hiral charged in for the kill. With less than ten percent of his solar energy left, he flooded his Rune of Rejection with power and practically flew through the air, arriving before the Lord could get his spear back up.

Speed came at the sacrifice of power, the sword back down to a more manageable weight, but the length of the blade dug deep into the Lord’s muscular chest as Hiral dragged it across. Another spray of blood into the air, and Hiral completed his swing—unable to simply cleave through the Lord’s tough body—then twisted his wrist around to follow up and end things.

A wave of bloodthirsty intent slammed into him from point-blank range. Outrage. Disbelief. Joy. The Lord’s emotions hit like physical blows, staggering Hiral to the side, and then something slammed into his sword, hurling it from his hands. He reached out to summon it back with his Rune of Attraction, but the Lord’s powerful arms reached around his chest and lifted him from the ground.

The air immediately fled Hiral’s lungs as the Lord squeezed him in an impossible bear hug, threatening to shatter his ribs. His connection to the Emperor’s Greatsword escaped his concentration, and though Left and Right raced in and hammered on the Lord’s back, it seemed to completely ignore them, its intent flaring up as it crushed Hiral.

Panic rushed into Hiral’s mind, and he slammed his fists against the Lord’s face to no avail—he might as well have been punching solid rock. So, changing tactics, he grabbed the side of the Lord’s head and unleashed twinned Runes of Impact from the palms of his hands. Again and again and again, he tried to crush the Lord’s head with his blasts, but the monster just ignored the damage, the feeling of challenge climaxing.

Still not enough. He activated Eloquent and Enraged, regardless of the consequences, and slammed the empowered Rune of Impact into the side of the Lord’s head.

The beast just gave him a lipless grin, then squeezed harder.

Hiral groaned in pain as something snapped in his chest, but he managed to let loose another blast of Impact.

Not… working…

He needed something with more power. He’d already used his buffs from his battle with the Troblin Duke—and it still hadn’t even fazed the Lord. What… what was left? None of his other runes would… His memory flashed back to the Disc of Passage the crystal monster had destroyed. His Rune of Separation… Would it…?

Another snap—he didn’t have time to wonder—and he closed his hands around the Lord’s neck like he was trying to choke it. The Rune of Separation might do it… might… but he couldn’t risk failing. Which meant it was time to gamble it all on the trump card he’d never used.

I am not going to be Everfail forever!

And then, with his paltry five percent solar energy, he activated Terminal and his Rune of Separation.