novelraw Book 3: Chapter 80: Victories and Defeat (pt1)
Book 3: Chapter 80: Victories and Defeat (pt1)
Chapter 80: Victories and Defeat
There wasn’t time to think about the others. There was no time to wonder if Garret or Holly were still on their feet, or if the Magma Queen’s fury had swallowed the rest whole. If Alex so much as flinched at the wrong moment, the Original Primal Queen would end him, and then everyone else after that.
Malric formed glyphs that cracked with blinding light as he thrust a sigil forward. A bolt of lightning as thick as Alex’s leg ripped through the air, its crackling scream drowning out everything else. It slammed into the Queen, only for her to raise a wing and take the strike on the appendage. Electricity arced over her body, grounding out through the dirt as if it were nothing more than rainwater rolling off of a stone.
In the meantime Karsali’s blade grew even larger with writhing golden flames, the flare becoming bright enough to scare away the shadows around them. She brought it down toward the Queen’s skull with the kind of cold precision only years of battle experience could hone. The Queen’s tail flicked once and the strike that should’ve cleaved her in two was turned aside in a riposte. The sword bit into the ground, spraying earth and stone outward.
Symon circled wide around the melee. The manic mage hurled lance after lance of liquid fire at the queen even with Karsali being so close. Every shot he fired was a condensed inferno. Even so, most splashed uselessly in the distance as the Queen swayed out of their path, the ground glassing wherever they landed instead. The few that reached her were brushed aside by shimmering bursts of aether, the sight of which were too close to Alex’s own [Shield] spell for comfort.
Alex had no choice but to push her harder. He couple every single strike of his fists and kick of his feet with detonations of small [Aether Burst]s, sheer aether force hammering into her. But, she met every blow with equal ferocity of her own.
Suddenly her stance shifted in a subtle yet unmistakably familiar way.
Without warning, purple energy surged around her in a hateful and violent aura. Alex’s breath caught in his throat. He knew that stance, knew that power, because he used it himself.
“Demon Asura Style…”
If she is able to use a martial style, my style... He tamped down on his fear and shifted stances, pulling on the final path of the Asura. Both their auras flared, clashing angrily and violent as they slammed together.
Alex's [Burning Strike] met against her own [Burning Strike]. Asura aura tore at aura. Their impacts left shockwaves that flattened the dirt beneath their feet. With Asura Style blazing hot over both their forms, it was as though they were two demons locked in a death struggle.
And yet the Queen was winning.
Her kick slammed into his gut, practically folding him in half. A knee cracked into his skull right after, flinging him through the air. He managed to land in a crouch, dazed, but she was already on him before his vision fully cleared. Her tail swept across his thigh, pain exploding as it ripped through skin and muscle. Karsali tried to assist, and caught a kick to her stomach as well, rocketing her away with a crash. Malric and Symon preparing spells off to the side offered him no immediate help. A fist followed, the tail swipe to his legs, smashing into his torso and tilting the world sideways.
And then his [Asura’s Wrath] roared to life. The physical agony from the beating he was receiving was what fed his fury, and bolstered his power. His strength, agility, and vitality surged hot in his veins. He matched the queen's savagery with his own, his fists raining down without rhythm or restraint. Each blow enhanced by the power his martial art skill. A punch staggered her backward, tumbling.
Karsali, back on her feet and rushing toward them, and quickly found the queen stumbling back her straight into her reach once again. The knight’s golden blade carved through one of the Queen’s wings, the surrounding aetheric fire searing flesh as it passed.
The injury left the Queen's wing to hang limply at her back and the chimera hissed loudly as she spun on the knight.
The opening was enough for Symon’s next spell to scream past Alex’s shoulder and slam a bolt of fire into the Queen’s leg, leaving a patch of blackened, blistered muscle. In the same moment, Malric’s hand slapped onto her back, leaving a sizzling rune etched into her hide. The Queen shrieked as the rune bubbled uncontrollably and seemed to eat into her like magical acid.
For a small second, it looked like they had the upper hand. For just a second.
Something changed. Alex felt the ambient aether around them ripple, like a hook dragging through his vision and streaking the aether together in a vortex. And he saw it, the shimmering halo wrapping the Queen's frame. His stomach turned to ice as he saw the tell-tale aether pattern of his spell, his [Vita-Surge Cloak].
“No—”
She blurred forward, far faster than before. Her clawed hand caught Malric before he could react, ripping one of his hands clean away in a spray of blood. Her foot shot out, sending him flying hundreds of feet. He smashed through a building at the village’s edge with a crack, and a spray of debris.
Karsali stepped up in his place, but a sudden strike from queen's remaining good wing hurled her up and skyward. The Queen followed with a jump to follow the night into the sky, positioning above Karsali. She was a predator poised to crush her prey mid-air, her fist aimed to obliterate the knight's skull.
Alex knew what he had to and ignited his own [Vita-Surge Cloak]. Pain ripped through him as the halo burned over his skin, but his body instantly felt faster, unstoppable. He launched upward and his fist collided with the Queen’s mid-strike, purple-blue energy detonating between them. The shockwave threw her back, her attack spoiled.
He landed hard beside Karsali, their auras pulsing together. Malric dragged himself from the ruined building with blood streaming from the stump of his arm. He was still somehow managing to stand. Symon halted his spellcasting long enough to regroup, but fire still burned in his palms.
“She’s using all your spells,” Symon said in a disappointing tone. Like a father scolding a toddler.
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“I know,” Alex said. His eyes never left the Queen as she rose from the ground where she had landed. “We need to end this before she learns any more.”
What he didn’t say was what chilled him most. If she could wield the [Demon Asura Style] like him, how long before she reached [Descending Demon Fist]?
And if she did… could any of them survive it?
***
Devon’s rifle roared with each pull of the trigger, lines of hyper condensed energy consuming through aether crystal after aether crystal that he slammed into its chamber. The barrel glowed hot with steam and smoke, as if the weapon itself threatened to tear apart under his relentless fire. He’d already overcharged the thing, and he was just pushing past its breaking point now. But he didn’t stop, he couldn’t stop. Each blast carved brief gaps through the storm of wind that whirled around the Queen, forcing her back and keeping her from simply overwhelming them.
Doran was still in pitched melee with the chimera, his armor dented with every savage attack she rained down on him. His shield arm shook and his hammer arm bled from a dozen rents in the metal of his haunlet, but he didn’t give up. Each time she knocked him down, he rose again. Each time she shoved him aside, he staggered back in. His defiance blazed hotter than the fire of his people's forge.
At the same time, Peter still wove illusions between them all, doing his best to distract the queen for sparse moments. The halo of the augmentor spell Peter had bound to Kate and Doran shimmered like molten sunlight, which made their strikes hit harder, and their body stronger, lasting longer. Or even letting their bodies shrug off wounds that should have slowed them.
Kate flickered across the field her with rapier flashing. She thrust forward in one spot, then another, and another, always coming from different angles. The sudden changes making the Queen have to reposition, tugging her guard just a fraction too far.
[Flame Blitz] ignited around her frame, her form wreathed in surging heat until she looked to be crowned in a blaze. Her rapier danced, every thrust and slash leaving afterimages of blazing red in the air. She was pushing herself to make each lunge faster, and deadlier than the last. Her strikes pressing the wind-queen, consuming the air itself to fuel her fire.
The Queen buffeted her wings once, a gale blasting outward to hurl debris and soldiers alike across the battlefield. She flapped again to launch herself at Kate, her razor edged claws descending only for Doran to intercept the blow, his armor catching the attack with a shuddering crack that dented the steel across his chest.
He staggered and breathed a wheezing sound. But he kept going regardless. He drove his shoulder into her, his hammer hooking her wing and forcing her off balance. Peter was guiding his illusions into place and he signaled to Kate to move back in. For a second, the Queen saw Kate at her right flank with her rapier poised to stab. The Queen twisted—
But the real Kate was suddenly there on the left, stabbing into her shoulder blade.
Devon’s rifle cracked, a blast searing into the Queen's exposed side. The detonation tore a gaping wound through her hip, purplish ichor spraying out the exit wound. She shrieked a sound like an axe splitting trees.
Kate pulled back and then her rapier drove through the Queen’s throat, fire bursting down the blade in a fountain of smoke and searing heat. The flames cracked across the grass and dirt, blistering the air around them. Doran howled a warcry as every ounce of his strength flooded into his arms. He raised his weapon high overhead, the runes on its surface glowing with the last of his aether before he brought it down. The hammer’s face sank deep, bursting her chest open in a single brutal blow. Blood erupted like a wave, splattering across Doran, across Kate, across all of them as the Wind-queen spasmed and writhed beneath the killing blow.
The four of them stood over her.
The Wind-queen convulsed one last time. Then she stilled, her eyes dimming, body collapsing into the dirt she had once soared over.
And just like that, one storm was quieted.
***
The Light-Queen wasn’t a lethal melee fighter like the Wind Queen. Nor armored in chitin from head to toe like the Magma Queen. She was perhaps more humanoid then the rest, as her body was mostly covered in sheet of white cartilage the gave the appearance of a royal gown. Leaving only her claws, and taloned feet to reveal her true nature. And the wicked fangs protruding from her otherwise graceful human-like mouth. Not to mention the crown of small horns around her brow, of course.
Threads of radiant energy coiled around her arms, her gestures weaving them into blades of visual brilliance. Three new bodyguards were chosen among the bestial masses, gaining the golden aura of the Queens blessing before darting forward to attack the team.
The Queen herself rushed at Ghrukk, joining the melee for the first time, and suddenly the ork was on the defensive.
For every strike of his halberd, she answered with two lashes of blinding light. His skin split under the pressure of the energy’s edge. Within just a few exchanges, crimson began pouring across his chest and arms. The Queen was no brute, but under the boost of her own augmentor spell, she was swift and relentless. Coupled with her inherited battle experience from countless chimera soldiers, she was formidable.
“Zach!” Cole shouted in worry. But Zach was still locked in combat as a new hulking chimera guard was pressing him hard.
Gritting his teeth, Cole made his choice. He shoved Lance toward Zach with one hand, leaving himself to face another chimera guard alone. Lance cut clean line through the battlefield as he joined Zach’s fight to relieve the pressure off of the spear fighter.
The moment Lance allowed him was all Zach needed. He slipped into the guard’s blind spot and his form blurred in the shimmer of shadow. In a single ruthless thrust his spear punched through the beast’s head, and the creature collapsed.
The Queen having just knocked Ghrukk back across the ground, felt the loss of her guard and whirled, but Zach was already flickering between shadows with his spear whistling through the air at her face. Lanced rushed to join him, their combined pressure driving the Queen step by step toward where Cole was fighting the other guard. Together, as though herding a wild bull, they forced her into the jaws of the waiting warrior.
Ghrukk had returned to his feet in the interim, and was set upon by the last of the Queen’s chosen protectors. An unwise choice on it's part, as the third guard never stood a chance. In a brutal storm of dark-fire and rage, Ghrukk’s halberd ruthlessly tore it apart, leaving burning pieces behind.
As Zach and Lance maneuvered the Queen ever closer, the two of them suddenly released their ranged spells, Zach’s [Shade Bolt] and Lance's [Terra Spear] firing at the Queen and forcing her to use her golden blades defensively. The large yellow aether contructs crossing in front of her body and block the attacks.
In the moment she was distracted, Zach and Lance both turned to assist Cole nearby. Cole’s hammer, Lance’s sword and Zach’s spear thrusts tore the hulking bodyguard to pieces from three sepqrate sides. Golden light spilled across the ground in broken streams as it died.
And then only the Queen remained.
Her glow brightened in her anger, but the trajectory of the fight was clear. Without her mini army of boosted minions, she was no longer untouchable. With four against one their coordinated pressure became merciless. Each opening that the queen gave them was punished, and every dodge she attempted was denied. They surgically began to dismantle the Light-queen’s defenses, and her body.
“Now!” Cole barked.
A final combined sequence crashed into her: Ghrukk’s weapon cleaving at her legs, Zach’s spear thrusting high at her head, and Cole’s strike driving toward her chest as Lance erected stone walls behind her to cut off her retreat. The Light Queen screamed as she hastily tried to create even more barriers of golden light to protect herself. But it wasn't enough. Her glowing barriers shattered, the fragments of radiance scattering like dying stars. She collapsed in a heap, with her light guttering out.
Cole barely had time to breathe before he heard it—a cry of pain piercing his ears from behind.
He turned.
Lance was on his knees, a chimera guard had managed to stay alive, and had attacked while they focused on the Queen. He could see the thing’s claws buried through Lance’s stomach. Blood spilled in rivers, staining the dirt black.
“NO!” Cole roared.