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

A double-kick of force slammed into Kaius’s chest, rattling his bones. Two explosions, so close together that they blurred into a single jolt. Carefully moulded vines that wrapped the domed roof splintered in a great web, dust and debris raining down to instantly fill the space with a choking haze.

“Shit!” one of the criminals below screamed, the noise joined by the clatter of chairs as dozen people dove for cover.

Kaius clenched his blade tight, throwing off his confusion quickly. What in the hells was that? One had come from behind, the direction they had come. The other had come directly in front of him.

That blast had hit them slightly later — but it was further away. His mind raced, searching for options. Could it have been a coordinated assault on the compound? If the guards had found this place so quickly, they would have to move fast if they wanted to secure the books and get out.

Lord Flowers would have their hides if they were found here.

The real question was if the explosions were the method the guards had used to break into this place, or if they had hit one of the many dozens of lethal traps that Kaius had detected on their way in. As grim as it was, it would be better for them if it was the latter. It would slow the guards — and give him and Kenva the time they needed.

“Kaius, we have to strike,” Kenva said urgently.

He held up a hand as he heard the people below start speaking in clipped tones. He was confident in pulling off a decapitation strike, but there was no way of knowing how many people were assaulting this place, or how tight the encirclement was. With how much of a warren of traps this compound had proven to be, he was sure there would be hidden passages out.

Far better they let their target lead them to freedom. They’d get the journals from the cowled rogue either way.

“They’re here, clearly,” a man grumbled. “Those were the charges I set in the entrances — they smashed their way in. Heavy hitters — we have time, but not much.”

Kaius thought that much was obvious. Kenva had been directly on the rogue’s tail, and it had still taken them some time to get in here. For the guards to pull off a coordinated assault this fast, they would have had to have had some serious specialists waiting and ready. Maybe even Silvers.

“Reconvene at Dowerwood in a few days? That would give us the time to properly set up a way to slip whatever net they set up,” the soft spoken man said, unbothered as another thump rocked the room.

Kaius was impressed at how calm they were. The dust was so thick he could taste the chalky astringency of the plaster on his tongue, yet even in the middle of an active attack, they were talking like they were discussing the weather over an evening meal.

“No, it’s too risky,” the first man replied — clearly a leader of some sort. “We’ll use a few of our prepared distractions, seed a few false trails, maybe even burn Dowerwood. Nox, you can use that to slip out — I know you’ll have another four planned routes out of the city that you haven’t shared with us.”

Kaius heard a distant scream of pain, though there was no explosion this time. Poor bastard, but their window of opportunity was closing.

“They’re getting closer. Split up — and remember: with the size of our cut, we can abandon Baanswell entirely if we pull this off. I hear Balisandra is nice in winter.”

The criminals burst into motion, scrambling through the room to grab whatever supplies and treasures they thought were most irreplaceable. As they moved, Kaius shared a long look with Kenva — the rogue was their target, but with the amount of heat that was on this place, anything they could do to muddy the waters would work to their benefit.

“Sounds like we’ve learnt what we can. I’m going — we put a bit of fear in them, and follow the rogue out in the chaos. If we can take a few guys down, it might tie up the guards and give us a bit more time. Don’t care if you go for lethal, just stay close, and try not to leave any obvious traces,” he said quickly, feeling the boiling potency held locked within one of his two remaining inscriptions of Fractured Warp.

Kenva nodded and summoned a rough handful of arrows. They were well made — but most importantly, they hadn’t been sung whole-cloth from a tree using her capstone skill.

“I don’t have too many of these left, so I’ll try to make them count.”

He didn’t bother to respond, trusting his friend to do her job. Snapping to his feet, Kaius looked down into the centre of the room. Two men were sprinting right below him, and out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the shadowed rogue running for an exit. None had spotted him — yet.

Space fractured.

Kaius appeared between the two men, staring right at their faces. His targets screamed. First in surprise, then in agony as invisible claws ripped them apart from the inside out. Watching the blood well from both of the men’s eyes, Kaius snapped into a low kick, sweeping the legs out from under the one on the right.

Even as he moved, his blade swept high. He cleaved down, towards the still-standing man’s leg. A Father’s Gift sliced through the man’s femur with the same ease it cut through his charcoal trousers.

Agonised screams echoed off the high vaulted ceiling; a chorus of pain that drew the eyes of every other criminal in the room.

The rest of the squad ran, abandoning their teammates at the drop of the hat. Callous bastards.

Below him, Kaius spared a moment to watch the man clutch at his stump, terror plain on the man’s pale face. Blood surged through desperate fingers as he clawed at his wound — as if desperation alone could make him whole.

The man was Steel — he’d live, if he had the sense to staunch his bleed. But he wouldn’t heal before the guards arrived, and Kaius doubted he’d be able to run anyway. A nice gift, to slow the guards pursuit.

Across from him, an arrow punched through a row of book cases that stood a third of the way across the room. Kaius heard someone yelp as vines sprouted from the ground, wrapping the unseen criminal tight.

Kaius acknowledged the shot and moved on. He spotted the rogue — amber eyes wide with horror as she stared at him from a doorway.

“Spotted our rat — follow me!” Kaius said through his communication ring as he ran straight for the woman. There had only been two women in the room, and one of them was carrying the journals. It made sense for it to be the rogue — if her team trusted her to lift the journals from an actively guarded house, she would be the perfect one to deliver the journals without being caught. It was still a gamble — but even if the woman speaking earlier had been the one in the mottled coat, they still had a name. Midnight Crater.

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Plus, the rogue was still their guide out of this trapped hell hole. This was all pointless if they ran straight into the lord’s forces.

The instant he moved, the rogue scrambled for her belt, and a hail of delicate glass vials shattered at her feet. Another explosion rocked the hall — this time from within. Choking smoke filled the rim to the brim, acrid and sharp on his tongue. He could taste the alchemical power — a numbing fatigue that couldn’t even cut through his swollen Vitality, let alone rouse a response from Rapid Adaptation.

It was joined a moment later by a flash of bright light. Through the brilliance, Kaius watched the woman shield her eyes. Kenva had said the woman was resistant to her own trinkets, but it seemed it wasn’t a total immunity.

So unfortunate that none of it worked on him. Truesight rendered it all useless, the wall of smoke as obscuring as the finest glass.

The woman ran — he followed at a steady pace, crossing the room in moments. Now he just needed to keep the pressure up, but not let her feel like escape was hopeless. They needed a guide out of this snake-pit: if the rogue panicked and went for a final stand, it might slow them long enough to be caught by the guard.

Running for the door the woman had slipped through, Kaius heard a thump as Kenva touched down behind him.

“Im running blind — she’s too far for me to track with soulsight.”

“Stay close. I can see her fine, but it’s going to get dicey with these traps,” Kaius replied. And he was damned certain there would be traps. Chasing the woman at pace, he wouldn’t have the time and focus he needed to avoid all of them with his Skills alone. They would need to follow the rogue’s path exactly.

Rich red curtains lined the hall that the rogue led them down, washed out by the haze that swirled through it. Only the gods knew what horrors they hid — Kaius tracked the rogue carefully, watching exactly which floorboards she stepped on.

He kept a good hundred strides between them. Even if the woman couldn’t see them, she’d definitely heard them. Taking a door seemingly at random, the woman hurled more vials behind her.

Fire bloomed, hungrily tearing into the rich curtains as it spread with rabid fury. As the heat washed over him, Kaius tapped into Vyrthane, the glyph burning bright on his chest.

He might have a resistance to fire, but Kenva didn’t — and who knew what other alchemical tricks the rogue had up her sleeve.

A cyclone of howling winds ripped around him, dispersing smoke and smothering flame as Bound Maelstrom kept both him and Kenva safe.

“She’s certainly tricksy — I can see why they gave you trouble,” Kaius said, grabbing the doorframe as he swung through the side passage the rogue had taken.

Kaius could practically hear Kenva’s scowl. “She’s not getting away this time.”

“No, they won’t,” Kaius agreed, continuing his advance.

He wasn’t wrong though — even pacing themselves, the rogue was a demon when it came to escape. Every time she slipped through a doorway ahead of them, Kaius quickly learned to brace for the assault that would follow. The rogue seemed to have an unending supply of toxins and explosives — smoke that burned his throat, mists of caustic acid, slime that ruined their traction and forced them to slow. Even a bloody blizzard in a bottle that had forced him to wade through snowdrifts as sleet and ice filled an entire hall.

Even slowed, he could still keep up. He was just too damned strong. Every affliction she hurled at him was torn to shreds by his Vitality and Rapid Adaptation, every barrier crumbled beneath his physicality, and every detonation failed to even rattle him.

As good as she was, it was clear that the rogue had built herself for dealing with people weaker than herself — not slipping away from monsters like him.

Far more dangerous were the traps that had been built into the very foundations of the hideout. Kaius did his best to follow the rogue’s exact footsteps, but giving her a lead meant she wasn’t always in sight. With how focused he was on the rogue’s constant assault, it was difficult to give Insight the attention it needed to detect them.

He’d already triggered one — thankfully a pitfall that had been easy to avoid with a hurriedly cast Shunt.

They needed to keep up the pressure. As much as they couldn’t just wipe out the rogue, if they played it too safe, then the woman might realise they weren’t struggling nearly as hard to keep up as it might seem.

Ahead, the rogue punched the wall, clearly visible despite the choking smoke. Wood panelling shattered under her fist; Kaius tensed in preparation for a sprung trap. Instead, a section of wall at the end of the hall slid open, revealing a tunnel of grey brick. It wasn’t the wide open tunnels of the stormwater system, but they looked similar to the initial tunnels after they’d first entered the hide out.

“Think you can hit her if you use Maiming Rain?” Kaius asked. The Skill’s spray of shards would be perfect for reminding the rogue of their need to hurry, and would neatly solve the problem of the smoke being too thick for Kenva to properly aim. “Activate it early so she doesn’t get too injured — we still need a guide out of here.”

Instead of replying, Kenva sent an arrow packed full of mana right past his ear. A crack filled the hall as it burst into a hail of needles after it had flown a few strides. Spreading out, most sunk deep into the walls and ceiling of the floor — but a few flew true.

Blood sprayed from half a dozen spots on the rogue’s back — small, but painful wounds that made her yelp and redouble her pace.

Kaius grinned and kept running, hanging a right through the hidden door to keep up his pursuit.

A single, shining glass vial flew straight towards him. Sergeant’s Insight and Moment of Flow latched onto the projectile immediately. The liquid within was a boiling maroon — the same colour of the alchemical fire the rogue had used earlier. It was easily thrice the size, though — and a direct hit would be painful.

Reacting to his Skills urging, he burnt another charge of Bound Maelstrom. Ripping winds hurled the vial to the side. Glass shattered against the stone wall, and ravenous flames filled his vision utterly.

Bound Maelstrom consumed it, wrapping him in a ball of red and orange. Heat prickled at his skin — but he didn’t burn.

The rogue would have to do more than that if she wanted to slow him.

Underfoot, a flagstone gave way with a subtle click. He knew the rogue’s ploy immediately. Somehow she’d figured out he had a dangersense skill, and had thrown a distraction right at him at the perfect moment.

Bastard was good.

Faster than he could blink, a cleaving axe ripped out of the wall to his left level, with his chest. Its blade was three strides wide, covered in glowing runes, and it looked like it weighed half as much as he did. A Silver killer.

If he used Shunt to dodge back, Kenva would be in its path: she’d been following right behind him because of the smoke. Tackle her out of the way, and it might slow them enough for the axe to connect anyway — or they might land on a different trap all together.

Kaius took the hit. Pain exploded through his chest as armoured scale and toughed ribs gave way with a crunch. Far down the hall, the rogue stared at him with an expectant grin.