Chương 73: 21 Chaos and Fear-Glaceskald Icescarn

<<Name: Glaceskald Icescarn>> <<Race: Frost Giant>> <<Class: Titanform Scaler>> <<Rank: Bloodwake Exploit>> <<Lvl: Physic-10; Martial-6; User-6>> <<Total: 22>> <<Stats: >> Might (STR) — 17 Will (WIS) — 11 Focus (INT) — 09 Resilience (CON) — 14 Grace (DEX) — 08 Cunning (CHA) — 12 One person could never replace an army. Not alone. You could be a User of legendary renown, but you still could only ever be in one place at a time.

Even with some sort of cloning ability or doppelgänger effect, unless you could fill a battlefield with copies of yourself, the press of bodies mattered. Chaos and fear—those could replace an army. With noise, momentum, and surprise, an individual became something so much more than a lone combatant. They became a true asset. I waved my hand, and four blocky metal constructs winked into existence before me. Each of the golems had eaten up six inventory slots in their compact state. The citadel remained calm.

No internal alarms yet. No chaos. It was time to fix that. I placed a hand on the back of the first construct. Its eyes ignited, its internal temperature rapidly rising. My hand jerked back. These Smiojarn constructs were Fire Giant-made. I didn't tolerate the heat well enough to stay close. I moved the other three, activating them each in turn. As they powered on, I took another step back, wiping cold sweat from my brow. They blazed like furnaces, outlet channels along their bodies glowing like dangerous embers.

I shrank, taking on small-form. By the time I'd slapped on my gnomish cone hat, the first Smiojarn finished its boot sequence. Its arms snapped out from its housing. One ended in a massive mechanical fist, the other in some form of hand cannon. Its neck ratcheted forward from a socket in the back shell. Then a series of mechanical clicks filled the room as it rose, towering over me in my shrunken stature. More pops, hisses, and ticks filled the comms room as the others extended from their storage form.

None of them were truly uniform. One had a flamethrower mounted in place of a hand, another Smiojarn bore two smaller gun fists, and the last drew dual swords whose edges blurred with vibration, a low hum emanating from the oscillation. Weapons of the future. Industry in war. Fire Giant make. My martial discipline was far more traditional.

"Lord Bloodshackle is hibernating in the solar," I said, voice coming out high and clipped in my tiny body.

"You remember castle schematics?" Their eyes flared in acknowledgment. I took another step back, fleeing the building heat.

"He's heavily guarded," I warned.

"Kill him." If the Smiojarn came close to actually killing Lord Bloodshackle, they'd self-destruct. We needed him alive. I pointed to the door, and as one, they turned. The one in the lead stomped straight forward, each crushing step shaking the room. The door bolt shattered outward as the Smiojarns tromped through it. I waited less than a minute before the report of heavy firearms echoed with screams. Four breaths later, a bell rang out through the hall, sharp and urgent.

I stepped into the hall, scanning both ways. The sputtering light of gunfire reflected off the wall to the right. The path to Lord Bloodshackle. I turned left.

"Help!" I cried. Then I broke into a sprint. I pulled up my HUD map of the citadel. Left, left, up the stairs. Six Shad Feykin guards charged towards me in their ceremonial armor. Ten Bone warriors kept in step behind them. My arms flailed above my head.

"Help!" I squeaked.

"Raiders! They're attacking the armory!" The Shad in the lead pulled up short, took me in, and immediately dismissed me as a threat.

"Who's attacking? How many?" he demanded.

"Trolls! Dozens of them!" His face curled, and he waved his men on. I pressed my back to the wall as the troop took the wrong turn, rushing towards the Black Armory. I sprinted on, taking two more turns before coming to a halt. A vampire woman strode my way, rapiers in hand. She wore combat leathers and a tight-fitting jacket.

"Halt!" she said, rushing towards me. I tensed, preparing to attack.

"Attackers!" I called, forcing myself to breathe heavily.

"It's the Burrow King himself. They're headed to the dungeons. I think they're going to free the prisoners." Gunshots, screams, and the clash of steel echoed down the halls, twisting into a melody of mayhem. Her lips curled, baring fangs.

"This area's off limits! Return to the Great Hall and hide!" She took a spiral staircase, rushing down. A smile touched my lips. Chaos and fear. I took a final turn and came up short as four Draugr barred my way. Polished iron mail hung from the undead warriors that blocked the entrance to my true objective. They turned apathetic eyes to me. These wouldn't respond so emotionally. Axes slid from loops on their belts, and swords scraped against wood as they readied themselves.

"Assassins!" I called, waving my arms.

"They're trying to kill Lord Bloodshackle!" These ones would be harder to persuade, so they got the truth. None flinched.

"Turn back or die," one whispered, stringy beard hanging from leathery skin. Spectacle helmets covered their eyes and noses. An aventail sheet of metal rings flowed back, guarding each of their necks. I waved a hand.

"Your Lord—""Lord Bloodshackle isn't our post!" another snarled.

"And we do not abandon our station." I sighed. One man could never replace an army. But armed with chaos and fear, he could come frost-bit close. An axe winked into my hand, and I hurled it. As soon as the blade left my hand, it ballooned to its natural size—from tiny hatchet to a rudder in a moment. It slammed into one Draugr, nearly splitting him from crown to groin as it carried through into the door. The others snapped and charged. I swelled. In this hall, I couldn't take on anywhere near my natural size.

My shoulders rose, my head nearly brushing the ceiling at eight feet. The remaining three Draugr attacked as one. Their moves coordinated without a spoken word. A tower shield snapped into existence on my arm, and I charged. Like a cannonball leaving a barrel, I left very little room around the edges. Three thumps impacted the shield, and my weight carried all three warriors to the door. The undead warriors slammed into the wood. The shield vanished into my inventory, and they stumbled forward.

I snatched my axe from the wall, and it shrank to fit my middle-form hand. I struck. The blade arced, and a head tumbled free. A sword darted for my neck—fast. I shrank to five feet in a blink, the steel cutting over my head. I snarled, punching the warrior in the gut. My true strength and weight came through in the blow, though across a much smaller surface area. My fist drove through steel rings and ribs. The Draugr flew back, launched by my blow. Black ichor covered my hand to the wrist.

The final one came up with a double-handed overhead strike of his axe. My hand shot forward, snapping around his neck and bearing him to the wall. I snarled, whipping him up before slamming him to the ground. My boot came up. It slammed down, and the warrior went still. A sword flashed, opening a vent of ice vapors and dark blood on my bicep. I jerked back in surprise. The third one came at me again, silent as a shadow. A gaping blood hole still yawned in his chest where his heart belonged. Right. Undead.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I inhaled, then spat winter's wrath at him. Snow and vapors wailed from my lips. Ice crystals cracked as they formed around the warrior's corpse body. He reared for another strike, his movements slowing. My lungs continued to empty like bellows fueled by the spark of elemental cold within me. The Draugr's sword dragged forward, slowing until it came to a stop. He stood, petrified in place, frost and ice encasing him. I punched. He shattered.

A new alarm sounded—a whistle, joining the ever-clanging bell. I stepped past the guards and placed a hand on the door. I felt the wood grain, and deeper, I felt the enchantments worked into the entrance. The gash in the oak planks where I had buried my axe sealed up, regenerating itself. I could force my way through. It would take time. Time was the enemy of chaos and fear. Instead, I shrank. The ceiling dropped away until I hit small-form, then I continued to recede.

From small-form to tiny-form, a mouse would have looked like a mammoth. From tiny-form to micro-form, a cockroach would have looked like a dragon. I turned back to the door, stretching miles high. My eyes dropped to the gap between stone and wood at the floor. I ran. Not wanting to punch through the flagstones on the floor at this small size, I drew back most of my weight, maintaining only enough to shoot forward on tiny legs. The door's bottom shadowed the stone ground, like a massive bridge.

Then I triggered the second layer of warding. As I crossed the threshold, the empty void attacked. Cold assailed my mind—that I could tolerate. It was the darkness, the rot, and the despair that caused my body to lock up. The edges of my fingers darkened, my very life-spark assaulted. My jaw bulked as necrotic pain twisted through my nerves. But I was Jotunn, a mighty Hrimthurs. I forced my way through the empty and past the threshold. I stumbled through to the other side and collapsed to my knees, chest heaving.

Two Death Knights towered over me, impossibly tall from my perspective. Neither one noticed the insect on the floor. Behind them, two mages held drawn wands. One human, pale and gaunt. The other a Shad, grey and claimed by generational exposure to Fel. I brought some of my weight back and lunged. The stone at my feet, an island from my perspective, shattered as I sprang behind the Death Knights. I snapped to middle-form, jerking my axe around in a wide arch.

Cold blue runes flashed along the blade as I sent both flying into the wall, ice coating their gashes. The mages whirled in terror. The Shad split down the middle, my axe carrying through before sinking into the stone on the far wall. The human snapped his wand around. Three arcane bolts snapped forward. I slipped the first, shrank under the second, but the third lanced through my chest. Pain bloomed in my bosom, vapors and crystallized blood spewing out my back. I snarled, punching hard.

The mage flew, impacted stone, and collapsed. My chest heaved, blood shards grating on my lungs. A drinking horn winked into my hands, runes carved into its body and around its rim. Pain flared in my chest with every breath. I conjured a flask into my off hand and poured it. Glacial blue fluid flowed into the horn, carrying with it the musk of ectoplasm. I murmured a ritual incantation. The liquid flared with dark blue light, then returned to its icy sky-blue color. I drank.

A sigh of satisfaction escaped me as blessed cold numbness swelled, the frozen cells beginning to grow back towards each other, sealing the breach in my sternum. I kept my hand tight to the wound and strode deeper into the ward room. The vaulted ceilings stretched high. Tall enough to accommodate my true size. I didn't bother growing. A complex circle of arcane geometry twisted across the floor in inset gold tracks. Three massive glass orbs hung suspended over the glyphseal.

Inky pools of blackness twisted and writhed within the globes. The Null. Beings of elemental void harnessed to power the citadel's wards. I crouched over the circle. Yes, many protective sub-wards shielded the gold tracks. Destroying the circle would be the most permanent way to bring down the citadel's wards, but it'd take time. I glanced up at the orbs caging the Null. Venting shafts stretched up, leading past the roof. My attention fell on a lever positioned on one wall. Spinning, I counted two others.

I went to one, grabbed it, and gave it a tug. It held fast, some internal mechanism locking in place. I frowned and jerked it. An internal pin shattered, and the lever snapped down. One of the Null howled as it sucked up and out of the room, traveling up the tube. I vented the other two and felt the arcane energy bleed from the stones. My head jerked once. My true purpose was completed. My chest wound finished sealing, the newly healed tissue a patch of white on normally icy blue skin.

A ladder on the wall led to a hatch in the ceiling. I afforded the wardroom a last glance before taking it. Resistance met my push, so I punched up. The trapdoor blasted off its hinges, and I pulled myself onto a rooftop platform. Crows swarmed. Talons and beaks lashed and snipped in a furious cloud of feathers. I fell back, covering my face and eyes. Black feathers choked my vision, the swarm closing in on me. My teeth gritted, then I dropped my arm. I exhaled, blowing vapor and ice into the mob.

The birds shrieked in pain, many clattering and shattering to the ground, frozen solid. The others scattered, cawing angrily. I breathed heavily for a moment, finger tracing a frozen line of blood on my cheek. Barked orders mixed with the alarm bell and rushing soldiers from the courtyard below. I didn't watch the chaos. I just had to ride the wave it carried. I conjured a bundle of signal flares, alchemical rather than arcane. Striking them against the stone, they sputtered to life, burning hot yellow.

I cast the first one aside, my hand's proximity to the flame far too close for comfort. Laying the other three down, I formed a box on the flat portion of the roof, outlining the landing platform. My neck craned up, and I waited. Fire flickered through the dark clouds, momentarily outlining leathery wings stretching wide from the long reptilian body. My hand tightened on my axe's handle at the Dragon's silhouette. I was a patriot, a true Jotunn. I'd gladly fight and die for Hiem Rock.

But ever since joining the Bloodwake Confederacy— I shook my head, trying to force the doubt away. Dragons had no friends. Only servants and tools. I glanced back up, eyes straining, and then I saw them. Seven figures dropped, free-falling, one much larger than the rest. If I hadn't known what to look for, I never would have picked out the specks against the dark clouds. With the wards down, they wouldn't splatter across an invisible barrier. They shifted, angling towards me.

I swallowed and stepped back, clearing room for landing. They plummeted, closer and closer. Mechanical wings deployed from their backs, catching air. They glided down, looping lower and lower. The largest shape had no glider. Instead, he ripped a feather. He slammed into thicker air, slowed as if he were sinking through molasses. The Drake-kins landed first, collapsing to one knee to absorb the final drop. Without a word, they began unbuckling harnesses and shrugging out of their gliders.

The Dread Knight captain had biological wings that folded neatly behind him.

"Nicely done, Glaceskald," a female Drake-kin with mottled white and red scales said.

"I was worried the user of Hiem Rock wouldn't be able to pull it off." I scanned her. Of the Drake-kins, she was the only Exploit. <<Name: Relara Storm Surger>> <<Race: Drake-kin>> <<Class: Brutalizer >> <<Rank: Bloodwake Exploit>> <<Lvl: Martial-12; Physic-8; User-2 > >> <<Total Level: 22>> I felt winter's touch in her blood, muddied with a mixed elemental ancestry. The last figure flailed as he touched down, somehow making his slowed descent spell look cumbersome.

Standing eighteen feet tall, the Fire Giant turned to me. <<Name: Bjorn Flarrun>> <<Race: Fire Giant>> <<Class: Siege Brawler >> <<Rank: Bloodwake Exploit>> <<Lvl: Martial-14; Physic-5; User-2 > >> <<Total Level: 21>> Bjorn's brows drew together as he took me in at my middle-form.

"Brother, why do you choose to stand so small?" Brother. I tensed. I turned towards the hatch.

"Because the world is small. And sometimes it's good to fit." We stepped off the landing pad, walking across the steep angle of the roof shod with thick slate shingles. I signaled the troop to halt once we were positioned over the solar. Around me, Dread Knights drew their crossbows, fitting wooden bolts to the heavy double-stacked weapons. Shifting, I glanced up at Bjorn. The Fire Giant grinned. He dropped to one knee, the impact shaking the roof under our feet. Relara drew her axe.

"Ready," the winged Dread Knight said. Bjorn slammed gauntleted fingers through the shingles, gripping the roof trusses beneath. He groaned, his back straining. As he exerted, the air around him warped with heat. I stepped back, shielding my eyes. He jerked, ripping a portion of the roof free. Relara dropped down first. The Dread Knights poured in after her. Maintaining my density would punch through stone floors with my concentrated mass. So I released the majority of my weight when I jumped in next.

I slammed down to the ground, cracking flagstones. The Smiojarn golems lay dismantled, the ground around them littered with the bones of a hundred skeletal warriors. Shads lay motionless in their blood. The few remaining Vampire guards hissed, still reeling from their clash with the Smiojarn. The Royal Guard was already licking their wounds. We were arriving fresh. Vampires hissed and charged. Crossbows discharged. Wooden stake bolts snapped through the air, burying themselves in the bloodsuckers.

A phantom rushed one of the Dread Knights from behind, taking his head clean off with a precise swing from a saber. Bjorn slammed down, crushing the phantom flat. The solar floor rocked from the impact. I turned to the Prince, who stood protectively before a coffin with a glass lid. One of his pauldrons was missing, a gap bleeding in his ribs. Blast marks and scuffs scarred the paint on his armor. Lucian's shoulders heaved, his teeth clenched tight. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. There was our prize.

I started forward. A vampire rushed me, hissing. I didn't flinch. Relara intercepted him, hacking him down with enchanted axes. I swelled, growing within the vaulted chamber. My shadow reached the vampire prince first, and I continued to rise. At twenty-four feet tall, I stopped at my natural height, ducking to avoid a chandelier. Even the top of Bjorn's helm stopped at my shoulders. Within the coffin, Lord Bloodshackle slept, his arm ending in a charred stub.

Lucian moved, trying his best to interpose himself between me and his father.

"Yield," my voice rumbled. Deep and cold. The Prince's eyes burned pink with hatred. The sound of combat died around us as his final retainer fell to four crossbow bolt stakes. He glanced around at the carnage, then his sword clattered to the ground. I nodded once.

"Little Prince. Things are going to change around here." No one could ever replace an army. But armed with chaos and fear, I didn't need to. <<Time to Seal Collapse: 02: 00: 04: 23: 39: 52>>