Chương 44: [BL] 43. Tier-2 Class [2]

Willow woke up thinking that she was dead. Around her was a dark tent interior with a depressing forest-green canvas, accompanied by the smell of blood. Bodies littered the ground; underneath them was drying blood against the earth. Right in the middle stood a wooden table, above which a kobold was being strapped. A cloth was forced into its mouth. The kobold swung its head around, looking for an exit.

Its eyes found Willow's, and as if she were just an afterimage, the kobold kept shrieking a muffled sound; it did not see her. The tent entrance then flapped open. Someone wearing a doctor's mask with a close-fitting dark cloak entered. He made a shushing motion, and a silent gust spun, swooshing over the tent. The kobold's head fell from the table onto the dirty ground below. Willow took a step back when the Anatomist entered fully. Gripped in his hands was a Lich, who was dragged by its chain.

Dark chains covered the Lich's body, similar to how the Lich Queen had protected itself. Willow could only tell it was a Lich, despite it being completely covered, because of the sudden cold that came and the deathly gaze peeking from a small opening in its chain armor. The Anatomist threw the chain-covered body upon the operating table, and the riftborn was clearly not intending to lower its defenses. He then summoned a knife made of dark wind and lazily swept the air.

As if it had never existed, the knife disappeared, turning into a wind that surged inside the cocoon. The next thing that happened was that blood leaped out. The Lich's chain came undone. The riftborn's body masterfully dismembered into six parts, limbs separated. [The Ravenous Anatomist always knows where to cut] The Guidance spirit blared and continued. [A Class of Precision—to lead the Ravenous Wind into the enemy's weak point and deliver an efficient killing act] A commotion echoed outside.

A woman screamed, a man bellowed a roar, and heavy slabs of metallic boots against the ground. Light seeped into the tent when a blade cut a triangle through the canvas. A heavily armoured dark knight entered, splaying a shadow of a giant inside. The Anatomist hardly regarded it as he examined the Lich's limbs. Willow just realised that among the separated limbs across the ground, human limbs were mixed in. Tears blurred her vision as she stepped into the light.

The knight unsheathed his greatsword and sprang toward the Anatomist's back. A powerful cut sliced through the wooden table, but missed the Anatomist completely as the doctor glided sideways as if wind carried his body, his dark cloak billowing. Another sweeping arc came, and this time, the Doctor stepped back, dodging the first strike and weaving to evade the follow-up. Slipping behind the knight, the Anatomist pointed its arm toward its opponent, and a dozen small knives appeared around the Knight.

The knives were wrought from shadows with an inky texture. The Knight slammed its pauldrons to two of them, but the knives disappeared and reappeared again just out of the Knight's reach. Willow could sense the wind gathered right at each knife's tip. They moved together, each finding a gap between the Knight's armor and stabbing deep. This… This would be a good counter for most armor. The Kobold half-dragon would not have stood a chance if she had…

The Knight jerked around, its body craned abnormally as it dropped its swords and fell to both knees. Blood dripped from its chin armor, and soon, from many armor gaps, red overtook the armor's darkness as countless cuts tore apart the knight from within. From inside… Willow realised in horror. The carving had started from within the knight's body. Throughout the entire process, the Anatomist did not move at all.

He kept his spell focused on one arm and waited until the knight died without any shadow of doubt before he closed his arm. Just when the Anatomist knelt to remove the Knight's helmet, two other knights burst in—each with their swords already sweeping for the Anatomist. When one sword was about to bury into the doctor's shoulder—he turned into crows, dozens of them—flying upward and gathered behind both Knights.

The Anatomist hung midair; his hip down was nowhere to be seen as hazy darkness and circling crows replaced it, keeping him afloat. He thrust both hands, and a dark staff jutted out in his grip. Both staff ends touched each knight's helmet, and a relentless cut of dark wind spun around it and carved through their armor in a metallic shriek that ripped all the way toward their chest, carving blood out. Both of them toppled backward, and the Anatomist dismissed his staff.

He summoned an avatar of his own self right behind him, towering over him five times bigger as a shadow of dark and white. A leer formed across the shadow's mouth, and its two giant hands held a knife that it pointed downward. The real Anatomist meanwhile swung his arms down, and severed both knights' bodies in two parts upside down right down their middle. [You have seen the class Ravenous Anatomist] This story originates from a different website.

Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Everything stopped. The world blurred. Willow's body felt cold, and a small tear slid down her cheeks at such brutality, though she realised the hypocritical nature of this feeling, but still… It was like watching a madman. A mad murderer. A psychotic derange… She shook her head, bit her lip, and drew a sharp breath.

Now, the world turned into a graveyard where across the green glades, tombstones upon tombstones stood across the horizon for as far as eyes could see. The night chimed with the sound of cicadas as wind whistled past her, tossing her hair, and again Willow took a step back as a figure of pure dark wind in humanoid form hovered above with a scythe whose shaft was more like a rod as it curled right at its butt-end. This must be the reaper.

The reaper swept his scythe across nothing, and Dark Wind wailed in jubilation as it swirled like a small spiral born of the swing. The reaper raised his hand, and a shroud of eldritch darkness surged from each grave and gathered toward the wind spiral that hungrily welcomed each energy, and it rose into a tempest, gusting over the graveyard—a tempest that devastated the gravestones, ripping through them like an invisible bullet.

[The Deathwind Reaper harvests energy upon killing and uses it to commit more devastation] Willow raised her arm to protect her face, and she heard the sound of dirt rising to the sky, but there was something else. She knelt and tried to hold to the ground, as around her corpses climbed out of their earth and screamed upward at the Reaper. He swung his scythe, and a disaster of winds followed its path, blowing over corpses, sending them falling into the sky—to the moon above.

When the corpses fell to their second death, the reaper opened its palm and extracted more shrouds of darkness, adding them to the wind spiral, and with that it enlarged the tempest. Willow screamed as her body was taken upward in a spiral, and she was about to cave her head into a tombstone that was flying fast at her, until the world stopped again.

She found herself to be a second away from having her brain splattered as she hung in the air; panic still bloomed across her chest, and around her, any debris could punch through her body like bullets, or a humongous slab of rock smashed her like a hammer blow. [You have seen the class Deathwind Reaper] The world blurred again into nothing, and Willow's body straightened as she slowly found herself touching the ground, and this time she stood upon a castle balcony overseeing a city under attack.

Smoke climbed from countless burning houses. Clangour of metals rang through the night. Screams of men and women mixed in a cacophony of despair as soldiers in gleaming armor marched into the castle courtyard. Willow turned to see someone sitting right inside the open throne room, right in the middle where a grand red carpet lay. The figure, like the Deathwind Reaper, was not human. It was a humanoid entity with an enigmatic darkish blue skin and white hair.

Its skin exuded a blue gleam out of its body into a small butterfly that flew around it, and they shone with a darkish cobalt around it. The creature held its fist together with its arm closed. Willow stepped into the throne room and saw that both sides of the room were filled with mana crystals, an abundant amount, even more than in the Kobold Rift. The Arcanist opened its eyes—completely blue eyes that were so wide they almost touched its ears. It swiftly moved toward the courtyard.

Willow stepped aside in a hurry, wondering if she should escape… It leaned against the railing. A second, then it slammed its fist together again. The air shook, the world watched, and the moon was born out of the dark skies. A maelstrom of overwhelming vortexes scoured the horizon, howling with a relentless wind that brought down thunder. Immense dark wind descended like a tsunami from heaven to carve entire cities apart. Cries rose for a brief second, and then were cut off.

The Devouring Arcanist spread its arm wide—the glow across its body grew weaker, and slowly it lost its ability to stand. [The Devouring Arcanist consumes immense runes and its own lifeforce for its own mastery of magic] Without mercy, the maelstrom of dark wind turned its fury upon the Arcanist. Willow had stepped back all the way to the bottom of the throne dais. She had not seen the devastation upon the city. She did not want to.

Her feet kept bringing her back until her shin caught something and she went sprawling onto the soft throne, getting herself a first-class seat to see the Arcanist devoured into myriads of shreds along with the balcony it stood upon. Willow found herself laughing as she rested her elbow on the throne-rest and clamped her head. I have to choose one? The Dark vortex descended toward her like an unrelenting force of nature. Her instinct to run died away as nothing she could do could counter it.

And to think I'm summoned here as a bloody hero. The Dark winds stopped just as they were about to cross the dais to kill her. The winds split into three figures. The Anatomist, the Reaper, the Arcanist. They finally saw her, and all of them knelt. [You ascended to Tier-Two] [Please choose your class] Willow did not move from her throne. She crossed her legs and fisted her cheek, eyeing each of them. The Dark Wind Rune. No, my Dark Wind Rune.

Her Rune had obviously shown its true colors over and over again to Willow. While she found her Bright Rune's instinct the most annoying of all, she had to admit it at least veered her toward the path of heroism. Her Fireflies Rune she had not figured out yet, but it aligned with her Bright Rune. But this? Her Dark Wind Rune was a rune of a fighter, perfect for a deranged lunatic. Lunatic… Maybe lunatic was what the Sheran village needed? Someone who gleefully would kill any monster for the sake of it…

Besides, if she had two runes that steer toward the path of light, then shouldn't she at least have one that steers her toward darkness so she has two opposing options? This train of logic might be stupid, but to her it made sense.

"Now, which of you should I go with?" Willow smiled; a strange, brimming excitement rose inside her as she stood with her arm clasped behind her and she moved toward each of them, scrutinizing them.

"You who find pleasure in perfect killing? Or you who use the energy of death even though you probably know a soul meant to be reborn? Or perhaps you? Who took so many runes and even sacrificed part of your body for a greater magic?" She wondered out loud. Now that she truly thought about it, the choice started to become obvious in her mind.