(Second Book Complete!) Runeblade: A Delving & Skill Merging LitRPG

It was strange, how a simple wooden door could loom so large. Now that they had been pointed out to him, Kaius could hear the hastened movements of people behind it.

In the drenching red of the wardlights, the door seemed to almost whisper a promise of coming violence. He knew, of course, that they could hide in one of the empty rooms to their sides—with the current emergency, he doubted that the guards would stop to check behind them.

And yet…they needed information.

“They’re almost ready to leave.” Porkchop pushed along their bond, urgency flavouring his words.

Kaius nodded, his mind racing as he came up with a plan. Just before the room, across the hall, there was another door that lay open.

“Tell Ianmus to get in that room” he replied, nodding to the cover. “we’ve no way of knowing if they’ll be able to sense him preparing a spell, so it’ll be safer to keep him out of the way—if we end up needing him it’ll be a decent enough defensible angle for him to work from.”

Porkchop let out a puff of air from his nose, signalling his acceptance. They moved shortly after, steps furtive and soft as they approached.

They would need to hit them hard, and hit them fast. Considering they were under geared, he wanted to give their targets as little opportunity to rally as possible. Only the gods knew what sort of trouble an extended scuffle could bring down on their head.

Far better that they save that excitement for when they had their gear.

“You take the far side of the door.” Kaius sent to his brother, jutting his chin forwards. “The second one of them opens that door, I want you to pull them out and end the threat. I’ll deal with the second one—tell Kenva to jump in if it looks like I need help.”

Another wave of acknowledgement flooded his bond, coloured by an aggressive thrill and a sense of vindication at finally channelling some frustration.

Kaius pushed the feelings out of his mind. Reaching the doorway, he pushed himself flat against the stone wall, Kenva right behind him. When it opened, the door himself would shield him.

He’d just need to move fast when Porkchop engaged.

This close to their room, he could hear the guards inside with crystal clarity. They rushed through their room with haste—every muffled curse and dull thud causing his heart to thump in his chest.

He hated this part of battle. The trickle of sand in the hour glass, each grain weighing like a boulder on his taught nerves. He’d rather take a sword through the chest than have to just sit and wait.

Ignoring the pulsing heat in his veins, he turned his attention to Kenva.

The aen was staring at the wall with intense focus—muscles in her jaw standing out like cables through the sallow and gaunt divots in her cheeks. Captivity had not been kind to her.

Yet, it was clear she hadn’t broken. Her eyes burned hot. Hateful. They traced crisp lines over the stone as Kenva followed the movements of her prey beyond it like the ambush predator she was.

Waiting for the moment when she would give her signal, Kaius’s ears sharpened as the two men in the room started to talk.

“I think we should just stay here—I don’t want to risk it. What if it’s a full blown invasion? An Army? We’ll be slaughtered!” a low voice hissed, almost pleading.

A muffled scoff carried through the door. “Now I know you’re fucking stupid, but that’s impressive even for you. What, do you think, we’ll be able to tell Hons to stop him mashing our brains out our ears when we’re discovered abandoning our posts?”

“Please, Ethric!” the first voice continued—an obvious panic starting to bleed through. “It’s the middle of the night! We still have some of that dust left, we could just pretend we were so wasted we slept through it all?”

Ethric grunted. “I’m not all that keen on getting flogged either.”

“Look, you can stay here and cower if you want, but I fancy keeping my fate in my own hands. We’re already going to be in deep shit for being so late—if we leave now, we might be able to get away with a tongue-lashing.” he continued, The familiar clack of hardened leather reaching Kaius’s ears as the guard dropped what must have been his boots on the stone.

He heard the man start to lace them a moment later. It wouldn’t be long now.

The first man sighed—creaking wood following a moment later. “Well, a flogging is better than going up there to get shanked by someone who’s mad enough to attack Old Yon, isn’t it? You’ve heard the whispers—he has ties to the Onyx!”

Kaius’s stomach lurched. Onyx. The Temple, it had to be. Even if he’d known it was likely that they were responsible for his capture, the confirmation still sent a chill down his spine. The bloody bastards just couldn’t leave him be.

Why did it seem like they were at the root of everything that had gone wrong in his life?

His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened around his knife. It wasn’t enough to cause his father’s death and take his inheritance of steel? They had to spirit him away to a den of torture too?

It incensed him. All of it. The lack of honour. The dark dealings. The simple bloody evil of it.

Kaius’s blood ran hot, heart thumping loud enough he only just barely caught the next words of the conversation.

“Fiorn already told us you idiot—we know it’s not an army. It’s some sort of feral wave of beasts.” Ethric said with a frustrated sigh. “Now quit your dawdling and let’s go. We’re already going to be deep enough in the shit as it is for how slow we’ve been.”

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Kaius tensed. Looking back, a quick nod from Kenva confirmed what he already knew. They were coming.

Hard leather soles clacked on the stone floor, approaching the door step by step.

Poorly oiled hinges creaked.

Porkchop exploded into motion.

Claws sharper than a razor dug into the wood of the door, ripping it open as what sounded like the guard Ethric yelped in surprise.

Floating jaws manifested as his brother used Warden’s Maw, Porkchop’s mouth yawning open in turn to reveal the needle tip points of his green teeth.

Stepping to the side, Kaius moved out from behind the door just in time to witness blood spray as Porkchop bit deep into the guard’s chest and shoulder—punching straight through the simple mail he wore as armour.

The guard gasped—still struggling to process his fate as shattered bones ruptured his flesh. Muscles rippled along Porkchop’s back, his neck snapping to the side as he yanked the man off his feet—sending him flying across the hall.

A hoarse gurgle left the guard’s throat as he tumbled through the air. The sound stopped when he hit the wall with a sickening crack, falling to the ground in a tumble of limbs.

Porkchop was on him a moment later.

With the doorway free and open, Kaius kicked off the ground—feeling the new heights of his strength as he ran through the now empty doorway.

The remaining guard stood in the middle of the room just to the right of a table, ridgid as a board as he stared at Porkchop with undisguised horror—still halfway through drawing in the breath for a shocked scream.

Kaius noticed the sheathed shortsword still sitting on the bed behind the man, his thoughts moving faster than his physical steps. He was small, compared to him at least—skinny, and only middling in height.

He had no chance.

It was only when the gap between them was halfway closed that the guard noticed him. His eyes refocused, pupils in his brown eyes dilating to moony spheres as he processed the rapidly approaching danger.

The guard flinched.

Kauis dropped his shoulder and swept his hands out, hitting the man in his midriff with a dragon’s fury. The blow forced the air out of the guards lungs—half choking him on spittle and bile as Kaius felt the guard’s rib crack.

Wrapping his arms around the guard’s waist, Kaius hauled him up as he took four more steps.

Then he brought him down.

Underestimating the force of his tackle, he slammed the guard down through the frame of a bunk—shattering the cheap pine it was constructed from and sending the bed skidding backwards.

The guard’s skull cracked loudly on the stone floor.

Dazed and slow as his opponent was, Kaius pushed himself up—grabbing the guard by his chain tunic.

Lifting him up was as easy as hauling a child, new strength coursing through him.

He felt it now. The power. The might.

Confined as he’d been, there had been little opportunity to adjust to the jump in his physicality that had come with his most recent Honours and levels. With the violent attentions of his captors having capped Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus?

Kaius felt like he could wrestle an Irontusk.

Raising the stunned guard over his head, he slammed the man back down on the stone. Flailing, one of the guard’s arms got trapped behind his back in the descent—bone snapping as a shard of grey-pink butted up against the sleeve of his chainmail.

Now the guard moaned—clawing ineffectively against kaius’s iron grip as he tried to free himself.

It pissed Kaius off.

After everything he had lived through? After everything he had endured? This was the calibre of people that had kept him confined?

People this weak?

He ripped the guard upwards.

“Mercy!” the man blubbered.

Kaius turned and slammed him through the table.

The guard gurgled, the blow to his back stealing his voice once more.

Teeth bared in fury, Kaius yanked the man up and threw him at the wall with all of his might.

Head slamming into the wall, the guard slumped to the floor. Racing over, Kaius yanked on his leg, pulling him into the centre of the room. He whimpered.

Grunting in disgust, Kaius straddled the guard’s chest and pinned his arms to the floor with his knees. Moaning in pain, the man tried to wriggle—half heartedly drying to dislodge him.

Hearing rapid steps behind, Kaius flicked his head back and readied his dagger.

It was Kenva.

Knowing he wasn’t about to get a sword in the back, Kaius turned his attention to the guard he’d pinned. There was a thump from behind him, Kenva’s shoulder pressing into the small of his back as she pinned the guard’s legs.

Beneath him, the guard was rousing from his daze. Eyes bright and glistening, he stared at Kaius closely—sucking in a deep breath.

Snapping his hand down, Kaius clamped it over the guard’s mouth. “Shhh,” he whispered, bringing the tip of the knife he’d scavenged to hover over the man’s eye. “Wouldn’t want me to slip, now, would we?”

The guard stiffened.

Behind him, Kenva shifted—a quick glance showing she was now sitting on the man’s knees, the tips of both of her blades pressing into the guard’s groin.

Turning back to his captive, Kaius gave him a wide grin—hoping his eyes were as wild and furious as the heat he could feel boiling away in his core.

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” he said slowly, tracing the tip of his knife along the guard’s orbit. “You’re going to talk.”

The guard swallowed.

Kaius kept pushing—they didn’t have the liberty of doing this slow and thorough. Not with the time limit on them. “I know you’re going to talk, because rats like you are smart enough to figure out what a group of very angry prisoners are liable to do if you don’t.”

He could see the guard wavering—his fear of them butting up against his fear of his employers. It would only take a little nudge to break him completely.

And he knew just what to do. Reaching through his bond, he sent Porkchop his idea, and got a flood of vicious approval in response.

“But, if you’re as thick as most criminals seem to be, let me make it extra clear.”

He wrenched the guard’s head to the side, pressing down so that they were forced to look out of the door. Porkchop was in full view, hackles raised and his jaw stained by the other guard’s blood as his eyes tore into their prisoner with predatory intensity.

The corpse of the other guard hung limply from his mouth, teeth digging into his skull.

Their captive froze.

Porkchop bit down, a wet crunch carrying through the heavy silence that had followed their sudden ambush.

The guard whimpered.