B5 Chapter 617: That Which Lurks, Finale

For a single moment of horrified confusion, Kaius thought he was waking from a painful dream. An impossibility, considering he stood in a growing pool of blood and his chest ached like fire.

Chimes cut through the final remnants of his haze.

**Ding! Rapid Adaptation has added a new Resistance: Mind!**

**Ding! You have Resisted: Memory Gnaw - Mind, Dream!**

**Ding! You have Resisted: Clouded Prey-Thoughts - Mind, Dream!**

Kaius jolted like he had been struck by lightning.

Before him stood a hunched creature of grey skin and bulging muscles, with the twisted proportions of a man. Even twisted and hulking, it was still taller than him. Its arms were too long, and its hands too-wide; each finger tipped by a knife-like blade. There were no eyes on its face, for there was no room for them: a manic grin of bloodied fangs stretching from its chin to forehead.

Mana burned from the creature in a constant storm, flooding the courtyard with some sort of Skill — one that Rapid Adaption attacked endlessly.

He sucked in a breath. The creature twitched, snapping its head to the side to bring one bat-like ear to face him. Shock and revulsion erupted at the jerky wrongness of it. Reacting instinctively, Kaius reached for HatefulNail and thrust his hand towards the beast. If their enemies had deigned to present themselves to him, he would not protest.

Fire exploded through his chest. He was injured. Was the blood around him his? Worse, he cast no spell — he was empty of almost everything! Nail, Stormlash, even the last cast of Spear of Nectus.

The creature shrieked, swiping towards him.

Kaius lunged forwards — he’d drawn A Father’s Gift at some point. It was wet with blood. Cleaving claws raked for his already wounded chest. They warped strangely, some deep impulse telling him they were fine and safe and healing — a foreign compulsion that broke against the bastion of Rapid Adaptation.

Mercurial Reversal shone like a diamond as claws ground their way across his rising parry. Flicking the blow off-side, he thrust. The creature leapt to the side, its form fuzzing; just fast enough to save its heart. Fresh blood coated his blade. Another shriek echoed, this time one of pain.

Kaius’s breaths came in heavy gasps as he pressed his attack. Whirling through a storm of tight cuts, he drove the creature back. It gave him a bare moment to breathe — and figure out what the fuck had happened.

He focused his Truesight, trying to glean whatever useful information he could.

**Noovore Ghoul - Level 295 Traceless Hunter**

Abomination; Ambusher

Kaius winced. Peak Silver, and only barely. Could be worse, but with the things size its physicality would still be a burden. It was an abomination, too — perhaps one twisted by the overflowing mana of the Crater?

Blinking away the notification, he switched to his surroundings. Bodies lay in the blood behind him, grey and misshapen. He’d missed them when he’d come too with a monster in his face. Had he killed them? He must have — one was lying in two pieces, and the other two were studded with spikes of twisted and scorched metal. A memory-influencing skill, then? No — there’d been two notifications from his Skill; that was only part of it.

His mana was fucked. Clearly he hadn’t been in the right mind to consider resource management. Thankfully, his stamina was only a third gone. His health… his health was at a fucking quarter! Rotten roots, he had to end this quickly.

The creature screamed, muscles bulging on its lean legs as it exploded towards him. Kaius lunged in. This was an ambush predator. He’d slain three with his mind compromised. With his faculties returned, it would find him a tougher piece of gristle to chew on.

Helblade Investure screamed to life, a baleful fire that shone red with his fury. He met the creature's swing in a contest of raw aggression. Fingers met his blade and lost. Bone splintered as he cleaved through the digits. It flew on; Kaius stepped past it and spun, hacking at its exposed back.

Facing away from the pillars at the centre of the courtyard, Kaius got his first good look at his friends and allies. Safe behind the shimmering barrier of his Warhaven, they just…stood there. The nobles were deep in low conversation, and he could even see Ianmus through one of the windows in the Pegleg, scanning past him.

Porkchop, however, was sitting up and searching. Kaius could feel his confusion — the way his brother’s mind railed against something that felt off. Vesryn’s Pact, he realised. Porkchop had gained a chunk of his resistance.

“Oi, idiot!” Kaius barked as the creature he battled whirled on him with a screech. Porkchop jolted, looking towards him with a confused expression.

Claws warped strangely as they raked for his throat, Truesight pulsing in his soul. Kaius lurched back, glinting tips gliding past his neck. Even with most of its Skills negated, the creature was freakishly fast, and plenty strong.

“Fight it, you big lug,” Kaius said again, gritting his teeth.

“Kaius?”

“I’m fighting literally in front of you!”

Slicing the creature across the chest, Kaius grunted as razor claws punched through his pauldron. Flesh tore, and the creature yanked him forward. Flowing with the motion, Kaius thrust — spending precious scraps of his mana on Dissolution Edge. His blade punched in, fractured light consuming the beast’s chest. Shrieking in agony, it lashed out with a savage kick. Bones buckled beneath the blow, claws punching through his armour. It ripped down, spilling a waterfall of wet heat.

He slammed on his back, his breath driven out. That explained why his health was so low. This thing kicked like a bloody drake.

The creature’s maw opened wide, a bloom of flesh and teeth heralded by guttural roar. It leapt. Kaius rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a stomp. It cracked the flagstone he’d been lying on.

Shunt exploded between his back and the ground. The air howled. Now above the beast, another Shunt hurled him towards it. He cleaved like a descending avenger.

If Porkchop would just bloody wake up, they could finish this quickly. Its skills seemed to be focused on obfuscation rather than raw offensive might, and it was a lithe thing that Porkchop could pin quickly.

Who knew how much time they’d already lost to this nonsense?

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Hissing as his blade sliced open its chest, the creature pushed its offensive. In moments they were ripping around the courtyard, hacking at each other in a constant blur. His injuries built, slow but steady. Stabbing at the creature's face, it snapped its neck to the side and raked its claws up his thigh. He roared, pained and furious.

“Kaius?! What’s happening?”

By the love of the gods. Kaius focused on the creature in front of him, savouring every foul wrinkle of its thick hide, the blood that dripped from its claws, and the monstrous gape of its needle-maw. He grabbed his pain; his frustration; his fury at the violation of their minds. Reaching for his bond, he wrapped it all in the sensation of Rapid Adaptation flooding his veins like acid, burning through the corruptive mana that seeped from the creature.

A potent image, one he hoped slapped Porkchop upside the head like a sledgehammer.

Slamming it into his brother’s mind, Kaius frantically sliced upward to catch a blow that crashed towards his head. Mercurial Reversal burned as he directed the strike away and flicked his blade at the creature’s face. It lurched away, forcing him back with a quick flurry of swipes.

For long moments, Kaius thought his gambit might not have worked — a roar of shock and fury filled the courtyard. Chargers whinnied, and the nobles yelped in alarm, but Kaius only had eyes for the monster in front of him. Its ears snapped close to its head, as it spun towards the noise.

“What the fuck is that!” Porkchop roared, already tearing across the courtyard.

Kaius just hacked at his enemy’s leg, a grin on his face as he took advantage of his enemies distraction.

“No clue, but somehow I killed three of them!” He sent back as the creature yelped. Its ears pivoted, sweeping between him and Porkchop. It took a single step back.

Nope. He wasn’t having that. Not after it fucked with his head and brutalised him. Kaius cast Shunt, ripping behind the creature. In that same instant, he dropped a Zone of Discombobulation around the nameless horror, and threw every cast of Compel Obsession he had. Which was only three. Light burned on his temples as his enemy staggered. Talons of magic plunged into its alien mind, ripping at its focus and forcing it to see him and him alone — a petty retribution that nurtured hot and bright joy in Kaius’s chest.

As he touched down, the creature ripped towards him, its maw opening in a soundless scream.

It took one step before Porkchop slammed into it from behind. One paw slammed into its back, driving it flat to the floor as its bones snapped in a series of wet pops. Kaius lunged in, Helblade Investiture searing red. He rammed his blade into the tip of the creature's head, ripping it in half as he tore his blade out sideways.

**Ding! You have slain Noovore Ghoul - Level 295 Traceless Hunter! Increased experience for slaying a creature of significantly higher Level!**

Kaius stood over its corpse, watching the final remnants of the creature's mana fade. His chest heaved with exertion, and every single part of his body ached.

“Took you long enough,” he said, shoving the chimes of notifications deep. They could wait.

“Hells, Kaius, you’re shredded. What happened?”

“No clue,” Kaius shrugged. “Snapped back in with three of them dead and all of my spells gone. Must have thought me an easy and isolated target.”

Porkchop growled in frustration. “You could have died.”

“Nothing new about that,” Kaius replied, focusing on their surroundings.

He swept his gaze over the courtyard. Julian and his men were already yelping in shock, drawing their blades as the ghoul’s Skill faded. Half of them were staring at him, Porkchop, and the corpse they stood over. The other half were staring at the central pillars. Ancient grey metal had been enamelled a fresh red, and the wreckage of grey monstrosities lay strewn at their base.

A few of the pillars had shifted, but most of them lay in the same spot they had been in for who knew how many centuries. Hells, that wasn’t good. Who knew how long he’d been fighting?

The journal!

Kaius scrambled for his ring, plunging his will inwards. A leather-bound volume waited for him, its cover sporting a few new bloodstains. He pulled it out, sighing in relief.

“Come on, we need to get these pillars in order,” Kaius said, waving for his brother to follow. Porkchop nodded, but Kaius could tell he still didn’t feel great about missing most of the battle that had happened right in front of him.

“Threats gone!” Kaius yelled to the nobles as he ran to the pillars. “Though best be safe and stay in the barrier! I think we’re missing time — check with Kanmost how long we have!”

Julian nodded and ran for the Pegleg. His men still watched the bodies, and Adrian swapped out his loaded bolt for something that gleamed with shockingly dense mana.

Sliding to a halt, he grabbed one of the closest pillars and flipped through the journal to where the pattern had been recorded. It was a complex thing, made up of twenty-four concentric rings holding three pillars each. The metal posts could be shifted independently, and each had a unique symbol engraved deep down their sides, which tied to exactly the inner notch it needed to be slid into in its ring.

“You take the other side!” Kaius said, pulling on his pillar. It shifted slowly, a swell rippling through its blood-filled track. Engraving the pattern in the journal in his mind, he pushed the image to Porkchop, who quickly worked on his own pillars.

“Thirty minutes!” Julian yelled from the corner of the courtyard.

Kaius hissed — they were pushing it! It wasn’t exactly a hard puzzle to solve with the key right in front of him, but by the gods, he’d need to move a pillar into place every minute even with Porkchop’s help.

He set his shoulder against the metal and heaved.

“Let's get this done!”

…

Kaius grunted, pushing the last pillar into place. It shuddered, falling into a notch on the inner face of its circle with a grinding click.

Bowing his head, he rested it against the cooling surface. Every part of him was drenched — either in blood or sweat. Still, they’d got it done in the end, with only a few minutes to spare.

He and Porkchop backed up, retreating towards the shelter of Warhaven. After everything that had happened, Kaius was not going to bet money on this being it. There was always something else.

Slipping through the shimmering barrier, he accepted a waterskin from Ianmus with a grateful smile. The Pegleg was gone. They’d need to make a break for the Wellspring’s entrance as soon as it opened, so they’d thought it better to be ready to move immediately.

“What now?” Kenva asked.

“Now, we wait,” Kanmost replied from next to her.

Mere moments later, the ancient magic within the ruins rippled. Like the building violence of a geyser, it surged up from deep beneath the earth, saturating the pillars at the centre of the courtyard. Brighter and brighter those once-grey spikes gleamed, until Kaius worried they would rupture in an arcane conflagration. He took a wary step backwards — only for the all-consuming dark of the Crater to step back with him.

Retreating like the tide, it flooded to the walls of the ruin, hemming them in from the edges.

Far above, in a sky of brightest stars, the moon shone argent splendor — the eve of winter.

Kaius half expected something to explode, or for there to at least be some grand crackling expulsion of all that gathered power. Instead, the massive door set inside the ruin’s arched fortress swung open with a ponderous creak, revealing a carved tunnel. Two statues flanked the entrances, heads bowed low as they poured immense pitchers onto the floor below. Glowing waters gurgled forth, plunging into channels that had lain fallow for uncounted years. The twin streams churned into the deep, slowly lighting the way ahead.

“Let’s move!” Julian yelled, spurring his mount forward.

Grinning at the man’s enthusiasm, Kaius ran after him — taking the rear with Porkchop. As he ran, he pulled up his lingering notifications.

**Ding! Runeblade Hellion has grown from level 266 > 267!**

**+6 Int; +5 Con, Str & Will; +2 Vit & Dex; +3 Free - from Class & Racial Traits!**

**Ding! Class Skill Notifications Consolidated!**

**Infused Glyph of Drakthar has reached level 303 > 304!**

…

**Hellblade Investiture has reached level 257 > 260!**

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**Dissolution Edge has reached level 209 > 211!**

**Ding! General Skill Notifications Consolidated!**

**Rapid Adaptation has reached level 304 > 307!**

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**Tempered By Dissonance has reached level 286 > 287!**

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**Truesight has reached level 305 > 309!**

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**Greater Regeneration has reached level 312 > 315!**

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**Moment of Flow has reached level 278 > 280!**

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**Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus has reached level 293 > 295!**