Accidental Reaver

Chapter 206 - 205: Ninth's Beginning

The eyes of a man, soldier or not, were ill-prepared for the realities of war.

Luke participated in many such battles, though they involved bullets. Not magic and arrows flung about with holy monstrosities that consumed anyone unfortunate enough to lose to them. His knuckles whitened around Xera's hilt. White frost came from the Reaver's eyes. Red sunlight set across the battlefield, so close, yet removed from the wall battlements upon which he stood.

Temporary sergeants to the rank and file shouted for flurries of arrows, and coordinated defensive measures to keep monsters from blasting away the walls. Groups of mages kept up wards to deflect hurling beams of golden fire. Sizzling magic formations, led by a tier 2 mage, and otherwise run by other lower mages, countered the meddling of the higher ranked Tide monsters. Every segment of the wall buckled under the pressure. Every so often, a crack in the barrier formed, and monsters would flood the battlements before it patched itself.

Backline hunters and city guard, stationed for this exact scenario, engaged the rage-driven creatures before they could ravenously devour the mages and archers manning the ramparts. A tier 2 creature, eyes red, wisps of holiness clung to its rugged hide, made the mistake of charging into the rampart Luke observed the battle from. Flicking Xera out to his side, Essence Bond enchanted the sword-wand, runes crawled up the Reaver's forearms, frost swirled all around him.

A blistering ice blade split the monster in two, its blood froze solid before it could splatter its disgusting blood everywhere. Luke kicked each of the frozen solid parts down from the ramparts. They crashed into an Envoy on the western end of the battlefield he'd soon claw dominion over. An archer beside the frost elemental chattered his teeth, "Captain…Wallace...you're freezing me to death."

"I'm waking you up to the truth. Your blood should run hot enough to grasp survival in winter's deathly embrace. When I'm down there, no one will save you again." With a wave of his hand, the elemental frost thawed from the rampart.

Scanning the battlefield, Luke picked out hundreds of fierce struggles. A tier 3 self-imploded to take just one Envoy down with him. Unlucky low level hunters chosen to sally out in the center were ground down to meat by enraged monsters—torn to pieces. People and beasts died by the hundreds. A woman sobbed over dead comrades in the east. Aruna kicked back an Envoy about the eat the fool, she barked something at the woman, lost to the sounds of battle. The woman rose, tears streaming, as fireballs blasted into the thousands of lower level monsters swarming her part of the defense.

As the sights imprinted on his mind, the Reaver unleashed the life rating all evolved humans had. A suffocating pressure rose from him. Those nearest knelt. A tier 2 bloodmancer struggled to keep composure and command the battlements.

Sputtering out spit, the elf pleaded, "Ninth, contain yourself, the regiment is losing efficiency."

"An Envoy will be just as overwhelming, bloodmancer. Treat it as exposure to what may be coming soon. I need to prepare. This isn't a place to hold back."

The stronger-willed struggled to their feet, even as the mists swirling around Luke froze their sweat. Their blood burned, and fire entered their volley as they attacked more creatures from a distance. Luke's cold, impassive gaze settled on Calista Pyrite. The blaze hunter was neck deep in Envoy guts, closer to the center of the conflict.

She froze and turned to meet Luke's implied command. He mouthed a sentence, knowing her senses could understand even across the vast distances between the two. The woman shuddered, returning to battling in the depths, no longer holding back. All across the suffering hills and tundra, flashes of power colored the ether plane. Jovan's blood abilities marched into a plague-ridden Diplomat. Iona and her two companions fought to contain a corrupted leshen. Aloysius whirled a massive mace around, beating on his chest, taunting a muscular Diplomat.

Tanniv commanded mana to counter another Diplomat, void incarnate, its features hidden by abyssal swirls. Eldacar's astral projects, empowered by sound, danced a symphony around not one, but two Diplomats. Entire pieces of the terrain crumbled apart, as netherly echoes destroyed the ether in the air. It, by far, was currently the most intense battle. Every Defier, except Musai and himself, was locked in encounters that threatened their very lives. People at the apex of Sylen's power hierarchy died every minute. A tier 3 hunter's Domain cracked, as a golden Insect Lord Diplomat sucked all his vitality dry.

What a way to have your insignificance confirmed.

Janeus, the man he'd been waiting on, kneeled willfully to Luke. "This lowly one appears as instructed, Lord Luke. What would you have me do?"

A blizzard settled over the rampart. Luke saw a struggling priest girl weep over her dead comrades. One he knew all too well. He bit his lip, and blood dropped freely from the wound, activating Blood Haze. Frost built under his soles, as he readied himself like a spring.

"I've done my calculations, Janeus. There's far too many Envoys on my side, at least fourty. Someone leaked intel, knowing the 'weakest' Defier would be captaining that side. One of the tier 3 hunters assigned to the inner western section is dead already." He pointed at the First Sinned. "You will take his place. There's a woman I must save."

Blurring, the Reaver became a frosted comet, as an Envoy opened its mouth, about to eat someone who had become precious to him.

Tears dropped onto the blood-soaked soil. Red sunlight laughed. Sickening sandalwood stunk.

Lilly shivered, her built-up pride at reaching level twenty-five hours before crumbled apart. She felt pathetic, foolish, and guilty. All that strength. Meaningless against the monster that ate Darius whole. She fought with her entire team, keeping the bile in her stomach from coming up.

Blood. So much blood. Bone bits embedded in her thighs. Guts lathered all over the creature. A white aura blasted out every time they managed the slightest injury. She summoned her healing to no avail. Mana had run dry, potions on cooldown, and bandages used up on the barely breathing Ludmila beside her. Her rogue team member took a strike meant for her, putting the rogue a foot in death's door.

Kyle was in two pieces, literally. Wolf creatures ate strips of him. One tore out an eyeball. Lilly vomited. Cassandra lost an arm and ran out of bolts in her quiver. She swung her mace, warding away the beasts flooding her last two living party members.

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She screamed, "Lilly, get a hold of yourself! Don't make their sacrifice in vain, Darius and Kyle, they died for YOU, damn it." A crack entered her voice. "So the least you could do is fight until the end."

Arctic winds started to freeze the blood on Cassandra's face. She shuddered, closing her eyes. The Envoy swatted the party leader aside. She landed a fair distance away with a crunch. A serrated-teeth-filled maw opened up, as a thirty foot tall Envoy prepared to devour Lilly whole. She shuddered. "I-I wish I told him everything…mom, dad. Will you forgive me?" She summoned a power word, knowing it'd be useless, but maybe its passive healing could let Ludmila, unconscious beside her, survive somehow.

"Do it. I'm too worthless anyway." She sobbed. "Good for nothing else than food for monsters. I let them die, a priest who can't do my only job. I killed my friends."

"You let them give you another chance at life." A stone-cold voice said behind, yet above her.

Mental lightning struck Lilly. There's no way. My mind is playing tricks on me. He shouldn't be here. Please, let it be a lie. This thing will eat him, too.

A blizzard struck into the Envoy, freezing the overwhelming white aura and blasting it back twenty feet.

Two evenly spread self-assured feet landed on the crash site. Lilly felt like an ice age had decided to form before her. Every cell in her screamed to kneel to whatever being Luke was, like he wasn't human anymore.

"Sooty, see to Cassandra." Luke put a potion in the corvid's talons. "Use this if Cassandra says you're able. If not, bring her to the medical tent on the rampart. Come back afterward, neither Lilly or her other living party member is in any condition to fight. You'll be dragging them back."

With an urgent caw, Sooty flew off in the direction Cassandra was seen careening toward, in search of her.

Lilly saw Luke glance at her from the corner of his eye. Frost manifested and rimmed his iris. Those depths reflected less humanity and more something else she found incomprehensible. She struggled to her feet, before falling face forward back into the blood puddles all around her. Fear clouded any commands. She couldn't move. Drained physically, mentally, and spiritually.

"Lilly Bethlar. You're a kind soul, but this is no place for you. When your mana recovers, stay in the ramparts, and use your healing abilities where it's the best place you can contribute."

"But I!" Grief-ridden, Lilly choked when all the arguments bubbling up died on her tongue. She retched and coughed, Darisus' half eaten face gnawed at her consciousness.

"I command the Western Front for Sylen. Your party's death is a direct result of my failure." A weariness leaked out of Luke's voice, dropping to a whisper, "Please don't let me be responsible for your death too."

Frost expanded out around the man Lilly understood less by the day. Pressure and temperature dropped. A cold fury slammed into her awareness. Lightning crackled on Luke's skin, a titanic collision between Luke and the Envoy made her ears bleed and sight blur further. At some point, he bird she adored, Sooty, carried Lilly and Ludmila away to the ramparts.

Rising higher in the sky, Lilly watched from afar as that sole figure faced death on all sides alone. The snowstorm thickened, and mists burgeoned out, drawing all the more attention to the lone fighter. A thin, glowing golden light pierced the frosting miasma at his neck. Unexpected words left her throat before she could stop them, tears their company.

"Just what have you been through, Luke? How do you adjust this fast?"

But that was the secret. It wasn't fast. War had been part of Luke's life for years already.

Red sunlight died against the mists dominating the blood-ridden tundra underneath the ice elemental's boots.

Many bodies decorated the territory, too many to count. Two affected Luke more than the others. He hadn't known them long and interacted with them less, but they were important enough to put a name to a face. Daris and Kyle. Sandalwood dared to twist the arctic smells. White glaciers cut the path behind.

A shivering Envoy rose from the small crater it formed from the earlier impact. Frosts cracked on its skin, then thinned from the Ichor blessing, thawing it away. A creature so titanic in size, it dwarfed the Reaver, easily thirty feet tall. Muscles made its bestial hide taunt, its white and brown theme colored even its twin horns. It stood up straight, gray eyes focused solely on the threat before it.

Ice swirled at Xera's tip. Mists fed information to Luke. He approached, frost crunching each step, senses strained. Others were coming, not all of them monsters, but he could taste the hostile intent from each one. He'd come to this part of the Western Front not just to swoop in and keep Lilly alive. This section was most under threat. Someone needed to stabilize it, or the ramparts behind him would soon be under an unsustainable siege, leading to a disastrous breach. As the Defier assigned to this section, it fell to him to be that someone.

"You should be celebrating Xera."

"I should?" Xera asked in confusion. "I mean, I feel more excited than normal against this huge thing. It makes me hungry. Like it has something I need."

"Slice it apart and find out. It's either us or them."

"Them? But you froze everything else nearby to death, it's a dance between us and it, right?"

"Battles are rarely fair, others will show. We prepared for the worst, so we give our best."

The Envoy sniffed. It appeared confused. Like it didn't know what to make of this puny thing slowly approaching it. The white aura rising from it recoiled. Its wounds under the frost strived to regenerate, impeded by the element nearby.

"Big bastard is larger than Onelius was. Tougher, too."

Two of the three elemental marks materialized by now. The gray sigils hummed powerfully on opposite ends of Luke's frosting territory.

Mentally calculating, Luke analyzed. The third should form at any moment. This won't be the last Envoy I fight today. I need information on how resilient and powerful they are.

An eternal smile ripped open across his face. He laughed internally at himself.

Caution? The Mist Shroud shows me. I'm mostly alone out here. Everyone tier 1 or less is already dead, and the tiny minority at tier 2 assigned here aren't in good condition. I'm a gigantic, elemental, tasty target. Do what I'm meant to, Envoy's are just extra large walking attribute bags.

Cloudy vapors wrapped around the Envoy as the Mist Shroud expanded further. Thousands of monsters rushed to the Reaver's location. Other Envoys lumbered his way, despite the masking from the Golden Stigmata confusing them. There, at the edges of the feedback from the shroud, he could see it now. Humans, elves, monics, tora, 'blessed' with bits of Ichor. All slowly converging toward the Reaver. It was certain. Someone betrayed Sylen and leaked the plans, making him a target.

There wouldn't be anyone out here to save him. Musai needed to be ready for Yuriel, and except for the City Lord, he'd already accounted for every other high ranking combatant that would ever possibly bother to help him. Should he try to communicate with the Decree, telling Calista to come his way?

The Envoy roared, the white aura that pervaded from it finally started to break off the ice on its body. Luke had grown since his last encounter against Ichor. This creature imbibed a greater concentration compared to the two hunters in the Shimmering Expanse, but still. He found the Ichor less effective against the honed frost—pushed to its extremes after dueling Annika and reaching tier 2.

If the impossible was being asked, and the challenge required taking on this entire section of the front alone—then so be it. A man born for conflict, and literally grew from it. The blistering snow stacked, ice formed underneath, frost patches crisscrossed Luke's body. Icy mists trailed from his mouth.

Lightning arced across living ice flesh as he reappeared next to the Envoy, wreathing Xera in frost and flecks of gold from the Greed Concept. The beast roared in pain as Luke sank his blade in its shoulder, spilling the first of many drops of Ichor infused blood. Gold stabbed into the flesh wound, ravenously expanding, like fuel to the fire. White blood splattered and sizzled on the Reaver's crazed expression.

"I am Luke Wallace, the Ninth Defier. And I will take everything away from you, Envoy."

The roar grew louder, running across the vast battlefield. Nine Defiers, dozens of tier 3s, and tens of thousands of others fought on the side of Sylen. A Tide threatened to consume their home.

But only one Sin plagued expectations.