Chapter 62: The Unknown (Patreon)

Zed buckled under the weight of the monster’s blow as the space in front of him cracked like a very translucent glass struck by a large object.

· You have cast basic rune [Force shield].

· [Force shield] has applied effect [Deflect].

The monster’s arm swung back from the effect and it brought its second hand down on the shield. Not willing to test the strength of the shield, Zed rolled out from under it, severing his connection to the rune. The monster’s second blow shattered the entire thing and came down on the ground with a quake.

“I swear I didn’t bargain for this,” Zed muttered to himself, eyes darting around for any more creatures he couldn’t sense.

A roar filled the air while he was searching and Zed acted on instinct. He dived to the side, throwing himself as far away as he could and a ball of fire consumed the spot he’d been in a wild explosion, scorching grass, leaves and the earth beneath them all.

Zed hit the dirt in a roll and came up axe swinging. A disturbing hiss pierced the air, his ears tracking it as he swung his axe. The blade connected with flesh and Zed felt it give way under the force of his blow. Zed didn’t let up. Instead, he swung his arm completely, casting whatever he’d hit aside as he cast another rune in a random direction, blood from his victim splashing on him.

· You have cast rune [Force].

· [Force] has applied effect [Knockback] on [Frothing mongoose].

What the hell’s a frothing mongoose? Zed thought as something flew into the woods, his body turning to meet his next assailant.

Zed danced forward, bringing his axe in an upward swing only to be rammed in the stomach by a great force. Something large ran into him, striking him with the force of a thrown horse and it sent him flying. Zed soared through the air, his mind chaotic as he tried to make sense of what had happened. He went high enough to strike a branch which sent him tumbling to the ground. He landed on one foot and a bent knee, supporting his weight with a hand on the ground.

“Not the time for superhero landings, Zed,” he muttered, shaking the pain from his impact with the branch from his head.

His mind contemplated a continued retreat when his senses alerted him to his current state. The monsters had already surrounded him, at least the ones with auras he could sense. As for the others, he could only see the ones in front of him. Amongst them was a creature that looked like a rabid mongoose. It came up to his shoulder in size and frothed at the mouth.

“I guess we’ve met,” Zed said. “No hard feelings?”

The monster roared at him, heralding the others into a converging charge, coming to meet Zed at the center. Zed braced himself for the inevitable fight.

“I should’ve known you’d keep a grudge. You even look like you keep a grudge.”

Zed fought back as they met him. His axe was a favored weapon, cutting and tearing, ripping skin and shredding muscles with every swing. He fought for his life, taking blows he could not avoid. He was bitten a few times by monsters too fast for him to identify and suffered the brunt of at least six claws. The fight was bloody but he remained on his feet, tossed and turned like a reluctant meal. His equilibrium attribute did its best to keep him from hitting the ground in a bloody mess as he was covered in his blood and that of his enemies.

Each monster came with its own arsenal of devilry and Zed was forced to suffer them all. He dug his axe in the eye of one, only to have another throw him across the distance with a swipe of its tail. Soaring through the air, Zed cast another rune.

· You have cast basic rune [Force].

· [Force] has applied effect [Knockback].

A blast of purple energy struck the floor, blowing out a ring of leaves and sand and grass. It reduced his fall and Zed landed on his feet. While it was not a terrifying thud as he’d feared, there was still enough force behind his fall to bring him to his knee.

I just can’t get a—

A roar interrupted his thoughts and Zed chose survival over thoughtful monologue as his finger weaved another rune and he activated it.

· You have cast rune [Force].

· [Force] has applied effect [Knockback] on [Fire breath].

The air in front of Zed exploded, throwing him back into a random tree. He struck it with a groan and hit the floor with his side. Refusing to be bested so easily, Zed pushed himself back to his feet, casting another rune as a massive snake’s head burst out of the explosion in front of him.

· You have cast rune [Force shield].

· [Force shield] has applied effect [Deflect] on [Denizen viper].

“You have got to be kidding me!” Zed hissed as the massive snake struck the air in front of him and was sent careening off to the side. “I thought I was already done with your kind.”

The rest of the snake’s body followed after it and Zed watched it all from behind a soft haze of purple glow. He held the rune active, feeling its pull on his mana core as he sacrificed mana to keep it alive, drinking through his reserves like a parched man in a desert.

Another roar shook the air and the ground quaked with consecutive thuds, the interval between each one growing shorter as whatever monster it was charged him. Zed’s eyes widened in terror as the troll-like monster came bounding towards him, swinging an uprooted tree as if it was a club.

Zed spun his axe quickly and swung it backwards, embedding its blade into the tree behind him hurriedly. His hand freed up, he cast another rune. He moved the hand that held up his shield to the side, moving the shield along with it. He brought his other hand to bear, aimed for the monster’s leg, and activated the rune.

· You have cast basic rune [Force].

· [Force] has applied effect [Knockback] on [Nature’s Golem].

· You have cast basic rune [Force shield], and [Force].

· You have cast dual runes. You have successfully dual cast.

· You have gained +1 Wil.

Zed ignored the notification as a blast of purple wave with a bluish hue shot out the monster’s leg from under it and the creature toppled forward. It hit the ground, the tree falling free from its grip, and fell into a tumble.

Zed took one look at the rolling chaos coming at him and deactivated his runes. He channeled his mana, his core revving like a strained engine, ripped his axe free form the tree behind him and fled to the side.

The nature’s golem plunged into the tree on its tumbling journey. The tree bent and shattered under the weight of the monster and did nothing to stop its movement. Zed ignored the tumbling beast and charged forward. His eyes picked out the monsters he could not sense and found they all looked like monstrous variations of wolves. Their eyes were ruby red and they had manes that fell down their necks like wet hair. He counted four of them, and they worked to take his life with the frothing mongoose, the fire breathing rhinoceros, the denizen viper, the troll and four blobs.

Zed wasn’t sure how he felt about having to face blobs again but couldn’t complain. Their presence was a good thing. He’d faced their kind before and knew an axe was more than efficient against them. So he charged the blobs first, aiming for the smallest of them, which wasn’t that much different in size from the others.

Zed directed a rune to the side and activated it, sending a wave of purple into a different blob as he charged the one he’d chosen. He crossed the distance in growing strides as a notification informed him of his success.

· You have cast rune [Force].

· [Force] has applied effect [Knockback] on [Sentry blob].

The other blobs charged Zed, shrieking in defiance as he crossed the distance and swung his axe into the blob of his choice. The blade of the axe bit into the flesh of one of its eight arachnid limbs and Zed felt an all-consuming heat flare around him. For the briefest instant, he felt as if he was standing in a burning room, suffering burns from the heat of the fire instead of the fire itself. His mind alerted him to the possibility of what had happened and he let off a repeated rune subconsciously.

· You have cast rune [Force shield].

· [Force shield] has applied effect [Deflect] on [Fire breath].

Zed and the blob he was attacking were engulfed in a blaze of fire as the space beside him was engulfed in flames. His rune shield lit up in a bright purple glow. The shield took most of the brunt of the flame but did nothing against the heat. The fire burnt most of the blob, catching some of Zed’s bloodied clothes not properly protected. But the heat was the real culprit. Apparently, while the rune interfered with physical things, it did very little against heatwaves. And just as light passed through it, allowing Zed see through it, heat did the same.

Zed felt his skin boil under the torture of heat and screamed in pain. His voice drowned out the painful shriek of the blob as it suffered a worse fate than him. When the flames went out, it did so in an explosion that blasted Zed and the blob away from where they stood.

Zed and the blob were both thrown aside, separated by the force, and Zed landed without his axe. His hair was terribly singed and one side of his face was a mess of burns, skin swollen in tiny, irritated bubbles like boiling water.

· Attribute [Regeneration] has activated.

· Low [Mana] detected.

Zed writhed in the dirt even as he felt himself healing. The pain was all he could think of even as another blob landed on top of him. One of its limbs dug into Zed’s thigh and new pain flared out in his mind, shocking him back to the fight he was losing.

Zed pushed forward through gritted teeth as spittle dropped on his face from the shrieking blob and the now darkening clouds rumbled in the skies above. The blob left Zed with no room for escape and he used a force rune on it.

· You have cast rune [Force].

· [Force] has applied effect [Knockback] on [Pincer blob].

The blob bucked, thrown barely a foot high. The force, however, sufficed only to dislodge its sharp limb from Zed’s thigh, only for it to stab him again as it came down.

Zed roared in pain and the blob’s mouth opened to reveal lamprey teeth that shot forward. Zed’s arm came up in defense and the teeth clamped down on his forearm. New pain filled him and it blotted out his voice so that all he could do was gasp in pain. Still, the sound of his skin being bitten down on blotted out the sounds of the drops of rain now hitting the ground as the clouds fell and the sky wept.

Zed’s struggle was futile as the other monsters converged on him, the blob struggling to rip a part of his forearm free. He struggled with his pain and his mind ran through possible escapes. He’d already tried the force rune and failure had laughed in his face. Trying it again would do nothing but help the blob claim the piece of his arm it wanted so badly, and force shield would do nothing against it. A thunderous growl pierced through his scrambling mind as the sound of rainfall filled the woods and the sky darkened.

The rain grew heavier and Zed subjected himself to an act he was more than certain was reckless. He didn’t have to be told to know that it was ill-advised to use a weapon with unknown consequences. Still, he at least knew it was designed for attacks, and whether it killed him or not, he already looked destined for death.

Zed’s finger worked poorly to cast a new rune as he resolved to die by any other means but monster attack. The rune was new and unknown, and the unknown was deadly by its very nature. The pain in Zed’s mind fought him all the way, standing in the path of its completion, and Zed struggled to hold the rune in his mind. The blob on top of him did nothing to support him. It shook his arm like a dog with a new toy, ripping flesh free. It filled Zed’s head with delusions of far worse pain that he believed any human was able to survive consciously as he felt teeth clamp into bone as he was dowsed in more of his own blood.

In the end, Zed felt his finger complete the last line of the new rune even as he convulsed from the pain of something running him through the shoulder. He caught a glimpse of another blob above his head as he channeled mana into the rune and activated it.

· You have cast basic rune [Fire].

· [Fire] has applied effect [Flame].

· Basic rune [Fire] has applied effect [Flame] in an enclosed space.

· Effect [Flame] may prove catastrophic.

The air between Zed and the blobs grew intense, shimmering in distortion, and steam rose slowly from their bodies as drops of rain evaporated. Zed knew the effect of what was happening before the rune’s effect kicked in, and judging from the way the blobs released his arm in a panicked shriek, so did they. They sought escape but were too slow. Zed grinned wickedly through his pain as he braced himself. He could only hope the catastrophic effect would not kill him. A witty line came to his mind only for pain to blot it out and his mouth failed to utter it.

· Basic rune [Fire] has applied effect [Flame] in an enclosed space.

· Effect [Flame] has applied one instance of alternate effect.

· Effect [Flame] is now effect [Explosion].