Chapter 796: Lucky Bitch [Bonus - ]

Chapter 796: Lucky Bitch [Bonus Chapter]

FWHUMMMP!

A crimson-and-black aura exploded off her body like a bonfire catching oil, wrapping her armored frame in a roaring mantle of heavy demonic pressure.

Her curved obsidian horns lit up from the inside with a deep abyssal glow that threw long menacing shadows across the stone as her strength doubled and her speed doubled as well.

The air around her grew so violently hot that the puddle under her boots boiled away in a burst of white steam.

TSSSSSSS!

She bent her knees and sprang as the bedrock under her boots shattered into gravel from the kick of her leap.

BOOOOM!

Morrighan dropped onto the thickest cluster of monsters in the hollow like an executioner’s axe falling from the sky.

Her armored knees slammed down onto the back of a bramble brute and drove it into the mud so hard its wooden body exploded into splinters.

KRASSSH!

The monsters around her reeled back, and Morrighan slammed her palm flat against the ground.

’Abyssal Chains!’

KLANG! KLANG! KLANG!

Thick chains of solid writhing shadow tore up out of the stone under thirty charging thorn-crawlers.

The black links whipped around their legs, necks and joints and yanked the whole front of the swarm down flat against the ground, and every time the monsters thrashed, the chains pulsed with a smoky glow and drained the fight right out of them.

Before the pinned crawlers could even struggle, Morrighan raised both hands.

’Brimstone Bolt!’

Twin spheres of dark crackling demonic fire swelled in her palms, smoking with a heavy oily black haze that stank of volcanic sulfur.

She hurled them into the middle of the pinned swarm one after the other.

BOOOOM! BOOOOM!

The blasts tore through the hollow like thunderclaps, ripping through bark, chitin and roots in an expanding wave of hellfire.

She didn’t wait for the smoke to clear.

With her doubled speed, she tore straight through the burning wreckage, her crimson hair streaming out behind her like a banner of blood.

A pack of elder crawlers came charging at her out of the smoke however her heavy spade tail swung around in a wide flat circle.

WHOOOOSH! KRRRUNCH!

The crimson scale-armored spade hit all three of them at once and caved their chests in like rotten pumpkins, sending their shattered bodies tumbling into the bubbling muck.

She spun on her heel, and her spiked gauntlet snapped out and caught a lunging vine-lasher by its stalk but she tore it apart with her bare fingers and stomped its head into the dirt.

SHRRRIP! SPLUCH!

A bramble brute swung both of its huge wooden arms down at her skull.

Morrighan just raised one forearm, and the arms slammed into her mythril bracer and stopped dead.

KLANNNG!

Then she drove her fist straight up through the brute’s knotted chest and out its back.

KRAKOOOM!

Another crawler leaped at her from the left, and she backhanded it into a boulder.

A spitter reared up to spit on her, and her tail speared it through the mouth.

Two more brutes came at her together, and she grabbed one by the head and smashed it into the other until both of them were nothing but kindling.

WHAM! THWACK! KRASSSH!

A razor-bark stalker darted in low at her legs, faster than the rest... however Morrighan’s tail came down on it like a hammer and pinned it to the stone, and she stepped on its head without looking down.

KRUNCH!

’I need to kill more of them...!’

Two spitters reared up together and spat at her back.

The acid splashed across her mythril armor and hissed harmlessly off the metal, and she turned, grabbed both of their stalks in one hand and ripped them out of the ground by the roots.

SHRRRRIP!

Monster after monster dropped around her... In the time it took her to walk five paces, eight more were dead at her feet.

"Hey!" Lupina’s indignant bark tore across the gully. "That was my side! You can’t just drop in and steal all my targets, Morrighan! That’s cheating!"

Without even looking at her, Morrighan drove her fist through another crawler’s skull, and her tail gave one sharp mocking wag against the stone as her count climbed past Lupina’s and kept going.

’Cheating?’ Morrighan thought, completely unbothered. ’There were no rules...’

"Ahhh, come on!" Lupina wailed, her ears flattening as she sprinted to catch up, slashing through crawlers on the way. "Morrighan! Leave some for me! Morrighaaan!"

Up on a high boulder along the eastern side of the hollow, Elowynn snapped her fingers.

SNAP! BOOOM!

The spark went off and blew apart a pair of creeping spitters that had been trying to slink up the drainage ditch.

She lowered her hand and rested it on her hip as she caught her breath with her amethyst eyes wide and round as she watched Morrighan tear the bottom of the hollow apart like a one-woman siege engine.

’Holy spirits of the sea...’ Elowynn thought, a cold shiver of awe rolling down her spine as the heat of Morrighan’s brimstone washed over her face. ’Look at that... she’s butchering them and she looks bored doing it and that wolf’s not slow either... They came from Silas’s side... Does Blessed Land just grow monsters like this?!’

Her gaze drifted up to the high ridge where Silas was standing, and a deep uneasy curiosity twisted in her chest.

’Are those two the strongest he’s got...?’ she wondered, biting her lip. ’Or are there even stronger people walking around his halls...? Like Morwenna...’

She knew exactly how strong that woman was... Elowynn had crossed blades with her enough times to know.

’If a quiet demon and a bouncy wolf can turn a whole nest into firewood in five minutes, what kind of terrors does he keep at home...?’

Then she remembered the throw, and Elowynn’s eyes snapped toward the ridge to check on Ther’Abella.

After watching the elf fly twenty yards through the air off Morrighan’s backhand, she’d half expected to find her friend folded in half against a rock.

...What she saw instead made her jaw drop.

Ther’Abella had sailed all the way up onto the ridge, right in front of the flat boulder where Silas was standing and she’d landed in Silas’s arms.

He’d caught her cleanly against his chest before she could hit the stone and was now standing tall with his dark hair ruffled by the wind, holding the silver-haired elf in a perfect bridal carry.

Ther’Abella was having none of it.

"Let go of me, you filthy opportunistic ape!" Ther’Abella shrieked, her face burning a furious scarlet under the streaks of dried swamp mud.

She was thrashing like mad, her boots kicking at his hip and her silver hair whipping across his collar as she twisted like a fresh-caught fish trying to flop off a pier.

"Put me down this instant! Don’t touch me with those hands! I can stand on my own! Let me go!"

THWAP! THWAP!

Silas just adjusted his grip and laughed, a deep sound that rumbled right through her armor, looking thoroughly entertained by the furious elf squirming in his arms.

Beside him on the flat boulder, Kaelia had both hands clapped over her mouth and was giggling helplessly at the elf’s shrieks.

Solenne was leaning back on her hands with all nine of her silver tails swaying in big wobbling waves with her fox ears twitching as she tried and failed not to laugh at Ther’Abella flailing around.

Across the hollow, perched on her high rock, Elowynn stared at the scene.

A sharp burning stab of jealousy hit her right between the ribs, so hard that her teeth clicked together.

Her amethyst eyes narrowed into stormy slits as she watched Silas’s big hands holding Ther’Abella against his chest, and the way his dark blue eyes crinkled with teasing affection as the elf kicked and screamed.

’She gets thrown right into his arms...’ Elowynn thought, her fingers digging so hard into the hilt of her cutlass that the grip creaked. ’She insults him, she calls him names, she glares at him like he’s a disease... and he catches her like a princess and laughs while she wiggles all over him! I lean on his shoulder and act sweet as honey, and she gets scooped up like a bride just for being clumsy!’

Her breath hissed out through her teeth.

’Tch, lucky bitch...’

Elowynn spun on her heel with her ember-red hair whipping through the sulfurous smoke, and turned her burning glare back down into the pit, ready to set fire to anything with roots that got in her way.

The sulfurous breeze rising out of the hollow blew across the high stone shelf and rustled the dark fur draped over Silas’s shoulders.

Down in the muddy hollow, the air cracked and thundered with nonstop butchery.

Shadow chains rattled across the stone, orange sparks snapped and burst with sharp booms, and wild barking laughter echoed through the ferns.

Up on the ridge, though, the immediate problem was a lot less monstrous and a lot more squirmy.

Silas stood with his feet planted shoulder-width apart, holding Ther’Abella across his chest in a firm bridal carry.

The silver-haired elf was doing everything she physically could to imitate a furious freshly caught river eel.

Her boots kicked at the empty air, her elbows jabbed uselessly against his chest, and her constellation marks flared with frantic sputtering bursts of starlight that couldn’t do a thing against his Mythic Gold Core.

Her once-perfect silver hair was a disaster of black peat and water weeds, and a furious crimson blush burned across her cheeks all the way down to her collar.

Silas looked down at her twisting body, and a broad wicked grin spread across his face.

"Careful there, pointy-ears," Silas said, his deep voice rumbling with laughter right against her armor. "If you keep flopping around like a trout on a hot pier, I’m going to have to toss you back in the creek before you dry out... Should I find you a bucket? You look like you could use some water."

Ther’Abella twisted her whole body like a bent bow and let out a strangled noise of pure outrage.

"Rrrgh! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you in your sleep!"

"You’d have to know where I sleep," Silas said cheerfully. "And you’d have to stop getting carried around first..."

Sitting on the dry mossy boulder two paces away, Solenne couldn’t hold it in at all.

A bright musical laugh burst past her lips and rang out across the rock like silver bells.

"Ahahaha!"

Solenne pressed the wide sleeve of her robe against her mouth, her shoulders shaking with helpless laughter.

All nine of her tails swayed behind her in big happy waves... Seeing the proud aloof elf who’d spent the whole morning glaring at everyone like an offended queen get reduced to a thrashing bundle in their Lord’s arms was just too much.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, her laugh caught in her throat.

Solenne’s hands froze against her lips.

Her silver fox ears twitched, then folded back flat against her head as a cold wave of horrified realization washed over her.

A hot blush rushed up into her cheeks and set the tips of her ears burning like coals.

’Wait...’ Solenne thought, her golden eyes going wide as she stared down at her lap. ’What am I doing...? Why did I just laugh like that in front of Lord Silas? How have I been acting all day...?’

Her thoughts raced back over everything she’d done since the morning.

Ever since they’d left the forge, she’d been doing things that felt completely foreign to her.

She’d swayed up close to him on purpose... She’d tilted her head and said bold teasing things about him carrying Kaelia around... She’d waved her tails right under his nose on the open road... She’d told him she couldn’t promise to let him go once he was wrapped up in them...

She was an artificer, dammit!

She spent her days in the quiet of her workshop, surrounded by brass gears, calipers and equations... She was shy, she was humble, and she shrank into the background whenever loud people filled a room.

So why had she been strutting around like a shameless tavern dancer all day?

Whose fault was it?

A vivid memory flared up in her mind and dragged her straight back to the roaring heat of the Titan’s Anvil at night.

The air in the back of the forge had been thick with coal dust with hot star iron and Thora’s pipe smoke.

Solenne had been sitting quietly on a wooden stool by the assembly bench, carefully filing the teeth of a brass gear with her tails tucked around her ankles to keep them away from the sparks.

Thora had marched over with her leather apron black with soot and her clay pipe clamped between her teeth.

She’d slammed her hammer down onto the anvil with a deafening ring, crossed her thick arms over her chest and squinted at the fox with pure exasperation.

KLANNNG!

"Alright, Fluffy-Buns, listen up," Thora had barked, a cloud of blue smoke puffing out of her nose like an annoyed furnace. "I’ve been watching you tiptoe around the lad through the morning... You stare at him like a kicked puppy, you go red every time he walks past or think about him, and then you go hide behind your blueprints like a field mouse! That’s not how you catch a man, you daft fox!"