I summoned and hurled a Searing Sphere at the army. It streaked like a comet, slamming into the front ranks and erupting in a blossom of fire. The first line of the horde went up in flames, bodies thrashing as armor warped and flesh blackened. Yet no screams followed. No cries of agony. Just silence, unnatural, suffocating silence.

  Another sphere spun into existence at my side, orbiting me like a blazing sentinel, ready to swat down any arrow or spell Kelv, or his army might cast my way. I drove my legs forward, eating the distance between us, fifty yards from me to the fortress, the gap closing with every stride.

  The lanterns that Balt and the Duke held were both boon and bane. They shackled Kelv, denying him the power to rip through reality itself. But they shackled me as well, my Flash Step locked away, leaving me to face the horde with no movement ability.

  The stone bridge I was running toward looked like a nightmare. Kobolds in rusted, ill-fitting armor stumbled beside men in dented helms and cracked shields. Vacant eyes stared through me, their movements jerky, puppet-like. Flames from my sphere clung to them, devouring flesh and cloth, yet still they advanced, silent, relentless, wrong.

  And then I saw him. High above, Kelv stood on the ramparts, his dagger blazing so brightly it drenched the battlefield in crimson light, turning his dark armor the color of blood.

  “You cannot win, wanderer. You are but a footnote in what will be my glorious tale,” Kelv declared.

  “Oh man, not even a full chapter? How will I ever go on?” I shot back, dripping with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

  When he leveled the blade at me, the horde answered, surging forward with newfound fury.

  What had been a slow, shuffling advance erupted into a sudden, violent surge. The dead and the damned broke into a run, weapons rattling, feet hammering against the stone. The bridge trembled beneath the weight of their charge, and the silence that had unnerved me shattered into a single, unified roar.

  I didn’t flinch. Let them come. I was ready to send every last one of them on a one-way trip to hell. These weren’t men anymore, and I wasn’t about to waste pity on corpses wearing human skin.

  The souls of the soldiers and monsters were long gone. What rushed at me now was nothing but experience waiting to be claimed. Ember flared bright as I drew in my aura, the heat coiling around me, and with a single motion, I slashed.

  Ember’s power roared through me, a furnace in my veins. I met the charge head-on, blade flashing, every swing carving through flesh and steel alike. The first kobold lunged, I split him from collar to hip. A human husk followed, spear thrusting, and I twisted, my blade severing the shaft before my boot crushed his chest.

  They pressed in, a tide of bodies, silent but relentless. For everyone I cut down, three more clawed forward. My aura flared, and when their weight threatened to bury me or try to flank me, I unleashed Searing Sphere’s one after the other. They detonated amid the press of bodies, fire blooming outward, hurling burning corpses into the air and funneling the others in front of me.

  I was cutting them down like a farmer harvesting wheat when a System Message flared before my eyes, Level Up. Power surged through me, System Energy flooding my body. The horde didn’t let me breathe as two kobolds tried to stab me in my chest. I answered them with another Limit Slash, the arc of force ripping through the two kobolds and the horde behind them and driving them back. The bridge shuddered under the impact, and for a heartbeat, I could breathe. I had somehow made it to the front of the stone bridge.

  Then another message appeared. I tried to push it aside, but it wouldn’t fade. It pulsed in my vision, insistent, demanding. I knew the System well enough by now, that if it forced a message through the chaos of battle, it meant something critical.

  I shifted, ready to fall back a step and carve out space to check it. That’s when Kelv’s voice cut through the storm. “Kill him now, you witless, soulless dipshits! He’s one man!”

  I jumped back, looking up. He stood on the ramparts, dagger raised high. The crimson blade pulsed brighter, swelling with a sickly glow. Red mist coiled from the dead on the battlefield, streaming into the weapon, feeding it and Kelv.

  “Who the hell are you even talking to?” I shouted up to him. My blade flashed, taking the head off a kobold before I pressed on. “They’re dead, Kelv. Every last one of them. Or have you finally lost what little sense you had?”

  I carved another corpse aside, heat rising in my chest as I had been running Regalia all this time. “You slaughtered these people, twisted them into puppets, and now you blame them for following your orders? That’s not on them, that’s on you. If you want someone to blame, grab a mirror and point that dagger at yourself. You’re the weak one here, Kelv. You’re the idiot who couldn’t do it on his own.”

  The dagger flared so brightly that I couldn’t even see Kelv anymore, just a red light. The horde screamed, not with voices, but with motion. Their silence broke into a frenzy. Their charge was no longer coordinated in the least. The soldiers and monsters on the bridge went crazy trying to crawl over one another to get to me. Their eyes burned now with crimson light.

  They slammed into me again, their fury renewed. Shields, claws, rusted blades came at me. I staggered, teeth gritted, Ember blazing hotter, my armor empowering me. My blade swept wide—Limit Slash! The arc of power ripped through the front line, a shockwave blasting them back in a spray of shattered armor and broken bodies.

  Ember still blazed after my slash; my aura still surged through me. With my new mana generation and Resilience passive, I was holding, actually holding, this army back with just myself.

  For a heartbeat, I let myself believe it. The dead, the damned, the endless tide. I was stopping all of it. Then the next wave hit. The horde crashed against me with spear and sword, and I met them with sapphire fire and fury.

  This bridge would be their grave, not mine.

  I stood in the eye of the storm, chest heaving after several minutes of fighting, sweat and monster blood stinging my eyes. My aura still burned bright, but so did the dagger above. Kelv’s laughter carried on the wind, cruel and sharp. “So be it then, I’ll do it myself!”

  The dagger’s blinding light winked out, plunging the battlefield into sudden shadow as the sun was almost below the horizon. The horde in front of me was frozen, its advance stilled as if some unseen string had been cut.

  I looked up. Kelv, the portal mage, stood rigid on the ramparts—a dagger buried deep in his chest. He’d stabbed himself through the heart. Red mist, thicker and darker than anything I had ever seen, coiled around him in writhing tendrils. His mouth hung open, stretched in what should have been a scream, but no sound escaped. Only silence, heavy and absolute, as the mist consumed him.

  A voice rang out behind me. “Riven, duck!”

  I snapped out of the stupor. The sight of Kelv stabbing himself had left me in one and turned just as Captain Tale came sprinting toward me. Until now, he’d been guarding the Duke and Balt, ready in case Kelv sent his army to strike at the lanterns instead of me.

  He leapt high, twin swords flashing, and crashed down into the horde. The impact blasted the zombies back in a spray of limbs and steel. Landing beside me, chest heaving, he barked, “The Duke says fall back for now.”

  A red barrier flared into existence, and I drove Ember against it with all my strength. The blade struck hard, but the wall was solid as stone. Ember rebounded, sparks scattering uselessly across the air.

  Then the horror began.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The horde that had been pressing forward suddenly faltered, retreating in uneven steps. And before my eyes, some of them unraveled—bodies dissolving into coils of crimson mist that bled into the air, vanishing as if they had never existed at all.

  I glanced up. Kelv’s body was twisting, his limbs stretching unnaturally, bones snapping loud enough to carry across the bridge. A chill ran through me.

  I turned and ran with Tale, retreating before whatever Kelv was becoming could finish taking shape. As I ran, I glanced at the notification still pulsing at the edge of my vision.

  I smiled. Talk about an upgrade. That Talent had not moved despite my constant use since I was level 12 or 13. I had a feeling I’d need it soon. I threw my free Stat point into spirit, bringing it up to 42 and looked forward.

  In only a few heartbeats I was back where I’d left the Duke, but the scene had changed. His party had raised stone walls of their own, a makeshift fortress jutting from the ground. I slipped through the rough-hewn gate and caught sight of the Duke and Balt, both holding their lanterns high.

  Shattered mana potion bottles littered the ground, their glass glinting in the lantern light. A mage stood at the wall, hands pressed to the stone, reinforcing the walls with fresh layers of magic stone. I came to a sharp stop, taking it all in.

  I slowed inside the makeshift walls, letting Regalia fade as I looked upon Randall. The duke’s lantern burned steadily in his grip, its light casting long shadows across the stone fortifications his mage had raised.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, my voice rough, eyes flicking between the Duke and the chaos still raging beyond the walls.

  Before the Duke could answer, Balt stepped forward, his own lantern held high. His face was streaked with sweat and ash, but his grin was as steady as ever. “You alright, buddy?” he asked, his tone cutting through the tension like a lifeline.

  I smiled and bumped fists with him, and he returned it without hesitation. “Yeah,” I said, catching my breath, “things were going fine until that madman stabbed himself with that damned dagger. He’s absorbing his own army. I hit that barrier of his with Ember, and I can tell with one strike I won’t pierce that barrier. Whatever he’s doing…it’s beyond me.”

  Before anyone could answer, a sound split the night.

  An ungodly yell tore across the battlefield, half scream, half roar, so raw it rattled the stone beneath my boots. My stomach clenched. Whatever Kelv was becoming, it wasn’t human anymore.

  Balt cursed under his breath, then turned and shouted to the other mage. “Get over here!” He shoved a bundle of mana potions into the man’s hands, at least ten, glass clinking together as he handed over his lantern. Then Balt cracked his neck, lantern light glinting off his grin. “I’m not letting you face that thing without me.”

  Captain Tale stepped forward, blades already in his hands. “I’m with you too.”

  The Duke, silent until now, reached into his cloak. He drew out a plain-looking dagger, its hilt worn smooth with age. He held it out to me, his expression grim. “This is the reason I called you here. A one-time use relic. I had intended to wield it myself, but this battle is beyond me. This blade has been passed down through my house for generations.”

  I frowned, taking the weapon. “What’s it supposed to do?” “Read it for yourself,” the Duke said.

  A System Message flared before my eyes.

  I tightened my grip on the dagger, its weight deceptively ordinary in my palm. Balt and Tale flanked me, their aura burning bright. Together, we stepped outside the stone walls, into the crimson glow of the battlefield, toward the monstrosity Kelv was becoming.

  I froze as Kelv’s body finished twisting. His limbs had elongated grotesquely, arms dragging low like warped pillars of bone and sinew. He was massive now, easily three times the size he’d been, towering over the ramparts like some nightmare titan.

  My eyes locked on the dagger. It was no longer in his hand. Instead, it was embedded in his chest, encased in a cage of bone that had grown around it, only the hilt jutting out like the handle of a key driven into a lock.

  I forced myself to breathe and whispered, “Identify.”

  A System Message snapped into view:

  My stomach dropped. The red dagger had forcibly leveled him, feeding on the army to drag him into this abomination. I glanced at the bridge, less than half of the undead remained. The rest had been consumed to fuel this monstrosity.

  Kelv, or whatever he was now let out a guttural roar and leapt from the ramparts. The ground shook as he landed, stone cracking beneath his weight. He didn’t hesitate. He charged straight at us, a wall of rage and bone.

  I charged back. Ember blazed in my right hand, the Twilight Blade cold and plain in my left. With a thought, I re-summoned Regalia, armor snapping into place around me in a flare of light.

  Up close, I could see a thing. Kelv was gone. There was no mage left, no cunning, no malice. Just a brute of a monster, a creature of rage and instinct.

  I met him head-on, Ember carving arcs of fire against his limbs, sparks flying as steel clashed against bone. He swung with inhuman speed, each strike like a battering ram, and I barely kept pace, dodging, parrying, slashing.

  Then I saw my chance. One of Balt’s force bolts landed right in the creature’s huge right eye, staggering it momentarily.

  I drove the Twilight Blade forward. It connected almost instantly, sinking into his leg. The monster froze, body locking up. For a heartbeat, hope surged through me. Maybe… maybe for once it really was that easy. Like a game mechanic, use the relic the right way, and it’s an instant kill.

  But then, the thing looked down at me. Its lipless mouth curled back, and it let out a low, rumbling snort. The dagger dissolved into its body, vanishing as if it had never existed.

  I didn’t even see the fist coming. Impact. A humongous blow slammed into me, faster than my eyes could track. Balt’s barrier around me shattered like glass, fragments of light scattering into the air. The world spun as I was launched backward, smashing through the fortress walls the Duke’s mage had raised. Stone exploded around me, dust choking my lungs.

  I hit the ground hard, blood filling my mouth. I coughed, spat red, and forced my head up to glare at the Duke, who had made his way over and was attempting to help me up. “Your family heirloom …” I rasped, wiping blood from my lips, “… wasn’t worth a shit, apparently.”