PW Chapter 284: Bloody Battles (Patreon)

Sorry to have kept you waiting. I ended up being wayyyy busier than I anticipated. Tomorrow should have AR and WW chapters up, then I'll be on regular schedule at least until Thanksgiving. SHOULD. Life keeps having a way of getting in my way, and it genuinely frustrates me to no end.

Thank you for your patience, all. It really means a lot.

Somehow, whatever the Duchess did threw off the control from the higher-tier Marchioness. It didn’t make any sense, but it wasn’t like there was any opportunity for Astrid to ask how it was possible. Instead of distracting herself with asking questions, Astrid used Meteoric Descent to rise up and fall towards the small group of enemy Assassins.

She knew it was a useless attempt and crashed against the ground. A shockwave spread out from where she landed, knocking people and dust away. Not a second later, two knives punched into the smallest openings in her armor, seeking out her blood in whichever place they could reach. Astrid grunted in pain, the strikes unusually agonizing. Apparently, each of the weapons carried poison. She wasn’t fast enough to make any attack in return before they jumped out of her reach.

Muti appeared, snarling as she chopped one of the Assassins’ arms off. The man screamed in pain, but that brief opening was enough. With a quick swing of her hammer, Astrid finished him off. Her hammer crunched through bone, and a corpse fell to the ground.

Devoted Assassin slain. 75,200 experience gained, split among party.

“So he’s actually a peak Mithril tier,” Astrid grunted as two more Assassins appeared and sliced through the tendons on the back of her knees. Her Fortitude and armor together were enough not to lose a limb, but still fell down as her muscles stopped listening to her. The fifty level gulf separating her from these Assassins combined with their Skills let them carve through her defenses. 

With her third charge of Regeneration, Astrid selected Muti and a nearby friendly Commander as the others to benefit. The Commander, Astrid learned, was exhausted. How she continued to stand was a mystery, as an untold number of wounds suddenly sprouted all over Astrid as she fought against the head-spinning sensation of mana and exhaustion.

Then, as she recovered, Astrid could feel a nefarious presence smash into her. Her adrenaline drained away, and in it surged a hopelessness and lethargy. Her hammer grew heavy in her hand, and her eyes were heavy. For a split second, she thought she would fall asleep standing up before she sent another pulse of Self-Mastery-aligned mana through her body. That gave her the presence of mind to smash her shield’s edge into another Assassin that threw himself at her. 

The equipment crunched through his ribs, and blood misted out of his mouth as he was sent tumbling backward. Looking all around, Astrid could see that most of the Duchess’s forces had lost consciousness from this latest attack. Anybody who wasn’t at least Mithril tier was on the ground, and many of them were being summarily executed.

There was nothing to do but continue to protect her allies, so Astrid screamed as she threw herself towards the nearest enemy. Her hammer swung into the armored hip of one of the remaining Adamantium tiers, barely serving to take his attention for even a moment. His poleaxe swung towards her and sliced clean through her shield before lodging in her forearm. It was agonizing, but fortunately, she didn’t lose her hand.

Moments passed in a blur. Astrid rushed from one place to the next, striking out with her hammer here, being hit by an enemy there. The press of battle was confusing, and with mental Skills being leveled at her, not only from the Marchioness but also by two other noblemen who cowered behind immensely intimidating people Astrid could feel were on the Golden Fist’s level. To have seven Arcanite-tier people on the battlefield, staring at each other and silently dissuading anybody from coming close was another strange sensation. 

So much of Astrid’s mind was lost in the fury of battle and consumed with constantly combating effects from friendly and hostile people that she could barely understand what was happening. Nobles trying to smash apart her sense of self combined with friends urging her to battle, leaving her blinking a confused bloodlust from her eyes. In one moment, she crushed an enemy’s arm; in the next, she was stabbed in the leg. Then, a man wearing a hat and playing a flute sprinted past as he shouldered her. As he got further away, Astrid recognized Benedict and the effect of his Purifying Wave.

“Stand!” the Duchess shouted, bringing clarity. Nausea became all she could feel, and Astrid vomited, the puke unable to escape her helmet and slowly dribbling down her neck. Looking around, crushed bodies surrounded her, lightning striking nearby as Mages and Wizards threw everything they had at the horrible battleground.

“You whelp,” the Marchioness snapped, glaring down at the Duchess from some fifty meters away. Blessedly, the battle stopped for a moment as the leaders of the two different sides addressed each other. Astrid, taking a stupid risk, dismissed her helmet for just a moment before wiping her face and resummoning the piece of equipment. Idly, she could hear the Marchioness continue, “You were supposed to stay behind. Try to ‘free’ some of your people from me.”

“I thought that a Wartime Duchess’s attention is better focused on the front lines,” Ruth bared her teeth. As she did so, she spread her arms and exploded with mana. Most negative effects on Astrid drained away at that, but she found that the nausea persisted. That wasn’t the result of a Skill. She was just disgusted at what was happening.

“Your Class might rule over mine, but you are too weak. Gregor! Kill them all. I’ll build up my kingdom from the ashes. Preserve no life.”

At that, a similarly overwhelming pulse of mana exploded from the Marchioness, but instead of helping all of her subordinates, it was entirely focused on Gregor. The already blood-soaked man roared, the sound sending spikes of blood in every direction. They pierced into ally and enemy alike, and each person who was struck began to feed his strength. Every one of the rebel enemies fled decisively from what their leader said. There were no complaints, no moments of disbelief, just total and immediate panic as Gregor, let loose on a battlefield that seemed to feed him to near godlike strength, started the slaughter.

Instead of focusing on Philip, the strongest of the Duchess’s fighters, Gregor threw himself at Isaiah. In a single attack, his spear chopped the Ranger in half, Isaiah’s legs falling uselessly to the ground. Then, in movements that Astrid couldn’t follow, Gregor continued shredding through everybody nearby. The Steel tier fighters were cut through like grass as Isaiah’s body flopped down. Going off of the sheer amount of blood flowing from his body to add to Gregor’s armor, every reasonable person would have assumed that Isaiah was dead.

To Astrid’s surprise, the Thornwalker lived just long enough to shove his weapon towards Gregor as the implacable monster stretched a blood-covered hand towards Arden. A fist made of blood started to pierce through Astrid’s ghostly ally, but Isaiah’s attack landed, interrupting the blood-formed fist.

“For the Duchess,” he said, his voice quiet as thorns exploded into existence around the enemy. Gregor’s approach was stopped for a moment before he redirected his bloody hand towards Isaiah. The fist crunched around the dying man, but Isaiah’s retribution wasn’t over. Somehow, his entire body turned into vines, and everything that made him fought to hold Gregor back for even a single second.

As a further credit to the now-dead Isaiah, the vines cost Gregor a notable amount of blood while seeming to give him very little. Then, Greely’s spells collapsed in towards the other enemy frontliner. Three large sunflowers sprouted into existence as Philip disengaged from the fight against the enemy Adamantium whose name Astrid didn’t know. From the massive flowers, concentrated radiant mana seared towards the heavily armored individual. Their armor charred and twisted from the heat and they fell down dead as Philip engaged with Gregor.

“You bastard! Traitor!” Philip shouted as he weathered a hail of strikes from Gregor. Even though Astrid was positive that Gregor was a significantly lower level than Philip, he obviously was simply growing more unstoppable by the second. Astrid thought about the Berserker Class that had been offered to her, and felt the terror continue to clench in her stomach.

There was simply nothing that the Wanderers could do to Gregor, though the remaining Adamantium tiers all collapsed in on him. His ever-growing avatar of blood was carved away by blade, magic, and every other desperate attack that the Duchess’s supporters could mount. And Gregor started to lose momentum.

It was slow, and Philip lost his shield arm in the effort, but the Duchess’s team continued to swing the balance of the battle in their favor as the Marchioness’s other soldiers evacuated in the hopes of preserving their own lives. And the enemy took note.

“All of my loyal subjects,” the Marchioness called out, her voice cutting through the battlefield, “fight for me. Do whatever you need to to win. Do not hold anything back.”

After that, the few other remaining enemies came into battle, their weapons swinging to distract. Even small actions were more than enough to give Gregor time to continue to grow stronger without interruption. His spear flew through the air, leaving columns of blood that whipped around and started pulling anybody nearby inside. The pillars grew larger as screaming victims were crushed within their grip. Astrid felt bile starting to rise in her stomach again as she looked around hopelessly.

Then, she turned her attention to the most important enemy. It wasn’t Gregor.

The Marchioness. She’d given a massive single-target buff to Gregor. She’d recalled the soldiers to throw their lives away.

As Astrid returned her attention towards the noble, though, so too did the enemy snap her attention towards the Unfallen Meteor.

“You’re good materials. Come. I’ll preserve you.”

Again, Astrid’s vision swam, and she found her legs moving beyond her control. Instead of just walking, she jumped straight towards her enemy and fell to a crouch at the Marchioness’s feet. That initial command was strong, overwhelming, but Astrid found herself quickly regaining control over herself. Instead of simply waiting for whatever this woman was going to do to her, Astrid growled as she surged to her feet with a massive uppercut.

Her hammer smashed into a golden shield that appeared around the mind-controlling monster. She didn’t deserve to be thought of as a person, and Astrid refused to do so. The first strike of her hammer triggered a retaliation of some sort, a golden spike appeared from the Marchioness’s armor and shot forward and pierced into Astrid’s right breast. The echoed blow from her attack broke the golden aura, and Astrid’s target jumped away, cocking her head to the side as she glared.

“I knew you were powerful, powerful enough to kill Misha. You are not my equal. I. Said. Bow.”

Astrid’s head slumped with every word, and as her enemy commanded her to bow, she slumped and groaned. The blood poured heavily out of her newest wound. As her head sank, she could see that most of her entire breast was gone, the Marchioness’s protective rebound having seared through her body. She lacked even the clarity of mind to do something about it, only looking down with widening eyes as her life drained out of her body.

“No!” an agonized voice screamed.

“Mama,” the word dripped from Astrid’s tongue as she slumped and fell to the ground.

“What a waste of materials,” a voice said from ahead. Astrid couldn’t move her head, but could see that shining skirt, not far away. It didn’t come closer, though. With all of her remaining strength, Astrid turned her head to look up at the person whose voice had sapped all of her ability to control her body from her.

The Marchioness stood maybe ten meters away, her lips pursed as if she was looking at a ruined dress—disappointed, but not particularly invested. That was enough to spark some of Astrid’s rage and give her the presence of mind to start to do something. Two shadowy blades sliced towards the noble as a series of lightning bolts followed, and Astrid spent her final charge of Regeneration while mentally designating Muti and Skandr as the other receivers of healing.

Her gambeson reflected back the healing into Astrid’s body, and she gasped as she felt her ribs and then breast reform. The healing brought back some clarity of mind, and she surged to her feet. Muti sliced at the Marchioness for a moment before a burly man charged her with a glowing outline. She tried to teleport away, but the man’s glow brightened further and dispelled her Skill as he carried her away. The man bore her to the ground, his fists falling heavily as Muti fought back. Blood flew in every direction there, but Astrid could only trust in her friend’s ability to protect herself. 

She needed to stop the Marchioness. Then, she heard Ruth’s voice from behind her.

“Kill her!”

As soon as the Duchess made the command, Astrid felt another burst of energy as her mother stepped in front of her, sword and shield raised as she faced off against the much stronger noble.

Behind them, the sounds of battle continued raging, but Astrid couldn’t bring herself to look behind herself. It was only the Marchioness who stood between the Duchess and victory. Surely, Astrid could do something.

“I’ve had enough of this,” a voice that Astrid didn’t recognize said. The Marchioness whipped towards the origin of the sound in response. Astrid recognized it as one of the people one of the enemy nobles was towering behind, and she didn’t need to hear anything more to know that it was one of the Arcanite supporters of the rebellious uprising.

In an instant, there was an explosion of sound from where the Duchess and the Golden Fist stood. Aleksandr had stepped forward, an opaque shield surrounding him and the rest of the party. Outside of it, the other person threw a series of attacks at the shield, and it was already starting to splinter. More than ever before, Astrid was confused. How could this be happening when everybody had sworn that the Arcanite tiers would stay out of the fight? Strangely, from the enemy side, only one stepped forward, and when Astrid looked for the others, they’d disappeared. Astrid had it on pretty good authority that there were three of them, even having seen the others. Now, there was nothing.

“What the hell are—” Brighid said, looking at the Arcanite. He moved like a beast, and was overwhelming the Golden Fist. The mother and daughter spoke at speeds nearly unintelligible even to themselves. Then, the experienced soldier came to a conclusion. 

“If they’re fighting now, that means we’ve lost,” Brighid said, looking at Astrid. Through the slit of her mother’s helmet, Astrid could see the fear that colored her mother’s face, but she spoke without hesitation.

“We need to do something,” Astrid argued as a group of ten of the Marchioness’s subordinates threw themselves at her. Brighid turned, and with a roar, flicked her sword through a half dozen strikes. Lashes of flame shot out from her weapon and crisped the lower-tier attackers. “We might be able to turn the tide!”

“You’ve fought across tiers. I’m proud of you. We can’t do anything against these bastards. These Arcanite monsters are going to destroy everything,” Brighid spoke breathlessly, tears welling in her eyes. “Survive, my love. Run, leave the country. See if you can bring Ahna and your father with you.”

Astrid wanted to argue, but more people came forward, more soldiers than had been present in the battle until now. Waves of people who couldn’t individually compare to her or her mother came forward, and bolts of lightning started frying them indiscriminately. Even so, more people came as the Marchioness exhausted her people in the pursuit of killing the last resistance from the Duchess’s army. Brighid continued to stand in front of Astrid, keeping the people away to protect her daughter.

“Astrid! The talisman!” Brighid shouted as she fought desperately. Wind and fire billowed from her every attack, and her armor was covered in streaks of blood. Most of it came from her enemies, but arrows started falling like rain, focused on the smallest chink in Brighid’s armor. She grunted in pain as she was overwhelmed, but she continued to call back instructions to her daughter.

“Live. I am not the kind of parent who will accept dying before her child. Use the talisman along with whatever Skills you have and run. Please.”

Then, Brighid said nothing more as she threw herself forward, her blade whipping in every direction and cutting people down as, with a scream of challenge, Astrid’s mother tried to kill the Marchioness. The enemy noble’s words sounded like thunder and threatened to freeze Brighid’s attack as Astrid slapped the talisman to her chest and started to look at the battlefield.

Gregor’s spear was pierced through Philip’s chest, while Arden and others tried to stand against the seemingly mindless bloody warrior. Eve tried to contain him in a maelstrom of stone, wind, and flame, and while the blood was worn from his body, he’d built up too much momentum. Greely’s plants tried to stave off the other fighters, but Gregor simply could not be stopped.

Astrid turned to start to run, but remembered how much she, Skandr, and Muti had recovered. She could feel the promised strength for her next attack. Meteoric Regeneration promised to let her next attack be one of the strongest she was capable of, and, with a grin of ecstasy, the Marchioness was watching the fight to pierce through the Duchess’s defenses. She only flicked dismissive eyes towards Brighid as she struggled to grow closer.

“Never been good at running away,” Astrid muttered as she put the most heavily enchanted stone she had into the pocket of her sling. Skandr’d put almost his entire mana pool and almost half of his health into it, and Astrid was cautious of using the deadly weapon. Then, she’d grown less cautious as the days passed. Here she stood, having killed two Adamantium tier people while she was still at least fifty levels lower than them. And planning to attack another. 

Her bullheaded approach to delving was crystallized here. Throw herself at things that were out of her depth. To challenge monsters and people when she wasn’t ready. Find victory somehow.

However, she was willing to do more than she had until now, and with her attributes exploding for a short time from the effect of her father’s talisman, now was the time to go beyond that. She could do something heroic now. Save people from slavery, and be more than a delver. Protect what other children there might be around here. 

There wasn’t any more time to think about it, and she spun the sling twice in quick succession before expending all of her mana and stamina, designating the stone as a meteor and the Marchioness’s exposed head as the crater. Meanwhile, Brighid lashed out with dozens of attacks, wind and flame augmenting every one of her blows. The enemy Marchioness’s defenses flagged, but she stepped back out of the range of one attack before slapping at another.

By her movements, Astrid could see that the noble didn’t have particularly high physical attributes. Maybe a bit over 1,000 each. The woman’s elegant left glove flashed with another barrier as she flicked away Astrid’s mother’s attack. Then, with a dismissive stab of her right hand, a golden blade jutted out from her other glove and pierced through Brighid’s torso.

Astrid’s scream mirrored the screaming of her stone missile through the air towards the Marchioness.

Brighid’s final ill-advised and generally useless attack was, in fact, the most important one since Astrid’s had broken the Marchioness’s other protective barrier.

As Astrid watched her mother’s body fall to the ground, the Marchioness’s vision was covered for the briefest moment. Then, as Brighid fell, the stone crunched into her forehead and, with the explosive enchantment strengthened by Astrid’s Skills and equipment, there was an explosion of gore.

Domineering Marchioness slain. 115,000 experience gained, split among party.