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

The black armoured vanguard approached them slowly, his menacing grin widening with every slow, clanking step.

He thought that they were scared.

Kaius stared at the tier-two warrior, inwardly wondering what was wrong with the man. He had to know that they had killed men of his calibre during their capture.

Right? Surely, he had to be aware. By the blasted Depths, they’d been drugged and half dead from a battle! Against their full team, fully rested, with an additional member, the vanguard has about as good a chance as a stone did of flying.

Regardless if they were simply misinformed, or idiotically overconfident, Kaius would not waste this gifted opportunity.

“Now,” he said softly, suddenly stepping to the side to reveal Ianmus standing with his staff levelled, a brightly glowing sigil wavering in the dense storm of mana that had coalesced at the tip of his focus.

The vanguard’s eyes widened. To his credit, he reacted fast. The tier-two snapped his heavy axe up, black armour shimmering with Skill-backed potency as he hunkered behind his guard.

The room flashed white—a lance of the purest sun’s heat burning within arms reach as Ianmus’s spell tore across the hall instantaneously. Kaius grunted as his skin blistered from his close proximity to the attack, but he didn’t flinch.

The lance of solar mana washed over the vanguard—his weapon doing little to block the incorporeal nature of the attack.

Yet, unlike most of the opponents that had felt the bite of Ianmus’s solar beams, this one stood strong. Unable to bore directly through the vanguard’s armour, it coated his chest in a blinding luminance—black steel glowing to a fiery orange as if it had been thrust into a forge.

He watched the vanguard’s mouth open, a soundless screech of agony clawing its way out of their throat as their skin blackened and burned.

The flesh beneath boiled and blistered, and still Ianmus’s beam kept burning.

Eyelids burnt away—orbs bursting as their jelly rapidly boiled.

The vanguard stumbled, unable to help listing to the side as every facet of their being was scoured. Their axe followed—the cherry red head letting out a shower of sparks as it clattered on the stone below.

A moment later, the solar lance gutted and winked out—followed quickly by the vanguard collapsing to the ground, a rasping wheeze leaving their throat. They coughed, just barely putting out an arm to catch themselves.

Porkchop growled, legs tensing as he made to charge forward and end the threat.

“No,” Kaius said, reaching forward to tug Porkchop back. “Not yet. Just be ready.”

“Why not?” Porkchop questioned with a growl. “He’s still breathing!”

“Honours,” he replied simply, before he turned to Kenva behind him—who was staring in outright shock at Ianmus.

“Kenva!” he yelled. Her eyes snapped to his own.

“You’re still below one-hundred, right?” he asked.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, before nodding swiftly as her gaze fell on the shuddering vanguard ahead.

“Good,” Kaius replied, “Finish him—Porkchop and I can’t be involved for you to get what we need.”

It was a split second decision to have her make the kill, but one he thought would give them the best chances of success. He knew that it would lose Ianmus’s solo bonus, but in doing so Kenva would gain both Ruthless Underdog II & III in a single draw of her bow.

That would increase the overall strength of their team significantly more than the slight addition of a bonus to a single man.

Besides—Underdog III required being under level two-hundred, and they still had yet to discover if completing the same feat alone a second time could improve the Honour at a later date.

That, and despite what the mage had said about being able to handle the spell without burning his mana channels, Ianmus was holding onto his staff with a deathgrip—his face pale and sweaty.

Processing his words in an instant, Kenva snapped back to Ianmus—an unspoken question on her face.

“Do it. It’s better for our escape, and I need a minute to recover anyway.” Ianmus gasped, a swirling blue tonic appearing in his hand.

Kenva looked back at him. “If I do this, I will not be able to make a similar shot for at least a few days. It will take much from my skill.”

“Will you still be able to fight?”

She nodded.

“Then do it.”

Kenva paused, giving him a complicated look. “Again, you have given me a gift without asking anything in return, this time of strength.”

Reaching over her shoulder, she drew an arrow and stepped forwards. “I know this likely means far less to you, not being from the steppe.”

Kenva stepped forwards, passing him as she smoothly drew her arrow back to her cheek—her back flexing to bear the weight of her longbow at full draw. Her eyes trained on the vanguard, still writhing in agony as his flesh smoked beneath his super-heated armour.

“The steppe can be a harsh place. Little grows, and game does not linger. My ancestors struggled, forced to move like vagrants as they lived meagre lives of hunger—becoming isolated and cruel in their desperation. As Hiwiann, we thrive where they did not on the backs of our bonds and cooperation.”

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The engravings on her bow started to glow—a forceful energy soaking into the weapon as Kenva’s body tensed. Mana flooded from her centre, the bright green of Nature coalescing around her arrow.

“And still, life is hard. The Three Gifts are an old tradition, from a more desperate time. Given in sincerity, with no expectation of bondage, they must make the lives of their recipients a little easier—help them weather the inevitable storm that ever looms on the horizon. It is an offering, to weather what may come with linked arms and straight backs.”

Kaius stood in silence as the light of her bow brightened, and the mana around her arrow lengthened into a bar—quickly reforming into a javelin.

Down the hall, the vanguard coughed—clawing at the stone. He was almost certain he could see a faint trace of unblemished skin peaking out around the collar of his gorget.

“Thrice, you have given me a gift. Freedom. Heritage. Strength.”

The vanguard suddenly gasped, taking in a great lungful of air. They scrambled at the ground, slowly pushing themselves to their feet on shaky limbs.

As they stood, they stared forwards—lightless husks that once held eyes looking straight at him.

Now seeing the man fully, Kaius witnessed the full devastation of Ianmus’s attack. His face had been scoured clean—blackened muscle and ashen bone revealing teeth that had cracked under the intense heat that the man had borne.

The guard stumbled—just barely conscious. The burnt remnants of his flesh flaked and squirmed, new pink growth invading the char.

To survive in such a state…it demanded some respect. Even if that would not save them.

The light of Kenva’s bow brightened to new heights.

“I would shame my clan-name if I did not accept such sincerity.”

The vanguard spun, reaching a blackened hand out to steady themselves on the wall as they started to stumble back towards the stairs at the end of the hall.

Her eyes staying locked on her target, Kaius saw her spine straighten as she struggled under the building tension of her bow.

“I really must stress that I am willing to share an oath of shared secrecy when we have escaped.” she continued.

Kenva loosed. The deeply curved arms of her bow snapped back into position with a sharp whip-crack, moving so quickly that Kaius was unable to track their movement.

An echoing crack shook the hall as shards of stone exploded from the wall of the stairs.

One moment the vanguard was stumbling, the next he was falling—a red smear appearing on the walls around him as his helmet, and the remnants of his head within, clanked against the ground.

Kaius gawked at the simple speed of the shot—he barely seen a streak of green of the summoned arrow’s passing before the ranger had threaded her shot between the narrow gap of the guard’s helmet and armoured collar.

Even if he could match its strength with a handful of Hateful Nails, and with far less preparation, it was still impressive to see such raw destruction.

Kenva sighed in satisfaction, before she stepped back past him—rejoining Ianmus in the backline.

“Another Honour, and another Skill—perhaps we should get ourselves captured more often.” Ianmus chuckled from behind him.

“I got two, but even if it came with a dozen, I would still prefer feeling the wind in my hair.”

Kaius smiled at that. It was a sentiment he understood well. While their time imprisoned had had its benefits to his skills, it was a harsh burden on his mind.

Not that he thought Ianmus was serious—he knew the joke was simply a reflection of his joy at getting a new Honour.

It was a decent boost to both Ianmus and Kenva’s strength—especially because each Honour would help to shore up their stats that were not a focus of their class. Neither of them would have the benefit of a stat spread as fundamentally broad as his and Porkchop’s own, and every extra scrap of regenerative ability, or simple speed would help both stay alive.

That wasn’t even taking into account the significant crop of levels both of them had no doubt gained.

“Come, let’s get moving—the courtyard is just up ahead.” Kaius said, waving his team forward.

As they walked, he drifted to Kenva’s words, and the ancient tradition he had stumbled into. It might have been a coincidence, but it was one that he couldn’t deny he was happy about.

Not only had Kenva proven herself resilient in her staunch defiance of their captors questioning for months longer than he himself had, she was strong. Free spirited, and easy to get along with too.

Exactly the kind of qualities he wanted in a potential team member.

While he hadn’t exactly intended to find one in these exact circumstances, she had definitely already proven herself to be a valuable asset to their composition.

He found himself looking forward to their eventual future conversation—and curious about the oath she intended to offer him. How she intended to do that was anyone’s guess—while it wouldn’t be surprising for a Hiwiann scion to have access to a shard of the Bloodstones, he doubted that she would have been able to hide it from their captors, and he hadn’t seen a trace of one in the spatial rings they had looted from the vault.

As they passed the corpse of the dead vanguard, Kaius put the thoughts out of his mind. There’d be plenty of time to think more deeply about them in the future.

He looked down at the ashen headless corpse, a scowl crossing his face.

The guard had been arrogant. A fool.

He’d fallen into the same trap that the guildmaster had so thoroughly warned him away from—thinking his power was absolute.

The exact circumstances of his death could be partially laid down to bad luck—because only misfortune could place one in a tight hallway with a Solar free-caster with a prepared spell of that intensity. However, even if he had not had the foresight to prepare for such an eventuality, the man would have still been doomed either way.

They’d simply grown too strong, and he doubted that a tier-two who lorded over a collection of pondscum in the middle of nowhere could have come from any major pedigree.

The man had likely had an Uncommon class, and perhaps a Rare for his first evolution. Without many levels to scale from the increased gain, he would have had very little chance to match up to their growth.

Roaring howls and the horse yells of men echoed from the stairs up ahead. They hastened the rhythmic pulse of Kaius’s heart, a hungry smile spreading across his face.

Regardless of their strength, he knew the battle above would be chaotic and fraught. Even if he could kill an individual with ease, he knew the danger of a swarm—let alone the fact it would be a battle on two fronts.

He expected it would stretch him in new ways—force him to rely on skill and speed to secure their path to freedom, rather than the easy simplicity of brute strength. Curiosity welled up too, at the exact nature of the chaotic assault on the compound.

The guards he’d overheard had said it was beasts, but he struggled to understand why—especially when he could hear so many distinctive calls above. It ran antithetical to everything he knew.

Another change, one that had come without the lacklustre explanations of the phase-change.

It worried him. A hidden fortress of criminals in the forest was one thing, but if this place had fallen under siege, had others?

What of the villagers, and the struggling people within them? What of Deadacre, and the tense mass of frightened refugees that clung to its streets?

If this maddened swarm was representative of a wider problem, it would mean deaths far beyond anything he could imagine.

No matter how fast he climbed towards the peak, he couldn’t help but feel the world was changing faster than he could keep up.