Chapter 172 - Sacrifice and Development

Tucker watched as Talia blurred toward the giant demon. Even as she darted forward, Abby loosed an arrow which blazed a silvery path through the air, striking the gigantic creature in the eye. It roared in outrage, hefting its axe for a huge, overhand strike. The weapon whistled through the air, and Tucker felt its pressure bearing down on him. He dove to the side just in time to avoid the blow, but the power of it shattered the surface of the shadowy pyramid. Black bricks sailed into the air, and the surface buckled and rolled, further throwing Tucker to the side. He barely managed to stop himself before he skidded off the edge.

Looking up, he was relieved to see that the rest of the party was unhurt. Like Tucker, Abby had leapt to the side, though with her high agility, she’d managed to avoid the worst of the aftermath. Tucker caught a glimpse of Carlos on the other side of the platform; the young man was nestled in shadows, presumably hiding while he wove his skills. Pudge had recovered from the giant demon’s kick, and he was rushing back into battle. And Talia had already leapt onto the demon’s back, where she was using her claws as climbing gear. For his part, the demon was spinning around, trying his best to dislodge the stubborn revenant.

After a few seconds, Tucker found Zeke. The warrior looked slightly better than before he’d used his skill, but he was barely moving. Instead, the force of the falling axe had sent him rolling down the steps, where he’d stayed, lying face down and only twitching a little. He was alive, but even Tucker could tell that he was only barely hanging on. So, instead of immediately contributing to the fight, he ran along the edge of the platform and climbed down to Zeke’s side. As he rolled the man over, Zeke groaned.

“That really hurt,” he muttered, his eyes still closed. Tucker examined him, noting that the cracks in his skin had closed a little more. However, every few seconds, Zeke would twitch or shudder, almost as if he was in the middle of a seizure.  When he did, motes of light would drift up from the fissures in his skin.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “I have more potions.”

“Don’t think that’s going to help,” Zeke said, opening his eyes. “My body…it’s…I don’t. It’s not fine, but it’s really not that bad. But…it feels like my mana channels are all twisted. And using that skill only made it worse. It was like someone wringing out a wet towel. Only everything’s still kinked, and nothing’s flowing the way it should.”

“I don’t think I have a potion for that,” Tucker said.

Zeke let out a slight chuckle, which turned into a cough. “Yeah, I kind of expected that,” he said. “Help me up.”

He reached out, and Tucker gripped his hand, pulling him to his feet. Once he was standing, Tucker was relieved to see that Zeke was a little steadier than he had expected. Not in fighting shape, but at least ambulatory – which was actually something of an improvement. Zeke noticed his raised eyebrows and said, “Body is working a little better. I stole a lot of vitality with that one [Life Scythe], but mana seems to be a bit of an issue right now. Not that we have time to worry about that.”

As if to punctuate the statement, the demon’s giant axe blade fell again, cleaving through the shadowy reflection of the pyramid. A bestial roar followed, announcing that Pudge had fully rejoined the battle. Lightning struck, and thunder rolled.

“We need to get things set up to destroy the portal,” Zeke added, ducking as more black bricks sailed past him. “I think it’s too much to ask that the demon will do the job for us.”

“I don’t know if he even could, honestly,” Tucker said. “There are four statues that need to be destroyed, just like in the cavern. I’m pretty sure that the portal won’t collapse until the last one goes down.”

Indeed, he’d only had time for a quick inspection, but among the various statues ringing the top of the pyramid, each one depicting angelic beings with their arms stretched to the sky, there were four statues that stood out. They were taller, broader, and, unless Tucker missed his guess, positioned at each of the cardinal directions. In addition, they were far more solid than the other statue, which were made of the same shadowy stuff that comprised the rest of the city. Finally, the solid statues were clearly demonic in nature, with each of the subjects sprouting sweeping horns, wings, and bestial claws. In their clawed hands were huge basins, and Tucker didn’t need to look to know that each one held the gathered blood of hundreds of demons. Likely, the ritual on the other side used human blood.

“I can do this, Tucker,” Zeke said. “I want to. I can survive here, and you can’t. It makes sense for me to –”

“Without you, the whole group falls apart,” Tucker stated, shaking his head. “Or do you think Abby would forgive me for letting you take my place? What about Talia? Pudge? No – I said I’d do it, and I will.”

“Why?”

Tucker pushed back his errant braids with a sigh. “Because it’s been a long time since anyone just accepted me,” he explained. “Maybe not since I was reborn. You have no idea how rare it is. Most people would’ve just killed me in that tower. Or moved on after the giants took me. But you didn’t. You all came after me – even Abby, who clearly didn’t want to – and to me, that means something. I want to repay the favor.”

Zeke didn’t respond for a long moment. Instead, he just stared into Tucker’s eyes, almost as if he could see something no one else could. As he did so, Tucker noticed a few golden specks dart across his green irises – almost like miniature shooting stars – but then, when he tried to focus on them, they were gone.

Finally, Zeke put his hand on Tucker’s shoulder and said, “I understand.”

When he released Tucker’s shoulder, Zeke looked back the way they’d entered the shadowy reflection of Jariq. He squinted, then said, “You feel that fluctuation?”

Tucker followed Zeke’s gaze. To him, the buildings looked the same as ever, but even from a distance, he felt them trembling. “It’s about to disperse,” he said. “We don’t have much more time.”

“Yeah,” Zeke agreed. “What do we need to do?”

“You’re not going to throw yourself into the battle with the demon?” Tucker asked.

Zeke shook his head. “No,” was his response. “I’ve been listening in on Pudge, and I think they’ve got this. Besides, with the way I am right now, I think I’d just be a liability.”

Tucker gave a slight chuckle. “Very mature of you,” he said. “Alright – I’m going to destroy three of the statues. That should put the ritual on the verge of collapse. Once the demon’s down, everyone jumps through, and then I take down the last one.”

“After that?” asked Zeke.

“Y’all live happily ever after, I presume,” Tucker said.

“Not really what I was asking,” Zeke stated.

“I’m aware. Once you’re all safe on the other side, that’s when I’m going to let loose,” he said. “You’ve never seen me go all out because I was afraid that some of my…ah…more toxic grenades would hurt you. Now, without y’all holding me back, I’ll be able to use everything at my disposal.”

Zeke narrowed his eyes at Tucker, leaving no questions about what he thought of that claim. Tucker understood it, but he wasn’t really lying when he’d said that he’d been holding back. Exaggerating, maybe, but many of his potions and grenades had widespread effects that he couldn’t properly mitigate. Using them in the middle of his allies would’ve resulted in large-scale friendly fire. But the moment his comrades made their way through the portal, he wouldn’t have to maintain the self-imposed restrictions. After all, he was all but immune to his own concoctions, due to the combination of [Blood of the Basilisk] and [Alchemist’s Constitution].

“If you say so,” Zeke said. “In the meantime, though? Where do you need me?”

Tucker looked Zeke up and down, trying to get a handle on the man’s injuries. By all rights, given how his body had been ripped apart and put back together by whatever force he’d summoned outside the gates, he shouldn’t have been able to stand, much less fight. But if he had to guess, Zeke could still display somewhere around half of his strength. Hopefully, that would be enough.

“The gates are probably going to fall soon,” Tucker said. “When they do, we’re going to have company. Keep them off my back.”

“I’ll try,” Zeke said, his primal-looking mace appearing. He gripped it with two hands and planted himself at the head of the stairs. “Go do your thing. I got this.”

Tucker nodded, then raced up the last few steps. What greeted him was a full-fledged battle. However, after noticing the relatively small and freestanding doorway in the center of the space, he only had eyes for the statues that were his targets. So, steeling his heart, he ran forward, ignoring the four-on-one fight raging across the top of the pyramid.

***

Pudge crashed into the back of the demon’s leg, raking his mighty claws across the rotting flesh, taking pounds of muscle with them. Wreathed in red-and-black flames, he displayed more power than ever before, especially when he opened his mouth and breathed fire into the wounds. Kalazar, the Wretched screamed in pain, but by the time his axe descended once again, the infernal bear was gone.

With the demon distracted by Pudge’s attack, Talia, still clinging to his muscular back, erupted into a cloud of black death. The rot and decay bit Kalazar’s flesh, softening it up for her claws. Without hesitation, she dove in, her talons glistening with green poison and wreathed in the white light of her frost skill, as she dug for something vital.

Meanwhile, great spears of condensed shadow bit into his calves, piercing through with relative ease. Then, an instant later, those same spears began to grow, causing gaping wounds before they exploded into blades of shadow that further eviscerated the creature’s vulnerable flesh.

Finally, Abby fired arrow after arrow. For some, she used [Thunder Strike],but she had to parse out her mana. However, she liberally used the first skill she’d ever learned, [Gust of Wind], to both lend her shots power and imbue them with accuracy. Each conjured arrow struck something that should have been vulnerable, but few did more than annoy the giant demon.

She needed more.

She just didn’t know how to get it.

Ever since she’d met Zeke, Abby had pushed herself harder than she ever thought possible. And she had been rewarded in kind, both in levels, skills, and equipment. However, despite all of her gains, she was still too weak to affect a fight. Her lightning skill was strong – ridiculously so, sometimes – but her opponents had only grown more powerful. The demons resisted inspection, but she gauged Kalazar’s power at something between a Boss- and Monarch-Tier monster. And against that kind of foe, her meager skills were like throwing a bucket of water on a raging wildfire.

So, as she fired her arrows into the demon – and it predictably ignored her as little more than an annoyance – she considered her skills. Sinking into a trance, she examined the feel of her martial path. It had been a long time since she’d advanced it, but then again, that was probably because she hadn’t really tried all that hard. To her, it had never seemed to help that much. Sure, it pushed her further down the path of mastery, giving her hints about how to increase her accuracy. But she almost always hit what she wanted to hit, so that was rarely a problem. Even if she thought it could help, she needed to completely change the way she trained before she would even begin to approach some significant gains.

So, Abby moved on to her skills. She had always considered [Gust of Wind]to be the weakest skill in her repertoire. When she had taken it, she’d imagined herself eventually summoning great hurricanes of force. The reality was that it could barely even influence her arrows. And though she’d learned to eke out the most of its potential, she had a feeling that she wouldn’t stand to gain much more from the skill.

The next two on her list were [Makeshift Camp]and [Cure Disease] – both useful, but not really important for the fight. In fact, she’d all but abandoned [Makeshift Camp] when she’d learned about the power of Zeke’s tower’s aura. Certainly, she’d had a couple of reminders that it could still serve a purpose – the relatively recent fight against the raptors and the more distant battle against the assassination squad sent by the Crystal Spiders – she’d still let the skill fall by the wayside. But even if she could make a fire and use the skill, its effects would be borderline useless against a powerful foe such as the giant demon.

[Conjured Arrow] was the meat and potatoes of her fighting style. Without it, she would be forced to carry around endless quivers full of arrows. Certainly, some of those arrows could be more useful than the simple magical constructs she almost exclusively used – the silencing arrow she’d used against Callum Einar came to mind – but it would be ridiculously expensive. Given how often she shot, it just wouldn’t be feasible. But what if she could increase the power of her arrows?

As she continued to shoot, Abby examined the skill. She tried to push more mana into it, to force it into the construct. However, it felt as if she was hitting a wall. The skill just wasn’t meant for that, she felt sure. Perhaps if she could alter runes likes Zeke, she could figure out how to make it work, but even that would take time. When Zeke altered skills, he did so after weeks of constant study – and even then, it was dangerous. One wrong move, and the skills would be rendered useless.

That wasn’t her path.

So, she moved on to [Earthen Bonds]. For weeks, she’d been focused on improving her control of the grasping, earthen hands. And she’d gotten better at it, too. Not only could she now turn the ground into a quagmire of quicksand, but she’d also made strides into strengthening the individual bonds by forcing the energy into fewer constructs. However, there was just one major flaw – it needed an earthen connection to display any sort of power at all. So, atop a pyramid of condensed shadow, it was useless.

Finally, she focused on [Thunder Strike]. The skill was powerful, and she was grateful to have obtained it – especially because she’d gotten it off schedule. Everyone got skills every five levels, but there were wild skills that could be obtained in other ways. [Thunder Strike] was one of them. However, as powerful as it was, she couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed. It was an F-Grade skill, but it lagged behind even some G-Grade skills, in terms of raw power.

And it shouldn’t have been like that. She had seen the power of the thunderbirds. She’d felt their might. And given that the skill was supposed to be a reflection of their strength, it was woefully underwhelming. Even Carlos, the dollar-store Batman, had stronger skills. It was galling, considering what she’d had to go through to get [Thunder Strike].

Even as she continued to shoot, each arrow coming faster than the last, Abby’s annoyance and anger grew. She deserved more. She’d killed an entire village of semi-sapient monsters; didn’t that warrant a powerful skill? Hadn’t she earned it? One arrow after another hit the demon, each one finding almost exactly the same spot. She was aiming for its eye, but with how much he was moving, her arrows were usually a couple of inches off. It was galling. Even her accuracy wasn’t enough.

As she peppered the demon with arrows, she started activating [Thunder Strike] with every shot. She didn’t try to preserve mana. She just wanted it to hurt. Over and over, bolts of blue lightning descended, burning into the demon’s black flesh. Smoke rose from its face, and it roared in annoyance. Abby didn’t care. Strafing to the side to avoid a hasty slash of its gargantuan axe, she continued to fire. As she did so, the others refused to let up. Its back was a mass of ragged and rotting strips of muscle. Its legs hadn’t fared any better during the battle, even if they’d traded the rot of Talia’s skills for the melting fire of Pudge’s. With every passing second, an umbral spear shot up from the shadowy black pyramid to impale the demon.

But as damaged as it was, it hadn’t slowed down. It hadn’t let up. They were hurting it, but at the rate they were going, it would take years to put the demon down. And given that she’d seen Tucker destroy two statues already, they didn’t have that long. They needed to end it, and soon.

Usually, that would be when Zeke pulled some new skill or enhanced ability out of nowhere, but he was still on the steps. And even if he’d joined the battle, he was in no shape to make much difference. No – if they were going to win, someone else would have to step up.

And Abby desperately wanted to be that person.

Abby lost track of time, focusing in on her skills. Her mana dipped to unprecedented lows, but she didn’t care. If she was going to go down, then she was going to do so having spent every last ounce of energy she could muster. However, because she was shooting so quickly, and each arrow was imbued with her skill, [Thunder Strike], it almost felt as if they were blending together. She latched onto that feeling, trying to control it, to harness it. And then, finally, after what felt like her hundredth arrow since descending into her trance-like state, something clicked.

Suddenly, it seemed so simple. How she hadn’t seen it before, she had no idea. But the time for examination and introspection would come later. For now, she needed to use her newfound control to help win the battle against the still-powerful demon.

So, bending every last ounce of her concentration to the task, Abby activated [Thunder Strike], then fired the arrow. However, when it hit, she willed the resulting energy into the next arrow, which was already on its way. A second wave energy, dragged out of the sky by her skill, joined the first, but she didn’t allow it to conjure a lightning strike. Instead, she sent another arrow on its way. Then another. And another after that. With each shot, she was forced to wrestle with the resultant energy, keeping it from doing what it wanted to do. Instead, she pushed it into the gathered mass of potential, holding it in place until the next shot could send even more energy its way. In that respect, it wasn’t so different from controlling her other skill, [Earthen Bonds]. She’d spent quite some time learning to wrangle that skill’s energy, forcing it into doing what she wanted it to do. And that practice paid off, albeit not in the way she’d expected.

At five shots, she felt like it was going to overwhelm her willpower. She pushed on. At ten, it felt as if her mind was going to crack under the strain. Still, she thrust herself forward, shooting yet another arrow. At twelve, she let out a growl of mingled pain, struggle, and stubborn refusal to give in. But at thirteen, she felt the energy escaping her grip.

She couldn’t handle anymore. So, with a monstrous effort of will, Abby shoved the gathered potential into the skill. The sky cracked, and a dense bolt of lightning descended. The demon raised his axe in defiance, meeting the bolt with an uppercut swing.

It didn’t matter.

In an instant, the axe was reduced to so much ash.

Even as that cloud of ash floated in the air, the bolt of lightning continued on, hitting the demon’s left eye with a crack of insistent thunder. Its head exploded in a conflagration of electricity, burned flesh, and a swiftly ended wail of pain.

The enormous body collapsed, shaking the pyramid. Even as it did, the shadowy structure writhed and bucked as if it was under the influence of an earthquake.

Talia, who’d been on the creature’s back, landed with a roll, surprised at the battle’s sudden end. For a few more seconds, Pudge baked the corpse with his flames. And Carlos stepped out of the shadows beside her, confused about what had just happened.

At first, Abby was as well. Even if she added all of those strikes together, they shouldn’t have resulted in such a huge bolt of lightning. The only thing she could think was that it had been more than the sum of its parts. Perhaps the energy had built upon itself, powering the skill well past its previous limits. She didn’t know. But going forward, she was eager to find out.

Of course, they needed to escape the demon realm, first.

“Well, that was pretty impressive,” came Tucker’s voice. Abby turned to see that he was only a few feet away; behind him, one of the statues had begun to crumble. That meant that there was only one more to go. “A bit flashy for my taste, and definitely not enough explosion to it, but I approve. Now, you need to gather Zeke and get out of here. This place ain’t holdin’ together much longer.”