Austin moved through the gnolls like a vengeful god. Even with their corruption, many of the gnolls were barely Copper level. They could not keep up with his combination of sand streams and sword attacks. If one of the beasts made it past his sand, they were immediately caught by his sword. Sand crashed through the gnolls and sent them flying in all directions. As Austin continued to fight, his attacks grew less precise. Instead, they were like a furious storm.
Drugos moved in a similar manner to Austin, but he kept himself in melee range. His entire body was like a weapon. He charged into gnolls with a powerful blow from his shoulder. Then, when he was surrounded by enemies, he followed up with swipes of his flame-covered axe. Anyone who somehow got past his axe was immediately caught by the spike from his arm.
As bodies fell to the ground, one-by-one, they started to disintegrate into red and purple dust. The dust filled the battlefield and colored it like a canvas. Soon, the gnolls realized the situation. They scrambled to their feet and tried to run away. The majority of them ran away from their camp. It was as if they realized that keeping their camp was not worth fighting and dying to Austin and Drugos.
As gnolls scattered to the forest, Austin noticed an especially intense smell come over the area. The smell was similar to the smell of rotten eggs, but somehow more intense and worse. Austin turned to see if he could find the source of the smell. Then he noticed that two gnolls were walking towards the battle.
The gnolls were opposites of each other. One was large, even for a gnoll. Austin estimated it had to be two times the size of a regular gnoll. It was also the only gnoll that had a weapon. In its hand was a glaive with a jagged purple blade. Its body was covered in scars, and red spikes protruded from its back and arms haphazardly.
The other gnoll was around the size of a regular gnoll, but its power and corruption could be felt in the air. Its back was hunched over, and its body was very thin. Purple flames covered its body like a cloak. Unlike the larger gnoll, it did not wield any weapons.
The two gnolls did not immediately move to attack Austin and Drugos. Instead, the smaller gnoll lifted one of its hands into the air. A strong gust of wind rushed past Austin and Drugos as the gnoll lifted its hand. The red and purple dust in the air rushed towards the gnoll and coalesced into a single stream. The stream flowed into the gnoll’s hand and seemed to be absorbed into its body. As the stream finished absorbing into its body, the gnoll let out a satisfied sigh.
“You can’t just absorb it all, Kratch,” the larger gnoll complained in a deep voice.
“You have plenty of power. Let me have some today, Gnash,” the smaller gnoll, Kratch, replied. His voice came out like scratches.
“Fine,” Gnash groaned as he rested his glaive on his shoulder. “Your spells require more Malis anyway.”
“Good, good, you understand,” Kratch grinned. “Now, which one do you want to fight?”
“I’ll take the orc. He looks fun to fight,” Gnash replied.
Kratch nodded and extended his long fingers in Drugos’s direction. “After you then.”
The pair paid little attention to the remainder of the gnolls that ran away. Instead, they focused on their targets. Gnash was the first to move. The giant gnoll swung its glaive downward before it charged towards Drugos. It was fast for its size, and each of its steps covered significant ground. The result was Gnash arriving at Drugos in a mere moment. Then it swung its glaive in an upward arc. Drugos was caught off guard by the speed of the glaive and was forced to block it with one of his arms. Drugos’s bone armor was able to block most of the damage, but the glaive’s force pushed him backward.
Austin did not have much time to gawk at Gnash and Drugos. Immediately after Gnash made its move, Kratch started its assault. Purple flames formed in one of the gnoll’s hands, and it threw its hand towards Austin to send them outward. The flames exploded into a multitude of tiny flames. Austin did his best to dodge out of the way of the flames, but a few of them hit him. Luckily, they did not seem to break through his armor, but he did not want to get too comfortable getting hit.
Before Kratch could send another flurry of flames at Austin, Austin directed his sand towards the beast. He sent his sand forward as one rushing current. Before the sand could hit, Austin saw Kratch lift its hand in the air. Purple roots ripped out of the ground and twisted together to form a wall. The sand smashed into the wall and was scattered in all directions.
Austin did not pull the sand back to himself, though. Instead, he charged forward towards the gnoll. While he did have long range options, he knew that his best advantage against his enemy would be in close range. A burst of Essence sent him flying, and he crashed into Kratch’s wall with his fist. The wall broke apart into wooden shards. With the wall out of the way, Austin used another burst of Essence to send himself flying at Kratch.
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Before Austin could reach Kratch, something slammed into his side. The force was not enough to topple Austin but did change the trajectory of his charge. He ended up landing away from Kratch and spun around to face the gnoll once more. He then saw what knocked his trajectory off. A new gnoll landed on the ground. The gnoll looked like it was falling apart. Parts of its flesh were torn away and revealed bone underneath. Its eyes and mouth glowed purple. Then Austin noticed that several more gnolls in similar condition had shown up. He thought that the gnolls had retreated, and was confused how these ones suddenly showed up.
The gnolls charged Austin all at once. Claws and teeth were ready to strike. Austin noticed that they moved recklessly as if they did not care about getting harmed. They leaped towards Austin, and he quickly spun out of the way. As the creatures landed on all fours, Austin quickly moved in and slammed one of his legs into one of them. The attack sent the gnoll flying away, and a satisfied grin came across Austin’s face. They were still just as weak, if not weaker, as the other gnolls.
As Austin prepared to kick another one of the creatures, it moved in and bit down on his leg. The armor did well to protect his leg, but the gnoll would not let go. Austin stomped downward on it with his other leg, but somehow the gnoll kept holding on. In his distraction, another gnoll latched onto Austin. Then a third gnoll latched onto him. Both of Austin’s legs and his shoulder were bitten by the gnolls. He tried to shake them off, but no matter what he did, they managed to stay on. He took his one free arm and hammered down on each of the gnolls, but they continued to be unaffected.
A cackle echoed throughout the area. Austin looked to see that it was Kratch. “This is why I prefer thralls! Living things care about self-preservation, but not thralls! It’s wonderful! Now, you stay right there as I finish you off.”
Kratch reached its hand forward, and an orb of purple light started to form at the edge of its index finger. When Austin saw Kratch prepare its attack, he grew more aggressive as he tried to throw the gnolls off himself. He thrashed violently and threw his body in every direction. The gnolls’ bites tightened and refused to let go. Austin could feel the force of the bites start to crack his armor.
Kratch’s attack finished forming and shot towards Austin as a thin beam of purple light. He knew then that he needed to do something, and he needed to do it quickly. He sent a tremendous amount of Essence into his leg armor and leaped into the sky. Austin’s body went soaring upward; the force of the leap finally ripped the gnolls off of his armor. Austin looked down to see that the beam of light shot through his original spot.
Austin continued higher into the sky until everyone looked much smaller. Once he reached the peak of his height, he started to fall downward. As he fell, he realized that he may have made a mistake. He was worried about getting away and did not think about how he would land. He braced himself as his legs smashed into the ground. He left a small crater in the ground as he landed, and cracks went up his leg armor. As he shakily stood a step forward towards Kratch, the armor around his legs broke like glass and fell to the ground. Each piece exploded into motes of silver light as they fell to the ground.
“And you Essence users think we are barbaric,” Kratch cackled. “You would never catch a self-respecting warlock doing something so reckless and extreme.”
Austin winced as he continued to walk towards Kratch. The thralls struggled to force themselves off the ground, but their bones were broken and could not support them. Austin paid them no attention as he prepared to attack Kratch. Lightning crackled around his arm, and he shot it forward towards the gnoll. Kratch quickly raised a wall of red roots to block the blast of lightning. As the lightning smashed into the wall, the wall burned into cinders.
“So, they have a name for people who use corrupted Aether?” Austin asked. “Not that it really matters. I’ll defeat you either way.”
“That’s another problem with you, Essence users. You think everything is as simple as Essence or Aether. This thing you call corrupted Aether is actually called Malis,” Kratch explained. “It’s a completely different energy. Which is why it has such a debilitating effect on Essence users. You aren’t supposed to use it.”
“Why are you even explaining all of this to me?” Austin said.
Kratch brought its hand up to its chin and rubbed it as if it were rubbing a beard. “You know, I don’t really know myself. I guess I just dislike ignorance. So, this way you can die without being too ignorant of the world.”
“The only one who is going to die is you,” Austin spat back as lightning began to crackle around his arm once more.
“I really doubt that. You have spent a lot of your energy and can barely stand. Meanwhile, I’m almost in perfect health,” Kratch laughed as purple flames gathered in his hand. “But let’s test it!”
Kratch threw its hand forward, and a large ball of flame flew towards Austin. This time, the flame did not explode into multiple smaller flames, but it did race towards Austin at a faster speed than Kratch’s previous flame attack. In response to the flame attack, Austin sent additional Essence through his bracer, and lightning glowed so bright that it obscured his arm. He then threw his hand forward at the ball of flame, and a large blast of lightning shot forward.
The two attacks collided, and neither attack refused to back down. Flames and lightning sprayed out in all directions as the two attacks tried to break through each other. Powerful wind shot out from the collision in all directions. Then the attacks seemed to combine together and explode. As the explosion faded, a crater was left at the point of contact, and the wind immediately came to a complete halt.
