Moonlight Relic, Ch 39: Punishment (Patreon)

The shield expanded, pushing Sam backward as Micas struggled to escape from his grip. The artifact in his other hand writhed like it was alive, its inky shadows thrashing against his hand as they plucked at his fingers and tried to slide away from his grip. It was acting like a small animal trying to escape from a predator. He wrapped an Essence Shield around it as he raised Micas higher and threw him across the hall, far away from the inner door.

Micas slammed into the wall and bounced off as the ruby light around him intensified, turning into a sphere. He jumped to his feet as he glared at Sam, his eyes wild. Being thrown across the room hadn’t made him happy.

Before anything else could happen, Garild, who had been watching the surroundings carefully this entire time, turned and ran like a rabbit bolting out of its hole. In an instant, he was up the stairs and gone, leaving Micas to his fate. Micas didn’t even glance in his direction, however, as if he’d forgotten about him entirely.

“Hunter...” the mage muttered spitefully, his eyes narrow as he reached toward his belt. The red light around him gave him a venomous cast, shading his features to sharp, unhealthy angles. “I was wondering if you would show up. I have something I prepared just for you. I don’t know what you’re doing in these ruins, but you’ll be begging to tell me by the time I’m through.”

Sam hadn’t been idle while Micas stood up. The hall around was a washing ocean of crystal flame and moonlight. Energy was flowing through the greenstone, pouring toward him as he reached up to the moons in the night sky. A normal tunnel might have blocked him, but the moons’ energy flowed through the relic as easily as breathing.

With a flick of his wrist, a dozen gems flew away from his new bracer and into the crystal flames. The runes on them burned with light. In response, the energy condensed, shaping itself around the gems as it formed into a dozen miniature full moons. He had little difficulty controlling all of them at once, since the gems were acting as a focus to refine the energy.

An instant later, another dozen gems spun away from his bracer and flowed into the Essence Shield around the artifact in his other hand. Shielding runes gleamed brightly on their sides. As soon as they were stable, he tossed the artifact into the far corner.

The Essence Shield went with it, still surrounding it as it cut it off from local energy. The inky tendrils inside continued to flail. The core that had been sacrificed was powerful, but without a controller, it wasn’t as dangerous.

He wasn’t sure why the World Core allowed the artifact to be used, but it was probably because Micas was a citizen of Aster Fall. It either couldn’t or wouldn’t make the leap to condemn him for it.

“Your artifact is harming the world,” Sam growled at Micas. The heat in his voice was a blazing inferno. He’d come here to punish Micas, and the man only continued to compound his flaws. “Where did you get that thing? Are there more of them?”

Micas responded by pulling a golden metal spike from his belt and hurling it at Sam. It was about six inches long with square sides like a long pyramid as it narrowed toward the tip. It whistled through the air as a ripple of mana spread out around it. Bright purple runes along the sides and the back flared to life, giving it a threatening cast.

He had a bad feeling about letting that thing touch him, so he didn’t try to stop it directly. An Essence Shield deflected it to the side, where it slammed into the stones and ricocheted to the floor. The shield sizzled where the spike had hit it, almost like acid was trying to eat away at it, and there was a significant drain on his essence, nearly a hundred points at once.

Even as a glancing blow, it was stronger than any attack he’d faced before, although the Terror and the curseborn monstrosity might have been close. He wasn’t sure what a Dimensional Mage got each level, but it was probably an Ultra Rare class, which meant it would have at least six points per level.

It made him revise his estimate of Micas’s Intelligence to something between 550 and 800, which put him roughly on par with him or higher once the artifacts were taken into account. His essence attributes were at 600 together and had a natural advantage over mana spells, but Micas was clearly getting some type of increased effect.

“Do you want to lose one arm or both?” he growled as he glanced at the spike and then back at Micas. If that was how Micas wanted to do things, he’d oblige him. With the alignment restoring his essence, he had no doubt that he could overwhelm him.

With a flick of his hand, the twelve full moons hanging in the hall gathered together and shot toward the mage. They rotated as they flew, compressed into crescents at the front as they released streaks of white-edged, sapphire flames behind them with a whistling sound.

He’d already seen how dense that red shield was, so he wasn’t planning to pull his punches. He also needed to finish this before the relic acted. He had less than four minutes to tear Micas’s shield apart and apply some punishment.

The first two moons slammed into Micas’s shield with a bone-rattling blast that picked the mage up and hurled him down the hall. He slammed into the far wall at the base of the stairs and bounced forward, only to have the remaining ten moons arrive at the same time. Each crescent exploded against his shield like a saber stroke, slashing along it with a bright white streak that slammed him back again, hammering him against the stairs.

Micas snarled, his lips contorting behind the shield as his hands wove through a gesture. It wasn’t clear what he was doing at first, but a moment later the spike that had been lying in the hallway flew into the air, hurtling toward Sam again.

Without Crystal Focus, he might have missed it completely, but it was still too fast for him to throw up an Essence Shield in time. All he could do was twist his body out of the way and take the strike on his shoulder.

The spike exploded through the muscle in an explosion of pain, tearing a gash several inches deep. A flood of hot, silver blood poured out, running down his arm as it dripped to the stones. It was the first time he’d seen his blood since his race changed, and the color was a shock, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it.

An Essence Shield flared to life, blocking the spike as it curved around to barrel toward him again. It slammed into the shield head on, draining a hundred and fifty points of essence in an instant with a deep pull that made his meridians ache. It hung there, trying to force its way through his shield as the drain built..

Sam growled as he reached out, seizing the spike and wrapping an Essence Shield around it. Shatter Aura flared around him with a cutting blade that he drove it into the artifact, straight into the rune pattern that was giving it life.

A scream warbled out of Micas at the other end of the hall as the runes ruptured, sending a crack from one end of the spike to the other. Sam threw the dead spike to the side with a snarl as he walked toward him.

“Do you have more toys for me to break?” His voice was a low, guttural growl. His right side was soaked in blood from the wound in his shoulder, but he could feel it itching as the blood vessels began to close.

Before Micas could answer, he sent a flight of crystal flame arrows sizzling through the air. They exploded against the mage’s shield in starbursts of light. A Moonlight’s Edge followed, wrapping around it as it tried to slice its way inward.

While the light from those blinded Micas, he pulled on the enchantment in his new bracer and sent a hundred crescent moons slicing through the air in a chain. One after the other, they slammed into his shield in the exact same spot, cutting inward inch by inch.

The shield began to bow, bending inward as it tried to resist, but the attacks came without stop. The ruby orb in Micas’s hand flickered and dimmed as the shield wavered.

“No!” Micas’s pained shout echoed through the hall. “I won’t let it end here! I haven’t proven myself yet! My name will echo in the halls of the Alabaster Palace!”

A surge of mana flared through the shielding orb as he raised it higher. His face was pale and streaked with sweat as he threw himself to the side, sliding away from the attack. The crescent moons hammered into the stairs, sending up brilliant sparks of white light where they touched the greenstone.

He pulled an engraved mithril plate from his belt and held it in front of him. The surface was covered with runes, like his other artifacts, but this time he sliced his palm on a ridge at the top and smeared his blood onto it.

“I’ll show you why even World Spirits should know my name!” he snarled as he threw it at Sam. Runes crawled across the plate as it came to life. It moved faster than it should have, releasing a piercing shriek as it flew toward him.

As it approached, it seemed to grow in size. Bars of mana flared around it, stretching out into the distance as the hallway became smaller. Glaring red runes filled the space, each of them growing larger as they approached. They pressed on Sam’s senses like looming monsters, their jaws opening wide as fangs extended.

Despite that, he ignored the plate as crystal flame wrapped around his body, and an instant later he disappeared, teleporting to the other end of the hall. Behind him, the plate slammed into the inner door with an explosion that rocked the area. Reddish flames reached out hungrily, devouring the air and mana around them.

Sam threw an Essence Shield behind him to block it as two dozen gems flew off from his bracer and flowed into the shield for support. Instead of looking back, he lunged forward. Shatter Aura flared around him again as he cut down at Micas’s shield.

The ruby field bent, straining as it bent inward under the blow, and then it shattered to fragments. Spinning shards of ruby light flew away, dissolving to nothing. The orb in Micas’s hand shuddered as the runes smoked, the lines warping. Then half of them exploded, releasing a wave of sizzling, hot mana that broiled Micas’s hand and arm.

A moment later, Sam was there, ignoring the heat as he seized Micas and raised him into the air. His left hand was on Micas’s shoulder and the other gripped his burned wrist.

“This is for touching what you should not have touched.” Sam’s growl rolled through the area as his hand gripped harder. “People are not yours to kidnap.”

His battle aura flared around him as his height increased, until his horns were scraping the top of the hallway, and he pulled. Micas’s arm ripped out of its socket in an explosion of blood as the mage’s scream pierced the air. Sam shook him in the air like a sheet before he hurled him at the stairway. Then he threw the arm to the side as he walked forward again, looming higher. Roaring crystal flame and astral energy flowed around him.

Micas was white and gasping as he floundered, but as he saw Sam approaching, he fumbled at his belt with his remaining hand. He pulled out a pill and threw it in his mouth, and then he grabbed at the air. A long staff formed in his hand as it materialized from a spatial pocket. He slammed the tip into the ground as he forced himself to his feet. By the time he was standing, the bleeding from his arm was already beginning to stop.

“I will kill you for that,” Micas gasped out. “I will haunt your nightmares, torture everyone you care for, and leave your world a wash of blood and grief, until there is nothing left for you except ashes and desolation.”

The staff in his hand glowed as he slammed the end down into the stones. The air around him rippled as his movements accelerated.

“Then there is no reason for you to live.” Sam growled as he lunged forward. He recognized that spell, and he couldn’t let Micas boost his speed and escape. Shatter Aura was a spear of energy all around him as he channeled it through his talons. He slashed out at the staff at the same time as Micas raised it again.

The mage’s movements were already beginning to blur, but Crystal Focus kept his position locked clearly in Sam’s mind. The talons of an Astral Hunter met the reinforced wood of the staff and tore through it in an explosion of splinters and disintegrating runes.

Micas’s body jerked left and right as the spell destabilized, but enough of it had been cast that he was already moving at three times his normal speed and he managed to jump away. He pulled a stone sphere from his belt and hurled it behind him as he raced up the stairs.

The sphere struck the bottom step and exploded into a sticky web of condensed air that covered the area for a dozen feet. The strands were a glistening white and adhered to the walls and floor, layering the steps in a convoluted mess.

Sam could have burned his way through it or ripped away at the underlying element, but instead he disappeared in a wash of sapphire flames. He teleported after Micas, who had already raced away from the top of the stairs and out into the first layer.

He appeared again at the opening to the storeroom as he surveyed the area. He found Micas in an instant. The mage was heading toward the staircase down. Instead of running after him, Sam gathered crystal flames around him again, but his Crystal Passage froze a moment later as he saw a spinning hammer fly through the air and slam into Micas’s chest.

The strike picked up the injured mage and flung him backward like a rag doll, his legs and remaining arm trailing after his chest as he flew through the air and slammed into a wall ten feet away.

A moment later, Jeric was there, standing in front of Micas with his arms crossed as he looked down at the broken mage. Micas began to laugh, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth, as surprise and agony warred on his face.

“You...” the mage muttered, his words coming between gasps as he turned and coughed out a mouthful of blood to the side. “Always late...to the party. ”

“You shouldn’t have come back up here,” Jeric growled, his arms folded across his chest. His voice was a rage-filled rumble as he stared down at Micas. “It looks like you got what you deserved. What were you thinking, trying to kidnap my daughter?!”

“That was the original plan.” Micas let out a bitter laugh as he looked up at Jeric. “Then you showed up with a monster class. You don’t even know why that matters, do you? You were always a useless idiot. All of the main family despised you, even before your class day. Do you remember when we were children? You lost every game.”
“You liked to play politics even as a child,” Jeric rumbled as he shook his head in disgust. “Looking for advantages, trading favors to stack the deck. You never realized that I simply wasn’t playing the game. My father’s life showed me exactly what the Hastern ‘advantages’ were worth and how quickly they could be taken away. That was something you never learned. That power would never be yours.”

“If that Hunter hadn’t broken my artifacts, I would show you exactly how much power I have.” Micas’s laugh turned into a pained cough. “That is all we have! Why does it matter how it comes?”

“Power gained by trying to steal my daughter?!” Jeric roared, his hands moving to his hammers as he stared down at Micas. “Is that what your pride amounts to?!”

“What does it matter...” Micas repeated dully, his hand falling toward his belt pouch as he coughed again.

Seeing him, Sam flashed across the distance as he reached out to stop whatever Micas was doing, but he didn’t arrive in time. Micas pulled a strange wooden lantern from his belt and held it up. Yellow and purple sigils floated off of the surface, hovering in the air around it, as a dark sphere of energy inside began to twist around itself.

Spiky tendrils of void-like energy stabbed away from the sphere, striking against the sides of the lantern, and the sigils grew brighter. There was a trembling in space around Micas as energy from the sphere poured outward and the area began to ripple. The amount of mana stored in the lantern was incredible, easily as much as five of the mage’s other artifacts put together.

Warning. Dimensional breach forming. The Moonlight Relic’s voice echoed in Sam’s mind like a silver trumpet, ringing with a sense of threat. Insufficient energy to seal breach and maintain stability. Diverting energy gathered for defense to forceful closure and destruction of the dimensional artifact present. Prepare for backlash.

Estimated volume of explosion: 200 cubic feet.

A sense of silver-green stability flowed through the area, wrapping around Micas and the artifact in his hand as they froze the dimensional ripples in place. A sense of building pressure accompanied them.

Stop! Sam’s shout echoed through his connection to the relic as he realized what it was saying and what was about to happen. He didn’t care if Micas blew himself apart, but he couldn’t let the explosion hit his father when he was standing right there. He’d rather allow Micas to escape than to have that happen. Allow him to leave!

Acknowledged, the Moonlight Relic replied. Dimensional transfer authorized.

The relic’s energy that was blocking Micas’s artifact withdrew. A moment later, a dark void appeared in the air. Yellow and purple sigils twisted around the edges of it, distorting as they flowed in and came back out again. More of them appeared from the lantern, spiraling into a pattern that stabilized the edges of the dimensional rift.

Micas looked up at the rift, his eyes wide in disbelief, and then he started to struggle to his feet again, one hand held against his shattered ribs where the hammer had struck him. Trying the lantern had been a move of desperation, but since it had worked, he was trying to get to it.

“Going home?” Jeric growled as he reached out and seized Micas by the collar. “Let me help.”

With that, Jeric picked up Micas by the shirt and by one leg and spun in place twice as he built up momentum. On the third spin, he released the mage, hurling him through the rift. Micas screamed as he flew through, tumbling wildly in the air, until the dark energy swallowed his voice. A moment later, the rift let out a pop of sound as it shrank and disappeared.

A flicker of silver-green energy flowed over where the void had been, washing away the remaining traces.

Threat neutralized, the Moonlight Relic announced calmly. The voice was stone and light, a steadiness overlaid by bright layers of energy. Despite its long history, it didn’t seem to have as much personality as the Guardian Star. Returning to repairs. 114 days to restore basic function to the first layer. Defensive options remain limited.

As it fell silent again, Sam realized that somewhere along the way, the four-minute mark had passed. The relic must have decided he’d dealt with the threat well enough once he’d taken the artifact away from Micas. He glanced back to the storeroom’s entrance before he turned to his father.

Jeric was standing there with his arms on his hips, staring at the space where Micas had just been. His chest was rising and falling as he let out angry breaths. Sam walked up beside him and joined him in looking at the same spot.

“It’s going to cause trouble now that we let him get away, isn’t it?” he muttered. “Too bad I couldn’t get to him faster.”

“Killing him would have been just as bad,” Jeric growled in response. “At least this way, it looks like a family disagreement. He tried to kidnap my daughter, and I punished him. Or at least that’s the story we stick to. The family heads will leave us to sort it out, I think.”

“But now he’s going to tell everyone about your class.” Sam shook his head. “There should have been a better way.”

“We’ll see,” Jeric muttered. “A jealous fool like that, maybe he’ll keep it to himself until he finds a way to make a profit from it. At least you and Altey are safe.”

“It sounds like your childhood could have been better.” Sam said as he looked at his father. He felt a rush of gratitude that his father had raised them and kept them away from all of that. “Thank you for always taking care of us.”

“Ahh well, that was my job.” Jeric reached up to pat Sam’s shoulder, a rumble building in his chest. He looked up at Sam, his dark mood falling away as he gave him a grin. “There’s no doubt this will bring trouble one way or another, but there’s a silver lining. I always wanted to hurl him across a room. Now, I finally got the chance.”

“It was a good throw.” Sam laughed as he agreed, looking in the direction that Micas had gone. It let him focus on the present for just a moment longer, even though a sense of concern was already building at the back of his mind, both because of the Hasterns and what Micas's artifact represented.

He’d stopped it from damaging the auras here, but it sounded like there were more artifacts like it out there. Maybe a lot more. If they all worked the same way, it was going to be a serious problem.

If they damaged Aster Fall’s auras...that was the same as destroying the World Seal from the inside.