Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 143-144 (Patreon)

Arwin hurled himself to the side as the Wyrm’s jaws slammed shut on the air where he’d been moments before. He dismissed Verdant Blaze as he hit the ground, rolling and sprinting toward Jessen.

The Wyrm snapped at him, forcing Arwin to skid to a halt to avoid running right into its jaws. Its huge tail whipped around and he pushed [Scourge]’s power into his legs and bounded onto its back.

Before he could try to throw himself off at Jessen, the creature thrashed like a startled cat. Arwin flew off and hit the ground with a pained grunt.

Shit. This is really bad.

He didn’t harbor any delusions as to his abilities. If he and all the others had been working together, there was a chance they’d be able to take out a Wyrm – but their plan had always been to try and take one monster out while it had been weakened and then move to the other.

Jessen wasn’t going to let that happen. Arwin couldn’t turn his back on him and the Wyrm breathing down his neck – and even if the other Wyrm was clearly weakened, their group had been split.

Arwin’s magical energy started to dwindle as he drew on [Scourge] to stay ahead of the monster. He managed to land a powerful blow on its head with [Verdant Blaze], but a blade of black magic streaking through the air in his direction forced him to dive to the side before he could press the advantage.

Jessen had positioned himself out of the range of the helmets aura and could use his magic freely again – and there was absolutely nothing Arwin could do to get closer to him. Whenever he tried, the Wyrm forced him back.

Arwin gritted his teeth as he desperately searched for an opportunity. The gem in his armor hummed with power absorbed from all of Jessen’s magic, but he needed an opportunity to actually get close enough to the guildmaster to actually use it.

A claw scraped across his armor as he failed to dodge it fast enough. Even though it had just barely managed to tag him, the force from the monster’s strike was still enough to hurl Arwin across the ground and rip a furrow through his chestpiece.

He rolled to a stop and thrust himself up to his feet. The Wyrm bore down on him, but it clearly wasn’t moving at its full speed. Arwin wasn’t sure if that was because the monster was mind controlled or if it was because Jessen was just playing with him. He didn’t care.

The sounds of battle were ringing out again behind him, and every single cry and yell sent a shiver down his spine. One bad move and another one of his friends could be lost. A Wyrm was a Wyrm, injured or not.

“Why don’t you fight me yourself?” Arwin demanded. “Are you scared of a smith?”

“You can’t goad me,” Jessen said with a dry laugh. “There’s nothing you have to offer but an interesting death. You aren’t worth me putting more effort in. If you can, try to make sure your armor doesn’t get too beat up. I need it in shape to display.”

Jessen had him trapped in a corner and he knew it. Arwin grit his teeth. Goading someone who liked watching others suffer more than anything else was borderline impossible. Jessen wasn’t lying. He already had what he wanted. He didn’t like getting his hands dirty himself. Their entire fight had just been him buying time for the Wyrmlings and Iron Hounds to die out.

All Jessen had to do now was sit back and watch.

***

“Guys?” Reya screamed. “There’s a Wyrm coming!”

“I’m aware!” Rodrick called back. He grunted as he blocked a sword swing, then shoved the Iron Hound he was fighting back. Another man lunged at him, and Rodrick slapped his blade away an instant before he could be run through. “I’m a little caught up at the moment!”

Lillia was equally as caught up. There were several people fighting against her and her imps within the darkness. Anna was in with her as well – she couldn’t come out onto the field safely without getting hurt. She had to stay beside Lillia.

The only one who wasn’t currently caught in a fight was Olive. Reya swallowed heavily as she watched the Wyrm lumber toward them. It wasn’t moving all that fast, but it didn’t need to. She knew firsthand just how quick it could attack… and there was nowhere for them to run.

Her eyes caught on a patch of cracked scales on one of the monster’s legs. It was the one that had eaten her dagger. Despite her situation, a flash of anger passed through Reya’s features.

“Can you cut that thing?” Reya asked.

Olive swallowed and shook her head. “If it was to stand still for me? Sure. But there’s no way I can land a hit on something that powerful without someone equally as strong holding it down. Can your magic–”

“It’s too high rank. I could stall it for a fraction of a second at most.”

“Not enough.”

“I figured,” Reya said weakly. “We need to stall it until Lillia and Rodrick can back us up.”

“You want us,” Olive gestured urgently at the two of them, then thrust her finger toward the approaching Wyrm. “To stop that?”

“Do we have a choice?” Reya asked, clenching her hands. “Arwin is fighting Jessen. If we go down or run from the Wyrm, it’ll turn on him and it’ll be a 3 versus 1. That Wyrm is the weakened one. It looks half-dead already.”

“Half-dead is an exaggeration,” Olive muttered. She bit back a curse and lowered into a fighting stance. “I know how dangerous the Wyrm that lived in the forest was. It’s no ordinary Journeyman monster, and we don’t have our heaviest hitter with us.”

“Then we stall it.” Reya set her jaw and held her hands out. A shimmer of blue energy passed over the Wyrm, but it barely even missed a step. Her magic was still nowhere near enough to hold it down.

The Wyrm roared. It bore down on them, a stampeding wall of scales and muscle. Reya’s brow knitted in concentration as she did her best to ignore the monster just seconds away from her. Energy crackled through her body and arced out as she activated [Spectral Binding] on one of the fallen Wyrmlings that she’d helped kill.

Olive threw her shoulder into Reya, tossing her back just in time to keep the Wyrm’s tail from taking her head off. She hit the ground with a pained grunt and sprung back to her feet.

“What are you doing?” Olive yelled. “Pay fucking attention!”

A translucent blue Wyrmling rose from the dead monster’s body and threw its head back, letting out a loud hiss. It picked up on Reya’s desires and lunged at its former mother, scrambling onto its back and digging at the bigger monster’s eyes.

“Sorry,” Reya said breathlessly, her heart hammering in her chest. “It was faster than I thought it was.”

The Wyrm roared, shaking its head back and forth furiously. The ghostly Wyrmling really wasn’t doing much damage, but it was an effective distraction. Another roar slipped out of the Wyrm – but this one was pained.

It staggered, one of its legs buckling beneath it for a second. The monster’s eyes flashed bright pink and it caught itself. It rose once more, its lips pulling back to reveal rows of jagged teeth dripping with blood.

“What in the Nine Underlands? How strong is your ability?” Olive asked, her eyes wide.

“I don’t think that’s me,” Reya muttered.

The glow in the Wyrm’s eyes faded and it thrashed, throwing its head back and letting out another scream. Reya’s ghostly Wyrmling flew from its back and hit the ground with a thud.  Another flash of energy wrapped around the Wyrm’s head and it lowered its gaze once more, focusing on them again.

“It’s sick,” Olive said. “There’s something wrong with that Wyrm, and I don’t think it was laying a bunch of Wyrmling eggs and sitting on top of them.”

“Maybe Jessen did something to it?” Reya asked nervously. The Wyrm was staring them down, but it didn’t seem like it had managed to muster the energy to strike. That meant little. Reya recognized the look in the monster’s eyes. She’d seen it many times before– almost exclusively on the features of the people and animals that hadn’t survived the streets.

The desperation of a cornered animal with absolutely nothing left to lose. The courage that a plague-stricken rat would draw upon to bite at the nose of a cat bearing down on it, even though its death had already been written in stone. Even though its body was drooping and it was nearly laying flat on the ground, there was fight left within its soul.

There’s no way a Wyrm would feel that, right? It’s the strongest monster in the entire area.

“If it’s this injured, I can find an opening. Stay back. I’ll handle this,” Olive said, lowering her sword and sprinting toward the monster before Reya could say anything.

Reya held a hand out to stop Olive, but no words came out of her mouth. The other woman was a better warrior. Her attacks could do as much as Arwin’s if she had the proper setup. If anyone could kill the Wyrm while Lillia was distracted, it was her.

I’m just a street rat with a class that Arwin basically handed to me. Olive knows what she’s doing.

The Wyrm’s body tensed – the same way it did before it attacked with its tail. Reya’s body moved before her mind could hold it back.

A flash of blue slammed into Olive. The swordswoman froze in place and the Wyrm’s tail whipped out, headed straight for her. At the same time, the translucent Wyrmling lunged from where it had fallen.

It threw itself into Olive, throwing her back, taking the blow from the tail itself. It shattered into shimmering fragments of light and Olive hit the ground with a grunt, skidding to a stop just a few feet in front of Reya.

“I’m sorry,” Reya stammered. “I–”

“You just saved my ass,” Olive said, jabbing her sword into the ground and pushing herself up to her feet. “How did you know the Wyrm was going to do that? It looked like it was about to pass out.”

“I just did,” Reya said lamely. The Wyrm screamed again, pushing itself back to its feet as the pink energy wrapping around its skull grew brighter still. They both spun toward the huge monster and it took a laborious step toward them, its breath coming out in ragged hisses.

Reya shot a glance over her shoulder, but Rodrick and Lillia were still locked in their own fights. At the center of the clearing, Arwin was somehow holding his own against the other Wyrm, but he was losing ground. There was no help coming.

“Any more premonitions?” Olive asked, adjusting her grip on her sword.

“Yeah,” Reya said. “We’re screwed. I just wish I had my dagger. I’d stab it in the throat when it eats me.”

The Wyrm took another step toward them – and a shudder ran through its body. It convulsed and doubled over, retching. A thick stream of dark, chunky blood poured out of its mouth and across its feet. The blood seemed to have no end. It poured out of the monster’s toothy mouth in a deluge, flowing past Reya and Olive’s feet and soaking into their shoes before they could even think to get out of the way.

With a pop, the pink light pouring from the Wyrm’s eyes snuffed out. It pitched forward and crashed to the ground, where it laid unmoving.

“What the fuck?” Olive breathed.

Reya couldn’t help but think the exact same thing.

Chapter 144 – A Dagger

The world was cold. It had been so long that even the mere concept of warmth felt like a foreign memory, a flicker of a candle in a vast sea of freezing chill.

The world was dark. The world was nothing but the empty expanse of ground and scrap.

The world was pointless. There was no purpose to be found in the pitch-black emptiness. There was no goal to strive for. No dawn to anticipate. There was only the endless stretch of days that had been and days that would be.

It had been so long since anything had changed that the mere concept of change felt like a foreign concept. It was a gift reserved for something greater, and such a concept had no place in this empty, worthless place.

And then the world had changed. A sliver of light carved through the black.

A muted flame lit in the distance, and with it came a hope that even a fool would not have dared to hope for. It was an empty promise that served only to make the dark darker, the cold colder.

It had snuffed out.

And then it had returned, and it brought with it heat.

It brought heat, and it brought light.

It brought life.

The world was a brilliant, roaring crackle. It was warm and brilliant, so bright that the sun would have wept if it could have known the extent of its inadequacy.

The world was the ring of a striking hammer.

It was the strength of an anvil.

The world was life. The world was hunger. It was fuel waiting to be consumed.

And then the world expanded. It was more than just fire and anvil and hammer. It was a hand, rough and calloused. It was more than just existence – it was loss. It was the knowledge of what had been and what could never be again.

The world was pain – but it was more than that. The world was a gift. A promise, and a passing of hands. From rough to soft. From hardened and weary to young and optimistic. But, within that new and young world, there was determination.

The world was drive. It was power waiting to be claimed and gratitude for the rough. The world was friendship and trust.

And that was how it was for some time – until, as it seemed to be doing as of late, the world changed once more.

The world was the flash of jagged teeth and shimmering green scale. It was excitement and fear and terror – and in all of that, it was the soft hand with a determined mind. The resolution to succeed, but not in just any manner. It was complete and utter victory, in the path that only the soft had laid out.

Then there had been a flash of victory – stolen by the crash of massive jaws.

The soft was gone. The warmth was gone. The determination was gone.

The world was darkness. The world was wet and cold and empty – devoid of the burning passion that the world had once been. But this darkness was not the same dark that had once been.

Within the pitch black there was a distant light. A promise given to it by the soft, one that could not be broken. Within the cold there was warmth.

And, within the emptiness, there was blood. The self drove into the blood, ripping through flesh with every movement. It tore at its captor. It tore at the world.

The world was light in the darkness. The world was the warmth of flame and the song of hammer. It was the self in the nothingness.

The world stood in the path of the promise, and so the world would die. Every movement a reminder. Every breath stolen. The self dug into the world and refused to leave, carving through its life.

The world had changed so many times that the self suspected that even the world itself did not know what it was. The self did not care. It barely even knew enough to know the self. If it had not been for the promise, then there would have been no self.

But there had been a promise, and the world would one day once again be the promise. The world knew of this, and so it remained still.

Time passed, but the self was patient. The world would move again.

And, one day, it did.

It moved, and the self dug into it. It moved more, and the self dug more. The world shuddered and screamed and bled.

The world died.

And, with the world’s death, there was awareness. There was a flood of energy so immense that it was practically incomprehensible. The world was so much more than what the self could have ever comprehended. It was only the taste of true understanding, but it was enough. More would come with time, after the promise was fulfilled.

The self finally knew what the world was.

The world was Reya, and the self was her dagger.