Two straight blades pierced Redmane’s torso from the left and right.
The broad edge of an axe sank deep into his back.
A sword sliced his left arm off above the elbow. Another took his right leg just below the knee.
A pair of bladed polearms, of the kind he’d evaded a moment ago with Flicker, stabbed through his trachea from the front and his skull from the back.
The eighth, a long slender two-handed sword, pierced into him through his right armpit and out at the spot where his neck met the slope of his shoulder.
These weapons belonged to eight Sicari who had materialized the instant they struck, acting as if they shared a single mind.
Corpus: 16,263
Wrath (8)
[First Generation Imbued] marked as Prey
Even with a blade sticking through it, his third eye functioned fine.
It seemed to distort his perception of time. It slowed things down, giving him a moment to appreciate the pain of being chopped and skewered from so many inventive angles. But it also gave him a moment to consider his next move.
Nine level 200 opponents were here for him. The Neonates, meanwhile, had his allies outnumbered.
He himself was Level 118. But he was much more than his level would let on.
A roar would do a great deal of damage and accrue lots of Wrath, but it would also damage and Deafen his comrades, and it would be prudent to help them rather than impair them further. A Phantasm, of the kind the Sphinx used on him, would require his concentration to maintain. And the Ancillae, who were higher level than him, would likely see through it.
He thought back to his first engagement with a Sicarius.
They could bleed. They were susceptible to venom. They could likely burn as well.
His severed limbs returned in a burst of explosive regeneration, and maws full of jagged teeth sprouted all over his body.
Flame Breath
Venom Breath
Flame Breath
Venom Breath
Flame Breath
Venom Breath
Gnosis: 1843
Wrath (23)
The Sicari reeled from the omni-directional spray of red flames and violet venom, one evading completely, two more taking one or the other, but most getting soaked in both. As they flinched from it, Redmane’s mind reached into the Abyssal Well to call forth an Envoy.
Ironic. When he first came here, this place’s defender summoned an Envoy to fight him. Now he was this place’s defender.
Gnosis: 1818
The surface of the water bubbled as the tentacles of the Envoy curled and extended over the edge of the Well, one after another, reaching from the murky depths. A bulge appeared on the pool’s surface, from which a mass of impenetrable blackness emerged, the source of the countless tentacles now twisting around the pool’s perimeter.
Eyes opened all over the Envoy’s central mass.
It needed no instructions.
The Sicarius Neonates, who until this moment had done an exceptional job of separating Redmane’s allies into small groups, cornering them and corralling them to take full advantage of their numbers, contended now with a forest of ink black tentacles as well. They shot at the Sicari like spears from every direction, to pierce flesh and ensnare limbs, and for the most part both his spawn and the Imbued wrested the advantage back from their assailants.
Redmane would have watched over his allies a moment longer, but he had more pressing concerns.
Nine Sicari were right on top of him, and if he didn’t do something drastic in a heartbeat, they would clean out the rest of his Corpus in another perfectly coordinated strike.
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Wrath (0)
Evasion +100
Attack Speed Up +9
The Sicari and their weapons were a deadly lattice of Star-Steel. Each blade sought him with precision, each strike informed by highly developed technique. And they moved with preternatural speed and unity, one mind with nine bodies. He supposed it was appropriate. Gods had many bodies. Himself included. God slayers would have developed the same way.
Redmane flowed through the meager gaps in their assault.
With an instinctive grace, he weaved between the thrusts and slashes, his movements swift and precise, and as he evaded he lashed out with bite and claw and an arsenal of flesh and bone besides. His kicks became axes. A thrust of his hand became a spear. If his claws weren’t long enough to land a strike, they would lengthen just before the point of impact before shrinking back again.
He was now moving at a speed with which he could both evade and counter, and his natural weapons left Bleeding and Venom in their wake each time his strikes found flesh.
Wrath (3)
Wrath (7)
Wrath (13)
But the longer he fought, the fewer strikes he landed.
At first Redmane though he was slowing down, but the effects he’d gained from Wrath hadn’t faded yet.
Then it hit him. The Sicari were learning.
The synchronization of their movements, their repositioning, their attacking, made their defense and offense into a seamless whole. They were presenting one of their own as a target, as bait. It attacked and then moved just out of reach of Redmane’s counter, which was the team’s cue to cycle in the next one from a different angle of attack.
Redmane answered with aggression. Faster he struck, harder he charged. He doggedly pursued the bait they dangled in front of him, daring them to try and match his speed.
It turned out they didn’t need to.
Redmane finally caught one, and it vanished.
Transposition
Another appeared in its place, already swinging.
Redmane ducked at the last second, snarled and charged again.
Transposition
Another Sicari took its place, the point of its spear darting at Redmane’s face at blinding speed.
Just as quickly as he’d won the advantage with speed and aggression, the god slayers won it back with a Skill they had been waiting to use. Waiting to see if they needed it. And when they decided they did, they promptly adapted.
So he too would have to adapt.
Wrath (0)
Double Might (13 Actions)
Nine weapons descended on him from every side.
He slipped aside from the first, a spear thrust. Struck back with a punch that smashed the Sicari’s body against the wall hard enough to crater the stone and shake the entire room.
Wrath (1)
Two more evasions. Then a backhand and a kick, another pair of booming impacts, and now there were three Sicari-shaped craters in the wall.
Wrath (3)
The blade of a polearm swung low and he stomped it to the ground, shaking the room again and cracking the stone under his foot.
He took an axe across the back, twisted around to grab its wielder and hurl him across the room at Krum of Asgoph, who looked up at the last second with wild eyes. Krum was about to catch the Sicari with his face. But instead he caught it in a grapple and body slam.
Wrath (5)
Corpus: 14,589
A pair of Sicari came at him from the left and right and he ducked the swing of the first, grabbed hold of its calf and swung its whole body like a club at its partner. The two collided and went spinning through the air over the group melee.
Wrath (6)
The last pair came from above him. Two swordsmen, one on his left and one on his right, descending with their blades angled for killing thrusts.
Redmane’s hands shot out and caught them both by the necks.
One of their blades glanced off his arm, and the other struck true.
Corpus: 12,002
Wrath (6)
Redmane growled and crushed their throats. Slowly at first. Watching their blank faces register the mildest look of alarm while they struggled, feet kicking the air, blades slashing around wildly. He took another cut across the belly but it wasn’t a focused strike, just a scratch.
Corpus: 11,585
Wrath (7)
Heat flushed through Redmane’s body. His pulse quickened. The urge to kill boiled up inside him.
He would not lose to these machines. These toys.
He would not lose what he had won by righteous action. By victory. By breaking free from everything that had held him down.
The struggling of the Sicari grew urgent. They were quite strong as well, and their thrashing and kicking threatened to break his grip. The thought of them escaping him raised his internal temperature, elevated his anger to incandescence.
Their skulls broke with a sickening crack as he slammed their heads together. Then he dropped them to the ground, twitching and convulsing.
Redmane glared down at those bodies with burning eyes, and then those eyes shifted to the larger battle playing out in front of him.
Alma sat cradling a deep cut across her belly. Evelina stood over her, blasting a Neonate off its feet with a gout of frost, fury in her eyes. Krum of Asgoph ran in their direction, bowling over anyone in his path.
Radovid and Vella were down, unconscious but breathing shallowly. Valtr, Vengarl and Irina stood in a semicircle around their prone bodies, firing Skills and arrows and bolts at a duo of advancing Neonates. It would have been four, but the tendrils of the Envoy had caught the other two and were slowly pulling them apart.
Pietr rode on Gale’s back, the duo bounding around the perimeter of the battlefield dealing death with ranged Skills and frost breath.
Vang and his demi-human cohorts had a growing stack of Neonate bodies around them. The warlock Dobrogost lay at the bottom of the pile, chopped in half by a Star-Steel blade.
The Envoy hovered over it all, watching with an eye upon each ally with plenty to spare, attacking and entangling Neonates with its everlasting supply of ink black tentacles.
Perhaps they would survive this.
Perhaps they could prevail.
These were the thoughts that crossed Redmane’s mind, just before the second wave of Sicari appeared.
This second group materialized above them, positioned on the staircase bracketing the chamber of the Well, and they were armed with dark bows and quivers of Star-Steel tipped arrows. Those arrows were nocked, and the bows drawn. In the blink of an eye, in the instant they flickered into existence, they would loose their first volley.
Helpfully, his third eye counted them in that instant.
Eighteen Neonates. Nine Ancillae.
Redmane’s eyes widened.
“To the well!” he roared. “Into the Abyss!”
PATREON
