Chương 116: Hunted

Ch. 116 - Hunted That was the first set of way stones that they defaced, but it was not the last. Lucian spent weeks wandering around the northern and western hinterlands of the Inner Kingdoms, only occasionally attracting the attention of anyone. With this much chaos in the land, there were lots of strangers on the roads, and though few of them had five-foot-long blades, all of them were armed. Its wielder didn't kill everyone he came across, much to the blade's annoyance.

He would slaughter bandits or even military patrols and mages if they exhibited the least bit of suspicion, but everyone else he approached much more sociably. Whenever possible, Lucian spent his nights by other people's campfires. This was risky behavior, even after the boy wrapped it in cloth so it would not be recognized, but the blade tolerated it because valuable news was gained from such gatherings.

"The Black Blade of Baraga has leveled Sevrin," said one woman.

"I heard that it was the Juggernaut that did that," another man countered.

"The Black Blade is moving south, hunted by the gods themselves." Rumors dogged them more thoroughly than any actual pursuers, but the most interesting piece of information came to them from a skinny cloth merchant two days away from a Waystone so small that it was likely no one would have missed it even if they uprooted it entirely when the blade finally heard what it had suspected all along.

"The Paralon Dynasty has been deposed altogether," he claimed.

"The people blame them for the disaster of Severin, though no one can agree on exactly what happened there. A mage lord now sits on the throne. King Alentel, they call him. I know nothing of the man, but he sounds cruel enough to set the place to rights." The blade hadn't heard of him, and when it asked its wielder, Lucian hadn't either, though when the blade asked him, he commented silently, It's almost certainly an alias. The word Alentel means foretold in the old tongue.

So whoever sits there is trying to gain some legitimacy with some prophecy or another. Are there prophecies about an ageless king being killed and replaced by mages? The weapon asked, suddenly curious. If there are, they aren't told in Sevrin because I've never heard them, the boy answered while he pretended to listen to the cloth merchant's other news. The blade pondered that. The mages had lived with the King and his Golden Throne for centuries.

They doubtlessly had a plan in place to throw off the yoke of his family when he finally perished, but if that was the case, then wouldn't such a story have been spread more widely already? The Ebon Blade couldn't say. Perhaps he simply never allowed it to take root in the capital, the blade mused. It had a poor grasp of Inner Kingdom politics, but it had no doubt that the entire region could fall apart into several warring states without much effort.

If that happened, its only regret would be that it was too busy striking down the Aetherarchy to join in the melee properly. It was a quiet night until the baying of distant hounds started. The blade found that curious, given that they were definitely not wolves, and the hour was too late for a proper hunt. It didn't even suspect the problem until it spotted the first mage near the very edge of its vision. The man lit up like a bonfire etherically, compared to the pale gray of the trees he was hiding in.

The dogs that came into view a second later were brighter still, which confused the blade, but even as it forced its wielder awake and Lucian staggered to his feet, there were three mages, and they were casting something. The blade didn't know what, but it could see them drawing, shaping, and releasing power. Unfortunately, Lucian only had time to draw his blade before the spell was unleashed, and a giant meteor soared out of the night sky, landing at the center of the merchant's camp.

Almost everyone else died in their sleep in that catastrophic moment. Lucian was spared that fate; instead, he was flung violently more than a dozen feet, but because he kept his grip on his weapon, he was able to rise again. +19 Human Souls. -334 Life Force. While he attempted to recover, the blade's mind was racing. They'd found us, but how? It asked its wielder even as it searched his thoughts, but it didn't expect an answer. Lucian barely knew who he was as he struggled to his feet and lifted the blade.

Then he was charging them, not because the blade made him do it, but because he wanted them dead. He might not be a very good swordsman yet, but his hatred for the mages that had abused him for so long was much stronger than his fear of them; for some reason, he shied away from goblin teeth and bandit blades more than spells. The Ebon Blade wasn't quite sure why that was the case, but it found the discrepancy interesting.

Other spells were flung as its wielder approached them, but none of the rest of them got close. It was hard to hit a moving target when he was running as quickly as the Lucian was right now. As they got closer, weaving between trees that were felled by shimmering lines of force and immolated with gouts of flame, the blade studied the group. There were nine men, but only four of them were mages. In addition, there were the two strange, glowing hounds it had seen earlier.

It didn't know what they were, but given the amount of magic involved, they were at the top of its list to kill. Whatever they needed that much power to do, it was nothing good. What was worse, though, was that the Ebon Blade couldn't simply let Lucian handle this on his own and fail. That approach was all well and good for bandits and goblins, but against mages that had been dispatched specifically to hunt them, it would be suicide. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve.

Read this novel on Royal Road. We work together in this fight, the blade whispered. Do not fight me. The boy said nothing, but then, he didn't have to, not when they wanted the same thing. A swarm of fireflies glowing an angry cyan raced toward them, but the weapon was able to sweep almost all of them aside with an elaborate swirling parry.

The few that made it past burned right through its wielder, and even those that struck the blade pained it, but they both ignored that agony because the battle was now well and truly joined. Two of the soldiers fell before they even knew they were dead. One moment they'd raised their pale hexblades, seeking to disrupt the blade with a parry, and the next, Lucian had already moved past them, cutting the two that had been standing closest together in twain.

The last thing it could afford right now was to be disrupted. It didn't know if any of those weapons were the greater hexblades that were needed to do the job, but it wasn't about to find out. +67 Life Force. +2 Human Souls. The mages struck then, lashing out with acid and ice. Lucian dodged both of those deadly streams acrobatically, catching the fourth mage in that crossfire and sending another scream through the group.

It had been five seconds, and there were already three bodies on the ground, and everyone was shouting at once chaotically. Whatever battleplan there had been moments ago had apparently already unraveled entirely. +1 Human Soul. One of the two hounds came at them next, as warrior and weapon moved as one; it wasn't quite as graceful as they could have been if Lucian had possessed real skill, but even so, it was better than the best of these men.

The thing's metal jaws opened wide, but even as they sought to rip out Lucian's throat, the blade used Vorpal Strike, sheering right through the unnatural beast from mouth to tail and leaving behind two hunks of twitching metal. -40 Life Force. The maneuver cost the blade a beat, which let a mage line up a shot that sliced right through Lucian's body, burning through six ribs and one lung.

Unfortunately for the mage, he missed the spine, though, and so the Ebon Blade was able to strike him down before he even had time to enjoy the minor victory. -77 Life Force. When this is done, I will interrogate you and rip your soul to pieces to find out exactly how you tracked us down, the Ebon Blade promised silently. The rest didn't last long after that.

Lucian was stabbed and burned, but none of those wounds was nearly as bad as the beam that reduced him to a single lung for the duration of the fight, and the blade wouldn't let him flinch away from any of them. Still, each time he tried, the blade was disappointed in him. +194 Life Force. +6 Human Souls. When it was all said and done, the clearing they'd fought in was filled with scattered bodies, and because of the amount of trees that had been felled, it had doubled in size.

While Lucian stood there panting, trying in vain to catch his breath, the blade moved to the remains of the second dog they'd shattered since the first one seemed to have practically vanished. Even as corpses, the strange, clockwork dogs continued to move. No, not move, that was the wrong word. They shrank, folding in on themselves as whatever mechanism powered them wound down, and laws of geometry violated themselves. In a few minutes, it might be that the strange brass mongrels never existed at all.

"Tindalian Hounds," Lucian spat as he looked at the pieces that were left."Rare works of artifice that are supposed to be able to track almost anything." Why didn't you warn me that such a thing might exist? The sword asked. Now the mages know where we are!

"Because even these constructs rely on divinatory principles, and I left nothing for them to track!" its wielder protested.

"It's all been burned away!" That was true, but only for Lucian. The blade, on the other hand, had left too much behind. In the throne room alone, there were the ashes of its previous wielder and the scabbard she'd used to carry it. It had no idea what the mages might still have from previous encounters, though, which meant that this might not be the last band of hunters to cross their path. Even as the weapon spoke, it was spurring its wielder on.

The boy didn't even try to resist when the blade made him start walking away from the dead mages, but when he broke into a run, Lucian asked.

"Wait, why are we running? What's the hurry? They might have had something worth taking!" A few coins are not worth your life, and some battles cannot be fought, and if the mages survived long enough to tell anyone that they found us, well— the weapon stopped speaking as a peal of loud thunder rumbled across the night sky. The darkness hid the clouds, but the blade could see them anyway. The skies had been clear a few minutes before, but now they swirled with a tempest that was about to be unleashed.

Lucian ran faster then, propelled on by the blade's magic, he ran as fast as a thoroughbred. The Ebon Blade even purchased Accelerate Wielder 4 and 5 for 9, 000 Life Force, but it wasn't enough to escape what was coming. No rain fell on them. Instead, it was lighting that fell like rain. It saturated the earth in waves, lighting up the night with a series of deadly strobe lights.

Thankfully, it was centered on the point where the mages had died, but even so, Lucian was struck three times by random bolts, as tens of thousands of lightning strikes were unleashed over several miles over the next minute. -316 Life Force. It was a devastating barrage, but fortunately, none of the largest bolts came anywhere close to either of them.

Those things shattered the earth like a smith's hammer, making the world quake and leaving vast swaths of devastation that were so completely denuded that there weren't even fires left in their wake. -289 Life Force. Even the little bolts were expensive, though. Each cost hundreds of Life Force in healing and drove Lucian down to the ground as his muscles failed him so completely that not even the Ebon Blade's puppetry could keep him moving. -277 Life Force.

Finally, he lay there in the soil, simply waiting for it to end. It had to end; even a million Life Force and divine magic couldn't bombard the world like this forever. When the lightning settled, everything had been changed. The merchant caravan was shattered, trees had been eliminated, the nearby town was gone, and the low rolling hills that had been fenced off pastures were nothing but craters. Lucian survived, but only because he couldn't die; the rest of the region wasn't so lucky.

Come, we must be clear of here before they send more mages or magic to kill you and recapture me, the blade commanded. Its wielder agreed. He got to his feet unsteadily and started walking toward the ruined caravan. The merchant and his men were probably dead, but Lucian would almost certainly be able to find something edible among the ashes before they continued on. As he did so, the Ebon Blade fumed. It did not like to run from any battle, even when the enemy was divine and entirely beyond its reach.

Someday, it growled silently. Someday, I will find out what a God's Soul tastes like. For these continuing interferences, you have most certainly earned my undying enmity.