Rune Seeker - Book 3: Chapter 59: Skyfall

With obliteration fifteen feet away and closing, Hiral streamed energy into his Rune of Rejection, but even then, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. He’d just have to hope…

Huge, flaming wings crossed in front of him, stone melting to glowing red sludge at the touch, and then the screech hit. If the destruction to the street before had been extreme, the resulting collision was like the end of all things.

Buildings on both sides completely vanished. The ground in front of the fiery dome got vaporized. Bats flying above became a fine red mist. And the shield… The shield itself shuddered. The wings bent inward under the pressure of the assault. Flames licked higher as if fighting to hold together, but Hiral could see even the fire failing under the monstrous scream.

It was just that powerful.

Dropping his blunderbuss, Hiral diverted energy into his Runes of Expansion, Sealing, Increase, and Rejection, reinforcing the shield with everything he could. Even as he watched, the runes themselves swirled within the giant wings, streaks of brilliant orange scarring and solidifying as part of Seena’s defense.

With a flash of light, the screech finally subsided, the fiery wings fading, and the party was left on an archipelago of crumbling earth. The entire distance between Hiral and the Mid-Boss had been carved straight down at least a hundred feet. Off to the sides, the bare ground gradually sloped upward until the edges of the first still-standing buildings could be seen a thousand feet in the distance.

“Don’t give it a chance to do that again!” Seena shouted, scars of Cinder+ slicing across Screech’s chest.

“On it!” Seeyela shouted before Bamf’ing onto the monster’s shoulder and driving her daggers down. Almost at the same time she appeared, though, bats burst out to meet her. She cut aside the first and parried the second, and then she was overwhelmed.

Swarmed, bats wrapped her arms and legs with their wings and small claws, heedless of the wounds she inflicted on them. More and more rushed out, piling on as their teeth closed around her arms, drove into her legs, and covered her from head to toe.

“I can’t… can’t… teleport…” she said between panicked breaths beneath the mound of crawling bats.

In Hiral’s Party Interface, Seeyela’s health began to drop, and then the whole pile fell from Screech’s shoulder. Apparently still unable to Bamf+ herself out, she was still trapped when the undulating ball of bats dropped the forty feet to crunch to the stone street. The woman’s health bar dropped a solid twenty percent at the impact, leaving her close to half health already.

“Sis!” Seena screamed, the Cinder+ scars tearing across the ball of bats on the ground. Except they weren’t the biggest problem—because the Mid-Boss was turning and lifting its huge foot.

It’s going to stomp on her, bats and all!

Without a second thought, Hiral thrust his right hand above his head, then snapped the arm down. The fully charged Ring of Amin Thett followed the motion and spat out its death beam at the same time Screech’s foot came down.

SCHOOOM! The blast collided with the monster’s ankle, incinerating dozens of bats on contact, and just barely pushed the foot enough to crash down beside the prone woman. That wouldn’t stop the monster, though, and Hiral blasted off on a powerful burst of Rejection. Clearing the gap in three quick leaps, he landed on the ground beside Seeyela while the foot again lifted into the air.

Doing his best to disregard the very real possibility of getting flattened like a bug, Hiral thrust his hand into the mass of writhing bats. Teeth and claws immediately tore at his arm, but he pushed past the pain and continued reaching in until he felt the familiar texture of the Armor of the Ghost-Web Matriarch.

“Get off her!” he shouted, pushing solar energy into his Rune of Rejection while locking the image of the bats in his mind. WHOMP!

The monsters shot off in all directions, leaving a bloody woman in ripped armor beneath. With the shadow above him only growing, Hiral ducked down to grab Seeyela—wincing at his own mangled hand—then launched straight ahead with another Rejection-enhanced leap.

Barely a few feet away, the ground shook from the force of the stomp landing. Stone chips—and entire stones—raced after Hiral as he skidded to the ground and spun around. A sweeping wave of his hand with another pulse of Rejection saved them from getting pelted, but they were anything but safe.

Screech towered above them, indignant they hadn’t been squashed, and leaned its head back as it spread its mouth wide a second time.

Oh… no…

“Get out of there!” Seena shouted.

Easier said than done.

With the amount of devastation caused by the last shriek, there was no way even a Rejection-powered leap would get them away. Maybe a teleport…? No, a single look at Seeyela showed she wasn’t in any shape to create a portal.

“I got this,” Yanily said over the party chat.

“You got…?” Seena began.

Meanwhile, Screech’s head tilted back so far it was looking at the roiling clouds directly above.

“Yeah. Time to see what this baby can do.”

Ka-thoom! A small bolt of lightning shot from the ground up to the clouds.

Skyfall? Does he think…?

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

KAAAAA-THOOOOOM!

A lightning bolt the width of an entire city block completely enveloped Screech. The air ionized in an instant, small sparks jumping along the wind for miles in every direction as the world seemed to turn black and white from the sheer luminance of the bolt. And yet, within the larger bolt, a second, purer bolt fell.

Straight down from the sky, into Screech’s upturned maw, through its wide chest, and out the other side, the thinner bolt somehow reverberated with more power than the gigantic one. As Yanily struck the ground, the trailing lightning bolt exploded with even more power, popping Screech from the inside out until the blast filled the full radius of the large column of electricity.

And then, just like that, it was all gone. Only Yanily remained, grinning at the spear in his hand like it was his long-lost best friend.

Dynamic Quest: Update

Abomination Defeated: 1/1

Surviving Researchers: 3/3

Weapon of Legend Delivered: 0/1

“Took a while to charge that up, but totally worth the wait,” the spearman said. “How’s Seeyela?”

“Less than half health, but a couple of these potions should fix her up,” Hiral said, already helping the woman drink her first bottle of glowing red liquid. “Left, Right? Can you two go check on the NPCs?”

“On it,” Left said, and the two doubles went in the opposite direction of the crater.

“Thanks,” Seeyela said, her head propped up in his hand and the potion on her lips. “For this and for pulling me out of that.”

“Shhh, focus on drinking,” Hiral said, making sure she got every last drop in the bottle. “You can thank me later.”

She’d have to wait out the short cooldown before she could take the next one, but her health was already ticking up. Though, oddly enough, not as quickly as he expected. Huh.

“Seeyela!” Seena ran over and skidded to her knees beside her sister. “Hey, you’re okay. You’re going to be fine. I promise.”

“Why is she talking to me like I’m dying?” Seeyela asked, looking at Hiral. “I’m not dying, right?”

“You’re not dying,” Hiral said. “Really. I’m not even just saying that.”

“Now I’m getting nervous,” she said. “Give me another potion.”

“Still on cooldown. And, Seeyela, does your armor have some kind of repair function?”

“Kind of? If it gets damaged, it can be healed.”

“That would explain why the healing potion didn’t restore as much as I thought it would.”

“You trying to get my sister to undress?” Seena asked, a noticeable chill in her voice.

“Of course not. Just… pointing it out. Here, why don’t you take over giving her the next potion? I’ll go check on the researchers.”

“What about you?” Seena asked, her voice softer again. “I saw your hand.”

“Regeneration+ is already taking care of it.” Hiral held up his hand to show that while it was still covered in dried blood, the flesh was mostly whole underneath. “Coat protected me from the worst of it, but it’s also got a self-repair function. Thanks, Li’l Ur.”

“What self-respecting lich wears clothing that doesn’t clean itself?” the little lich asked, actually lookinginsulted. “Seriously, what’s the point of absolute magical prowess and legendary status if one needs to do laundry?”

“That’s… a very fair point,” Hiral said as he passed Seeyela off to her sister.

Seena’s hand lingered on his for just a second longer than it needed to, but then she turned her full attention to her sister. A bit of heat rising in his neck, Hiral stood and walked over to Yanily. From the looks of things, Left and Right were gathering up the researchers no problem, and the bats had been cleared out of the area, so he had a minute.

“That was pretty overpowered,” he said to the spearman.

“Is that how you always feel with your sword?” Yanily asked, still looking at the weapon. “Like the whole world is just waiting to… I don’t know… bow if you ask it to?”

“Sword is still broken, remember?” Hiral said.

“I guess.”

“Did you know you’d be able to do that? That it’d make your Skyfall so powerful?”

“Kind of. This spear and my advanced class, they mesh really well. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said it felt like they were made for each other.”

“You’re not going to try and keep it after this dungeon, are you?” Hiral asked, part curiosity and part worry. Could he even keep it?

But Yanily was shaking his head. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to. It’s not our time, though. The spear has a purpose, I can feel it. It belongs with Grandfather.”

“That’s too bad. I wouldn’t object to you one-shotting a few more bosses. Hey, did you get an achievement for that absurdity?”

“I didn’t!” Yanily said, his grin faltering for a second. “Maybe since you all hit it first, it didn’t technically count as a one-shot?”

Hiral thought about it for a second, then shook his head. “Ah, actually, I one-shotted the Troblin Lord a couple times and didn’t get anything for it. Must not be one.”

“Doesn’t seem fair.”

“It doesn’t. You good to keep an eye out for more bats? I want to check on Dr. Benza and the others.”

“I’ll even use both of them,” Yanily said, turning his attention back to the sky and twirling his spear around him.

With their immediate security taken care of, Hiral jogged over to join his doubles with the researchers. “How’s everybody doing over here?”

“Shocked we’re not dead,” Laseen said. “Why aren’t we splattered against a wall like the disc?”

“One of them used an ability,” Dr. Benza answered before Hiral could. “Your party’s familiarity with your PIMs gives me hope for the future. For people who’ve only had access to the system for a few years at most, it truly shows all the work—all the sacrifices—are worth it. With people like you, we might just be able to beat back the Enemy and retake our world.”

“Uh… yeah, we’ll do what we can,” Hiral said, but he didn’t meet the doctor’s eyes. Were they going to even try to fight the Enemy in their own time? The whole point of this was to save Fallen Reach. There was no way the four of them—well, six, if Left and Right were included—could fight something like that gigantic Enemy he’d seen.

Speaking of which…

“We should get moving,” he said. “Everybody able to keep going?”

“Nothing serious here,” Laseen said. “Fenil took another rough tumble…”

“I’m fine,” Fenil said, blood running down from an obviously broken nose.

“He landed on his face—nothing important,” Dr. Benza said, waving a hand dismissively.

“My face is pretty important,” Fenil countered, but all he got was a minor look of sympathy from Laseen.

“If you’d hit your head again, I’d be worried,” Dr. Benza continued.

“My face is on my head!”

“Sooooo, moving?” Hiral interrupted.

“Yes,” Dr. Benza said. “Laseen, can you take Fenil and get the disc up and running again? Hugor shouldn’t be far from here, and I’ll take them.” He pointed to the rest of the party coming over to join Hiral.

Seeyela was walking on her own again, and her armor looked almost completely put back together—though it still had copious amounts of blood staining the white carapace.

“It’s upside-down!” Laseen complained. “And buried in a house.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Dr. Benza said with another dismissive wave.

“We’ll help.” Right thumbed at Left with the words. “Need somebody watching for bats in case they come back.”

“Thanks, guys,” Hiral said. “Time to go talk to a tree, I guess.”