Rise of the Living Forge

Chapter 179: Left Behind

Arwin’s arrow screamed through the air, wreathed in a cloak of swirling green, and slammed into the side of the Life Constrictor’s head. It punched through scale and bit into the flesh beneath with a loud crack.

The snake hissed in fury and thrashed, sending large droplets of blood splattering across the ground. Crystal bit at its skin and worked its way into flesh, consuming as much magical energy as it could hold.

It wasn’t the first strike to hit it in the past few minutes. There were four other large wounds clustered around the same area. It was actually a little bit sad. The snake just had no way to actually dodge his attacks. It could wrap around the tower, but that just exposed new areas for him to shoot at.

There was nothing the Life Constrictor could do. It really wouldn’t have been much of a problem in most cases. Any normal Journeyman entering the dungeon would have been unlikely to have a way to cause significant damage whilst remaining out of the snake’s range.

Arwin summoned the arrow back to his hands and started to draw the bow once more. Prism’s Reach was practically singing in his hands. The bow was having the time of its life, and it wasn’t shy in drinking in power.

Between everything it was taking from him and the power its crystal growths were gathering from the Life Constrictor, Prism’s Reach was eating well. Magic swirled within it with enough intensity to make Arwin’s fingers prickle.

The bow creaked and [Scourge] pumped through Arwin’s muscles. He gritted his teeth, drawing the string back and letting magical energy flow from his body into Prism’s Reach to supercharge the arrow.

Come on. How long is it going to take? Am I doing something wrong? Prism’s Reach should have activated by now. It’s been drinking energy from me and the Snake for so long that I’m starting to wonder if the stupid bow is just somehow eating it instead of using it.

He let the arrow fly. It screamed through the air and slammed into the snake’s side. Reya winced at the impact and the snake hissed once more, but that was all it could do. Even growing closer to try and fight back against them would have just made it an even easier target.

For as powerful as the monster was, it had absolutely no way to get at them from up on the hill. The biggest problem wasn’t its ability to fight back. It was the amount of time it would take Arwin to finish the thing off.

If they just sat around peppering the monster with the equivalent of huge toothpicks, it could be an hour before it finally fell. That was time that someone else could either show up or get themselves killed.

Unfortunately, there just wasn’t a good alternative. The Life Constrictor definitely wasn’t having a good time. He’d been shooting at it for around five minutes now and his magical energy was starting to dwindle, but the wounds were building up.

The Ardent Guild had done some decent damage to the monster before they’d gotten locked up. Even though they hadn’t inflicted any deadly wounds, every single bit helped when time was of the essence.

Prism’s Reach seemed to sense his impatience — or perhaps it was just impatient itself. The bow trembled as Arwin summoned his arrow back and prepared to draw it once more. A dull crack rang out.

Arwin froze. He was pretty sure the crack had come from the bow, and that was never a good sound when the magical weapon had enough tension in it to launch an arrow hundreds of feet in the span of an instant.

A ripple of energy passed out from the green crystal core at the center of Prism’s Reach. The bow shuddered in Arwin’s grip and power gathered around his hand — not coming from within his body, but from the bow itself.

Loud cracks echoed out as vibrant crystal burst from the bow in a wave, swirling out to cover its arms and extending past them. Arwin nearly dropped the bow as it more than tripled in weight. But, even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have released it.

Crystal grew around his hand, locking it in place and traveling down his arm until it reached his shoulder. Unlike the jagged growths covering the bow, the surface of the crystal against his skin was smooth and flat.

The bow had gotten long enough where he literally couldn’t keep it off the ground at his height. Arwin was forced to hold it at an angle to avoid completely losing his grip on the rapidly expanding weapon. Power thrummed through the crystal in waves that emanated from the weapon’s core. It didn’t stop at just the bow. Crystal raced into Prism’s Vengeance and encased it in a sleek, glowing shell.

The cracks finally died out, leaving Arwin with a weapon that was over two times his height. Faint thumping pulses of energy came from Prism’s Reach, almost like a heartbeat. A wave of hunger roared in Arwin’s ears like the sea crashing against a beach.

“Godspit,” Reya breathed, taking a step back from him instinctively before her eyes went wide. “Are you okay?”

Arwin gave his arm a tug. It was locked in place — and the bow wouldn’t budge. A glance down at his feet revealed that the crystal had grown into the ground as well, locking Prism’s Reach in place together with him.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He nearly ripped his arm free forcibly with [Scourge] but paused at the last moment as a thought struck him. Arwin called on the Mesh to pull up the stats of Prism’s Reach.

Prism’s Reach: Unique Quality

[Awoken]: This item has taken on life of its own. With every death it causes, it will grow slightly more powerful. Upon reaching [Unknown] threshold, it will be able to bond with its wielder.

[Power for Power]: Prism’s Reach can only be drawn when infused with magical energy from its Wielder. A portion of the spent energy will be transferred into its shots.

[Corrupted Shot]: Arrows fired by Prism’s Reach will infest their target with crystal upon impact, consuming any uncontested magic whenever possible.

[Immense Hunger]: Prism’s Reach can absorb magical energy from its wielder in exchange for empowering its next shot. The amount of magical energy it draws will increase exponentially with the amount of time it spends drawn. Overfeeding Prism’s Reach may modify its attributes temporarily.

[The Arms]: Prism's Reach, armed with its Vengeance, may shift its form when it has been fed sufficient amounts of energy.

[Unique]: This item has formed a treaty with Arwin Tyrr. It has not acknowledged him as its owner, but it will obey his commands until deciding if he is worthy of its service or not. Information about this item may be hidden from others.

[The Left Arm]: This is a set item of [2] pieces.

Holy shit. This is what it considers a form shift? I’d say it’s a little bit more dramatic than that.

“I’m fine. This is just something the bow can do. It took me by a bit of surprise as well,” Arwin said, shaking himself off. He could feel the power pouring off the bow already starting to dwindle. It didn’t look like it could hold this form for long.

He pulled back on the string — and it didn’t even budge. Arwin suppressed a curse and doubled his usage of [Scourge], pushing the ability to its absolute limit. A groan escaped his lips and the bow alike as he slowly dragged the string back.

Crystal crackled and hummed. Arwin was aware of the stares boring into his back, but he didn’t have any attention to spare paying them heed. The bow wasn’t even trying to fight him. It was just so heavy that even a flicker of distraction risked releasing the string too early.

Arwin tried to aim the weapon, but it had worked its way so deeply into the ground that it refused to change its angle. Attempts to turn it would have just broken its supports and made it incredibly unwieldy.

The Life Constrictor was fortunately a big target and the bow was already aimed toward it. Between that and the arrow’s target-seeking abilities, all Arwin could do was hope that the bow had aimed itself well enough.

He let go.

The string let out a loud crack as it snapped back into place. Crystal shattered. The air around Arwin whooshed as it rushed to fill the space where the arrow had been an instant before.

He didn’t even get a chance to see the arrow in flight — partially because of how fast it moved, and partially because he was more focused on the fact that he’d nearly taken his own arm off on accident.

By the time his eyes flicked back up, a second crack echoed out through the dungeon, this one a dozen times louder than the first. A confused frown crossed Arwin’s face. The Life Constrictor was exactly where it had been an instant before.

He couldn’t see any sign of the arrow sticking out of its skin. That was rather odd. He’d been pretty sure it should have at least connected, especially since the arrow was able to correct its path.

Arwin’s confusion faltered and vanished as a blood started to pour out of a thin hole right between the snake’s eyes. The monster blinked, looking about as mildly surprised as a snake could. For an instant, it seemed to lock eyes with Arwin.

Then crystal erupted from its head. Large, jagged green spikes ripped through scales and flesh, racing down the huge snake’s body and tearing it apart from within. The Menagerie watched in disbelief as the enormous monster was encased in its entirety.

Prism’s Reach crumbled, the huge pieces of crystal that had grown across its surface falling away and turning to ash until all that remained was the normal bow. A flicker of smug satisfaction passed from it to Arwin through their connection.

The snake crumbled away. What had once been a huge beast blew away in the wind, turning into a huge cloud of ash that swirled away from the tower and up into the air.

Title: [Inevitable End] has been earned.

[Inevitable End] – Awarded for killing an overloading monster a full Tier above you from a location where it could do nothing but wait for death. Try not to make it a habit. Perceptive opponents will be able to pick up the promise of death that seems to find those who place themselves in your way.

Arwin blew out a breath, instantly losing all the annoyance that had been building at losing the huge snake’s body to Prism’s Reach. He’d gotten another Title. It was vague, but it seemed like it would increase how intimidating people perceived him to be.

The Mesh definitely didn’t seem too thrilled that I killed the snake when it couldn’t fight back, but tough luck. If it didn’t want me to kill it, then it shouldn’t have trapped the thing under the ground. I’m not going to charge into its gullet if I can make sure everyone is safe by killing it from back here.

“Godspit,” Lillia muttered, and Reya nodded in mute agreement. Rodrick and Anna just exchanged a silent glance but said nothing.

“How?” Olive asked with a mixture of shocked awe and disbelief seeping into her voice. “I know you’ve all got magical weapons, but you can’t tell me that is literally anywhere near the level of the other stuff you’ve shown me. Seriously — who are you?”

“I swear I’ll tell you once we get out of the dungeon. For now, we need to keep moving before anybody shows up,” Arwin said, letting Prism’s Reach fade from his hands and blowing out a breath. He was nearly completely drained of magical energy, but they’d spent so much time standing around that more people could show up at any second.

Olive pressed her lips together but gave him a nod. They all hurried down the side of the hill and over to the base of the tower.

Arwin spent a flicker of energy to activate [Dragon’s Greed]. He doubted he would need much, and he was right. The bands of energy that rose up told him that the strongest source of magic was coming right from the tower in front of them.

If there was anywhere that the key went, it was here. It was time to see just what Jessen had left behind.

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