Rune Seeker

Hiral stared for a second at the hundreds of small cubes on the floor directly ahead of him – That worked well, but took more solar energy than I expected – then looked into the large room. From what his expanding sensory domain was telling him, half of the room on the right was filled with collapsed roof, but even then, the room took up a large portion of the building.

“Big room ahead of us,” Hiral said. “Could be our Mid-Boss.”

“As good a time as any to buff up,” Seena said. “Usual, short cooldown abilities. Go.”

With the command, three (Lesser) Auras took hold, their benefits spilling over to the others, while Left Shaped his Banner of Courage. Already benefiting from his pseudo-aspect, Hiral would save his Domain of the Sun+ if he could – it had a long cooldown at an hour – but he did pull his other weapons out of the Arsenal of Amin Thett. His RHCs had been serving him pretty well up to this point, but a Mid-Boss was another matter entirely.

In fact, heading into a large, open room, with no idea what was waiting for them, maybe he had a better option. Sheathing his RHCs on his thighs, he reached out and pulled the four Mobile Artillery Spheres to hover in front of him.

“Ready,” he said.

A shoulder tap, and Hiral moved into the room, the party streaming in behind him. Two steps after the final member – Left – had entered, red flight flashed through the room, dispelling the gloom, and a new door appeared where Hiral had destroyed the last. And, before he had a chance to even turn to inspect that – his sensory domain telling him what had happened – there was a bright flash ahead and to his left.

Atn and Dex working in perfect unison, Hiral twisted at the waist and snapped his hands together, Mobile Artillery Spheres following the gesture. As soon as the four spheres were practically touching, a stream of solar energy activated their shield function. While the energy barriers didn’t have the same resilience as Nivian’s Orbital Shield, with the four of them stacked up, they should…

SCHOOOOOM, a beam the size of Hiral’s Annihilation of Amin Thett slammed into the shields, causing spider-web fractures to instantly appear along the barricade. Energy washed against the barriers as he reinforced them with Rejection and Increase, but they weren’t going to be able to stand up to the force.

He needed to do something before they shattered completely! Making them stronger had helped, but he was already losing that battle. He needed to do something different. A quick glance at the floating spheres, and then a slight twist of his wrists turned the wall of shields into a wedge of shields. The pressure eased off immediately as the bright orange glow careened off to either side of the party, staining the room an alternating red and orange. Even with the extra power Hiral poured into the shields – and the change in their angle – the beam pounded on them for one second, two, three… then finally stopped.

In front of Hiral’s shield, the floor was a warped and melted mess, as was the V-shape around the party where the beam had passed. Okay, don’t get hit by that…

Good advice given to himself, Hiral pulled his hands aside – the Mobile Artillery Spheres following – to give him a look at their new opponent. There, on the far side of the room, stood what had to be the Mid-Boss. And a second to bring up View confirmed it.

(Mid-Boss) Guardian P3W P3W V2.3 – Unknown Rank

Clearly a construct of some kind, the thing was made of pure crystal, looking kind of like an upside-down pear with the same, four, crab-like legs the Glass Cannons had. From the larger, top-half, four bulky arms emerged, with one pointed in the party’s direction – the Rune of Energy glowing fiercely within the palm of the three-fingered hand. And, on the front of the thing’s body – where a face should be – there was only the same kind of glowing screen as they’d seen back in the dome.

Except… instead of words, this one only had a strange string of characters.

(>_<>

Whatever that meant.

“Don’t let it keep doing that!” Seena shouted from behind Hiral, obviously having seen the damage the beam would do, and solar energy pulsed as the party moved.

Hiral lanced out with the beam attacks from his Mobile Artillery Spheres, though they didn’t have the same punch as his RHCs. At the same time, Chain Lightning+ arced out from behind him, while a paid of Cinder+ slashed across the front of the Guardian. And, yet, only the Cinders actually struck home, a Rune of Rejection glowing near the base of the construct to form its own shield to block both beams and lightning.

That’s… much more focused than my rune. Unless… can I do that too?

A test for later, and Hiral jerked his hands further out to the sides, the spheres quickly following the motion to spread around the golem. Another thread of solar energy when they’d surrounded the big enemy, and four beams came at it from all sides while – bamf – Seeyela appeared directly behind it. Though one beam got blocked by the shield of Rejection that moved to intercept it, the other three got through. More importantly, so did Seeyela’s twinned, fang strike.

Daggers glowing a combination of purple and green, she drove both weapons into the small of the golem’s lower back – if it could really be called that. Crystal broke away as the daggers struck true, and a flash of green pulsed through the whole monster. Thick arms jerked to the sides, spasming, then the thing took a stuttering series of steps forward, its whole body seeming to seize.

One, two, three steps it took before one more brutal spasm tore through its entire body, and the screen on the front of its body changed.

(X_X)

A few more Cinders slashed across its body, while Right, Left, and Yanily moved cautiously closer. Drahn stayed back with Hiral, his bow drawn, but the arrow held.

“Is that… it?” Seena asked. “That was the Mid-Boss? I know we’ve gotten stronger, but…”

Seeyela gently poked the golem with one of her daggers. “Maybe… my venom worked really well on it? My aura lets us get critical hits on this kind of thing, after all.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“I guess…?” Seeyela said, also starting to walk forward.

But, Hiral wasn’t so sure. “We didn’t get an achievement notification.”

“Hey, you’re…” Seeyela started, but the screen in front of the golem changed again.

(^_^)

“Look out!” Hiral shouted as one of the arms – this one looking like nothing more than a heavy club – lit up with a Rune of Impact. Up, around, and down faster than it had any right to be, the thick appendage crashed down on Seeyela with a sound like shattering stone.

And a bamf that had the woman appearing next to Hiral and Seena.

“Bastard was playing dead!” Seeyela cursed. “That’s not funny.”

L(~O~L)

“Is… is it taunting us?” Hiral asked, eyes narrowing at the oddly expressive screen where the thing’s face would be.

“Yeah, well, taunt this,” Yanily said as he exploded into a bolt of lightning that shot for the ceiling, hit the stone roof, then bounced back down like the fist of an angry god. Washing out the red of the room to a searing white, his Skyfall+ made a sound like tearing fabric before it slammed down with a roll of thunder that shook the building.

Too bad another shield of Rejection had sprung into place to block the titanic attack, leaving Yanily hanging in the air directly in front of the Guardian. Worse, at the spearman’s moment of weakness, another of the golem’s arms flickered to life with the power of a rune. This one, a scythe as long as Yanily was tall, had a rune glowing along the blade could only be one thing – the Rune of Separation.

Around came the blade at the same time – crack – Hiral launched himself forward with a burst of Rejection so powerful, he might as well have stepped through one of Seeyela’s portals. Barely in time, he put himself between the swinging blade and the falling spearman, his own shield of Rejection flaring to life to block the attack.

If this hunk of crystal can do it, so can I!

And, for a fraction of a second, he did. Then the power of the Rune of Separation made itself known, the tip of the blade tearing through the shield Hiral had put up. Grabbing hold of his Runes of Time Dilation and Contraction, Hiral slowed the progress of the blade while he and Yanily both hung in the way of the Guardian’s terrible weapon.

Probably would’ve been smarter to try and parry it with a weapon…

Except he was past that point now, and beating himself up over what he should’ve done wouldn’t save him from what he had done. No, he needed to focus on how to stop the seemingly unstoppable Rune of Separation. Already, he could feel it shredding his shield of Rejection like it was barely there. Concept against concept, Separation was of a higher order than Rejection, resulting in the imbalance. Without vastly more power, there was just no way Hiral could reject that scythe. So, what were his options?

Reality was already knocking on the back of his head to remind him about the normal flow of time, so he didn’t have long to come up with a plan – or get cut into pieces. He’d really rather avoid that second option if he had the choice.

Okay, if I can’t use one of the “lesser” runes, that means I need to use one of the bigger concepts. Gravity? Energy? No, I don’t see either of those working. Connection? Nuh uh, that’s already what I’m worried about – staying connected! That just leaves Separation, but I didn’t draw a weapon to…

Hiral stopped right there. Did he need a weapon? This struggle wasn’t really about stopping the scythe – his shield of Rejection would handle that if it wasn’t for the Guardian’s rune – it was just about the concept of Separation. Which meant… Could he…?

It’s worth a try!

Without another thought, Hiral split his attention between his Rune of Rejection and into his Rune of Separation. However, instead of layering it over a sword as he had so many times in the past, he instead threaded solar energy into his Rune of Decreaseat the same time. Then, with this combined concept, he attached it not to one of his weapons, but instead to the wall of Rejection he’d put in front of the Guardian’s scythe.

Letting go of his time runes and focusing on his desire to reduce the concept of Separation on the blade tearing at his shield of Rejection, Hiral immediately felt the clash of wills. Unsurprisingly, the Guardian’s control over its rune was rigid and powerful, like pushing a mountain up another mountain covered in grease.

Straight up, with momentum literally already on the golem’s side, Hiral probably wouldn’t have been able to win the contest on his first try. Except… except he had one distinct advantage.

As soon as he’d released his time runes and focused on reducing the Separation, the Edict of Decrease had roared to life in his senses. Like a will from on high, the Edict’s power enveloped the blade and swept aside the golem’s will the instant Hiral had been able to feel it. Just like that, the scythe became nothing more than a simple weapon. No, that wasn’t true.

It had become a dull weapon.

(O_O)

Despite everybody’s surprise at the sudden turn of events, this was still a scythe wielded by a massive golem with unbelievable strength. The blade slammed into Hiral’s shield of Rejection and batted him out of the air. Scarves of energy wrapped Yanily as Hiral passed, dragging the spearman out of the way of the arcing scythe, and the pair landed nimbly thirty feet away.

Already, Hiral could feel his control of the Separation on the scythe fade – letting it rise back to its previous lethality – but at least he’d been able to save Yanily.

“Thanks,” the spearman said. “I didn’t think its shield would be able to stop Skyfall+.”

“From the looks of things,” Hiral responded as Right and Left dove into melee range with the golem. A purple-enshrouded fist exploded against another wall of Rejection, while Left swept in and landed a slashing blow with his Dagger of Sath in the same place Seeyela had hit. “It can only erect one shield at a time. In one direction.

“Basically, if we keep it busy looking one way, you can hit it from the other.”

“That must be it, the trick to this fight,” Seena said over the party chat, more Cinder+ slashing across the golem’s body while Seeyela and Drahn joined in on the action. “It’s not bad, even though that thing has almost as much defense as that stupid Reinforced Runeoceros.”

As if it heard her, the Guardian’s face-screen shifted again.

*(^_^)/*

Then, there was a massive pulse of solar energy that flashed through the room, bright enough to force Hiral to cover his eyes and turn his head. When he looked back… oh shit.

Where there had been one, now, four Guardiansstood looking at the party.