Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 32: Allies and Enemies (Patreon)

The blue lightning streaked across the cavern, heading directly towards Sam. It was a glowing, cobalt blue bolt of force with trailing tendrils like fingers that stretched across the ceiling.

It was accompanied by the dwarf’s panicked shout and the furious scream of the wizardess.

A flash of rage hit Sam as he saw it coming. The adventurer could have attacked the warlord, or helped to defend the dwarf from the shamans that had just died, but instead she had decided to attack him....

Whether it was hatred on sight or some form of cold-blooded murder, it was clear she was trying to kill him in a single blow.

All of that was clear in an instant.

The lightning was moving just a hair slower than his thoughts as Crystal Focus sped up his reactions. If she had been using real lightning from the heavens, it might have been a different story, but this was mage lightning.

It wasn’t a lot faster than other spells, no matter how much it tried to mimic the real thing. What it did have was a biting force that was well-known for chewing through shields.

All but one point of his mana and aura fused into an Essence Shield as he threw it up over his head. The Essence Shield formed into a crystalline dome all around him.

He needed to keep a clear mind and that was impossible if he fully drained his energy. He was hoping the shield would be enough to direct the force of the lightning down into the ground, but he wasn’t sure how well it would work. He’d never tried it before.

At the same time, he flung the four crystal arrows that were floating next to him towards the wizardess. It was a reflex that he barely noticed as he reached for the Earth scroll at his belt.

If there was anything that would be a strong enough defense against the lightning, it would be that scroll. He got it into his hand, but he didn’t have enough time to activate it before the lightning hit him.

He heard an enraged roar from his father at the same time as the world turned actinic blue. The force of summoned thunder slammed into the dome around him.

Drifting electric sparks floated through his mind as he felt his arms burning. The world was a rush of overwhelming, sharp light. He could feel the taste of charred ash and stone on his tongue, somehow similar to the Aura of Basalt from the gnomes.

His Essence Shield was holding off the lightning, but it was cracking already, flaking apart as the energy continued to bombard it. Balls of lightning and wispy, brilliant specks drifted on the far side as the mana reacted with the world, gathering together in a wave that waited for it to fully shatter.

The attack was based on mana and it was having a harder time than usual chewing through his shield, but it would break through in another instant. His mind was still partially functioning, but half of his world had already turned to pain and blue light.

The Earth scroll was in his hand and he felt for the activation point on it, fumbling at it with numb fingers. He pressed a thread of his mana into it and he felt the scroll shifting. The rumbling sound of the earth moving rose up all around him.

A thick, earthen wall grew from the stone below his feet and surged upwards, surrounding him as it flowed around his Essence Shield and encased him in a grounding dome.

The energy from the lightning that was sparkling all around his body drained away into it, leaving his mind wispy and drifting...like a cloud spiraling across the skies.

---

Jeric saw the bolt of lightning shoot across the sky towards Sam and a bolt of pure, unadulterated rage hit him as he realized what was going on.

One of those adventurers had just attacked his son!

He’d known that people would react strongly to Sam’s new appearance, but he hadn’t thought it would be so severe that they would try to kill him on sight!

His hammers were still slamming down into the warlord, ringing with the resonant, multi-toned song of the enchantment Sam had added. He looked toward where the lightning had gone to see if Sam was alright.

His stamina and mana were nearly drained, but the stacking sonic damage from the hammers continued to increase, shaking the warlord apart piece by piece as he hammered away at it.

He saw the crystalline glow of Sam’s Essence Shield blocking the lightning, which splashed against it like liquid, and then a huge wall of the earth rising up all around his son as the stone at his feet surged upwards.

He let out a quick breath of relief as he saw that Sam was aware enough to activate the Earth scroll. That...would hopefully be enough to block the spell.

He couldn’t let up on the warlord right now, not when it was almost dead. Otherwise, who knew what it would do when both he and Sam were exhausted. The stacking vibrations from the enchantment were slowly but surely shaking it apart and if he stopped, the monster’s Constitution would definitely help it regenerate.

As he saw the earthen wall safely surround his son, it gave him the assurance to continue attacking it. Sam would be alright..., he had to be.

As for those adventurers..., Jeric’s attention was caught by the trail of four crystal arrows as they surged through the air towards the wizardess who had just cast the spell.

He’d missed the beginning, but Sam must have thrown them when he saw the lightning coming. They ripped across the air of the cavern in a blazing stream of light, not much slower than the lightning.

He spotted them just in time to see them close in on the wizardess who had attacked his son. She was still furiously staring after the lightning she had cast, as if waiting for the result.

He didn’t know what was going through her head, or if she just didn’t notice the arrows approaching, but if she had a shielding spell, she didn’t have time left to summon it.  She was either overconfident or a fool.

A stray thought crossed Jeric’s mind as he wondered how much Constitution the wizardess had. It was probably a lot less than the gnome shamans.

Whoever she was...and for whatever reason she had attacked Sam, it didn’t matter anymore. When the arrows hit, she was ripped apart into a rain of exploding chunks that sprayed across the wall behind her.

A sense of satisfaction surged through him as he returned to hammering on the warlord, even as he realized what a disaster it was to kill her. She was clearly a wizard and part of an adventuring party, and probably part of one of the guilds.

If word of her death got back to whatever town she was from, it would only make things even worse for him and Sam.

At the same time, her death was proof of the old saying that levels don’t matter as much as a strong ability. In fact, any given attack could kill someone many levels higher, unless they had the majority of their points invested into Constitution, which almost no one did.

Spells were especially good at it. It was why the first thing he’d done was to take Earthen Shield to Advanced.

A wizard might have 100 points in Intelligence, but unless they had just as much in Constitution and a strong defensive ability to go along with it, it was unlikely they’d be able to resist their own spells.

The wizardess clearly had nothing of the type. Perhaps she’d been focused all on offense, or maybe she was relying on some enchantment that failed to activate, but whatever level she was, it wasn’t enough for her to resist Sam’s counterattack. She was probably only in the Advanced tier at best.

He saw the young girl who had frozen at the edge of the cavern whip around, staring at where the wizardess had been. Her face turned as pale as a sheet when she saw the scattered corpse that was left behind.

The two guards also stood there, their faces changing as they realized what had just happened. Then they drew their swords as they charged forward, heading for the stone wall around Sam. Their expressions were ugly.

“Stop!” The dwarf lass shouted again, but neither of them was paying attention to her. “You can’t kill him! He’s important!”

Jeric agreed with her, although he had no idea how she knew anything about Sam. Whatever she was trying to say was lost on the guards, however, as they continued to run forward. They were enraged now and wouldn’t stop easily.

That meant he had to finish this battle with the warlord and get over there.

The warlord was half-slumped in front of him, its shoulders and arms sticking out of the pit it had made when it landed. Jeric continued to pound at it, adding even more force to the building reverberation of the enchantment.

He only had two points of mana left and he infused the last one he could use into the hammers, splitting it between them as he made the effect even stronger.

SuuuUUUUuuuuUUUmmmm.

CraaaAAACCCKkkkk!

The Song of Seven Earths was singing, accompanied by the shattering sounds of the hammers striking stone. Huge basalt flakes began to lift free from the gnome’s body. The runes on them were broken and twisted, indistinguishable now.

All through its body, there was a multi-toned vibration so strong it twisted Jeric’s teeth just to be next to it. It was painful even when he wasn’t the target and it made it difficult for him to focus. The area around the warlord seemed to be blurring and twisting together.

It was nearly dead already from the combination of Sam’s spell, the four spell scrolls, and the damage he had already piled onto it, but the thing was tenacious. He didn’t know exactly how much Constitution it had, but it had to be over a hundred. Maybe even more than that....

There was no way it would have survived this bombardment otherwise.

Without Sam’s hammers, he wasn’t sure they would have been able to kill it, even if they’d kept blasting it while it just stood there. The stacking vibrations were doing most of the damage now.

A series of cracks finally shot through its body as he slammed the hammers down again. Then again. Its shoulders went first..., the massive joints cracking as the gnome shuddered beneath the rain of blows.

He didn’t have enough Stamina left to use Reverberating Blow again, or he would have added it as well. The new ability took 10 points and he was down to 4. At the same time, the mana he’d infused into the enchantment was beginning to fade as the runes consumed it.

Fortunately..., the repeated blows of his hammers was enough to finish the job.

The warlord below Jeric’s hands finally began to shudder in its death throes as a giant craaack split its head in half and ran three-quarters of the way through its body.

A moment later, its shoulders fell apart into enormous chunks of stone like slid to the ground like pulverized boulders. Its arms crumbled into three different rocky sections..., and the rest of its oversized body slumped down into the crater.

In the end, it was a half-slumped pile of stone decorated with swirled and broken runes that was barely recognizable as a monster.

The crater would be good enough for its grave.

For all the damage they had done, it was the stacking sonic damage from Sam’s enchantment that finally finished it off.

Jeric reached down and grabbed the experience from it, pushing the notifications aside as he threw everything into Charisma. He was going to need to convince those guards to leave Sam alone, whatever it took. He jumped away from the body and sprinted towards his son.

As he did, the notifications he’d just ignored rang in the back of his mind.

Congratulations, Earth Blessed.

You have reached the maximum you can gain from a single opponent at your current level.

You gain 100,000 Class experience.

You have gained five Class Levels. You are now a Level 27 Earthen Marauder.

You have gained five Levels. You are now General Level 27.

Total Experience: 172,800 / 173,000

You gain +5 to Strength, +5 to Constitution, and have ten free status points to distribute.

For slaying an opponent twenty levels over your own and reaching the experience limit, you gain the Trait: Dauntless.

[Dauntless: Adds +2 Constitution, +2 Charisma.]

The new trait raised his Charisma from 8 to 10, and all ten of the new points went into it as well, bringing it up to 20. With his Persuade ability at Advanced now, hopefully it would be enough.

Across the cavern, he could see the dwarf and the young woman running forward as well.

Everyone was heading towards Sam.

---

Sam’s mind floated in the ether, sparkling with burning pain and overloaded meridians. It felt almost like he was drunk again, but in a much worse way than he’d ever experienced before.

The burning feeling was not the comfortable sensation of heat that he was used to, but an electric, scorched feeling that left his nerves tangled and broken. The smell of his own burnt skin hit him and a surge of nausea rose up, flooding through his mouth as he nearly retched.

His mind spun and the world was a chaotic vertigo of blurred sounds and overloaded sight.

The Earth wall had pulled the remains of the lightning away from him, grounding it out before it caused too much damage, but a streak of cobalt blue was seared into his eyes, an afterimage of the lightning that had just hit.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but he could feel the protective shield of the Earth wall all around him. He realized he wasn’t standing after all...he was leaning against the stone wall, slumped against it. It was so tight that he couldn’t have fallen down even if he wanted to.

Somehow, there was still air inside to breathe, and he felt the small flow of a breeze from a hole at the very top.

Had he done that? He didn’t remember.

Slowly, the world began to stabilize, shuddering all around him as his mind slowly returned.

His Constitution was only at 16, and it wasn’t enough to resist a lightning bolt like that. He didn’t know how strong the mage was, but if that spell had hit him directly, it would have killed him. Only his Essence Shield and the superpowered Earth scroll had been enough together to deal with it.

Where was that wizardess now? He had to stop her from attacking again. What if she tried to attack his father?

And...why had she attacked him? The memory of her last shout returned, engraved in his mind.

“Outsider Devil! Die!”

It wasn’t eloquent. It was a phrase filled with loathing...the culmination of pure hatred and terror poured into a shout. He didn’t know why she had reacted that way, if it was just his appearance or if she’d had some other experience in the past that made her hate him, but it didn’t matter.

Was that what he was to people now, that they would attack him on sight?

There was a lesson there, and even a suggestion for what to do in the future..., along with a worry for what would happen when they returned to the village, but right now he needed to deal with the present.

He had to get out of this dome and stop her.

His awareness was still around him and he could feel the connection between his essence and the Earth wall. He had activated the scroll and some of that connection to it was still there, just like when his flames were still part of his aura. It was waiting for him to tell it what to do.

If he tried, he might be able to open it back up. He wasn’t sure if that was the best thing to do, but he also couldn’t stay here forever.

At the same time..., his essence was down to one point, just on the edge of nothing, and he didn’t have any more auras to combust. He was basically defenseless.

Still, he refused to let his father face everything outside alone. They would figure it out together. He could still summon one more crystal arrow if he had to, or an underpowered Aura Bolt, even if it meant using the last point of his essence.

Could he delay them enough that he could get another point or two back? He doubted that would be enough to kill the wizardess, but...maybe the arrows he’d thrown had scared her off? It had been a reflex when he saw her attacking.

Whatever the result, he wasn’t going to find out by staying in here, even if it might be safer for him. He was injured, but his mind was clearing enough that he should be able to cast a spell if he had to, and that was better than being a turtle in a shell while his father was still outside.

He reached out through the connection to the Earth wall and pulled it apart, separating it into two halves so he could stumble out. He nearly fell through the opening, slumping against the side of the stone as he grabbed at it.

He was weaker than he’d thought.

As he did, he felt two strong, unfamiliar hands grab him, supporting him as they helped him to stand back up. His head spun and the world was an uneasy blur of color, a mix of mana, aura, and the life energy of strange people.

What was going on? Was this the adventure team that had just been attacking him? Where was the wizardess?

Where was his father?

The scene around him slowly resolved into something that he could understand. The young dwarf woman was standing next to him, and it was her hands that were supporting him. Her eyes were a cheerful golden brown, although strained at the moment as she kept a careful eye on him.

The silver light that had been there before was missing. Whatever ability she had used, it was no longer active. He still wasn’t sure how she had broken those shields or why she was helping him.

Across from him, his father was standing in front of the two guards, looming in a very threatening manner that Sam had never seen before. He was clearly enraged, the emotion radiating from him and twisting the air like red heat around his body.

His posture was straight and his back was to Sam, making it clear that he’d put himself between the two guards and his son. His hand was wrapped around one of the guard’s fists.

It looked like the guard had tried to attack and his father had grabbed it. There was a paleness to the guard’s face that suggested he was crushing it.

His father was sweaty, streaked with stone dust, and covered in red bruises, but at the same time he was alive and immensely intimidating. His clothing was barely there. It was just the shreds of the old rathide tunic hanging off of his broad shoulders and the old, tattered pants he had worn down into the ruins, cinched much tighter now. One of the hammers was at his belt and the other was in his free hand.

It looked like he had been yelling at them. There was an unfamiliar force emanating from him that Sam could feel, but he wasn’t sure what it was, which was somehow creating that red aura around him. It felt like his father’s personality had been magnified somehow.

Behind those two guards, the young woman who had frozen at the edge of the cavern was hanging back. She had just said something, and the guards were turning to look at her, their expressions a mix of anger and fear.

The conversation finally reached his ears, while the dwarf stayed by his side. She looked protective, concerned, and nervous of him all at the same time.

“If you take one step closer to my son, I’ll break both of you into tiny, tiny little pieces.” His father’s voice was laden with the strongest threat and protectiveness that Sam had ever heard.

“How is that your son!” the guard on the left shouted as he looked back towards Jeric, his voice rising to a fever pitch. “It’s a demon! It killed Ismela!”

Jeric glanced over his shoulder toward where Sam had just come out of the earth wall, and a look of sudden relief passed over his face before it hardened again and he turned back towards the guard.

“She attacked him first and tried to kill him. She earned her death. He never harmed her before that.”

Wait, the wizardess was dead? Sam was confused. When had that happened?

“I told her to stop, as well as all of you,” the dwarf next to him spoke up, her voice a soft roll of resonant vowels and consonants that was pleasant to listen to. “If you’re not going to listen to the Seer who’s with you, you get the result. I don’t know why she reacted so badly, but that’s water under the bridge now.”

“The Arestes Guild isn’t going to let this go!” The second guard was shouting now, the one who’s fist was still trapped in his dad’s hand. “She was a well-known adventurer! That...demon...isn’t worth half of her!”

“Stop....” The young woman behind the two guards finally spoke as she walked forward. She seemed hesitant and only glanced at Sam once before hurriedly looking away, her face paling.

She looked towards the dwarf woman before she spoke up again, her voice gaining a bit of firmness.

“Ismela attacked without orders, against a group that was facing monsters. She broke the common agreements between all guilds, and the contract she signed. The Arestes Guild can argue with my father about it..., if they dare.”

“It’s a demon!” the first guard shouted again. “It doesn’t count!”

“Enough!” Jeric’s voice carried the weight of a much older, formidable man, and it came down on the two guards like a load of bricks. Their postures visibly sagged as they leaned backwards and their faces paled.

“You will go and sit over there,” Jeric ordered, nodding towards the far side of the cavern. “Otherwise, I’ll kill both of you right now.”

Based on how easily Jeric was crushing the guard’s hand, his father was at least half again stronger than him and his body was much broader. It was not an idle threat. Whatever else Enhanced Physique had done for him, it had definitely pumped up his intimidation factor.

Slowly, the guards nodded in response, their bodies slumping again as they pulled back and went to sit on the other side of the cavern. They weren’t happy, but it looked like they had been cowed.

The young woman stayed where she was, hanging there indecisively as she looked between Jeric, the guards, the dwarf, and then Sam. Her expression changed, moving from uncertainty to fearfulness and then back again as she hesitated once more.

The dwarf next to him had never left his side and as she saw Sam looking around, she suddenly spoke up.

“Well..., thank the Mother, but it looks like you’ll survive after all. You can call me Krana. We’re going to be good friends.”

The world blurred around Sam again as he barely held himself upright, his nausea returning. At the same time, he forced down the crystal flames that he’d been ready to summon, since it seemed that...they weren’t needed?

What did they mean that the wizardess was dead and...what in the world was going on?