Chương 63: Die Lucius!

Lucius didn't move. The other nine Gold ranks stood from their seats as Dustin charged. But before he could so much as reach the long table cutting the room in half, vines ripped the floor apart. Thick, green rope-coils burst through the floorboards, sending splinters flying. They wrapped around his ankles. He stopped dead in his tracks.

"Dustin!" Marick moved after him. The rest followed.

"Enough," Lucius said. He turned to his men.

"Make sure to capture them alive." Dustin swung his axe at the vines, severing them to free his legs.

"Stay grouped," Marick said.

"We're outnumbered." Louis disappeared. The vines kept coming. Not just from under Dustin anymore; from the walls, the corners, curling up from fresh gaps in the floor. The chairs toppled over, and the table shifted as its legs cracked under the pressure of vines wrapping around them. Alexandra prepared a Dark Bolt. She let the spell form on her finger. One cast would kill the vines. But… She looked at Lucius, still behind the table, hands open at his sides. She let it go. There was no point.

Those were regular vines that the man was manipulating with a skill. Destroy one, he'd bring another three. She'd curse herself while the nine other Gold ranks closed the distance. She raised her sickle. Three of the Gold ranks came around the left side of the table. Two more pushed right, including Will. The remaining four were already on their side of the table and covered the center. Marick stepped forward.

"Luce, Edran, left flank. Dustin, hold the center with me."

"I'm trying," Dustin grunted, but vines kept grabbing at him. Dena was already backing toward the wall, eyes on their opponents, looking for an angle. The closest man on the left was big. Not Dustin big, but close. He was carrying a two handed sword. Behind him, a woman with twin short blades was already circling faster than her partners. The third hung behind them both. On the right, one of the two had vines wrapped around his forearm like a second skin. Alexandra clocked it. Not Lucius'. His own.

A separate skill, or the same bloodline. A Merinus. The center four didn't wait. The nearest one opened his palm and a burst of thick pollen hit the air between them. Marick shoved Alexandra back.

"Don't breathe it."

"I wasn't going to." The second was already moving through the haze, thorned vines coiling off his forearms like whips. One cracked across Dustin's shoulder as he was still fighting with Lucius' vines. Dustin barely flinched. He swung back with his axe. But the man stepped inside the arc and raked up Dustin's forearm on the way. Marick engaged the third, a woman who hadn't drawn any weapon. She didn't need one.

A shelf of bark erupted up her arm and caught his axe dead, shoved, and Marick skidded back on the broken floor. Alexandra moved in to fill the gap. A hand caught her shoulder.

"Stay back," Luce said. The fourth one drew his sword and joined the assault on Dustin and Marick. Dena fired an arrow at the pollen man. The other five were approaching from the sides. Luce and Edran moved left, drawing the three away from the central battle. That left Alexandra with two on the right. Will was closer than she'd realized. He stopped when he saw her face.

"You. I knew you were no good." He smiled.

"Iron rank." The man beside him, the one with the arms covered in vines, wasn't so patient. He lurched forward. Then he stopped. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. He looked down. A blade was already through his throat, Louis standing right before him. The thief was gone before the body hit the floor. Will took a step back, his hands going for the sword on his belt. He ducked. An arrow grazed his scalp.

His eyes kept going to the floor where his partner had dropped. Alexandra kept her sickle up and her feet moving, slow lateral steps. She didn't dare to commit. Will was a fighter. Maybe not the best in this room, but he was a Gold. Miles ahead of what John had been. She knew the odds. She needed something different.

"Scared?" she asked, her eyes drilling into the man. Will's jaw tightened.

"You're not getting out of here alive," she added, not letting any emotion show..

"Run." He didn't. But he didn't close the distance either. He dodged another arrow. Alexandra knew he wasn't afraid of her. Why would he? But her mouth was all she had to offer in this battle. She toyed with the idea of firing a Dark Bolt at one of the Merinus. But their bloodlines didn't make them less human. Plant magic, it looked like, didn't mean she could overcome the rank disparity. She turned her head to see Dustin and Marick battle four golds and Lucius' vines. Then she looked at Lucius.

He hadn't moved a finger. Her eyes narrowed. She snapped her fingers. Then, just as the man with the thorned-vines was about to strike Dustin, she tried casting Inflict Weakness onto him. She felt her mana drain. The curse didn't hold. Fuck. I'm better than this. Trying again, she started casting. But instead of letting the skill do its work, she grabbed onto as many mana threads as she could and shoved them inside her nascent curse. There was no finesse in that, only brute force. The curse hit the man.

Nothing happened. Almost nothing. Except just a few points less in strength was all Dustin needed. The thorn-vines holder shook almost imperceptibly. Dustin shoved him with his shoulder, raised his axe, and brought it down, cleaving him in half. Alexandra averted her eyes from the scene, just in time to see Will come her way. She backpedaled over the ruined floor, and raised her sickle. He was faster than her. He first swung his blade in a wide arc. Despite her chainmail, she didn't dare to take the blow.

He pressed but didn't commit everything. Every time he went for a real strike, his eyes flicked sideways, to the shadows. An arrow skipped off the floor between them and he pulled back half a step. She couldn't beat him. But she didn't have to. Just keeping him occupied was already more than the others expected of her. She got her sickle inside his guard on the third exchange. Not deep. Just enough to scrape his ribs. He stepped back. She stepped with him, not letting him reset.

Dena's next arrow grazed his shoulder. He took another step back. She almost followed, but held herself back. Don't overreach. Lucius hadn't moved from his spot behind the ruined table. His hands stayed open at his sides, and the vines kept coming. Every time someone severed one it was already being replaced. Alexandra took a cut across the back of her hand and stepped back into a vine that hadn't been there a second ago. She stumbled, caught herself, and got a quick read of the room.

On the left flank, Luce and Edran were holding. Alexandra caught it in fragments, Luce moving fast between two opponents at once, Edran blocking them with his axe. Marick was bleeding from somewhere above his eye. The bark woman had him on the defensive, eating ground slowly. The swordsman was double-teaming Dustin with the pollen user from the other side, keeping him from doing anything decisive. Dena was still behind them all, supporting each battle with frequent arrows. Alexandra looked at Will.

He was watching her. Her grasp on her sickle tightened. I'm useless. The man who'd spread the pollen had taken Dena's arrow through the shoulder but kept fighting. The substance was being held back by Marick. Alexandra wasn't sure how. A skill, probably. His left arm hung lower than it should but his right hand kept producing the yellow-green haze. Dustin pulled his shirt up over his nose and walked straight through it. Alexandra watched him charge onto the man. They collided and Dustin grabbed him by the collar.

The man drove a knee up. Dustin took it and didn't let go. Then a shape appeared behind him, above his shoulder. Louis, blade already moving. The vines came faster than Alexandra had ever seen them move. Two thick coils shot across the floor, bypassing everyone, and wrapped the man at the waist before Louis's blade connected. They yanked hard and tore him free of Dustin's grip. In a single motion, he was across the room, deposited behind Lucius like furniture.

Louis stood where he'd been, blade connecting with nothing. The room went quiet. Lucius had moved his hands. Rather, he'd moved one hand, his right, and raised it. His people disengaged. Dustin and Louis stepped back to the group and closed ranks.

"As I said, all of this is futile." Dustin snickered, and pointed to the two corpses.

"Tell that to your dead relatives."

"A shame, but the family will live on without them." He turned to the pollen man.

"Cael." Cael flinched.

"I'm sorry, Father." Lucius clicked his tongue.

"What a waste." He turned to Louis.

"My people's inability to catch you has come to claim their lives. Very well. It is their failure."

"They're the first to fall, not the last," Louis answered.

"Once again, it does not matter. Your fate is sealed." He put his hand down.

"I won't do you the honor of explaining my plan." Silence. Then the earth shook. A low, constant rumbling that was getting closer.

"What's that?" Dena asked. Nobody answered.

"That," Lucius said, an indifferent expression on his face, "is your end." The walls burst apart. Dust filled the room and Alexandra's lungs. She closed her eyes and coughed. When the cloud cleared up, she saw them. Roots. Countless.