Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 76 - Fighting for Survival (part 2)

No matter how bloody and chaotic those first few minutes were, the bloodbath did not truly start until the majority of the orcs were in the city and fanning out in all directions. It was clear to the blade that no one had been expecting a breakthrough, let alone a breakthrough in a single evening. There wasn’t even an engagement on the walls; the orcs were simply skipping them, along with the majority of the defenses, and going straight for the soft, exposed underbelly of the city, which was the people running for their lives.

+336 Life Force.

+19 Human Souls.

The blade was not looking forward to that mindless slaughter, but it was too lost in the red haze of the Life Force humming through the air to be bothered too much by the number of people who were fighting and dying. It was pouring into it so fast that it was difficult for it to see sometimes.

Only a minority of the energy that was fueling it right now was coming from any killing that Var’gar was doing. It was almost superfluous. Instead, every person that was wounded dying, or dead within nearly fifty feet gave off just a hint of delicious energy, and all of it flowed to the blade like a glowing mist.

+284 Life Force.

+22 Human Souls.

It didn’t think that mist was visible to anyone else, but right now, it didn’t care. Instead of worrying about hiding or even fighting, it fought to maintain focus and used some of the vast power flowing into it to further tweak its abilities.

+303 Life Force.

+11 Human Souls.

This time, it spent 4,000 Life Force to reduce its Breadth to four people and its speed to twenty seconds, but it used both of those sacrifices to increase its range all the way to one hundred and one feet. That more than doubled its range and more than quadrupled the area affected.

Aura of Hunger:

Breadth - Affects up to four people.

Reach - Reach targets up to one hundred and one feet away.

Speed - Drain a target over twenty seconds.

Strength - Aura of Hunger’s Drain is 15% of your Siphon.

Those changes were enough to turn the haze into a full-blown flood. Though Var’gar was too far from the main gate for it to feast on those fighting near the walls, to the Ebon Blade, it felt like its reach was absolutely massive. As far as it was concerned, it was devouring every soul in the city, even if it knew that wasn’t the case.

+551 Life Force.

+37 Human Souls.

Still, it could see threads of red and black coming from most of the nearby buildings and the streets beyond them. Those slender currents of power were more numerous than the fires or trails of smoke that were only just starting to spread out from the violence.

“Where are the warriors!” he roared as he casually split an unarmed man in two, expressing a sentiment that the weapon agreed with wholeheartedly. “Where is someone I can fight!”

While Var’gar murdered anyone who crossed his path in search of a real fight, the Ebon Blade tried to understand why all of this felt so familiar. Kalraka, of course, the blade whispered to itself. It had thought that perhaps it was close to remembering some other moment from its earliest memories, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, all he could think about was how similar to his time with the goatmen this was.

+609 Life Force.

+44 Human Souls.

The difference, then, was that it had only gotten Life Energy from every man, woman, and child that Gar-lok had struck down. This time, almost none of the power that the blade was gathering was from that most direct of sources. That would depress it when all this was done, but for now, it swam amidst the gathering maelstrom of energy, devouring souls constantly as it finally spent 8,000 Life Force on Lesser Life Reserves 5.

The blade had not intended to purchase that ability for a long time. It had planned to address more tactical concerns, get a number of smaller abilities, and continue to explore them, but it didn’t have a choice. Now that it had increased the area of its Aura of Hunger, it was gaining too much energy, and it needed more storage.

No, the weapon chastised itself. There’s no such thing as too much energy. I will claim it all. I just need to spend it that much faster.

+516 Life Force.

+33 Human Souls.

The weapon might have been content to do just that and bask in the power it craved the rest of the evening if a mage hadn't appeared before Var’Gar and summoned a handful of gray-green wraiths to try to bring the orc down.

The Ebon Blade wasn’t so concerned about those, though, not after it saw they weren’t able to do more than leave jagged cuts on the green flesh of its wielder before they healed almost immediately. Instead, it focused on the way that the necromancer’s magic and the magic of his minions affected the red haze that filled the square.

-39 Life Force.

+551 Life Force.

+37 Human Souls.

It wasn’t absorbed or blocked by it. Instead, it spiraled around all four of them in spirals and vortices of power. It was hypnotic, and for the space of a dozen heartbeats, all the blade could do was watch and wonder at how exactly essence and Life Force interacted. As it watched, it also noticed that there was a faint ripple around the man, in complicated, concentric rings around him. It was almost like there was a magic spell there that it couldn’t quite see.

Stolen novel; please report.

The blade considered that for a moment, and then it acted. While it had been distracted, its wielder had foolishly attacked the specters to no permanent effect. Each blow from the blade would disrupt their pale, glowing shapes for a moment. Then, they would return and attack again. The blade knew that was useless, and it suspected that charging the necromancer was probably something the old man had prepared for, so it decided against it. It knew from hard experiences that mages had ugly tricks, and if these spirits were meant to be bait, then something terrible awaited it.

-27 Life Force.

+343 Life Force.

+18 Human Souls.

So, it didn’t do that at first. Instead, it waited for Var’gar’s next strike to connect, and then it used its Disrupt ability. The explanation said that it was supposed to work on items, but it saw no reason why it wouldn’t work on these foul creatures, but somehow, it did. As soon as it discharged the power, it saw the thing open its ragged mouth in a silent scratch of pain. Then it evaporated.

-50 Life Force.

You have activated Disrupt! The high specter has been nullified! It is dissipating!

More important than the fact that there were only two of the spirits remaining, or even that they seemed to be retreating, was the look of pain on the face of the necromancer. He’d looked old and fragile at the start of the fight, but now he looked positively pale.

The Ebon Blade had never bothered to get Bolt. It didn’t really like the idea of adding strange elemental attacks to its own and depriving it of both Life Force and the satisfaction of slacking through flesh and bone.

Unfortunately, that meant that the blade didn’t have any way of attacking from a distance. It would never allow its wielder to throw it, which left picking up someone nearby and throwing them at the mage. The blade tried that next, using Var’gar’s strong left arm to pick up a mortality wounded guardsman and throw him at the mage.

-22 Life Force.

+483 Life Force.

+32 Human Souls.

As expected, a dark monstrosity of shadows swam up from the ripples around the mage’s feet and devoured the man. Worse, the blade didn’t get a soul from him, which meant that wherever the oily, almost man-shaped abomination had taken his victim, it wasn’t within a hundred feet of wherever it was. That made the Ebon Blade more cautious. It wasn’t so much afraid of dying as it was of being trapped somewhere that it could not easily get back from.

Var’gar tried to charge the mage next, heedless of the danger, but the blade held him back. Its claws dug into the brute’s soul deeper than ever now, and there was no way it could resist its will in almost anything. Still, he wasn’t planning to hold off forever. It just wanted a better weapon to deal with him. This time, it was going to fight fire with fire, or in this case, lightning.

The Blade Purchased Bolt 1, followed immediately by Bolt 2 and Bolt 3. It stopped there, but only because it didn’t have another 7,500 Life Force and because it finally found what it was looking for: a way to strike troublesome enemies without getting close to them. It still didn’t have the ability that the elven prince had used to teleport around the battlefield with lighting, but it would get there.

Bolt 1: Infuse your attacks with electrical energy, adding 2-5 electrical damage to a strike for the cost of 3 Life Force. This attack cannot be combined with other strikes like Amplify Blade.

Bolt 2: Infuse your attacks with electrical energy, adding 5-8 electrical damage to a strike for the cost of 5 Life Force. This attack cannot be combined with other strikes like Amplify Blade.

Bolt 3: Infuse your attacks with electrical energy, adding 8-15 electrical damage to a strike for the cost of 8 Life Force, or strike at a distance with a range off up to half of your aura of hunger for 15 Life Force. This attack cannot be combined with other strikes like Amplify Blade.

Bolt 4 seemed to allow it to make the jumps that the elf had done, but for the cost it simply wasn’t worth it right now. That wasn’t what the blade needed. It just needed to strike the mage from here, and level 3 granted that power. So, even as its wielder struggled in its grip, the blade leveled its sword at it and unleashed a slender bolt of lightning. It passed through the spirits that had returned to the necromancer without affecting them, but the mage himself was another story.

-15 Life Force.

You have activated Bolt!

Pain warred with confusion on his face as his body stiffened and he staggered back. Then, he made the worst mistake of his long life and dropped whatever spell he’d had prepared around him then. He’d apparently prepared for an orc to try to fight him, not for one to use magic against him.

The blade chose that moment to release the leash on its wielder, and the orc charged forward then. The necromancer’s eyes widened in that moment, unable to keep up with the changing tactics, and the net of spectral bones he’d been weaving was only partially done with the orc smashed through it.

-50 Life Force.

You have activated Disrupt! The nether barrier has been partially disrupted!

The first blow made the thing all but crumble. The necromancer was chanting now, and just before Var’gar could land a second blow, The mage made the pieces that were left ripple out like spiritual shrapnel. They sliced through its wielder, sending sprays of green blood out the exit wounds that momentarily opened up on his back but that only staggered him. Neither that nor the specters that assaulted him were enough to stop him from bringing down the blade again.

-84 Life Force.

+563 Life Force.

+14 Human Souls.

The necromancer used that time to finish whatever spell he was casting, and three more ragged specters appeared before attacking Var’gfar in a swarm. The orc cried out in pain, but otherwise ignored them as he brought the weapon down again.

-66 Life Force.

This time, the necromancer fell, but the impact didn’t quite reach him. Instead, the blade was kept inches away from his withered old flesh by a thin membrane of screaming souls. The blade didn’t disrupt this spell. Instead, it drank them greedily. No, it was more than greedily.

+114 Damaged Souls.

The Ebon Blade was completely overloaded by the experience. The souls it was consuming were weak, and damaged. They were worth perhaps a tenth of what a fresh soul was, but as visions of their torments, combined with an extra surge of power made the already charged hellscape around the blade begin to glow. For the last twenty minutes it had been surrounded by flows of life and death, but now it was intoxicated by them.

+262 Damaged Souls.

“How!” the mage cried as his burier began to come undone, and the blade pressed ever closer to his vulnerable chest. “After two hundred years…and a-a thousand souls I fall to an orc? That’s not…”

+334 Damaged Souls.

The man ran out of strength as the last of his barrier was drained by the blade, and with him, the five remaining specters faded away, and they were drawn screaming into the Ebon Blade. This fight was done, but who knew what other dangers awaited them in this place. The battle was still raging on all sides of the Var’gar, and most of Stefan’s Ford wasn’t even on fire yet.