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

From his vantage point, Kaius peered over a dense wall of cutting briars. One of the trees common in Vainblood had almost mangrove-like roots, except they were thicker than his waist. His muddy boots had little traction on the craggled bark, but he had enough Dexterity to balance on it all the same.

A couple hundred strides away, a patch of the briars had grown into a dense thicket. A natural barricade stretching from trunk to trunk, it closed off a small patch of open ground. The twisted beast that Kenva had spotted had made it a nest. It was a good pick — there was only a single, narrow strip of cleared ground to enter through, one just a little wider than Porkchop.

Shredded canes and snapped thorns lay littered at the edges of the path in — and the edge of the clearing itself, for that matter. He suspected that the creature was keeping it clear, and maintaining its own defensible fortress in the heart of the bloody violence it called home.

The lord of the keep lay resting in a hollow between the roots at the far edge of its clearing. If it had been awake, forcing their way onto the battleground would have been a nightmare. A single misstep would have seen them shredded if the beast struck while they made their way through the tangled briars. Sleeping as the beast was, the odds turned in their favour. Once he and his team had gotten inside, the beast would have nowhere to run, and little space to manoeuvre.

Kaius still didn’t think it would go down easy. It looked every bit as grotesque as Kenva had described, and strong to boot.

In its slumber, it had twisted itself into a small mountain of thick, wrinkled hide, bulging muscles, and weeping wounds. Despite the way it had curled itself, Kaius could tell it was slightly shorter than Porkchop — and somehow more massive. The monstrosity was huge. Its thick, overly muscled chest supported a boar-like head on an almost nonexistent neck. The head looked almost flattened, widened further than even a direboar’s, and its eyes were on the front of its face. Deepset, beady things — a false-emaciation that stood counter to its thick blubber and obvious strength.

Some sort of twisted swine? Maybe? No pig he’d ever seen had that eruption of multilayered fangs.

Twitching in its sleep, the creature yawned, and Kaius was treated to a horrorshow of small, reverse-hooked teeth that sprouted in a carpet from its palette.

He wished that was the extent of its oddities — but a mouth of cruel hunger wasn’t enough to make the creature look like an abomination. That went to the unnatural spines that burst through its flesh, like it had been ran through by two dozen spears.

Grey hide split, buttery yellow fat bulging around the base of each spike. As the creature shifted, droplets of blood and clear fluid oozed from the wound, running down the creature’s back in thin trails. It must have been constant, an agony that had painted it a rust-red through its eternally unhealing wounds.

Kaius grit his teeth, suppressing a shudder. How the fuck was it sleeping? The pain must have been maddening.

Regardless, its misery wouldn’t last much longer. He and his team needed levels — and this was not a threat he felt comfortable leaving at their backs.

Focusing on the creature, he pulled up its description with Truesight.

**Daeosin Gorespike - Level 342 Everspring Bloodletter**

Beast; Vanguard

A gorespike. That didn’t exactly ease his worries that the fight would be a messy one. Thankfully, the creature wasn’t an Elite — but it was a vanguard. That meant it would be a tough bastard.

He glanced at the next tree over, where Kenva was making her own surveillance. It was an interesting pick for a first fight — he couldn’t deny that the battlefield would work in their favour, and the creature was sleeping, but it was also high-level. The highest they would have fought as a team.

The thought made his heart hammer in his chest, a slight smile creeping at the edges of his mouth. Good — they would make it work. Every scrap of their strength was built on the back of just-barely manageable risk, and he wasn’t about to change that now.

Besides, they’d killed a Gold Guardian as Steels. Peak, impossibly powerful Steels — but nothing about that had changed.

Hells, this fight might actually make them sweat a bit. It had been far too long since that had happened. The Tyrant might have been the last one.

“What’s our plan?” Kaius asked silently to his team. Kenva was just within range of their rings, and Ianmus and Porkchop were on the ground between them. He caught Kenva’s eye, nodding at her. “We’ve got a pretty good vantage point here — you and Ianmus could open with some heavy shots once Porkchop and I have made our way through the brambles?”

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Kenva shook her head slightly. “My Skills are telling me that thing is tough — i’m not sure if we’ll be able to meaningfully kill or cripple it with our opening shots. Besides, the creature is Gold, there’s a good chance it’ll sense us preparing our Skills.

Kaius switched his attention back to the gorespike, frowning slightly. He’d felt plenty of openings from his Skills, but maybe he’d missed something. At first, nothing changed. The creature was sleeping — there were dozens of angles where they could strike at its throat, unguarded eyes, and its bare stomach. Under closer scrutiny, Sergeant’s Insight provided more nuance. The openings felt…shallow. They were there, but it was like the wounds they’d be able to inflict were insubstantial and hollow. It’s skull was the worst. His Skill drew his eyes to the thick, bony ridges that sheltered its eyes, and the nobbled texture of its forehead. It was a natural helm stronger than any made from steel.

“Okay, so maybe we can’t ambush it with our strongest attacks — but I could still drop a Starfall on its head. That should still soften it up for us,” Kaius suggested.

“That’ll wreck the brambles — I thought we could use them,” Kenva replied, nodding to the tangled wall that enclosed the gorespike’s den.

“Oh?” Porkchop asked from below. He reared up, resting a front paw on a nearby trunk as he peered over the brambles.

“Yeah — those barbs are sharp enough to get through your hide,” Kenva said. “If you and Kaius creep in, you should be able to muscle it into one of the brambles. It’ll be confused when it first wakes, and with your armour you’ll have both the size and weight advantage. The brambles will cut off its movement, and make our jobs just a little easier.”

Kaius considered it. The things were sharp as hell, but the canes themselves weren’t overly tough — he could cut through them just fine with his blade.

“Won’t it just rip through them?” Kaius asked.

“Maybe, but it’ll get tangled to hell as the barbs work their way into its hide, and you and Porkchop will be on its ass the entire time,” Kenva replied. “We don’t need it to cripple the thing, just give us an edge.”

Kaius nodded — he could see the wisdom in the plan. At the very least, it would buy them time for Ianmus to get his keyseals up and running. No matter how tough the gorespike was, he’d like to see it survive getting hammered by all four of them.

“What about the two of you?” Kaius asked, looking at Kenva and Ianmus. “I’m not sure if you even need to enter the briars — we’ve got a pretty good angle here.”

A moment later, Ianmus clambered up the root to stand next to him. He frowned, checking their sightlines. “We’d need to go higher — if you end up fighting right in the closest brambles, Kenva and I won’t have a shot.”

Kaius raised his brow at that. They were already standing on the tallest roots — getting a higher vantage would mean getting into the branches. The lowest of those was more than thirty strides overhead, straight up a sheer trunk. Kenva could always fly up with Leaf on the Wind, but Ianmus would have to do it the hard way.

Ianmus rolled his eyes at the look. “I might be a mage, but with our Honours I have more than enough Strength to hold my own weight on a single finger. The fissures in the bark are deep, there’s plenty of handholds.”

“If you’re sure,” Kaius replied, grinning at the man.

With their plan decided, they went to work quickly. Ianmus and Kenva both placed their weapons into their storage rings and started to climb. They picked the same tree — staying close on the off-chance they needed to assist each other. Kaius was surprised at how deft Ianmus really was — though perhaps he shouldn’t have been. The mage had always been light on his feet.

The mage’s slender fingers worked themselves deep into cracks in the bark, as he hauled himself upwards without so much as a heavy breath. As soon as he was off the muddy ground, he clung on with a single hand and tugged off his muddy boots. Storing them safely into his ring, the mage jammed his feet into the tree and all but flew up.

Seconds later, Kaius was blinking up at the man as he crouched on a branch high overhead, and looked down at them with a wide smile. Kenva was a little higher than him, her bow already in hand.

“Ready when you are — we’ve got an angle on the entire clearing,” the ranger said.

Kaius met his brother’s eyes and drew his blade smoothly. A surge of hungry anticipation flooded through their bond at the motion, Porkchop already longing for their coming battle. It inflamed his own bloodsong as much as it mirrored it, his heart already pounding a beat of war.

They shared no words, for their bond rendered speech superfluous — a creature comfort with little place in battle. Unified in purpose, they crept through the muck as they circled around to the passage through the briars. The red-tinged mud was ice cold, and had long since soaked through his boots, but Kaius barely paid it any mind. All he could think of was that slumbering beast — and the promise of power that lay within it.

Twisted hooks towered over them as they entered their battle ground. Once inside, they stopped, watching their foe slumber in ignorance of the danger that had arrived. Orchichalcum plate snapped into existence around Porkchop, his silent snarl replaced by a demonic, howling mask that showed just as much fang.

A heart beat later, they charged — bearing down on the skewered form of the gorespike.