Soul of Blades - Chapter 30: BloodBerserker (Patreon)

“Kill them.”

Silence followed the gravelly command. None moved. They stood there in silence, the eight of them, three humans and four Arachnae and a strange, commanding Arachnae.

“I said, kill them.”

It spoke again. And still, no single figure present moved even an inch.

John, the town guard, looked nervously between Alex and the enemy blocking their path to freedom. “Shit! There are too many! What do we do!?” He hissed at Alex, eyes wide wide fear.

Alex’s gaze never left the four, his focus Hines on the venom dripping from each of their sharp digits. And the myriad eyes across their forms.

“We have to fight.” He summoned a sword from his Inventory with his free hand and softly tossed it hilt-first behind him toward the feet of the girl. She caught it in mid-air with a snap of motion. “Here, take this. And stay back.” Alex said, she would have to fight, eventually but she had seemed traumatised, dazed, and somewhat incoherent ever since he regained consciousness. If she clung to him ineffectually during the fight she would just get in the way. Better to have her safely ease into becoming an asset during danger by hanging back during the fighting than dive into becoming a liability by forcing her to fight while mentally unprepared, Alex reasoned. “John. Stay behind me, stay close and kill the stragglers as soon as you see them.”

John held his pristine sword fight and nodded with a grin, but Alex caught the slight tremble that shook his legs on the brief moment that it appeared.

Well, they would have to make this work, somehow. He would have to deal the brunt of the damage.

They were vastly outnumbered. The evolved Arachnae’s long legs caused them to tower over them all by a head. And the one at the back was undoubtedly strong, although how strong exactly, Alex had no clue. It would not make a difference either way. It was them or him. A big portion of his plan was dependent on John sticking behind him and doing his part, while he in turn did his best to not get struck by the Venom dripping from the large and abnormally long clawed hands.

A voice broke through the silence again. The large one, with the somewhat human face and fully formed arachnid mouth, spoke once more. Its voice was gravelly and alien, like plates of rough metal scraping together with timbre. “You won't? You want Me to kill them? To ‘try’? Impudent. Insubordinate. Drifter. They will all die.”

The large one at the back spoke, and the four before it charged. Two raced ahead while the latter two followed in formation. Their steps were timed perfectly, their movements eerily in sync, as if they could communicate through more than just mere words. “You will regret this.” The large one spoke again, its smooth facsimile of a face lacking the features needed to show emotion. But Alex felt as though he could feel sheer rage emanating from its voice.

Two in front. Two behind. The sound of patters and clicks rang through the dim cave as 32 blade-like feet sped towards them.

He charged forward to meet the four with John close behind. “Watch out for the claws!” He yelled, keeping his pace deceptively slow to match John. “One scratch’s enough to knock you out!”

John followed him with his sword raised, and a potent mix of fear and determination painted across his features as he yelled back “You think I don’t know that!?”

One, two, three more steps and Alex was before the first two, they were side by side, and each drew back an arm in preparation for an assault of some sort.

But Alex saw it all. He jumped, then leapt, and then he swung his blade.

Phoenix Leap. Sovereign Executioner. While he willed his skill’s executioner to appear before the target to the left, he targeted the Arachnae on his right, and his skill launched him under its envenomed swing towards its base, where many thick legs met the main body. He drew back his blade, clasped it with both hands and swung with all his might, aiming to dismember all eight limbs of his inhuman foe. Reality warped some paces beside him as his skills mana construct- the executioner- appeared and disappeared in a breath, its movements dictated and controlled by Alex’s own. The construct's blade connected at the same moment his own blade connected with its target.

And 16 limbs the size of men fell to the ground like toppled trees, each bisected cleanly. Screeches soon followed.

Alex rocketed past.

Two down, three more to go. He thought in the second he flew past droplets of suspended ichor. Now that he had dealt with the initial two, Alex couldn’t afford to hesitate or pay attention to what was happening behind him. He just hoped John was quick on the uptake and capable of dealing with both of the downed and disabled Arachnae- even without their limbs they would still be dangerous, for someone at John's level, a single strike would be all it would take to end the fight.

[You have defeated level 25 Arachne Juvenile Worker x2]

He inwardly felt a brief moment of relief as the notification alleviated his concerns over John and the girl's safety.

A wall of black chitin raced to meet him.

Alex met the second pair with the same attack, target the right, double body skill attack to the left. Let's go. Sovereign Executioner. He thought in mid-swing. Alex’s blade cleaved through the eight thick legs of his targeted enemy. But the leftmost Arachnae Jumped.

It hurtled over his Skills construct towards John with a leap of its own, and angled its legs to a point, all of them aiming downward intent on crushing the Gaurd as it landed. It had learned from witnessing Alex's first attack and evaded.

Alex would've raced back to help, but he was distracted by a dark reflective grasping hand the size of his head milliseconds away from cutting into him. The group's leader had taken advantage of his moment of distraction and attacked. Boundless Dodge, he thought while spinning, causing his mana to seize his body and drastically enhance his movements. As he spun, he extended his arm to swing his sword and thought Mana Blade for good measure. His brightly lit blade cleaved through the commanding Arachne- the worker- with ease. It fell to the ground in two pieces, twitching as it curled in on itself in death throes.

[You have defeated level 29 Arachne Juvenile Worker]

[Level 36 > Level 37]

[Strength +4, Dexterity+4, intelligence+6, unassigned stats +4]

Huh. Alex thought, I must've been pretty close to the edge of levelling up from experience gained from the last battle.

He turned to see the brutalized remains of the Arachnae Workers he had disabled, and both John and the girl hacking into the final one with reckless abandon. The pair of them hardly used any technique as they swung into the struggling creature, bisecting its limbs and deflecting attacks with what looked like nothing but desperate rage. As far as sword techniques went, Alex noticed that the girl was even worse than John, she darted around him and the Juvenile Worker with surprising speed but treated her weapon as if it was an axe or a club. Screaming as she struck wildly.

How is she faster than John? And surviving the venom… That doesn’t make any sense  unless she’s higher level and frontloaded all of her stats into dexterity, or has a feat that does something similar. Maybe she has a passive that boosts speed? Or a passive against poison and venom resistance? Alex wondered about the girls class and stats, and miraculous survival, and made a mental not to enquire about it later.

John raised his sword high into the air, a crazed look in his bloodshot gaze, as ichor drawn from the fallen Arachnae coalesced around his upheld weapon, the simple longsword became covered in ichor and grew in size until it became a dark greatsword, with a reflective sheen that seemed to give it an almost glass-like quality.

It crashed into the Arachnae Worker and cleaved it in two.

As the monster fell, the girl hurriedly raced towards the fallen corpses, she soon returned with 5 slightly larger marbles, all of them carrying the faintest glow- visible to the naked eye- she handed the largest one to Alex and muttered the words, “Thanks for taking care of us.”

Alex scratched his head sheepishly. He really did feel bad for her, for John too. He would try his best to make sure they all survived. No- scratch that, he would make sure of it. “Don’t mention it, Kid.” He said.

John fell to the ground in a huff near the corpse of his latest victim. “Sorry,” he wheezed as Alex drew closer. “Got carried away by my class. And I can only do that a few times before I'm out of mana, just give me a second.”

“We don't have a second.” Alex placed John's arm over his shoulder and hefted him up. “And we don't know whether more will be coming. We have to start looking for a way out of here.”

“What’s your class by the way? Was that an Elemental Blade skill I saw you using?” John seemed to be regaining vigour with each step, and the girl leaned forward curiously at his words.

“I’m a SpellSword. Pretty good with a blade, and a bit of unarmed combat.” Alex responded, still not keen on revealing his secrets. He liked these two, but there were too many variables telling them his class could create if they made it outside, and telling them wouldn't improve the situation in which they found themselves in any way. A thought struck Alex as he hoisted John towards the edge of the dim cave, and he asked a question of his own. “You said you got carried away by your class? What class did you choose?” Alex had heard him mumble his class name before, but hadn’t quite caught it.

John offered a weak smile. “Blood-Berserker. The blood spilled around us makes me stronger, doesn't matter who or what the blood belongs to- if it spills, I get stronger. It’s a Rare class. Can you believe that?” He thumbed his chest in pride as he struggled to find his footing, leaning into Alex’s carry. “I lucked out and won a skill crystal pretty early in the tutorial quests. Had to charge into the frontlines naked, nobody else wanted to take the quest. Can you believe that? I had the first skill crystal and one of the first rare classes.” He summoned another smile and straightened his back, his chest welling up with pride. “A few others ended up getting rare’s or even uniques and higher, but those guys were crazy.”

Alex offered a weak smile at the sentiment. His thoughts were drifting to his latest notification; he had some stats to apply.

They began moving towards the exit, and the girl silently followed, her sword held in a poor mimicry of the way she had witnessed Alex hold his own.

Deep within the heart of the Arachne Colony of the Hidden Queen, surrounded by hundreds of enemies, each one more deadly than the last, the three of them headed out and looked for an exit.

As they walked another thought struck Alex, and he turned to ask John a poignant question.

“What's a class milestone?”