Orphan [LitRPG Adventure] - Book One Complete!

Book Two - Chapter Twenty-Eight


"I have contact with the third," said Alarion, ignoring Higgins's jibe in favor of communicating the threat to his allies. "I need... agh!"

Your fault.

His words collapsed in a scream of agony as the voice of the boil returned louder than ever. It was everywhere inside him, filling his thoughts with rancid screams of the dead and the dying, that could only be interpreted as two simple words.

Your fault.

Alarion swept his mace through a reckless clearing blow, driving Higgins a step back but doing nothing to wipe the grin off the revenant's face. Echo clashed against the side of a falling axe, narrowly deflecting the attack from a man Alarion had never bothered to know. They were circling him, setting up for an attack that he could do nothing to prevent. Not when every ounce of his strength was spent gripping tight to his sanity.

Your fault!

His sister's voice was a cruel indictment. A demand for restitution that he could not pay. He wanted to die. He should have died. Aina would be alive. Sierra would be alive. So many would have lived if only-

Ahead of him, Velcor's portal snapped shut, and in an instant, the world came into focus. The voice was still there, murmuring its insidious truths, but they were faint by comparison. A manageable problem compared to the former allies swarming around him.

He'd known it was possible that he would face the remains of the third squad if he delved deep enough. They'd been killed by fiends, and any death that left their body mostly intact meant their reconstitution was almost assured. What hadn't been a certainty was the time frame. More powerful Awakened took longer to process than others, but a stronger boil could do so more quickly than a weaker one. That uncertainty, along with their absence in the initial skirmish, had given Alarion some measure of hope they they wouldn't have to fight the remains of their comrades.

Once again, his hope was met with nothing but disappointment.

Alarion squared his shoulders, pushing the echoes of guilt aside. The revenants paced around him like starving animals, but they didn't delay long. They couldn't. Not if they wanted him dead before the others arrived.

Higgins lunged first with super-human speed and outstretched fingers. If Alarion had never seen him fight, he was sure the fight would have ended then and there, for he had no way to react to the impossible burst of speed. But he didn't react. He anticipated.

Six yards. That was the distance for Higgins' skill. No more, no less. Alarion had recognized the flaw the first time he saw it in action, and he'd baited it now. He'd given Higgins the perfect distance, and when he took it, Alarion's fist was waiting for him. Something fractured in Higgins' jaw as Alarion's straight right was amplified a few times over by the speed of the impact, with Alarion's [Ring of the Durable Fist] saving his hand from a similar fate.

"Not smiling now," Alarion said as he thrust a rapidly growing Echo toward the downed man's chest.

Steel clashed against steel, then against flesh as one revenant parried Alarion's deathblow and another punished him for his greed. The tip of the fourth revenant's spear was sunk halfway into Alarion's thigh, but it didn't remain there as he flickered away and activated [Dimensional Evasion].

Crack!

The harsh report of gunfire in an enclosed space greeted Alarion as he reappeared only a scant few feet away. A bloom of pain followed it as his body recognized the new source of pain spreading through his abdomen, and his mind realized the error. They'd seen almost as many of his tricks as he'd seen of theirs.

"Solar Burst!" Alarion incanted, relying on the pain to drive away his nearby foes while the flash disrupted Velcor's next shot. The spell was costly, greedily drinking from his already depleting HP, but he couldn't afford to use his already paid for [Spell-Storing Dagger] in such close quarters. Alarion was immune to the nova spell when he was the source, but when the dagger was its origin, he was almost as vulnerable as they were.

Crack!

A shot rang through the air, missing his head by mere inches. He was not so lucky a moment later when the magical shockwave that followed the bullet struck him hard enough to knock him off his feet. The damage was minimal, but the loss to his position as the axe wielder came rushing toward him was not.

Alarion rolled desperately to the side, narrowly avoiding a descending axe that cut through solid stone like it was paper. It was some sort of durability penetration skill, judging by the way the axe became wedged in the ground as it ended, the momentary delay just enough for Alarion to finally activate [Ebb and Flow] and, perhaps against his better judgement, [Foresight].

A ghostly blue Velcor joined her authentic self, the two overlapped with eerie stillness as she stared down the barrel of her rifle. With the relatively short distance between them, the action seemed odd. He had minimal experience with rifles, but he'd seen talented riflemen who could fire off three times as many rounds in the same period. A skill, maybe? Something that improved her chance to hit or do damage the longer she aimed? It would make sense. Her second shot had involved some sort of concussive skill, but the first had been regular piercing damage. At rank II, a regular rifle shouldn't be doing the kind of damage hers had inflicted.

The ghost of Velcor bucked with recoil, and after half a heartbeat, Alarion tucked his feet beneath him and flickered, appearing in a crouch with his hand around Echo's hilt. The timing was still tricky, but the long interval between attacks made Velcor especially susceptible to Alarion's new skill.

Which left him with only three rank II revenants to contend with.

The sleeve of his uniform disintegrated as Higgins grazed it with his fingers. The man was swiping at him with wide, stretched fingers, like a child playing tag. It would have been a suicidal gambit, his wild attacks leaving nothing to defense, if not for the consistent pressure of his fellows. When Alarion tried to counter-attack, a spear thrust stayed his hand, or the snap of a rifle shot forced him to divert. It was maddening to have a path to victory stolen from him over and over, but it was not nearly as painful as when Higgins finally turned the tables.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

It was a minor slip-up, an overextension of the arm when parrying a spear thrust, but that was all it took. Higgins caught Alarion's arm and held it fast, decay leaking from his icy fingers into the flesh beneath. Tanned skin grew pale, then grey, as Alarion tried desperately to wrench his arm away. The pain was excruciating, the nerves still healthy and alive as the surrounding flesh died.

"Words like daggers, sharp and true, Strike the heart and cut right through. Tongue turned blade, let silence cease— Unleash the wrath, release no peace."

The words of the [Razor Poem] gnawed through Higgins' arm just below the elbow, leaving it clinging to Alarion's wrist for a few short seconds before he shook off the revenant's death grip. Letters of flowing black ink swirled around Alarion like a vicious school of piranhas, striking at anything that came too close and dissipating after they'd spent their payload of violence.

Kali came next, leaping onto one of his former subordinates like a man possessed. At such close range, and with a berserker atop him, the revenant's spear proved less than useless as the Sergeant leveraged its haft to help pin its owner to the ground as he worked to dismantle him.

"A-Are you alright?" Bergman asked, rushing to Alarion's aid.

"No," Alarion replied honestly. His HP was dangerously close to zero, and a condition notification blinked in the corner of his vision.

New Condition! Necrosis (Right Arm) – Major. [Survivor's Endurance] has taken effect. The secondary effect of [Survivor's Endurance] has taken effect. [Necrosis (Right Arm) – Major] has been resisted due to user's VIT score. Condition reduced to [Necrosis (Right Arm) – Moderate] [Necrosis (Right Arm) – Moderate] – 20% Malus to physical Attributes using the right arm. Limited mobility using the right arm. Lose 0.0125 HP per second.

"L-lets get you to s-safety and..." Bergman trailed off, his pupils dilating, his skin flushing a deep red as rage overcame him.

"Bergman?" Alarion asked. Then it hit him.

Your fault.

Dread and despair washed over him. All around him, his allies were struggling. Some were panicking, screaming, and swinging at nothing. Others were like Kali, suddenly emotionless and empty astride his foe, as though struck with a profound ennui.

Someone screamed, and as Alarion followed the sound, he was horrified to see Dimov in Higgins's grip. The fiend had his remaining hand clasped tight over the Vitrian's face, flooding it with decay. Struck by the same emptiness as Kali, the Vitrian could do nothing to defend himself.

But his body could.

Just as with their battle against the Bones of Ashad, Dimov was healing himself. Whether a skill or a spell, Alarion could not have guessed, but the ability persisted despite the mental attack. It flooded the affected area with new vitality, healing it almost as quickly as Higgins was inflicting damage, resulting in a gruesome tug-of-war between life and death. Flesh grew black and flaked away, revealing fresh pink skin that melted away in a cycle until one of them ran out of resources, or something changed.

"I'll kill you, you whore's son!" Bergman shouted as he jammed his knife over and over into Higgins' neck. "I'll kill all of you! I'll burn your warrens to ashes! I'll-"

Velcor's shot silenced Bergman's shout, but not in the way she'd perhaps intended. What should have been a clean headshot was deflected at the last moment by a whirl of ink conjured from nowhere. Like any sensible mage, Bergman had a contingency spell in place for the clever fiend or revenant who thought 'kill the fat mage' was an obvious tactic.

"You," Bergman growled as he ripped his knife out of Higgins' neck. Their former ally toppled to the ground in a heap, but Bergman didn't spare him so much as a glance as he advanced on Velcor and the portal behind her.

The portal.

Clarity and revelation washed over Alarion as he saw the portal and the dank chamber that lay beyond it. That was the heart of the boil, its inner sanctum. She was projecting it onto them, using it as a weapon. They'd ambushed him in hopes of stymying their ability to find it, but when that gamble failed, they played a riskier one.

Another bullet ricocheted off Bergman's defenses as he closed on Velcor, bloody knife in hand. She'd land a successful shot before he reached her. Even if he did, he was driven by rage, not talent, eschewing all of the things that made him a powerful Awakened in favor of raw brutality. He'd lose. He'd die. They'd all die. And it would be...

Your fault.

"I know," Alarion whispered. "I know."

Your fault.

"I know."

Your fault!

"I know!" he shouted, throwing his [Spell-Storing Dagger] with everything he had.

It was a clumsy throw. He didn't remember drawing the weapon, nor passing it to his unpracticed left hand. It flew end over end through the portal behind Velcor, the revenant wide-eyed and terrified as she turned to follow it. The weapon struck the floor on its side, skidding along the floor until its tip grazed a distant wall.

And detonated.

The psychic scream of the wounded boil rippled through the entire nest, perhaps even the surrounding countryside. The revenants wailed, and the weaker Awakened purged themselves from sudden nausea as they regained their sense of self. Alarion was not one of the latter; he was up and running, sprinting toward Velcor.

He'd only wounded the thing; he hadn't killed it. Already, he could feel the tendrils of guilt creeping back into his mind. They needed to kill it or kill her,

Alarion raced toward Velcor, his vision narrowed to a pinpoint focus. He wasn't the only one with that idea. Bergman charged from the opposite direction, his boot lashing out at the woman's rifle just as she fired a shot.

The rifle cracked, and fire erupted in his shoulder. The impact spun him halfway around, but he kept his feet. There was blood in his eyes, and he blinked it away, ignoring the damage notification that flashed urgently for his attention. No time.

Your fault.

Velcor worked the bolt on her rifle with inhuman speed, ejecting the spent casing. Then Bergman was on her. He chanted a spell as he wrestled for her weapon, but the stuttered, heaving incantation resulted in a tepid spell that bit into the revenant's face and arms but did nothing to diminish her effectiveness.

The second shot caught Bergman in the thigh. His leg buckled beneath him, sending him crashing forward atop her. Velcor staggered under his weight but managed to cycle the weapon as Alarion reached them. Unable to swing his mace without risking Bergman, he fell into the pile, driving Echo deep into the dead flesh of her shoulder. They couldn't feel pain or bleed out, but a revenant was still reliant on physical mechanisms. Their tendons and muscles could be slashed, their joints broken.

They rolled and fought, stabbing and struggling. Her rifle issued one final report into the air, mere inches from Alarion's ear as they battled. Then he finally pinned the weapon to the ground, twisting it until her wrist finally fractured under the pressure. Only then, when her hand was no longer capable of closing, did she release the weapon.

"We'll kill you all," she snarled up at them, deeming her words to be her last remaining weapon. "This country. This world! All of it. All of you. Be of me! Be of me!"

The first of Bergman's hammer blows crushed her throat. His next two finally broke her neck and ended her life. That was their weakness. The head, the spine, or the heart. Those were the only things a revenant truly needed in order to function.

Your fault.

Alarion blinked repeatedly, trying to force out the invasive thought as he peeled himself away from Velcor's bleeding corpse. At first, it made no sense; her portal should have closed with her death, severing the link to the boil's chamber. Then, with a jolt of horror, he understood.

The others were gone, left on the other side of the portal they'd stumbled through during their chaotic bout.

They were in the heart of the boil.

And they couldn't go back.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.


Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter