[LD-1] 46. Lightning Rod (Patreon)

XLVI

Lightning Rod

Aila lazily watched on as the bolt smashed into the low level combatant and overcooked their skull.

She blinked. ‘Lose? To this?’

To the right of the being she’d killed, the reaper girl whirled around with a flabbergasted look on her face.

Aila shook the ogre’s single head. ‘They’re literally children.’

She wasn’t aware of how the humans had chosen the participants for this dungeon. But if this was the best they could offer—

Off to the side, a fast-moving blur ducked from underneath a bone shield and entered her field of view.

‘Ah, there is that one.’

The white fang was the highest level of the bunch—not that it meant much. What made Aila more wary was the fact that he was a shapeshifter. They inherited most of the stats of their patrons, so they shouldn’t be regarded as mere humans. It was also most annoying that their kind usually had a ‘rage’ mode. A transformation that occurred whenever they took too much damage.

Depending on the contract between him and the patron, there was even a chance he could achieve a full transformation for a limited amount of time.

Though it’d cost him his life.

‘He’s a wolf of some kind…’ Aila thought. Her clan wasn’t on good terms with the Beast clans, so she had no guess who the patron could be.

Aila guided the clumsy body of the ogre into the swerve, and the shapeshifter barely missed her. The blowback of the strike whipped and cooled her face.

She hummed. ‘That carried quite some force.’

Getting hit by a few of those wouldn’t pose well for this decaying body. Taking care of him was of the utmost importance. However, blasting him with half-assed or random spells would risk triggering his rage mode, so she needed to be strategic about this.

What skill could she use?

The thought went to the back of her mind as she considered her options.

She whirled around to face the primary force of the group. The lightning strike she’d been conjuring was still curling around her staff. A quick release had the bolt exit in another explosion of sound.

Shia’s first strike had decimated his target. This second one smashed through an earthen barrier and exposed the mongrels hiding behind it like worms in the dirt. One of them was powering a set of three small aircrafts.

Mana converged into a third bolt—

A quick flick warped the flow of energy around. Lightning burst to life in a cone around her and intercepted two sharp waves of swordlight.

“Hoh,” Aila hummed, watching the attack cut into her barrier. “Not bad.”

A lot of practice had gone into those moves, she could tell. Unfortunately for the razors, skill could not always overcome raw power.

The attacks shattered before cutting more than surface-level deep. That didn’t stop the humans, sisters by the looks of it, from continuing their assault. They shifted, and each created two mirror images.

A shift in the corner of her view made Aila turn. A near-transparent silhouette shot past onto the staircase.

‘Rogue.’

One with the lowest level stealth skill she’d ever seen. They may as well not use it at all.

‘So that’s their plan.’

Keep her busy until the runner reached the safe zone. A smart move. The best they could’ve decided on.

She considered blasting the rogue to pieces merely to spite the humans. Doing so would mean she had to abandon her attacks on the others and expose herself, though, so she decided against it. Rogues were quicker than most other classes. But reaching the zone would still take them a few minutes at the very least.

By then, the fight would be over.

Her gaze turned back to the razors. Taking care of six enemies at once would be troublesome…and they weren’t the only ones charging. Two warriors poured mana into their blades. Right on their heels, a ghoul slammed its brittle bones into the earth and barrelled forth on all fours.

The reaper had finally shaken herself from her stupor, but the girl had chosen not to enter the fight immediately and study the lay of the battle.

‘Probably trying to figure out what skills I have.’

Another smart decision. One that worked in Aila’s favour, given that she had enough to worry about.

Compact beams of energy launched from the aircrafts. A fireball hurled over the mirages’s heads as if they were all racing to reach her. Arrows showered her position. And in the very back, a mage prepared to sling lightning, no matter how bad the elemental matchup might be.

The ogre’s brows touched. Though she was a lot stronger individually, blocking this many spells and taking care of the mirages was quite the ask of the half-dead ogre. Behind her, the wolf-man was also preparing to jump again.

He hadn’t left her thoughts for a moment. And as she wondered what to do, her subconscious came up with an answer.

A smile pulled onto her lips.

That would work.

The smell of charred and burnt flesh dug into my nostrils. It threw me off, but I did not get the urge to gag. After the greeting the orcs had left us on the third floor, no smell ever would again.

But a different kind of revolt had wormed its way into my body.

‘This is a Monster?’

No, that wasn’t true. This was just some random guardian. The actual Monster wasn’t even on this floor.

Yet we’d already lost members.

My ghoul barrelled across the field, oblivious to all the emotions warring within my head. I wished I shared in but a shred of its steadfastness.

Nails had pounded themselves into my feet, and pain shot up my legs every time my thighs spasmed for me to move. But I couldn’t freeze. Not when everyone was rushing into the fray and risking their lives.

Multiple Alexas and Lillies slung slices of light at the ogre. Kiba spun after he landed and lunged again. This time, instead of going high for the head, he went low and aimed for the gut.

The ogre could dodge, but it was clumsy.

His claws ripped open a massive tear in its stomach just before it could cast another barrier.

Arrows clattered and bounced off the shield. Lightning coming from within our ranks split in half and fizzled harmlessly. Of the six attacks the sisters fired, only two did not fizzle out. The last two cracked like eggs.

Not a single attack had made it through the shield. But our warriors had closed the distance now.

On cue, a fireball slammed into the shield. It spent the remaining energy of the shield and exposed the ogre.

My ghoul and Shota didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. His technos sheared off chunks of flesh while my summon ducked underneath a swipe of the ogre’s staff and rammed into its foot, then sunk its decrepit fangs and teeth into its flesh. Through the ghoul’s sensations, I felt the decay and death climb up the veins of the ogre into the rest of its body.

The ogre did not cry out or even wink at the damage being done. Did it feel nothing, or did it not care?

A part of me told me it was the latter.

‘Something’s off. This feels…too easy—’

“Joy!” Riri’s yell interrupted my thoughts. Her vines burrowed through the ground. “We’ll restrain him together!”

I whirled back. ‘It’ll work,’ I thought instantly. Riri’s vines were strong, stronger perhaps than my tentacles.

Cull dematerialised, and I linked my hands. Riri’s vines burst from the ground and entangled the beast like a bunch of snakes. The arm of Quranq ripped out the gate and wrapped around the monster’s middle.

“Good work!” Alexa yelled. “Kiba!”

The white fang was ahead of her. He took a deep breath, which ballooned his chest. Shouts, the humming of mana, all of it ceased to exist in the wake of the attack rippling from his mouth like a freight train.

Eyes widening, the ogre tried to cast, but it was too late. Kiba buried the beast in a tunnel of deafening proportions.

Finally, the beast showed something and cried out.

‘Incredible.’

To think Kiba was this strong…

Though the attack didn’t appear to be doing any direct damage, the ogre’s insides must be getting wrecked. Could it even fight after this?

My sight when to its staff. Despite the beast’s cries, the gem was still glowing.

‘That’s not the mana signature for a barrier.’

What was it doing? Some sort of inner defence spell? It wasn’t cycling any mana through itself, though. My ghoul told me that much.

But then what—

Master, above us!

Kil guided my gaze. High up, so high that it looked like it was part of the iconography, a bundle of clouds covered the stained-glass display.

Thunder crawled along the surface.

“Now’s our chance!” the three versions of Alexa yelled.

Lily and the other students released a battle cry. Kiba pounced into the fray, and then the entire group was jumping at the ogre from all sides.

I saw it all happen in slow motion.

My eyes flicked towards that of the beat as I inhaled to scream. There was nothing there. No hatred. No pride. Not even a want to get this over with.

”Thundersong,” the imperator said.

And though the beast had said but one word, the sound of it drowned out my voice.

Kil had the presence of mind to order Char, and the crystalis raised its hand. The ogre’s head snapped his way. But his taunt didn’t stop the attack.

The sky flashed. Before I could blink, a column of light struck the earth like a spear. Nature’s wrath broke into veins of crackling energy that walked the ground like a parade of a thousand demons.

Alexa and Lily’s mirror images combusted. The originals remained, their entire silhouettes shadowed in a blanket of thunder.

I forgot to breathe.

Until the lightning stopped.

Six figures stood around the ogre like statues—as if reality had to catch up with what’d happened. Five of them collapsed. Their faces were black. Their hair scorched, so I couldn’t tell who was who.

Kiba…stood. His head was aimed at the sky. He stumbled like a drunkard and backpedalled. Somehow, he regained his balance in the middle of his faltering. But he otherwise did not move.

The roots keeping the ogre in place had disintegrated. My tentacle had retreated whence it came, so the beast was free to move.

It pushed Kiba over with its staff, placed a foot on his chest, and unleashed a strike of lightning that lasted a whole three seconds, wherein Kiba’s form was swallowed so completely that not a part of him remained visible.

None of us uttered a word while it happened.

After the flashes died, the ogre looked back, rubbed two thick fingers into their neck, and cracked a muscle.

Then it turned towards us.