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

Ribs crackled within Kaius’s chest as shards of bone wormed their way back to wholeness. The gushing cavern in his torso was a mess of pulsating flesh and questing blood vessels. His leg snapped back into place as his lungs reformed. His first breath was a choking one, gore coming up in chunks as he coughed.

Ahead of him, the battle for the Wellspring raged on. Shining magic howled above Katarex’s crown. Leashed to his will, a storm of droplets snapped into existence. Kaius’s heart barely had the time to beat before they ripped outwards like explosive shrapnel.

Porkchop tensed, shielding himself with The Stone that Weathered Time. Yet not even that potent skill was enough to shrug off the attack fully. Dust erupted from a hundred spots on his back, bright red blood welling up from the thin tunnels bored through him.

The magic lessened as it got further away. Winds whipped around Kaius, his Maelstrom smashing the droplets aside. Far away, he saw a shining barrier of ice shelter the nobles, emanating out from Kel’s shield.

Katarex was a living force of nature, a constant storm that they could not rebuke. Was this how his enemies felt? A rising dread, as a creature lower in level inexorably chipped away at their foundation? Worse, the dragon was a water mage. In a Wellspring! The latent potency of the surrounding waters fueled Katarex’s spells to new heights, an endless stream of crushing waves and cutting beams.

Racing back into the fray, Kaius did everything he could. Forced back by snapping tendrils of white water, he tried to punish the creature with a hail of Nails and Lashes. The first few landed, drawing a scream from the creature’s throat. Katarex’s own sorcery triggered a moment later. Froth surged around the wyrm in a tight circle, spiking upwards to swallow all projectiles that crossed its boundary.

Kaius’s mouth went dry. All the roaring heat in his veins couldn’t outshine the truth. With barely a few of his backline’s attacks slipping past the wyrm’s iron-clad defense, they simply couldn’t keep up the pressure. Much more, and the tempo of battle would turn against them.

“This can’t go on!” Porkchop growled, weathering a back-breaking slam to rip at the wyrm with the twin bite of Beast of the Line.

“I know!” Kaius replied.

Of course he could see it. Worse, Julian and his men were rattled. Even the ever-calm Kel Frostbloom had a sallow cast to his face, watching the brawling wyrm with wide eyes. Their Aspects might have granted them some resistance to the Fear, but it was wearing away at the men.

They were losing, it shone plain as day. There was no trick or strategy that would save them in a direct confrontation. Katarex was larger, stronger, healed faster, and had more potent magic. The wyrm was a great mountain of hardened steel, one that would break them if they hurled themselves against it without care.

It was a Truth that burned within him, backlit by the churning fire of his cycling, and the crushing pressure that refined his bright Alabaster pillars. How could it not? With the essence churning within him, his Authority was laden with revelation.

He was full of snarling hunger. A destructive impulse he knew and loved, but would kill him all the same. Xenanra had said it herself: mad dogs got put down. So too did the weight of his friends’ lives rest heavily upon the brow of Mentis, a cost he wasn’t willing to bear. Could he really risk it all on hopeless assault?

Growing wisdom or no, the thought of flight still ached. A dragon was so much more than a foe of impossible might. It was alchemical blood and bone, two dozen sets of armour, a hundred weapons, and a thousand trophies. It was so, so much more.

Spinning around a cutting jet of water, Kaius Slipped through a gap in writhing tendrils of white water. Sword singing with the fury of Hellblade Investiture, he plunged honed crystal into the gushing hole in the wyrm’s flank.

Boiling blood flowed, every drop of it worth its weight in platinum. He could see the power hidden within its depths, a brilliant potency revealed by its Truesight. This was no drake. It was a wyrm, and Katarex’s blood was just as great and terrible as every other part of their being. A waiting baptism, for any who slayed such a prodigious creature.

More importantly, the bastard was sitting on their bloody Wellspring! He could see the roiling column of glowing water erupting behind Katarex, lapping at the creature’s feet, before they enslaved it to their sorcerous Will.

He and his allies had fought for so long to get here! To see the final prize ripped away at the final hour; to flee? Gods’ blood, the simple thought of it stuck in his belly like a rusted knife.

Katarex cracked their tail towards him. There was no time to move. He’d been so focused on the creature’s magic that he’d let himself get manoeuvred into range! A wall of scale and muscle crushed through his guard, flinging him through the air. Bones creaked, but the blow had been diffuse. His chest still ached. Gods, it was like getting hit by a bloody wagon.

Mind racing as he rushed back in, Kaius searched desperately for a solution. They couldn’t fight Katarex head on. Not here. The wyrm had too much room to maneuver, and an endless bloody source of magical water to empower their spells. All the same, he couldn’t just flee. The boons if they won were too bountiful to ignore.

And rotten bloody roots it was a good fight. The Song tore through his veins, egging him onward under a symphony of rising bells. He could feel himself growing, even as his Aspects soaked in more and more of his essence.

But if they would fight, they had to do it smart.

Raging through his desperate dance, he searched for a solution. The blows came heavy and fast, grinding away at his health with ever-growing frequency. Bitter alchemicals slid down his throat as often as he could manage, but they barely stemmed the bleed. Not even the rare glowing Droplet from Ianmus could stop it utterly. His friend was too focused on keeping Porkchop alive.

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What did he have? A single Spear of Nectus, and a few Fractured Warps. It wasn’t enough. Not even if he burned his soul reaching for VOS. No singular blow would end this fight.

They did have plenty of firepower. The enchanted bolts the nobles were using may as well have been bottomless, and Kenva could put out some serious hurt if given the opportunity to overcharge a Howl of the North Wind. Ianmus hadn’t used his Preeminent Halo in a while either. His Keyseal had to have gathered enough for at least one cast of warmagic, maybe even two.

The problem was they couldn’t leverage it. The wyrm was too mobile, and too good at shielding their vitals. They needed some way to lock Katarex down, and prevent the creature from attacking. That would let them hammer away at the wyrm until they eventually died.

That wouldn’t exactly be easy. The dragon didn’t have much in the way of weaknesses to exploit. Their arrogance, certainly. He could use that, definitely. He didn’t think the creature could fly, either. With the size of Katarex’s ego, Kaius was damn sure the wyrm would have taken to the sky at the first possible opportunity they could.

Spinning the thought in his mind, something crystallised as cutting blades of water slowly reduced his scalemail to little more than ribbons.

The tunnel. It was large, more than large enough for the wyrm to enter. With some time to prepare, it would be trivial for his back line and Julian’s team to collapse the roof. No matter the wyrm’s strength, he’d like to see Katarex move with a mountain on his back.

He’d written it off at first. The ploy was so obvious! Katarex was a thinking being — chasing an enemy force into tight confines was practically begging for a sudden ambush. And yet, that arrogance!

Kaius flicked towards the roaring creature’s eyes. They blazed with maddened fury and delight. Katarex was strong, but they had proven themselves unused to battling against beings that could hold their own. Hells, the wyrm hadn’t even dreamed that they would attack first!

So what if it was an obvious trap? It didn’t even matter that the wyrm had no good reason to follow them once they fled from the Wellspring! He could see the shine in their eyes: Katarex was out for blood.

There was just one problem. The others would need time to set up. He and Porkchop would need to fight the wyrm alone.

“I have a really stupid idea!” Kaius yelled in his brother’s mind.

“My favourite! What are we doing!”

“Tell the others to retreat to the entrance tunnel! I need them to collapse it on top of the Wrym; we just need to hold the wyrm off until they are set up!”

“Good plan! I’ll let them know. Help me pull the wyrm’s attention away from the stairs!”

Dominance of Claw ripped through the cavern like thunder. Porkchop dived in, weathering a crushing blow to his shoulder to ram the wyrm in the chest. A ghostly shieldwall followed, their spears plunging for the tears that Porkchop had ripped in the wyrm’s hide.

Katarex hissed, lunging in. Porkchop danced back, towards the rear wall. Kaius flashed to the wyrm’s side, slamming a Nail into their over-extended muzzle. Cutting waters slashed for his chest. He burst away — pulling the creature’s focus away from the stairs.

Kenva made a break for it. Disintegrating into leaves, she flowed up and out of the cavern — rematerialising to quickly scoop up Kanmost before she raced out of sight. The sight of the Archivist nearly shook Kaius out of his battlefocus. Had that mad bastard been watching?!

Ianmus and the nobles moved next. Swirling clouds surrounded the hooves of their chargers as soon as they were close, carrying them high. Julian locked eyes with him, blue eyes focused and his mouth pressed tight. The noble nodded.

The exchange lasted only for a moment, but Katarex followed his gaze all the same. The wyrm snapped their head back, roaring as they saw the mounted men vanish into the tunnel.

Spikes of water snapped into existence around the wyrm’s crown, another addition to the endless deluge.

“You scum!” Katarex hissed, diving towards Kaius with their ruined jaw yawning wide. He blanched, gods the wyrm was fast. One snap of those jaws and he’d be done for.

A clap of force hurled him away — half of the water spikes tore after him, the others aimed at Porkchop.

“You think you can simply flee?! After all you have done? What a fool you are! I am a god, shining and resplendent!”

Porkchop snarled, his spirit unbroken even as he narrowly avoided a tendril of white water that plunged towards his head.

“You speak of fools. How easily the great ‘Master of the Deep’ was ambushed in their own lair, unable to best even a single one of their attackers. You even ripped off your own muzzle! You are nothing but a creature of flesh and blood, too stupid to recognise your own hubris.”

Kaius wanted to wince, deadly certain that the fight was about to get rough. Katarex screamed, the Fear slamming back down with the full weight of their presence. Kaius’s aspects flared higher, his own Authority holding him firm as waves of insignificance and dread rolled over him.

Without that, he would have died.

A senseless typhoon of violence, Katarex came at them with everything they had. Towering plumes of water cut off every avenue of attack as tendrils lashed and jets of water cleaved deep trenches through the stone floor. As they were forced back, the wyrm gave chase. Katarex used their magic to corral their movements, savagely herding them to keep them in range of the wyrm’s hungry maw.

Bit by bit, Kaius’s wounds grew. Fire ached in a dozen gashes that littered his body, and lancing ice shot up his leg as he forced the broken limb to bear his weight.

“They’re ready!” Porkchop roared in his mind, bringing a surge of relief.

“Good, then go!”

“That was not in the plan!”

“If we flee together, the wyrm will be right on our tails! We need distance, and I can teleport! I’ll join you as soon as you’re at the top of the stairs.”

Porkchop snarled, a surge of dissatisfaction pouring across their bond. Kaius still knew his brother understood the wisdom of his words.

“Fine!”

Katarex snapped towards Porkchop as he made a break for it. Kaius refused to let the wyrm do as they pleased.

“Are you so weak you cannot even face a single man?!” he roared. Reaching for Eirnith, he poured his Will into Compel Obsession. He inflamed the wyrm’s fury and their hubris, drawing their attention to the sheer rage that emanated through their Fear in a palpable wave.

Blazing red eyes snapped to his own. Katarex let out a low growl.

Kaius clenched his jaw, readying his blade. Now he just had to survive the full weight of a dragon’s fury for the next few moments.