Chương 82: Finishing This

Ch. 82 - Finishing This Their blades met again, even before the second Witchhunter had fallen to the ground. Ivarr swung his hexblade as hard as he could with one hand, but it was nothing compared to what Var'Gar could do. Mindless and enraged, his body was still only two-thirds or three-quarters functional, but he parried Ivarr's desperate blow and then shoved him back, putting him on his back foot before hammering against his former wielder's glowing blue blade once, twice, and thrice.

-59 Life Force +13 Life Force Each blow brought another shower of sparks and made the boy's blade flare to life. That's right, the blade gloated silently. Each you use magic, you get weaker, and each time I do, I get stronger. As the fight was going on, it was already leaching life from him with its Aura of Hunger, but with its reduced power and a warrior of Ivarr's vitality, that power would take time to slow him down. -50 Life Force. Disruption Failed!

The Heroic Blade Possesses the Purity trait and cannot be disrupted. +9 Life Force. That frustrated the blade, but only a little. It did not need to deactivate the blade to win, but it would have made things faster. Even with a hexblade in his hand, it was a one-sided battle, and as tempted as the Ebon Blade was to let it linger, it knew that the right thing to do in this case was to finish this as quickly as possible, not let it linger.

It intended to do just that, but for better or worse, the boy had learned something from its tutelage, and he never quite gave it the opening it needed, retreating before each blow and giving ground to aid in his defense. -47 Life Force +8 Life Force Ivarr only rarely lashed out in response, and even then, it was when the orc's still healing body unbalanced itself. Each time, though, he lashed out for its wielder's wrists, which annoyed the blade.

As its former wielder, it knew exactly how temporary a serious wound was and focused on its only weakness: the point where it connected to its wielder. If he were to succeed, the results would be catastrophic. It had to sacrifice too much of its aura's power to drain him to death while lying on the ground. While its burn-scarred wielder might be able to survive without its magic at this point, his mind was too far gone to think straight, and he was unlikely to pick the weapon back up.

Fortunately, such an outcome was unlikely. Despite the speed at which he lashed out with the blade, he didn't connect. Each time, the blade simply adjusted its angle slightly to block with its pommel or hilt. One Var'gar lost the little finger on his right hand, but that was almost followed by Ivarr losing his head.

-52 Life Force +9 Life Force He only escaped that by a narrow margin, and even the nick that the sword was able to inflict on him was enough to make him go pale and stagger back, leaving a thin trail of blood connecting them in the air. Yes! The blade roared silently. This is finally over! It raised its blade up high and brought it down for the final time, and Ivarr stayed there on his knees, making no attempt to move. He looked like he'd given up.

That should have worried the Ebon Blade, but at that moment, something unexpected happened: Ivarr grasped it. Not physically, but from a distance, diverting the attack by tilting the handle slightly and, more importantly, trying to seize control. -49 Life Force +6 Life Force Ghost Hand has been activated! You have been seized. During all the fighting, its disruption had elapsed, and somehow, instead of using the strange magic to physically use his own hand, he used it to reach out and control Var'gar's.

In that moment, the three souls were pitted against each other, and the blade stiffened up as it had when Elom had sought to steal it so long ago. That only lasted a second. The blade was far stronger than it had been then, but a second was all Ivarr needed. As Var'gar's blow went wide, burying it deep into the earth, Ivarr's cyan-shrouded blade came up and cleaved through the orc's wrist, several things happened at once. The first thing was that it disrupted that foul magic.

Even as it did so, it lost connection with its true wielder, rendering it alone for the first time since the griffon strike. -50 Life Force. Disrupted! The Ghost Hand's magic has been temporarily nullified! -78 Life Force +9 Life Force Then, as now, Var'gar's severed hand clung to the blade. This time, though, there was no delay.

Ivarr lacked the strength to push the orc away from the hand, so it was only separated by inches, and when the monster leaned forward and grabbed Ivar by his throat with his left hand, the stump reconnected by accident. The Ebon Blade searched its wielder's mind and immediately saw that there was no thought left in that well-baked skull. The body lived, but the chieftain that had once inhabited it was gone.

It was only hunger and pain that led it to grab for Ivarr, but it was the blade that made the orc squeeze and lift him off the ground by his throat. -66 Life Force +4 Life Force It had just come within inches or seconds of losing, and that thought terrified it, but it could worry about that later. Even that fear would not be allowed to taint this moment. All its wielder wanted to do was rip Ivarr's face off with his teeth, but the blade restrained it.

It ignored the way that the boy squirmed as he lifted his sword and brought it down twice on the orc's thick skull. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. -221 Life Force The blows hurt. One even cleaved straight through Var'Gar's ridged brow, spilling gray matter on the ground, but it changed nothing. The blade was puppeting the half-dead wielder, and it was only delaying the inevitable as his wrist grew strong enough to strike the final blow.

It had to be the one to strike the final blow.

"Youuu sshoouuld neeeveeer haaave leeefft meeeee," the blade forced its wielder to speak in the common tongue.

"I…" Ivar gasped, choking as the orcish grip tightened.

"I never wanted to—" The blade tossed its opponent in the air, then, as he was falling, it struck him, cutting him cleanly in two from head to groin, shattering his armor, and letting him fall to the ground in a spray of red blood before it stepped over him. In that moment, lightning struck its wielder's body, but that barely stunned it now. It could feel no pain after what it had been through. -165 Life Force +57 Life Force +1 Human Soul.

The Ebon Blade saw a pop-up for the Path of Vengeance pop up, but it ignored it as it considered its options. There were any number of things it could do in that moment, but they basically amounted to fight or flight. It could try to kill those who still stood against it, or it could try to outrun them. While the latter would have been safer in most circumstances, it was distasteful because it did not like the idea of quitting the field of battle. Worse, these were mages.

They would use magic to track it down and spring an ambush. But to fight them, I'll have to close 50 yards, and they'll certainly have defenses prepared for that, it told itself. What I really need is the ability to close the gap, but… -119 Life Force +9 Life Force The blade's words trailed off as it realized that was exactly what it had to do. It quickly checked to remind itself what Bolt 4 did, and then, with one last look at its dead wielder, it burned most of its remaining souls and charged the nearest mage.

Bolt 4: Infuse your attacks with electrical energy, adding 15-30 electrical damage to a strike for the cost of 15 Life Force, or strike at a distance with a range off up to half of your Aura of Hunger for 20 Life Force. Fo an additional 20 Life Force you can ride your own lightning attack, reappearing at the point of termination instantly. Bolt may only be used this way once a minute. This attack cannot be combined with other strikes like Amplify Blade. In its current state, 7500 Life Force was a lot of power.

Even after it burned almost every soul it didn't want to question, it 1856/10600, but it needed a wild card for this fight. It did not quite fear mages, but it was wary of how versatile they were. The first mage wore blue robes instead of red, as most of the others did. It did not know what that meant, except that it would not be the elven mage it most wanted to kill. The man was casting something as the Ebon Blade made the orc's legs pump to close the gap.

It wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the lance of ice that impaled it, but it was fast enough to escape the fireball that the older man next to the blue-robed man was casting. -161 Life Force. +4 Life Force. Even as its wielder's body was impaled by an eight-foot-long chunk of sharpened ice, the blade responded with a spell of its own, and leveling itself at its enemy, it unleashed a bolt of lightning from 50 feet away, catching the man squarely in the chest before appearing behind him. -40 Life Force.

You have used Bolt! That stunned him, but almost as much as the unexpected sensation of traveling along the trail of lightning stunned the blade. Still, it didn't hesitate and swung down, killing the fire wielder before the blue-robbed mage had even gained control of his muscles. It then dispatched him for good measure and looked toward the next group. -99 Life Force. +87 Life Force. +2 Human Souls. There was no cover on this grassy hillside.

The horses, the officers riding them, and all the surviving archers had long since fled. What remained were five mages who were still on their feet. Three wore red, one wore white, and the final one wore black. It made a note to ask one of their souls what those colors meant when this was done.

All of them were equally far away right now, so it ran toward the white-robed man because he stood out and because he was standing directly between where it was and the elf witch it most wanted to kill, who was only a little further back. -86 Life Force. +4 Life Force. It made it only halfway before some sort of magic stiffened the orc's limbs, freezing it in place. No! The blade raged, struggling against whatever this spell was as the air wavered around it invisibly.

It was less than twenty feet from its goal when it felt itself frozen. Even its attempts to force the orcs limbs to move as it had done with the mirror met without only limited success. It tried to disrupt the spell, but that didn't work either. -50 Life Force. Disruption Failed! The Hold Monster effect is not magical but holy and cannot be disrupted. Holy? The blade wondered, wanting to kill the man now more than ever.

It had been denied the last soul of the priest it had tried to claim, and it hoped to have better luck with this one.

"I can't…" the man gasped, sweating visibly.

"He's… It's too strong… You have to…" As the man struggled, the blade struggled too, and as it saw him falter, it pushed forward harder than ever, at least until the first spell landed. Thanks to Flesh and Bone, its body had displaced the giant icicle that had pierced its chest cavity, but now it was being bombarded as all four mages launched different spells at it. Bone shards, fire, acid, and a wave of crystal shards mortified its flesh. It was a maelstrom of pain. -236 Life Force. +7 Life Force.

The blade was less concerned with the damage to its muscles and mobility than any agony its wielder might be feeling. Its wielder's body might still live, but that was only a technicality. Instead, it just struggled, counting down the moment until it could use its bolt power again. Its blade was pointed the wrong way, so it couldn't shoot any of the mages, but soon either this spell would break, or it would move, and when it did— -40 Life Force. You have used Bolt!

The blade launched itself along a streak of lightning, breaking free of the magic that had held it in place, and taking it near to the black-robed mage. That man only barely had time to turn before the blade beheaded him and charged the next red-robed mage. This one burned Var'gar's insensible flesh again, and someone else struck it with lightning, but neither was enough to save the man before it had buried the full length of its blade through his chest.

"We have to flee!" the white-robed man yelled in a tone that was bordering on hysteria. -136 Life Force. +3 Life Force. The blade had no idea if that's what the second red mage who'd run up just behind him was doing, but it launched a bolt of lightning at the man just in case, even as it charged the elf with faltering steps. -20 Life Force. You have used Bolt!