Chapter 794: Ascending The Leaderboards [III]

Ther’Abella moved like liquid mercury along the left side of the shield wall.

Her starlight staff spun in endless blinding arcs, weaving a wall of pale light that cut down every root and every monster that reached for her.

SHHHRAK!

A briar-lasher lunged out from under a fern, its thorny whip whistling toward her collarbone.

Ther’Abella didn’t even glance at it... She shifted her weight, ducked under the swing with smooth elven grace and drove the end of her staff straight up.

KRUNCH!

The head of the staff caved in the lasher’s main stalk.

The monster folded in half, and Ther’Abella finished her turn, bringing the cutting edge around to take the heads off two crawlers that were trying to get around the left end of the shield wall.

A whole knot of crawlers saw the gap she’d opened and rushed it at once, eight or nine of them scrambling over each other to get at the end of the shield wall.

Ther’Abella planted her staff in the mud, swung herself around it with both hands and kicked the first one square in the face, then let go of the staff in midair.

"Fools... I’ll pound your faces in some more."

It hung there glowing beside her, and as she landed, she flicked her fingers, and it spun around her like a wheel of silver light.

VWUM-VWUM-VWUM-VWUM!

Every crawler that came within reach of it was cut apart.

...Legs, quills and heads went flying in every direction while Ther’Abella stood in the middle of the spinning light with her arms crossed, her cold blue eyes half-lidded with contempt.

When the last one dropped, she caught the staff out of the air without even looking at it and slammed the end down into the ground.

THOOM!

A ring of starlight burst out from the spot and threw the bodies around her back into the ferns.

’More,’ Ther’Abella thought, a vicious smile curling her lips. ’I’m nowhere near done...’

Over on the right side, Elowynn was a whirlwind of destruction.

Her cutlasses stayed in their sheaths.

She vaulted from boulder to boulder, her long strong legs carrying her through the chaos with a predator’s poise, and every time her boots touched stone, her fingers snapped with a sharp crack.

SNAP!

BOOOM!

A spark sailed into a cluster of three crawlers trying to climb the eastern ledge.

The blast threw all three of them into the air, and their wooden limbs scattered like smoking embers.

SNAP!

BOOOOOM!

Another spark went off dead center against the swollen sac of a big spore pod.

The pod burst in a brilliant fireball, and the shockwave flattened half a dozen smaller crawlers and burned away the poisonous green mist before it could drift toward anyone.

Elowynn threw her head back and laughed with wild breathless joy as the heat of her own blasts washed over her skin.

"Is that all this hollow’s got?!" She called out, snapping both hands forward together and blowing apart two charging bramble brutes.

KA-BOOOOM!

The two brutes came apart in a shower of burning splinters, and Elowynn was already moving again before the pieces landed.

A big vine-spitter rose up out of the muck right below her ledge and spat a glob of hissing green bile straight at her face.

She dropped flat as the bile splashed against the rock above her head and ate a smoking hole through the stone.

’Fucking hell...’

She rolled off the edge of the ledge and dropped down right on top of the spitter’s swollen head.

This time she ripped one of her cutlasses free from its sheath, and the steel burst into flame the instant it left the scabbard.

FWOOOSH!

She drove the burning blade down through the top of the spitter’s head and dragged it all the way down its stalk, splitting it open in a long line of fire.

The plant shrieked and burst into flames from the inside out, and Elowynn kicked off it before it collapsed, flipping back up onto her ledge with her blazing cutlass trailing a ribbon of fire through the air behind her.

’Is he watching?’ Elowynn thought, her heart pounding with a wild giddy rush as she snapped another spark into the next crawler. ’Please be watching, Silas... Every single one of these is for you.’

BOOOM!

Up on the ridge, Silas watched Aki’s girls tear through the outer edge of the nest with a faint proud smile.

’They’ve got real grit,’ Silas thought. ’They’re making Aki proud...’

Beside him, though, the air on the ridge was starting to get warmer.

Aurelia stepped forward, her calm face sharpened into something terrifyingly focused.

’A reward from my Lord...’ Aurelia thought, her fingers tracing the edge of her silver medallion as the holy warmth in her chest surged up into her throat. ’Hm, not a bad thing.’

She raised her right hand, and her golden-amber eyes lit up with pure liquid silver.

"May the fire burn away the rot," Aurelia murmured. "At least do what you’re supposed to..."

She thrust her open palm toward the thick brush under the ferns, where a fresh swarm of armored crawlers was gathering to break through the shield wall.

FWHUMMMP!

A roaring column of argent flame poured out of her fingertips and cut through the murky jungle air with a blinding holy brilliance.

The white fire hit the middle of the pack and the crawler in front didn’t even get the chance to screech.

The silver flames swallowed it whole and burned through the dark mana holding it together, and its wooden shell crumbled into white ash in an instant.

Aurelia didn’t lower her hand at all.. she swept her arm across the ledge and let loose one burst of holy fire after another.

FWHUMP!

A second crawler vanished inside a pillar of silver heat.

FWHUMP!

Two more got caught in the same sweeping arc, and their wooden limbs dissolved into harmless motes of white light.

FWHUMP!

Three vine-spitters trying to uncoil out of the muck were swallowed all at once, and their swollen bodies popped with dull muffled thuds as the sacred fire burned them down to the roots.

FWHUMP!

A pair of big old crawlers leaping out of the moss burned away in midair with their blackened jaws crumbling apart inches above the mud.

FWHUMP!

One last sweeping blast caught the final two monsters of the pack and left nothing behind but scorched stone and swirling white sparks.

Aurelia lowered her hand and smoothed the front of her robes with a delicate satisfied breath, her golden-amber eyes flicking over to Silas to see if he’d noticed.

’Ten,’ she counted silently, a soft triumphant warmth fluttering behind her ribs. ’That’s a good start... Let’s see if anyone else can keep up with the sacred flame.’

Before Aurelia’s sparks had even settled into the mud, Rowenna stepped forward from Silas’s other side.

Her blue eyes were wide and fixed on the bottom of the hollow, where a second and even bigger wave of monsters was crawling out of the cave.

’Ten... Aurelia already got ten...’ Rowenna’s thoughts spun in a dizzy frantic panic. ’No, that won’t work! I want... I want the reward too! I want to sit next to Lord Silas by the fire... I want him to look at my runes and tell me they’re good and hold my hand... I have to take the lead! I have to take all of them!’

Rowenna tapped the heel of her boot against the stone, and violet light ran down through her mana.

FWIP!

She teleported off the ridge and reappeared in the empty air twenty feet above the hollow.

Hanging there in midair, with her violet-black hair whipping around her face in the warm drafts, Rowenna raised one hand.

Her slender fingers moved in a frantic blinding blur, tracing runes into the empty air faster than anyone could follow.

VUUUUUM!

Bright violet runes flared to life across the sky, and then they split apart into dozens of tiny darting needles of light that rained down into the hollow.

Down at the muddy bottom, nearly twenty monsters froze in their tracks, a mixed pack of armored crawlers, thorny lashers and spitting pods.

On the wooden body of every single one of them, a glowing violet rune appeared, burned straight into its flesh with a loud sizzle.

TSSSSSS!

Rowenna clenched her fist in the air.

KRAAACK!

Every single rune went off at the same time.

The blasts didn’t blow outward... They crushed inward, collapsing the cores of all eighteen monsters in the exact same instant.

Their shells caved in with sickening wet crunches, and the whole pack collapsed into the mud in one heap of smoking timber.

Rowenna teleported back onto the ridge, and her boots touched the stone beside Silas without making a sound.

FWIP!

Her chest was heaving, and her pale cheeks were flushed bright crimson with effort and excitement, but behind her violet-black bangs, her blue eyes were practically glowing with pride.

’Eighteen...’ Rowenna thought, her hands trembling as she hugged her notebook to her ribs. ’Eighteen in one go! Aurelia only got ten! I’m the highest now... Lord Silas is going to have to pick me.’

Before Rowenna could even turn her head to catch Silas’s eye, a silver streak tore past her shoulder.

"Out of the way, bookworm!" Lupina’s wild bark echoed through the trees.

The wolf-girl didn’t bother looking for an easy way down.

She launched herself clean off the thirty-foot drop, her silver hair streaming out behind her like a comet as she plummeted straight into the heart of the hollow.

THUD!

Her boots slammed into the mud at the mouth of the cave and threw up a huge wave of wet muck.

The moment her feet touched the ground, she exploded forward so fast she left afterimages hanging in the humid air.

WHOOSH!

Her three-inch steel claws gleamed in the scattered sunlight. She closed the distance to the nearest bramble brute in the blink of an eye, ducked under its swinging wooden arm and raked both hands straight up through it.

SHRRRRK!

The brute’s body was carved into six clean ribbons of bleeding bark.

Lupina spun on her heel with her fangs bared in a wild manic grin, and her amber eyes locked onto a cluster of crawlers scrambling toward the shield wall.

"Mine! All mine!" she howled with pure glee.

WHOOSH!

She tore through the cluster like a silver saw blade.

SHRRK!

The first crawler’s head went flying into the ferns.

SHRRK! SHRRK!

Two more were split open from side to belly before they could even turn toward her.

Lupina bounced off the trunk of a fern and rebounded across the hollow to cut off five vine-spitters that were getting ready to spit on the Shieldmaidens.

She landed right in the middle of them and spun with her arms stretched out flat, turning into a deadly whirl of whistling steel.

SHRRRRRRRK!

All five spitters were sliced into wet chunks that rained down across the mud but she didn’t stop.

She vaulted over a boulder, dropped onto all fours to slip under a reaching briar and drove her right gauntlet straight through the chest of a big old crawler, ripping its petrified core out in a spray of black sap.

KRAAACK!

Three more crawlers rushed her from behind, but Lupina backflipped right over their snapping jaws and raked her claws across all three of their spines on the way over, cutting through them in three smooth easy strikes.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

They hit the ground dead before her boots even touched the mud again.

A bramble brute twice her height came stomping out of the cave mouth behind her and swung both of its huge wooden arms down at her together, however Lupina didn’t jump away.

She jumped up, ran straight up the brute’s swinging arm on all fours like it was a fallen log, and sank both sets of claws into the side of its knotted head.

SHHRRK!

The brute roared and clawed at her, and she was already gone, swinging around behind its head by her claws and raking them down the whole length of its back as she dropped.

It split open along the line of her claws like a ripe seed pod, and she landed in a crouch in front of it as it toppled over backward into the mud.

KRRRSSHHH!

Lupina stood in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by a smoking sea of shredded monster pieces with her chest heaving and her wolf ears twitching with wild adrenaline.

She shook the green slime off her steel claws while her tail wagged so hard behind her leather shorts that it was practically a silver blur.

Up on the ridge, Rowenna’s knuckles turned white as she squeezed the cover of her notebook until the binding creaked.

Her blue eyes went wide with indignant horror as she watched the wolf-girl rack up kill after kill without even trying.

Rowenna’s breath caught in her throat, and she gritted her teeth behind her trembling lips.

’She’s doing it on purpose...’ Rowenna’s thoughts screamed in silent burning frustration, her eyes darting between Lupina’s grinning face and Silas’s approving nod. ’She saw my runes! She knows I was winning! She’s trying to steal my kills...!’

[Author’s Note]

Heh, 17 Chapters in two days... See I’ve done my best to mass release, hehe spend your golden tickets and give Castles for more Bonus Chapters.