Moonlight Relic, Ch 16: Shattered Curses (Patreon)

The enchantment expanded outward with Sam at the center. There were five interlocking circles, each blending into the other: Star, Moon, Edge, Flame, and a central one for Ice, which was the anchor for the rest. It was difficult to hold so many runes at once, even with the help of his bracer, and beads of sweat ran down his temples.

The charges in the artifact were swiftly falling as it helped to stabilize the concepts, but it was designed for it. The Focus of Crystal Flame and Runic Formation enhancements were a swirl of burning runes across the surface. It only had the first four runes in it, so he had to hold Ice on his own.

Ahead of him, Erilar reached the ring of monsters and sliced through them in a blur. His daggers were in his hand, their edges extending outward in blue arcs that left streaks of frozen blood in their wake. Scales and limbs flew away. A moment later, he was past the weaker mobs as he slammed into the revenant’s leg.

An explosion of blue-white ice shielded him, hurling away a few monsters that were close enough to lunge for his back, and then waves of ice washed over the revenant’s leg, freezing it to the ground.

He didn’t stop there. His daggers carved handholds as he threw himself up the revenant’s body, heading for its back. He ignored its thrashing as bands of ice sealed his feet to it and he began to tear at the base of a wing.

“Binding Frost.” Aylin’s hands rose as she released a web of white and blue frost. It expanded as it flew toward the revenant, forming into a net dozens of feet wide. Each strand was a gleaming white strand made of a thousand crystals.

When the spell struck, it wrapped around the revenant’s wings and tail, as well as some of the curseborn on the ground, and then it began to expand. Icicles and layers of ice swept across the field, flowing over Erilar’s ice as it went even farther, sealing everything it touched in a field of jagged frost.

“Purifying Rain.” Past her, Marin summoned a spell that flew toward the revenant in a blast of white light, heading toward the sky. When it was above its head, it exploded into a storm cloud that covered the area. Torrents of glowing white rain began to fall, covering the revenant and the curseborn at its feet. Where the droplets struck, they burned through the monster like acid.

Vitar sent arrows streaking across the distance that exploded against the revenant’s body. When they struck, they transformed into explosions of ice and fields of spikes that tore new holes, dismantling the healing that it had been trying to do. His attacks pinned it down from a distance, distracting it as it tried to turn from one arrow to the next.

New holes were torn in it every instant, but the revenant wasn’t willing to die so easily. Its head rose into the air with a shrill scream that sent a blast of fetid air across the field and it reared, trying to flare its wings that were heavy with ice. The withered limbs rose a dozen feet into the air, dragging a shattered storm of ice behind them. Then they beat down, summoning a wave of dark oily energy that swept across the ground around it in a torrent, knocking aside the smaller monsters around it.

Its scream and the dark wind gathered together into a great wave of cursed energy. Snow and frost melted away in front of it, creating a surge of bubbling miasma that headed for them.

Sam ignored the oncoming attack as he added the final runes. His hands were starting to shake, as he pulled it all together. Around him, the spiraling rocks finished fusing with the runes and their surfaces changed to a field of burning white ice. Flames leapt from each of them like miniature frozen suns.

From the sides, Aylin and Vitar leapt forward. A wedge of ice blasted outward from the ranger, heading like a bow wave for the approaching attack. At the same time, a glittering wall of ice swept up as Aylin raised her hands. It was thicker at the base and angled forward to absorb the blast.

Vitar’s attack hit first, tearing a hole through the front of the revenant’s curse. The oily storm split on either side of him as it continued on and crashed against Aylin’s shield with an earth-shattering roar. Shards of ice and dark smoke exploded outwards.

At the same time, the enchantment came together in Sam’s hands as he compressed the runes. The runes shrank, turning into a spinning sphere.

“I should give you a name,” he grumbled to the spell. He could call it the Moonlight Edge of the Frostflame Star or something else appropriate. The edges of it boiled with arcs of power that flowed over his fingers. “But let’s do it this way.”

He brought the sphere to his mouth and exhaled a stream of moonlight aura and essence into it. His eyes narrowed, studying the position that the star had marked. He could see the cursed energy gathered there now. It shone in his vision like a dark plague. Then he growled out the last words as he threw it.

“I’ll just call you Shatter Aura.”

The compressed enchantment whistled through the air like a burning meteor, trailing sparkling ice, white flames, and moonlight. It tore past the monsters and blew a hole through the revenant’s wing with a sizzle as it headed for where the curse was the strongest.

When it struck, the area behind the revenant exploded outward in a ring of rolling white flame as the enchantment flared back to its full size and the runic circles on it came to life. The five key runes floated into the air, each of them taking up a position equidistant within the circle of flames.

A pillar of starlight shot into the air from the star rune and curved in an arc until it connected with the rune for flame. Then the energy leapt to the other runes in a swift sequence. A ribbon of triple-colored moonlight wound around the pillar, followed by a spiral of blue-white frost, and then the edge rune came to life, sharpening the pillar to a point. The enchantment spiraled up, hanging like an executioner’s blade ready to fall.

Sam’s hand slashed down through the air and the enchantment followed, plunging into the earth. The spell sliced down through a corroded formation that had been carved into the stones and then went deeper. Skulls and bone totems shattered to dust and the earth melted in its wake.

Twenty feet deep, there was the skull of a wyvern with its teeth fused closed around the body of an Iceblood. The two had been wrapped together with bone chains and with twisted spikes that impaled them from below. They had been driven up through the jaw, transfixed the Iceblood between the wyvern’s teeth, and then stabbed into its brain.

It looked like both of them had been betrayed and then sealed here, but Sam didn’t stop to study it. The enchantment continued to drive down, burning through the curse like a meteor slamming into the earth. The result was a gout of molten stone that exploded up in the wake of the spell.

At first, the fountain of liquid rock was mottled with dark, oily patterns and a haze of corrupted fog that clung to it, but with each passing moment, it burned away, until the stone turned a bright red-gold of purified flames. Then it fell back to the earth, washing over the remains of the curse formation. The remains of Sam’s spell burned outward through the circle, scouring the surface with purifying flames.

A wavering sensation like a bubble popping echoed through the area, and suddenly the wind felt cleaner. The sky began to clear as a nearly invisible grey haze dissipated.

The revenant shrieked, its wings rising again as the dark aura that was infusing it faded away. The rain that Marin had summoned continued to burn through it, but now the holes were turning into giant, smoking scars as its body dissolved.

At the same moment, Erilar succeeded in slicing through the base of a wing bone. The limb collapsed, dragging the revenant to the side in a staggering slump as it fell to one knee. It tried to lunge to its feet, but the dead weight dragged it around in a half circle, and its muscles were half gone.

After that, it was just a matter of time. Arrows and spells continued to tear into it, ripping it apart piece by piece until it was nothing more than a shattered pile of bone. Sam set himself to hurling crystal flame arrows and fireballs at anything that was larger than he was, targeting one part after another.

It took a little while longer, but eventually the team killed the remaining curseborn and every other monster in the area, and then tore the remaining parts of the revenant into pieces before they started purifying the bones and everything else they could find. Before long, the only thing remaining in the valley was a pile of frozen ash.

Sam wiped the sweat off his forehead as he looked across the valley, shaking his head. What had once been a pristine, snow-covered hollow was now a scorched black and grey field that was covered in pits and shards of bone. He growled quietly to himself as he took a breath and looked around for anything else to destroy.

“Let’s check the rest of the area near here and finish collecting the experience,” Vitar announced tiredly, but his voice held a sense of satisfaction. “Then we can head back. Hopefully that was the last of the curseborn.”

“What was a revenant, anyway?” Sam asked, as things started to wind down. His horns and talons were radiating a combination of crystal flame and moonlight, a remnant of his mood.

He’d spend some time gathering auras while they were cleaning up, which made him feel better about the time here, but he wasn’t pleased that the Outsiders had left something like this behind. There was also a heavy wave of silver experience pressing down on his shoulders.

“Corrupted forms of life,” Vitar said, shading his eyes as he joined Sam and looked up at the sun. He frowned too, shaking his head as he looked around the valley. It was barren now, but snow was already falling to cover it, layering it over with a new beginning.

“All sorts of bone golems and wraiths can be called revenants,” the sylph added, “but it’s the combinations like this one that are the most identifiable. Some Outsiders like to leave them behind to corrupt an area or to guard an outpost. I’ve only seen them a couple of times, but there are records of them in our histories.”

“More specifically, revenants are what happen when certain spells and vital energy intersect,” Marin spoke up while carving runes into the ground at her feet, “especially with curses or other dark magics. The combination takes on a quasi life of its own and serves the purpose of its creator. Or sometimes it just runs around chaotically.”

The butt of her staff continued drawing runes on the ground, and from time to time she looked up at the sky or the mountains, checking on something. She was strengthening the connection between the valley and the hearthstone. Once that was done, they would be able to leave. Apparently, it was one of her main jobs as a Shaman.

Among other things, the hunting team was in charge of maintaining the wards. They also hunted wild animals for the village, acted as escorts for lost travelers, carried messages, and settled the occasional dispute between farmers. The sylphs took their duty as hosts seriously, even though few in the valley remembered the bargain.

“The life energy from Outsiders and certain strong monsters is potent and doesn’t dissipate so easily,” Marin added. “It can be trapped by the right spell. That’s why they used one of their own kind for it, as well as a wyvern. It’s an ugly thing.”

“This is hopefully the last of the Icebloods,” Sam growled, stretching out his talons as he turned toward the open valley, “but Siwaha said more things were coming. We’ll have to keep an eye out. I’ll go through the valley one more time to check here.”

With the help of the star, there was little that could escape his senses, and it would also give him some time to deal with the experience. The sylphs just nodded at him, each of them focused on their own tasks. Aylin was casting a spell to encourage new plants to spring up and Erilar and Vitar were systematically destroying the last remaining pieces of bone from the revenant.

As Sam headed across the valley, a flood of experience poured into him in a roiling explosion. It felt heavier this time, as if he were approaching a limit and it was hard for the new energy to find space. All of his muscles and bones crackled as bubbling silver stars condensed inside them and then condensed again. The World Law sounded pleased as an announcement rang in his mind.

Congratulations, Battlefield Reclaimer. You have defended Aster Fall from the remnants of an Outsider invasion and purged the land of its influence. Your actions have directly contributed to the health of this area.

You are Acknowledged. You now have 7 Marks.

Bonus experience is awarded for defending Aster Fall. You have eliminated 47 monsters with an average level of 72 and one Outsider Revenant.

You gain 38,000,000 Class experience.

You are now a Level 98 Battlefield Reclaimer.

Class Experience: 211,347,980 / 225,000,000.

You are now General Level 98.

Total Experience: 211,524,257 / 225,000,000.

You gain +4 Intelligence, +4 Aura, and have 12 free attribute points to assign.

He turned his attention to the twelve free points, glancing over his status page. Then he assigned two of them to Charisma, taking it up to 80, and the other 10 to Agility, which moved it up to 50. That attribute had been falling too far behind the others and he didn’t want to end up at a disadvantage. His high Intelligence made his thoughts move faster, but his body needed to be able to keep up with it.

His tendons writhed as energy poured into them, remolding and strengthening them. He stretched, flexing them one by one as he adjusted to the new change. There was one other reason he’d chosen Agility this time. He didn’t know if there was an attribute requirement for new Classes, but if there were, all of his base attributes were 50 or higher now. It was a solid foundation.

Wisdom would have been good too, but the next time he had to increase it was when Reclaim Aura improved to Elite. He stretched again as he felt his muscles gliding across one another, and then he let out a low grumble of satisfaction.

The revenant had been annoying, but they’d dealt with it quickly enough. The amount of experience for it also showed that there were far easier ways to level up than fighting a Blood Elemental. He grumbled again as he went back to scanning the valley, but his attention was split between that and the future.

The peak of Sun’s Rest towered on the horizon, calling him back. There was also another pressing issue that was weighing on his mind, one that was made more immediate by the experience from the revenant. He was Level 98 now.

He was almost at the First Evolution.

Instead of leaving him pleased, the thought was an irritating reminder that there was work left to be done. There were more abilities he had to get up to Epic, which was what the founder of his class had told him to do. Of his eight class abilities, only Imbue Aura was at Epic, and of his four subclass abilities, there was only Flame Strike. There was also his Aura of Crystal Flame, but it was a Racial Class ability, and he wasn’t sure if that counted.

He’d traveled up through the ranks with bonus experience from major fights and by closing Flaws, and he had earned a lot of rewards from the World Law, but he hadn’t spent the long years practicing his abilities that most people did.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know if he could delay his Evolution. Level 100 was at 250 million experience, which was still distant without a big fight, but it was closing in quickly. At that point, the World Law would offer him a choice to Evolve. He didn’t have to accept, but if he refused, he would be left to Evolve on his own.

Evolving with the World Law’s help was by far the safer option. There were legends of people dismissing its assistance and trying alone. Almost invariably, they died or failed. In the best case scenario, they managed to Evolve, but they ended up with a weaker class than they might have had. In the other scenarios, they were crippled or stuck at Level 100 for the rest of their lives, wishing that they had accepted the help.

Evolution was not a safe process. Maybe the Outsiders had methods to cross that barrier, but on Aster Fall, it was different. He shook his head as he came to the only conclusion that seemed right.

Refusing wasn’t a choice.

Even if it resulted in a sub-par class, he’d have to take it and then try to fix it. At least that was a path of growth. He had no idea if his class even followed those rules any longer. The World Law had changed several times since the first Battlefield Reclaimer walked on Aster Fall.

Hopefully, having two or more abilities at Epic would be enough.

In the meantime, there were two levels left and he needed to make the most of them. The crystal flame and moonlight burning around him flared as he looked across the valley, his eyes settling on Sun’s Rest.