Unbound

Beef and Hollow landed on the ground of the inner bailey, hammer out and crystalline daggers bristling.

Chaos reigned around them.

A monster, a hideous abomination of plants and stone, was smashing into the walls. Pit, in his enormous Tyrant form, was attempting to keep it pinned. Despite its grotesque shape, the creature was agile and put up a formidable fight against the Chimera.

Pit jolted to the right, meeting the centipede-thing with flashing claws and a snapping beak. The monster jerked back, smashing into the western wall and destabilizing its already rickety structure. Huge pieces of stone exploded, raining down in massive chunks directly toward the refugee tents.

"Entropic Paradigm!" Beef shouted, stealing power from the nearby swamp. He called upon the miasma of decaying life in order to preserve it. A dome of chitin, a dozen feet thick, spread up and over the tents where he saw old folks and children cowering. Rocks smashed into it, and Beef felt a muted version of the impact echo through his Body, splitting skin and muscle across his back and shoulders. Yet through the blood and pain, he held firm.

The stone broke.

"Get out of here!" Beef shouted through bloodied lips. "Into the keep!"

They rushed away, fleeing their tents as fast as they were able. But they were Untempered, and either too young or too old—it seemed like they weren't moving at all.

The monster roared, and Pit screeched right back. They shot by, close enough for the wind to tear at his fur like knives, and Beef erected a wall of chitin to protect the nearby villagers. It helped, but did nothing when the two giants slammed into the earth.

The ground heaved beneath Beef, displacing dirt and sending waves of swampy muck fountaining into the air. The walls buckled again.

“No!” he cried. Pillars and struts shot out of the dirt, braced as he’d learned in the swamp before finding purchase against the unstable walls. A handful became dozens as he spent the rot in the air, but the fortress was running thin and his own Mana had to pick up the slack.

“Beef! Above!” Hallow called out.

Almost too late, Beef spotted a dressed block of stone topple in a shower of broken mortar. He kicked off the ground, hooves digging hard into the soft earth, and summoned a sloped rampart just beneath the sedan-sized block. It hit, sliding slightly, but its immense weight smashed through his chitin—and fell right toward the villagers.

“Relentless Charge!” Beef surged ahead, so fast that he couldn’t track his own progress, before leaping up into the air. “Circle of Smash!”

He swung Bedlam at the block, hitting it from below. His Skill rippled across it, spreading a wave of riotous earth Mana that exploded the falling stone into a dozen pieces that flew up and away from the crowd.

Circle of Smash is level 74!

Beef landed with a labored grunt, hands numb from the impact and channels raw, only to hear more screams. Another loosened block fell, and it was too far to—

“Throw me!” Hallow demanded.

Beef didn’t question her, but dropped his hammer and reached back as Hallowed flowed from his chest to his hand. He hurled her forward with all of his Strength, and Hallowed blasted ahead, reforming into a humanoid shape mid-way through her flight.

"Switchshift!” She shot right into the last falling block, just as Beef felt her burn with sudden, furious power. She…merged with it, her Body molding to the deadly projectile and absorbing it. Redirecting it.

Materials, Beef heard her say. I can use them.

Hallow landed, now holding a chunk of stone no bigger than a barrel and having somehow grown to twice Beef's own size. She turned, stone crumbling from her joints, while blackened-green crystalline shards grew out of her back and head.

What the—Hallow?

"Be not afraid," she said to the villagers that stared up in horror. Her voice was deep and full of echoes. "We will save you."

Archie trudged behind a number of older refugees, while the line ahead was congested and bent, as everyone tried to slip into the narrow doors of the keep. He was around the corner from the fighting, but he could still hear it as it rang through the fortress. The entrance was so close, but the line wasn’t moving half as fast as it should have.

“C’mon people! Keep it moving!” he growled, lending some of his Temper to his voice. It cracked across the fearful murmuring and crying children, sending quite a few hustling forward.

It wasn’t much, but the sounds of the fight dimmed a bit more. Archie looked back, craning his neck as if he could see around corners, but there was only the momentous noise of the fight between Pit and the monster. His hands itched, and he clamped them hard around his daggers. Nothing you could do out there except get killed. Move forward.

The sound of a gunshot rang out from above, and Archie flinched as old memories resurfaced. He wasn’t in a crowd of hustling villagers, but in an office building, a security guard standing nearby with a flashlight and their sidearm trained on him. He could almost smell the blood on his shirt—but no. There was no blood. No gun. Ahead, the wall had split apart, and a small piece of it was toppling forward.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Watch out!” He grabbed the two old Orcs in front of him and yanked them back, sending them sprawling just as the debris smashed into the path.

The old Orc gaped at where they had just stood. "Th–thank you, young man."

"Don't thank me. Keep moving," Archie snarled. "Everyone, keep moving!"

Archie looked back again, and saw Beef and Hallow land and then immediately act, stopping another collapse from happening. His grip on his daggers loosened in relief. They’ve got it handled.

No sooner did he think that then a tremor shook their path, throwing many of them off their feet. Those cracks split, driving deeper into the massive blocks of the fortress wall, and another impact sent pieces tumbling free. Beef and Hallow did something he couldn’t spot, but they were too far away to see the ripple of force Mana that burst deep fissures across the keep’s front entrance.

Children screamed. Stone exploded outward.

"Stoneswim!"

Archie moved, his Body already half sunk through the earth as he speed below and across the gathered crowd. He flared his Skill and Agility with everything he had, ekeing every bit of power from both as he raced against the inevitable. In seconds, Archie came up right next to three children and grabbed them all in one motion. His hands solidified as he canceled his Skill, and he was violently ejected from the earth at an angle.

Archie hit the ground, arms held outward as best he could as he skidded and rolled across the path. By the time the sounds of impact had vanished, he’d fetched up against the far wall with a bone-shaking slam—and he hadn’t let go of the children, not once.

“Are…are you okay?” he asked with a groan.

Three heads nodded, one of them the little girl with a dirty ribbon in her hair. Archie let them go, and they all climbed back to their feet.

Stoneswim is level 73!

He groaned. Using his Skill like that had torn up his legs and made his insides feel even worse. As if he’d taken a cheese grater to his guts.

"Magic man, are you alright?” the ribbon girl asked him.

Archie managed a smile. “I’m good. I didn’t want this blood anyway.”

“Oh Cilline! You’re alive!” The girl’s mother rushed forward, gathering up her daughter and crying huge tears of hysterical relief. “You—you saved them all!”

She reached out, gathering up the other two shell-shocked kids. Somehow, Archie got caught up in the woman’s hug too. "Thank you, thank you, oh thank you!”

Archie had no words, and when the women released him he simply sat there a while longer while folks struggled into the keep. An idea struck him.

"I can do a few at a time," he said to himself, and then to the others that stood nearby. "Yeah. It doesn’t cost me too much Mana. I can do it.”

“Do what?” the mother asked.

“I can bring you inside. I can bring in everyone.” He held out his arms. “Just hold on tight."

Pit's body crackled with electricity, and boomed like thunder as he met the monster’s lunge. His crystalline claws scratched deep furrows into its long, unnatural body, but the wounds hardly slowed it down. The creature was strong and fast, almost a match for Pit, and it knew he was a challenge. It clearly preferred to eradicate the villagers first, but Pit stymied its advances again and again.

“Stop! We’re not trying to steal anything!” Pit shouted into its expressionless faces. He checked its rock hard Body with his own, fighting down a whimper as something tore in his shoulder. “We’re all on the same side! Listen to me!”

AUTHORITY REJECTED.

VIOLATORS.

ALL MUST BE ENDED.

The centipede-thing didn’t listen and it didn’t stop, instead it grew more frantic as the villagers sped away. Pit pressed close, keeping its attention with claw and beak and the ever-present Mantle of the Stormlord. Each time the monster closed in on him, even if Pit missed it with his talons, it took damage to its roots and mosses. It skittered forward, back, undulating across the soft earth in an attempt to outpace the smaller Tyrant.

Damn thing has too many legs! Pit wove between them, narrowly avoiding their sharp ends as it stomped erratically across the field. He hopped back as it made to slither past his guard again, dodging its brutal club and bone scythe as he flapped his four wings hard. Wind Mana stirred, kicked up at his command along with a blast of lightning from his Mantle. The centipede-thing roared and fell back.

I can’t do this forever, Pit thought frantically. The creature was too large to contain entirely, and his Howl at the Dark wasn't strong enough to Stun it for any length of time. It was a powerful beast, Master tier at least, by Pit's estimation.

I need information. Knowledge is the sharpest blade, Pagewright Tern had once said. He dodged the monster’s club, forcing it into the ground with a slap of his wing, and sending an explosion of grass and dirt in all directions. Gotta Analyze!

He reached for his Companion's Voracious Eye, but he hit a wall. Almost literally. Pit felt his bond flounder against an impenetrable barrier of howling melody. Tch! The combination array is blocking me!

He didn't need Felix's help anyway! With his new stats and Body, he could take on a little centipede. Pit ran beneath the swing of a scythe and jumped up, fastening his beak onto one of its many shoulder joints.

Maelstrom’s Maw is level 90!

His beak sheared through the stone and roots and lightning blasted the shoulder into rubble as the centipede shrieked. Not in pain; it was neither slowed nor distracted by its missing arm. No, instead it was simply furious.

VIOLATORS.

The club caught Pit in the shoulder, but his Mantle blasted back, deflecting the impact enough that it only felt awful instead of bone-shattering. It came back for another hit, but vines whipped around its thick forearm. From across the field, four Lurkwood Crawlers had stepped out of the swamp, each glowing with necromantic Mana.

“Slash him, Pit!” Hallow cried through them.

Talon of Tumult is level 90!

His crystalline claws slashed across the centipede’s chest, severing root and moss and stone as if they were blood and offal. The centipede-thing reared back and Pit ducked under its body, bashing through two of its legs before coming out the other side.

The monster twisted, compensating for its missing limb. For once, it stopped trying to get past Pit to the refugees. One of its dual faces oriented on him, and light filled its orifices as it roared.

VIOLAT—

"Yeah, yeah," Pit said, fluffing his feathers and fur. "Fight me!"

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